The Aviator and the Showman

The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage that Made an American Icon by Laurie Gwen Shapiro.

This is a very detailed biography of Amelia and George and provides lots of details on their life and work. They both had very unconventional lives, which at times were tumultuous and hectic. It really comes out in this book how unprepared Amelia was for her around the world flight, and so much of what was known at the time was hype from George that was loosely based on the facts and used to raise funds. She genuinely was in many ways an aviation pioneer but was pulled in so many directions that she was not able to practice many technical aspects of flight that she really needed.

After Amelia's death George was left scrambling to make ends meet, since his success was so closely tied to Amelia. Oddly enough he ended up in life owning the Stovepipe Wells hotel in Death Valley.

Mickey & Billy

Mickey & Billy: The Glory and Tragedy of a Yankee Friendship by Tony Castro

Mickey Mantle and Billy Martin both played for the Yankees in the 1950s, Mickey's first year was 1951. This book is mostly about Mickey, but also their friendship and the trouble they would get into. All night binges and bar fights, missing flights and trains and generally making the management mad. However, one of them was Mickey Mantle so lots of it was overlooked. Billy was ultimately traded, as he was a 'bad influence', it was thought, but since that did not end Mickey's behaviour that turned out to not be the case. A great narrative of an important time in baseball and the impact the stars made on the game.

Book and Dagger

Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II by Elyse Graham

The story of the US intelligence agencies, as they started in WW2. At the beginning of the war the US had no military intelligence people. What little had been in place after WW1 was dismantled in the 1920s, so FDR was starting from scratch. Interestingly, the people who put together the 1940 intelligence system chose to focus on people from the humanities. This first version was the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) which after the war became the CIA. The strategy for recruiting academics and librarians to form the first intelligence service was that they wanted people who were used to and familiar with spending hours doing research in libraries and archives. These were not James Bond type spies, these were people spend hours going over newspapers, phone books, railroad time tables and scientific journals, gleaning information that was useful and that was in plain site. Also, being academics helped provide a cover, they were setup as book buyers in Istanbul and Stockholm, which gave them access to people and material that they could use to compile their reports. Also, since they were secretly working for the government, they had a pretty limitless budget to purchase books and other materials.

A fascinating story of the evolution of the intelligence world.

Skies of Thunder

Skies of Thunder: The Deadly World War II Mission Over the Roof of the World Hardcover by Caroline Alexander

The story of Berma in WW2. The amazing efforts to supply China with material, lend lease, during WW2. Astounding efforts were made with primitive airplanes to fly over the 'hump', basically the Himalayas. At the same time the Berma road was being constructed, through a dense jungle and over tough terrain. The numbers of lives lost, and the corruption of the Chinese that allowed much of the material to end up in the hands of the Japanese is heart breaking. While the effort was astounding, the author cannot really justify the human and monetary costs.

Neptune's Fortune

Neptune's Fortune: The Billion-Dollar Shipwreck and the Ghosts of the Spanish Empire by Julian Sancton

This book chronicles a shipwreck of a Spanish treasure galleon that was taking treasure from south America to Spain when it was pursued and sunk by a contingent of British ships. What was different about this ship sinking is that it sunk fairly intact, unlike other ships that sunk at this time was that they other ships were sunk mostly by storms, and their cargo was spread over a large area. The fact that this sunk intact meant that they treasure sure be in one place. This was a well known treasure ship for many years, but the general knowledge was that it was in a location where it was not.

The author also spends a lot of time putting the ship in context by providing a history of Spanish colonialism in central and south America. The ship was found within the legal waters of Colombia, but when it was found Spain tried to assert that it was their ship so their treasure. However, the fact that there is no longer a Spanish empire took precedent over Spain's claim. The author also goes into the history of treasure hunters and the international laws that govern this kind of treasure.

Family of Spies

Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor by Christine Kuehn (Celadon Books 2025)

This may be considered hidden history, or maybe hidden in plain site. Fascinating and unusual story of a German family in the 1930s and 40s who ended up spying for the Japanese before the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Kuehn family was in Germany, having no luck getting into good positions with the up and coming Nazis. Except one daughter, Rose, who was having an affair with Goebbels. Rose was adopted and turned out to be half Jewish. When this was found out it was arranged that the family would relocate to Hawaii and spy on the US military there for the Japanese. The Japanese paid them very well and they used the income to live large and bought real estate and entertained lavishly. In particular entertaining members of the American military, in order to get intel to pass on to the Japanese. They traveled occasionally to Japan to meet with officials. This went on from the mid 1930s through the 1940s until some of the family was arrested and tried.

It is amazing how open Honolulu was for so long that the father could drive around Oahu and take photos of military installations to pass on to the Japanese. The book is written by the granddaughter of the main spy, whose father never talked of his childhood in Hawaii. She was only able to start to get info on the family activities after enough time passed and documents were made available in the 1970s and 1980s. Among the many fascinating things this book reveals is that because of this spy family the Germans knew that Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked right from the time it was being planned.

The Six Loves of James I

The Six Loves of James I by Gareth Russell

This is an interesting history of Scottish and English history in the late 1500s and early 1600s. This is a complicated history and this book is good at helping to decipher all the moving parts. Here is the basic lineage that this book deals with: Henry VIII had two daughters that lived to adulthood. He did have one son, Edward VI who lived to be 15. His Daughters, Elizabeth and Mary lived to adulthood. Mary became Mary I, queen of Scots, AKA bloody Mary. Elizabeth became the long reigning Elizabeth the first.

Mary had a son, James in Scotland who became James the VI of Scotland and when Elizabeth I died childless James VI of Scotland was the nearest heir so became James I of England. This was a complicated and violent time for the British isles. Witchcraft was actively prosecuted and execution for many crimes was common.

In this history, of the six loves of James, 5 of them were male. At the time they were known as the king's 'favorites' and acted as his personnel 'entourage'. Many went on to gain prominent places in the hierarchy of the titled and landed classes. During all of this there is the schism between Catholic and Protestant, and the rivalry and intermarriage of the Hapsburgs and Bourbon families. So it is all very complicated and filled with intrigue. One thing interesting and non conventional about James is that he was a pacifist and never went to war during his reign.