Ken's Springtime Book Recommendations
Here’s what I’m currently reading…
Jane Austen’s Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector’s Quest to Find the Woman Writers Who Shaped a Legend.
By Rebecca Romney
This is one of the very best books about Jane Austin that I’ve ever read. In it, Rebecca Romney, herself quite a star on TV and the media for her acumen as a rare book dealer, tells the story of how she discovered that Jane Austen stood on the shoulders of the female giants of her profession. In the book, she discusses the great 18th and early 19th century female novelists that Jane Austen herself read and learned from. It’s an illuminating book full of great literary insights.
Daniel Silva’s thriller The Cellist
Daniel Silva is my favorite thriller writer ever. Reviewers talk about books being “unputdownable” but his really are. Once he gets his stories going, you just need to turn the page and find out what happens next. I love these kinds of thrillers and always have them going on my bedside table. The trouble is that I finish them too quickly because I stay up later than I should reading them.
Franklin and Winston, an Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship
by Jon Meacham
This book is by the great historian Jon Meacham tells the story of the relationship between Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt during World War II. They had met once in their early days, but they didn’t’ really get to know each other until their top-secret meeting when Winston traveled to Placentia Bay, Newfoundland to meet Roosevelt aboard the USS Augusta in Placentia Bay. He didn’t even tell Eleanor and pretended he was going on a fishing trip and to visit Martha’s Vineyard so that they could keep their first meeting secret. They became fast friends, and this book tells of the adventures of all of their meetings during World War II. For many of them, Winston lived in the white house for weeks at a time. Speaking of which, there is a new book about Franklin and Winston called Mr. Churchill in the White h\House, which is also quite good.