Alfred A. Knopf

Absolute war; Soviet Russia in the Second World War II.

Bellamy (military science and doctrine, Cranfield U., UK) has written a narrative military history of the Soviet Union's involvement in World War II, including discussion of such events as the Soviet defeat of a million Japanese troops in Manchuria, but focusing for the most part on the devastating eastern front of the war, the war between the Soviet Red Army and the German Nazis. His analysis of military events includes the perspectives of both sides, but his discussion of the war's legacy focuses on the impact on the Soviet Union, which won the war at the cost of the loss of 27 million people. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Arsenals of folly; the making of the nuclear arms race.

Rhodes (international security and cooperation, Stanford U.) has won the Pulitzer and other awards for previous books about atomic bombs. Here he recounts the four decades of atomic arms race that began with the end of World War II. He draws on personal interviews with Soviet and US personnel, and of particular interest, reveals the activities during that period of people who are now war hawks within the US administration. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The letters of Noël Coward.

He was the epitome of style and wit, and he knew everybody. Judging from his letters to illuminati ranging from Shaw to Du Maurier to Woolf, he was also catty (on Clifton Webb: "It must be rough to be orphaned at 71"), conflicted (he almost accepted Garbo's marriage proposal), opportunistic (why not, when his correspondents included Churchill and Mountbatten) and a master appropriator, even going so far as to underline words in the manner of Queen Victoria. Biographer and dramatist Day provides an elegant framework for the frequently hilarious interplay of words on both sides of the equation and gives significant contexts for the enormous amount of work Coward did between writing letters. Day's choices provide fascinating insights into Coward's theatrical and film productions, his frequently contentious relations with his casts and crews, and his secret heart, as expressed to his business manager and one-time lover, Jack Wilson. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

A life of Picasso; the triumphant years, 1917-1932.

In this continuation of his 1991 and 1996 volumes on Picasso (v. I, 1881-1906; v. II, 1907-1917), Richardson, who knew Picasso in the 1950s and 1960s, traces Picasso's life from ages 35-50 in Italy and France. He interprets influences on him in this primarily neoclassical period — including his relationships with women, and works culminating in Picasso's 1932 retrospective show that confirmed him as leader of the modern art movement. The biography includes art illustrations, and photos of family and famous friends. As Picasso lived to 1973, another volume is due. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Marco Polo; from Venice to Xanadu.

For this account of the fascinating life and Silk Road travels of Marco Polo (1254-1323?), Bergreen (Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe) retraced the Venetian merchant's route across Mongolia and China and drew on original sources in several languages. He also addresses the issues of how much of Polo's Travels is factual and its influence on Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" poem. Maps and color illustrations complement the biography. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Mr. Jefferson's women.

This work examines Thomas Jefferson's personal relationships with women over the course of his life, from his spurned proposal to Rebecca Burwell to his relationship with his slave Sally Hemings, the half-sister of his dead wife. The picture that emerges is hardly flattering to the third president of the United States, who is portrayed as having harbored a life-long fear of women that reinforced his views that women should be limited in their participation in public life and that there should be no relaxation of women's subordination in law, culture, and education — views that are argued to have had long-lasting effects on American society. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Musicophilia; tales of music and the brain.

Sacks's own enthusiasm about the complex workings of the human mind (he teaches clinical neurology and psychiatry at Columbia U.) becomes infectious in his writings. In this volume, he turns his attention to the many phenomena concerning music and the brain, relating the scientific explanations alongside numerous and compelling case studies. Sacks describes the effects of music — and different aspects of music — on ordinary individuals, musicians, and people who have had accidents or disabilities, in chapters on music and memory, musical hallucinations, music therapy, and perfect pitch, among other topics. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The oil and the glory; the pursuit of empire and fortune on the Caspian Sea.

Writing for a general audience, foreign correspondent LeVine provides a narrative account of the political and economic maneuverings for control of the oil of the Caspian Sea region in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union. He discusses the oil company representatives and their often-shady dealings with Caspian Sea politicians and dictators and also explores the geopolitical implications of the entry of the United States into a region considered by Russia as its backyard. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Otto Preminger; the man who would be king.

Preminger may have been overlooked, but never by himself. Hirsch (film, Brooklyn College) gives a remarkably objective account of the man known as "Otto the Terrible" who nevertheless directed romantic comedies, musicals courtroom dramas, political melodramas, sweeping epics, and "small" pictures with big impact. Hirsch details the colossal battles with studio heads, especially Darryl F. Zanuck, and Preminger's constant rattling of censors. In the meantime he managed to address issues no one else would touch, including drug addiction, pregnancy, and rape. Preminger could be endearing, and he was amongst the first directors to hire African-Americans, openly hired writers on the McCarthy blacklist, shut down the arbitrary and rather silly censorship methods then in force, and was able at times to operate fairly independently. Throughout it all, he maintained his reputation of hot-tempered and dictatorial, the European foil to American sensibilities. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The star machine.

An excellent storyteller, Basinger has ransacked the archives for an in-depth history of the policy in early movie making to "make" a star. The lives and careers of a number of stars are examined to demonstrate the policy — including Tyrone Power, Lana Turner, Deanna Durbin, and Norma Shearer — and concludes with the abandonment of the starmaking machine after WWII. Many b&w plates are included. Basinger, who teaches film studies at Wesleyan U. and curates their cinema archives, has written a number of books on film. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Young Stalin.

Following up on his earlier Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (which won the History Book of the Year Prize at the 2004 British Book Awards), Montefiore here recounts the life of Soviet leader Josef Stalin up to the point of the October Revolution of 1917, focusing on "the intimate and secret, political and personal lives of Stalin and the small circle that ultimately came to create and rule the Soviet Union until the 1960s." He justifies this focus by suggesting that the personalities and patronage of a minuscule oligarchy were the essence of politics under Lenin and Stalin and that, therefore, Stalin's early history of brigandage, political gangsterism, and paranoia are explanatory of much wider issues of Soviet history. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)