Last Chance for Justice How Relentless Investigators Uncovered New Evidence Convicting the Birmingham Church Bombers
by T.K. Thorne (Lawrence Hill Books)
Today marks the 50th anniversary of a most heinous crime by cowards determined to halt the march of the Civil Rights Movement: the bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church that killed four Alabama girls: Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Morris Wesley, all 14, and Denise McNair, 11. In 1997, after only one conviction in the case, it was reopened. Retired Birmingham police captain Thorne details the investigation, led by local police detective Ben Herren and FBI agent Bill Flemming, which led to justice with the convictions of two surviving culprits.
Bleeding Edge
by Thomas Pynchon (The Penguin Press )
Remember the dot-com bust? The Diamondbacks-Yankees World Series? Pre-9/11 Manhattan? Pynchon — whose “Gravity’s Rainbow” won the 1974 National Book Award — brings us back to 2001 New York City, where things are going awry for investigator and single mom Maxine Tarnow. Chasing down the finances of a billionaire-geek CEO, Tarnow finds herself in yacht parties, strip joints and with the Russian Mob. A Pynchonesque comedic romp through a dark year.
Dissident Gardens
by Jonathan Lethem (Doubleday)
The author of “Motherless Brooklyn” takes on Queens: Sunnyside Gardens, to be exact. Lethem’s multigenerational novel begins in the tight-knit community’s 1950s communist heyday, as secular-Jewish Socialist Rose Angrush sparks a party spat (one of her lovers becomes jealous of another). Later, daughter Miriam marries a folk singer in 1960s Greenwich Village. It’s home turf for Lethem: Rose and Miriam are based on his grandmother and mother.
Dancing With the Enemy My Family’s Holocaust Secret
by Paul Glaser (Random House)
Family secrets run deep. When Dutch-born Glaser started digging up his hidden Jewish past, he learned that his estranged aunt Rosie had survived Nazi concentration camps by giving dancing lessons to the guards and having affairs with more than one. Letters, archives, diaries, relatives and family friends lead the writer, at last, to Rosie Glaser herself, and to an extraordinary story of an unconventional, nervy woman and her determination to survive.
Wild Tales A Rock & Roll Life
by Graham Nash (Crown Archetype)
The Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young harmonies on record and onstage were beautiful. But behind the scenes, Nash writes, things often got out of tune among the four. Crosby, Nash’s best pal, was so into coke and other drugs that it’s a shock he is still alive. The Brit-born singer-songwriter and photographer gives us a been-there, done-that picture of the ’60s music scene — with shots of pals like Joni Mitchell, Mama Cass, Jackson Brown and others. If you grew up with their music, this is a must-read. (And, in case you care, John Sebastian “had the best dope at Woodstock”).