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Features

December 2013

As 2013 comes to a close, history buffs will be delighted by the number of outstanding history books releasing this month. Among these December releases, which have been compiled by Bookreporter.com's Greg Fitzgerald, are HEIR TO THE EMPIRE CITY: New York and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt by Edward P. Kohn, WARSAW 1944: Hitler, Himmler, and the Warsaw Uprising by Alexandra Richie, BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST: An Unlikely Explorer and the African Adventure that Took the Victorian World by Storm by Monte Reel, and BEETHOVEN: THE MAN REVEALED by John Suchet.

Week of December 1, 2014

Releases for the week of December 1st include THE STORIED LIFE OF A.J. FIKRY, Gabrielle Zevin's love letter to the world of books --- an irresistible affirmation of why we read, and why we love; THE DEATH OF SANTINI, a powerful and intimate memoir in which Pat Conroy and his father, the inspiration for THE GREAT SANTINI, find some common ground at long last; ON SUCH A FULL SEA by Chang-rae Lee, a highly provocative, deeply affecting story of one woman’s legendary quest in a shocking, future America; and TROUBLE IN MIND, a dazzling collection of 12 short stories from Jeffery Deaver, who proves once again his genius for the unexpected --- in his world, appearances are always deceiving.

December 2014

December’s roundup of History titles includes WATERLOO, a new military history of one of the key battles in world history, by veteran historian Gordon Corrigan, who brings the campaign and battle, its armies and their commanders to fresh and vivid life; THE ITALIAN AMERICANS, a gorgeous companion book to the PBS series, in which Maria Laurino strips away stereotypes and nostalgia to tell the complicated, centuries-long story of the true Italian-American experience; THE GREATEST KNIGHT, Thomas Asbridge’s portrait of one of history's most illustrious knights --- William Marshal --- that evokes the grandeur and barbarity of the Middle Ages; and EMPIRE OF COTTON by Sven Beckert, the epic story of the rise and fall of the empire of cotton, its centrality to the world economy, and its making and remaking of global capitalism.