42 Years in the White Houseby Irwin Hood Hoover (Ike Hoover went to the White House to install electric lights for Thomas Edison's company, and ended up being the first White House Usher; serving 42 years!)
Letters of the Centuryedited by Lisa Grunwald & Stephen Adler (unusual collection of letters from the 20th century that paint an unexpected tapestry of the human race)
The Lighthouses of New Englandby Edward Rowe Snow (Haunting, moving, poignant; the perfect book when the wind is howling around you this winter)
Gettysburg: A Testing of Courageby Noah Andre Trudeau (You'll find yourself out of breath, feeling as if you just charged the stone wall yourself, it's that real)
The Lost Battalionby Thomas M. Johnson, Fletcher Pratt, and Edward M. Coffman (how can humans be this courageous; how can their leaders be this stupid)
South by Ernest Shackleton (when Shackelton and the other two men talk about their "fourth" partner on the trek, you just know they've been helped by God)
D-Day& Citizen Soldiersby Stephen Ambrose (forget glory; Ambrose tells the story of the European front soldier by soldier by soldier in ways that restores to them the dignity of their individuality, and in a way that reminds us it's everyman's next-door-neighbor, and not the innocuous institution we call armies, that rescued Europe and the world.
