Nonfiction Roundup: March 2020

Read on below to learn more about a few popular titles coming out in March! For a more extensive list of new nonfiction books coming out this month check out our catalog.

Top Picks

“Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown” by Anne Glenconner
An extraordinary memoir of drama, tragedy, and royal secrets by Anne Glenconner — a close member of the royal circle and lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret. As seen on Neflix’s “The Crown.” Glenconner has been at the center of the royal circle from childhood, when she met and befriended the future Queen Elizabeth II and her sister, the Princess Margaret. Through the firstborn child of the 5th Earl of Leicester, who controlled one of the largest estates in England, as a daughter she was deemed “the greatest disappointment” and unable to inherit. Since then she has needed all her resilience to survive the vipers of court life with her sense of humor intact. A unique witness to landmark moments in royal history, Maid of Honor at Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, and lady in waiting to Princess Margaret until her death in 2002. In “Lady in Waiting,” she will share many intimate royal stories from her time as Princess Margaret’s closest confidante as well as her own battle for survival: her broken-off engagement on the basis of her “mad blood;” her 54-year marriage to the volatile, unfaithful Colin Tennant, Lord Glenconner, who left his fortune to a former servant; the death in adulthood of two of her sons; a third son she nursed back from a six-month coma following a horrific motorcycle accident. Through it all, Anne has carried on, traveling the world with the royal family, including visiting the White House, and developing the Caribbean island of Mustique as a safe harbor for the rich and famous-hosting Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Raquel Welch and many other politicians, aristocrats and celebrities.

“82 Days on Okinawa: A Memoir of the Pacific’s Greatest Battle” by Art Shaw and Robert L. Wise
On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, 1,500 Allied ships and 1.5 million men gathered off the coast of the Japanese island of Okinawa and launched the largest amphibious assault of the Pacific War. They expected an 80% casualty rate. The first American officer ashore was Major Art Shaw, a unit commander in the U.S. Army’s 361st Artillery Battalion of the 96th Division, often called the Deadeyes. For the next three months, Major Shaw and his men served at the front lines of the Pacific’s bloodiest battle, their artillery proving decisive against a “phantom enemy” who had entrenched themselves into the rugged, craggy island. Now, at 98, Art Shaw looks back to tell the story. “82 Days on Okinawa” is an extraordinary eyewitness account of this critical World War II battle. The first step of Operation Downfall — the ground invasion of Japan — the Battle of Okinawa became legendary for its brutality. Over 82 days, the Allies fought the Japanese Army in one of the bloodiest campaigns of the war, one in which more than 150,000 soldiers would die. When the final calculations were made, the totals said that the Deadeyes had killed 37,763 of the enemy. The 361st Field Artillery Battalion had played a crucial role in victory. It would be the last major battle of World War II, and key pivot point leading to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Japanese surrender in August, two months after the siege’s end.

“I Want You to Know We’re Still Here: A Post-Holocaust Memoir” by Esther Safran Foer
Esther Safran Foer grew up in a home where the past was too terrible to speak of. The child of parents who were each the sole survivors of their respective families, for Esther the Holocaust loomed in the backdrop of daily life, felt but never discussed. The result was a childhood marked by painful silences and continued tragedy. Even as she built a successful career, married, and raised three children, Esther always felt herself searching. So when Esther’s mother casually mentions an astonishing revelation — that her father had a previous wife and daughter, both killed in the Holocaust — Esther resolves to find out who they were, and how her father survived. Armed with only a black-and-white photo and a hand-drawn map, she travels to Ukraine, determined to find the shtetl where her father hid during the war. What she finds reshapes her identity and gives her the opportunity to finally mourn. “I Want You to Know We’re Still Here” is the poignant and deeply moving story not only of Esther’s journey but of four generations living in the shadow of the Holocaust. They are four generations of survivors, storytellers, and memory keepers, determined not just to keep the past alive but to imbue the present with life and more life.