Laura Hillenbrand, author of the biographies Seabiscuit and Unbroken, suggests A Measureless Peril, by Richard Snow: “Exploring World War II’s epic Battle of the Atlantic, this story is told from two points of view: that of the battle’s architects, American and German, and that of the author’s father, an officer aboard a destroyer escort. Fastidiously researched and beautifully written, it’s gripping, jaw-dropping, moving, at times surprisingly funny—and always spellbinding.”

David Baldacci, whose most recent novel is Hell’s Corner, recommends Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 by Mark Twain: “It’s Twain—the most famous American writer and the most iconic and unique in all he did—speaking from the grave a hundred years after his death. His autobiography is a stream-of-consciousness tour de force that brings to bear in all its glory his acerbic wit, his inimitable cleverness with words, and his plain and outspoken truth, which never allowed the facts to get in the way.”

I’m reading George W. Bush’s stab at a memoir, Decision Points, and I’m not sure what’s more extraordinary: That the former President has almost nothing new to say about the campaign of domestic surveillance he authorized after the 9/11 attacks, or that for a week in 2004, Bush didn’t even know his attorney general was in the hospital and that he’d come to the conclusion the program was breaking the law.

I hadn’t anticipated Bush would expound at length on why he let the National Security Agency bypass a law prohibiting warrantless eavesdropping on Americans. But NSA’s surveillance operations marked one of the most controversial chapters of his administration, and I wasn’t expecting his account to be this pithy, breezy, and in the end, clueless.

OTHER BOOKS OF NOTE

A Geography of Secrets by DC author Frederick Reuss intertwines two Washington stories: a Defense Intelligence Analysis Center worker whose mistake has led to a school bombing in Pakistan and a diplomat’s son uncovering secrets about his late father.

Former World Bank president James D. Wolfensohn looks back in his memoir, A Global Life. Jimmy Carter’s Vice President, Walter Mondale, does the same in The Good Fight.

Baltimore Sun veteran Jules Witcover tackles Vice President Joseph Biden in Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption.

David Eisenhower remembers grandfather Ike Eisenhower’s post–White House years in Going Home to Glory.

Bridge of Spies by Giles Whittell, Washington bureau chief for the Times of London, is the narrative of three men involved in the first prisoner exchange between East and West—British-born KGB agent William Fisher; Francis Gary Powers, an American whose spy plane was shot down over Russia; and Frederic Pryor, a US academic falsely arrested by East Germany.

DC author Judith Viorst’s latest volume chronicling her life in verse is Unexpectedly Eighty.

Law of Attractionis the debut novel by Allison Leotta, a local federal sex-crimes prosecutor. The Washington tale is about a female assistant US Attorney prosecuting a domestic-violence case that hits close to home.

This feature first appeared in the October 2010 issue of The Washingtonian.

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