Battleground Pacific
A Marine Rifleman’s Combat Odyssey in K/3/5
by Sterling Mace and Nick Allen (St. Martin’s)
Queens kid Sterling Mace grew up during the Depression and still marvels how he got a new Flexible Flyer for Christmas when he was 11. At 15, he snuck into a Brooklyn burlesque show. He uses these and other stories as a prelude to the real action. Two years after enlisting in 1942, he’s in the Pacific — invading the island of Peleliu with his K Company, 3rd Batallion, 5th Marines. You see the word hero tossed around a lot these days, but Mace and his comrades were the real deal.
The Color of War
How One Battle Broke Japan and Another Changed America
by James Campbell (Crown)
The July 1944 Battle of Saipan was a turning point in World War II. The latest book by Campbell, author of “The Final Frontiersman” and “Ghost Mountain Boys,” tells why it was also a pivotal month in the fight for civil rights in America. On July 17, near San Francisco, an explosion killed more than 300 people, mostly black enlisted sailors who were loading munitions headed for Saipan, and triggering accusations, mutiny and arrests. Ultimately, the Navy dropped its Jim Crow policy. Campbell combines and connects the two dramatic stories.
A Blaze of Glory
A Novel of the Battle of Shiloh
by Jeff Shaara (Random House)
The April 1862 Battle of Shiloh was the first of the major confrontations between the Union and Confederate armies, leaving nearly 24,000 men dead or wounded in Tennessee (out of a combined force of 110,000). Historical novelist Shaara (“Gods and Generals”) uses diaries, letters and contemporary reports from the battle to bring to life the first book in his planned trilogy about the nation’s bloodiest war, starting with this two-day fight near a small church called Shiloh.
Changeling
by Philippa Gregory (Simon Pulse)
From the author of “The Other Boleyn Girl,” comes her first YA book. The start of a series, “Order of Darkness,” features two 15th-century runaway teens. A novice priest, the handsome, brilliant, 17-year-old Luca, joins the Order of Darkness, a group tasked with defending Christendom from evil. His first inquiry: to examine strange events in an Italian convent, where the nuns seem to be possessed. Suspicion falls on Isolde, the beautiful 17-year-old abbess. But intelligence and faith alone won’t get Luca to the bottom of this mystery.
Half-Blood Blues
by Esi Edugyan (Picador)
In her second novel, Canadian author Edugyan — whose parents were immigrants from Ghana — take us to 1939 Berlin, where the popular German-American jazz band the Hot Time Swingers have been banned. After fleeing to Paris, the band meets Louis Armstrong, while trumpet player Hieronymus Falk is arrested by the Gestapo and never heard from again. Cut to 1992 Berlin, where a documentary on Falk is screening, with two old bandmates as guests. One finally tells the secrets of what really happened.