Germania : In Wayward Pursuit Of The Germans And Their History
by Simon Winder

Winder is a Brit who has been obsessed with Germany for quite some time. In Germania he attempts to talk about the origins of the Germans and end with Hitler seizing power.
I never got there. Winder really is a terrible writer. The book is so boring and just a big nothing. His previous book The Man Who Saved Britain was equally horrendous.
He works in the publishing world doing God knows what and should just stick with that. NEVER should he write another book.

Cleopatra : A Life
by Stacy Schiff

She was not Egyptian, but Greek; murderers ran in her family; she was fluent in nine languages, took control of a country at the age of eighteen and ruled it for twenty-two years.
Twice, she was married; her spouses were her brothers. (Intermarriage among siblings was very popular with pharoahs.)
Nobody knows what she really looked like. What is considered authentic are her coin portraits.
All of these interesting tidbits about Cleopatra are found in the first chapter. If you can venture beyond it, then you are very brave. (I lasted until page 51.)
This book is dense with detail, very wordy and jumps all over the place. It doesn't belong in a public library. It's very academic and would be perfect for a student who is writing a thesis.
The author is a historian and doesn't know how to present material that is palatable to the layperson. Don't believe any of the reviewers on the back of the book: absorbing, illuminating, a writer of epic skill. Boring, dry, and tedious would be my terminology.
Not recommended.

Travels in Siberia
by Ian Frazier

I didn't get too far with this book. After 20 pages or so, Frazier was asked about the style of his writing and he said that it was factual. He should have also replied that it was dry, cold and not especially funny (several reviewers thought he was hilarious).
Travels in Siberia is quite hefty at 544 pages. Siberia would have been interesting to read about in better hands.
Not recommended.

Bloody Crimes : The Chase For Jefferson Davis And The Death Pageant For Lincoln's Corpse
by James L. Swanson

The subtitle should be reversed because the first half of the book covers the thirteen city funeral procession (by train) for Abraham Lincoln and the latter half is the chase for Jefferson Davis.
I can't believe that I am actually putting this book on this blog. I thought for sure that it would be on my book-a-holics blog. After all, I slogged through 403 pages. But, Bloody Crimes is NOTHING like Swanson's previous book Manhunt (the hunt, chase and capture of John Wilkes Booth).
There were some interesting tidbits about Lincoln and Davis, but most of the book was plodding, repetitious and dry.
Very disappointing.

Simon Wiesenthal : The Life And Legends
by Tom Segev

After being in several concentration camps during WWII and surviving them, Simon Wiesenthal became known as the "Nazi hunter" and tracked down numerous criminals. His most famous catch was Eichmann who was found in Argentina.
Wiesenthal, though, was very controversial. He had a habit of embellishing his stories and/or making them up. Apparently, for almost every report that he wrote on major catches, there were several different versions.
Alas, I didn't get very far to read all of them. The book is quite large (over 400 pages) and extremely detailed. Tom Segev is a historian and an Israeli journalist and it shows. There's way too many facts (some irrelevant) and the writing is disjointed. After reading 30 pages, I was exhausted. Perhaps someone else can tackle Wiesenthal's life and be a much better author.

Wisenheimer : A Childhood Subject to Debate
by Mark Oppenheimer

The most interesting part of this book is the outside cover. The title is written as: wis-en-heim-er and then goes on to give the meaning of the word telling you that it is a noun and can be of German origin. Clever and that's where it stops.
Mark Oppenheimer was a child who talked like an adult and because of this didn't really have any friends and had no social skills. Most people found him irritating. When he found debating, he was finally fulfilled.
I lasted until page 48. It's very hard to read about somebody who is totally self-absorbed and an elitist. Oppenheimer is supposed to be good with words, but his writing is boring. He teaches English at Yale. I wouldn't want to be in that class.

Quiet Hero : Secrets From My Father's Past
by Rita Cosby

Six years after her mother died, Rita Cosby found all kinds of stuff about her father, hidden in storage, that she never knew before about him. Too many scars about what happened to him in Poland during WWII. When her father is 84, she finally interviews him.
Cosby is supposed to be this award-winning journalist who knows how to ask tough questions. The problem is her way of presenting them to her father is irritating and with an air of naivete. I couldn't stand it. Plus, her writing is less than stimulating. Most of it seems juvenile.
I would have liked to have read about her father's exploits during the war, but let somebody else write about it.