"Lady Pamela Hicks's joyously entertaining new memoir, arguably the poshest book that ever has or will be written" ("Newsweek"), is a privileged glimpse into the lives and loves of some of the twentieth century's leading figures.
Pamela Mountbatten entered a remarkable family when she was born in Madrid at the very end of the "Roaring Twenties." Daughter of the glamorous heiress Edwina Ashley and Lord Louis Mountbatten, Pamela spent much of her early life with her sister, nannies, and servants--not to mention a menagerie of animals that included, at different times, a honey bear, chameleons, a bush baby, and a mongoose. Her parents' vast social circle included royalty, film stars, celebrities, and politicians. Noel Coward invited Pamela to watch him film, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. dropped in for tea.
However when war broke out Pamela and her sister were sent to New York to live with Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, while the prime minister appointed her father to be the last Viceroy of India. Amid the turmoil, Pamela came of age, meeting the student leaders who had been released from jail, working in the canteen for Allied forces and in a clinic outside Delhi. She also developed a close bond with Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.
"If you are addicted to "Downton Abbey," chances are that you will relish "Daughter of Empire," a British aristocrat's memoir of her childhood and coming of age...She is also a keen observer of a way of life now vanished, except on PBS" ("The Wall Street Journal"). "Not many people remain who can tell stories like Lady Pamela Hicks" ("Vanity Fair").

Again available in paperback is Eric Sevareid's widely acclaimed Not So Wild a Dream. In this brilliant first-person account of a young journalist's experience during World War II, Sevareid records both the events of the war and the development of journalistic strategies for covering international affairs. He also recalls vividly his own youth in North Dakota, his decision to study journalism, and his early involvement in radio reporting during the beginnings of World War II.

In 1862, Private Grant Taylor of the 40th Alabama Infantry regiment began writing home to his wife Malinda. Thus started an almost three year correspondence of some 160 letters that chronicle the impact of the American Civil War on one rural Alabama family. For the Taylors and their kin, the war brought precious little glory or sentimental notions of causes won or lost. Their rough prose provides more evidence of the downside of the Civil War experience that is historically significant and emotionally touching.