"The Shah" by Abbas Milani
Written and published before the recent round of street uprisings against Arab dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere, Milani's book is an attempt at a thorough and dispassionate account of the machinations of the enigmatic shah. Although the biographer mentions that he was once a political prisoner of the shah (he does not say for how long), he succeeds in turning out a thoughtful and colorful biography without rancor.
"When the Killing's Done" by T.C. Boyle
He's never not a funny writer, whether flexing his muscles in the delirious sprints that are his short stories, or in the intricately plotted and sometimes slightly schematic marathons of novels like this one; he writes lyrically, beautifully -- about the ocean, the land, about California history and its pitfalls and perils.
"The Weird Sisters" by Eleanor Brown
"The Weird Sisters" is written in first-person plural, the sisters speaking as a single voice, and it is equal parts clever and heartfelt. As a discourse on sibling dynamics, the book very much succeeds.
"Donald" by Eric Martin and Stephen Elliott
What lingers with the reader - and what's powerful about this book - is the haunting futility of the system the real Donald Rumsfeld built, and you can't help wishing Rumsfeld - the real Rumsfeld - would just read the damned thing.
"The Black History of the White House" by Clarence Lusane
The book serves up a compelling account of the retreat from civil rights - starting with the "southern strategy" of Richard Nixon and peaking with what Lusane calls Ronald Reagan's "anti-black agenda."
"The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life" by Bettany Hughes
For the most part, Hughes is successful, and even when not, she's fascinating. What we get in "The Hemlock Cup" is many books interlaced: a biography of Socrates; a gritty description of daily life in Athens; a vivid history of the Peloponnesian War and its aftereffects; and -- as an unexpected delight -- a guide to museums, archaeological digs and repositories of ancient artifacts, as Hughes takes us by the hand while ferreting out her evidence.