I'm just finishing up Ian Kershaw's new biography
of Hitler ("Nemesis"), and I've been reading it for
about an hour a day (usually over lunch) for the past
three months. It's very, very good -- I'd go so far as
to say it (and its companion first volume, whose
title escapes me) is the new definitive work on the
subject. Something lighter, and not as tight but
nonetheless interesting, is Nancy Cartwright's "My Life as a
Ten-Year-Old Boy," about her experiences voicing Bart
Simpson.
Books to avoid: the "authorized by the Asimov estate"
"new" Foundation trilogy by Bear/Brin/Benford,
especially the second book, because they're disgraceful
hack-postmodern tarnishes.
Edmund