Books On My Night Table

Beneath A Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan

From Amazon:

Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior.

In an attempt to protect him, Pino’s parents force him to enlist as a German soldier—a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious and powerful commanders.

Now, with the opportunity to spy for the Allies inside the German High Command, Pino endures the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation by fighting in secret, his courage bolstered by his love for Anna and for the life he dreams they will one day share.

 

Platinum Girl: The Life and Legends of Jean Harlow by Eve Golden

From Publishers Weekly:

The movie star whose hair inspired the phrase “platinum blonde,” Jean Harlow had a sexy, comic reputation on screen but was, as Golden emphasizes, more comfortable in casual clothes, relaxing with family and friends. Harlow packed a lot of living into a short time: after her career took off in 1930 with the release of Hell’s Angels , she was Hollywood’s blonde bombshell (the title of one of her movies) until her sudden death of kidney failure in 1937 at age 26. She also married three times and was involved with William Powell when she died. New York City freelance journalist Golden presents an appealing portrait of Harlow and sets a few inaccuracies straight. (For example, it was rumored that she died because her second husband, Paul Bern, beat her in the kidneys, but, according to medical authorities, the effects of such a beating would be instantaneous–and Bern committed suicide five years before her death.) Unfortunately, the text occasionally slips into fanzine style. (Concerning MGM’s decision to shave Harlow’s eyebrows, Golden writes, “She and Marlene Dietrich led the eyebrow brigade, which left fashionable women all over the world looking like startled drag queens.”) This elegantly designed book includes many representative movie stills and publicity shots.