Best New Books: April 2009

History
It was one of the rare wars in which history judges the victors to have fought for a just cause, and to have achieved an outcome of unarguable moral clarity.

--(from the introduction by David M. Kennedy) World War II 365 Days by Margaret E. Wagner (Abrams, $29.95)

Current Events
Eric Harris wanted a prom date. Eric was a senior, about to leave Columbine High School forever. He was not about to be left out in the prime social event of his life. He really wanted a date. Dates were not generally a problem … His best friend, Dylan, had a date. How crazy was that?

--Columbine by Dave Cullen (Twelve, $26.99)

Adventure 

Great pans of multiyear ice, weighing millions of tons apiece, were on the move, causing towering pressure ridges to erupt all around us as they smashed into one another. It was as if hell had frozen over.

--To the End of the Earth: Our Epic Journey to the North Pole and the Legend of Peary and Henson by Tom Avery (St. Martin's Press, $26.95)

Photography
My people are Sacajawea's people. [My father] told me that as dancers, we represent our people, our tribe, when we go out to dance … The parts of the animals and birds we are wearing come alive again when we dance. --Rose Ann Abrahamson

--Faces From the Land: Twenty Years of Powwow Tradition by Ben and Linda Marra (Abrams, $30)

Memoir

Back in the Paleocene 1950s, when being fond of one's children had not yet come into vogue, poor people didn't seem to mind all that much if one of their offspring went flying out into traffic, as everyone had spares.

--Closing Time by Joe Queenan (Viking, $26.95)