#12 and #13

I have learned an enormous amount about the Holocaust from two extraordinary books, Michael Wildt, An Uncompromising Generation: The Nazi Leadership of the Reich Security Main Office and Christopher Browning, Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave-Labor Camp. Browning provides us with the plight of Jewish slave laborers in one small Polish town, and argues strongly for the logic of the Jewish survival through labor policy. Wildt carefully studies a large number of officials in the Security Service - mostly trained in the humanities, law and social sciences and preparing for racial war since their radical student days - who get their opportunity in the East to solve the "Jewish question." We clearly see that what we call the Final Solution was primarily a series of operations spearheaded by the SS - far too many with PhDs - against Polish and Russian Jews.

#11 - Perhaps the best novel I have read in a decade! Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall - scarily intelligent, psychologically acute, and simultaneously a brainteaser and a totally readable narrative, it has not a wasted word and, amazingly, the history is seamlessly folded into daily life.

#10 Book recommendation
Beatrice and Virgil, an unusual Holocaust allegory by the celebrated author of Life of Pi, is well worth your time and money. A story within a story within a story, it opens up, slowly but with immense originality, numerous issues about the Holocaust rarely done so well in fiction. And it is very short!

Latest burger rankings

If it were not for the price (double that of Ray's), the burger at Vidalia would tie the burger at Ray's with nearly a perfect score. But $7 vs $17 keeps Ray's on top, with a burger not only unsurpassed, but (aside from Vidalia) unrivaled in quality in NoVA, MD or DC.

Burger Rankings Change
The former #3 burger is now #2, moving Black Market's excellent burger down one slot and moving Black's (Bethesda) to the slot behind the sensational Ray's Hell Burger. Black's (tasted twice) has fine meat cooked to perfection, fresh veggies and four choices of cheese, with a super bun. Don't miss the fries - they can rarely be beat.