Special Collections
New York Times Best Sellers - Non-Fiction
Description: Bookshare is pleased to offer the top 10 non-fiction books from the New York Times best seller list on a weekly basis. Books are added in as they become available. The month corresponds to the first time they appeared on the list. #adults
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Battling the Big Lie
by Dan Pfeiffer&“BATTLING THE BIG LIE is an important read for anyone who&’s wondering how the far right traffics in lies and what we can all do to fight back.&” ―PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMATHE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER OF YES WE (STILL) CAN! AND CO-HOST OF POD SAVE AMERICA. BATTLING THE BIG LIE explains how to combat political disinformation and dangerous lies of the right-wing propaganda machine. In BATTLING THE BIG LIE, bestselling author Dan Pfeiffer dissects how the right-wing built a massive, billionaire-funded disinformation machine powerful enough to bend reality and nearly steal the 2020 election. From the perspective of someone who has spent decades on the front lines of politics and media, Pfeiffer lays out how the right-wing media apparatus works, where it came from, and what progressives can do to fight back against disinformation. Over a period of decades, the right-wing has built a massive media apparatus that is weaponizing misinformation and spreading conspiracy theories for political purposes. This &“MAGA Megaphone&” that is personified by Fox News and fueled by Facebook is waging war on the very idea of objective truth—and they are winning. This disinformation campaign is how Donald Trump won in 2016, almost won in 2020, and why the United States is incapable of addressing problems from COVID-19 to climate change. Pfeiffer explains how and why the Republicans have come to depend on culture war grievances, crackpot conspiracies, and truly sinister propaganda as their primary political strategies, including: Republican efforts from Roger Ailes to Steve Bannon and Donald Trump to sow distrust while exploiting the media&’s biases and the Democratic Party&’s blind spots. The optimization of Facebook as the ultimate carrier of Trumpist messaging. Educating the Left to stop clutching pearls and start &“fighting fire with fire.&” How to fight back against the trolls spreading disinformation and hate on the Internet. A functioning democracy depends on a shared understanding of reality. America is teetering on the edge because one of the two parties in our two-party system views truth, facts, and science as their opponent. BATTLING THE BIG LIE is a call to arms for anyone and everyone who cares about truth and democracy. There are no easy answers or quick fixes, but something must be done.
The Beatles
by The Beatles and Peter Jackson and Hanif Kureishi and Ethan A. Russell and Linda McCartneyThe most anticipated book in more than a decade by the legendary band, The Beatles: Get Back is the official account of the creation of their final album, Let It Be, told in The Beatles’ own words, illustrated with hundreds of previously unpublished images, including photos by Ethan A. Russell and Linda McCartney. Half a century after the 1970 Let It Be album and film, this milestone book coincides with the global release of Peter Jackson’s documentary feature film, The Beatles: Get Back.
The book opens in January 1969, the beginning of The Beatles’ last year as a band. The BEATLES (The White Album) is at number one in the charts and the foursome gather in London for a new project. Over 21 days, first at Twickenham Film Studios and then at their own brand-new Apple Studios, with cameras and tape recorders documenting every day’s work and conversations, the band rehearse a huge number of songs, culminating in their final concert, which famously takes place on the rooftop of their own office building, bringing central London to a halt.
The Beatles: Get Back tells the story of those sessions through transcripts of the band’s candid conversations. Drawing on over 120 hours of sound recordings, leading music writer John Harris edits the richly captivating text to give us a fly-on-the-wall experience of being there in the studios. These sessions come vividly to life through hundreds of unpublished, extraordinary images by two photographers who had special access to their sessions—Ethan A. Russell and Linda Eastman (who married Paul McCartney two months later). Also included are many unseen high-resolution film-frames, selected from the 55 hours of restored footage from which Peter Jackson’s documentary is also drawn.
Legend has it that these sessions were a grim time for a band falling apart. However, as acclaimed novelist Hanif Kureishi writes in his introduction, “In fact this was a productive time for them, when they created some of their best work. And it is here that we have the privilege of witnessing their early drafts, the mistakes, the drift and digressions, the boredom, the excitement, joyous jamming and sudden breakthroughs that led to the work we now know and admire." Half a century after their final performance, this book completes the story of the creative genius, timeless music, and inspiring legacy of The Beatles.
Beautiful Country
by Qian Julie WangA NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • The moving story of an undocumented child living in poverty in the richest country in the world—an incandescent debut from an astonishing new talent • A TODAY SHOW #READWITHJENNA PICK In Chinese, the word for America, Mei Guo, translates directly to &“beautiful country.&” Yet when seven-year-old Qian arrives in New York City in 1994 full of curiosity, she is overwhelmed by crushing fear and scarcity. In China, Qian&’s parents were professors; in America, her family is &“illegal&” and it will require all the determination and small joys they can muster to survive.In Chinatown, Qian&’s parents labor in sweatshops. Instead of laughing at her jokes, they fight constantly, taking out the stress of their new life on one another. Shunned by her classmates and teachers for her limited English, Qian takes refuge in the library and masters the language through books, coming to think of The Berenstain Bears as her first American friends. And where there is delight to be found, Qian relishes it: her first bite of gloriously greasy pizza, weekly &“shopping days,&” when Qian finds small treasures in the trash lining Brooklyn&’s streets, and a magical Christmas visit to Rockefeller Center—confirmation that the New York City she saw in movies does exist after all.But then Qian&’s headstrong Ma Ma collapses, revealing an illness that she has kept secret for months for fear of the cost and scrutiny of a doctor&’s visit. As Ba Ba retreats further inward, Qian has little to hold onto beyond his constant refrain: Whatever happens, say that you were born here, that you&’ve always lived here.Inhabiting her childhood perspective with exquisite lyric clarity and unforgettable charm and strength, Qian Julie Wang has penned an essential American story about a family fracturing under the weight of invisibility, and a girl coming of age in the shadows, who never stops seeking the light.
Beautiful Things
by Hunter Biden“I come from a family forged by tragedies and bound by a remarkable, unbreakable love,” Hunter Biden writes in this deeply moving memoir of addiction, loss, and survival.
When he was two years old, Hunter Biden was badly injured in a car accident that killed his mother and baby sister. In 2015, he suffered the devastating loss of his beloved big brother, Beau, who died of brain cancer at the age of forty-six.
These hardships were compounded by the collapse of his marriage and a years-long battle with drug and alcohol addiction.
In Beautiful Things, Hunter recounts his descent into substance abuse and his tortuous path to sobriety. The story ends with where Hunter is today—a sober married man with a new baby, finally able to appreciate the beautiful things in life.
The Beauty in Breaking
by Michele HarperAn emergency room physician explores how a life of service to others taught her how to heal herself.Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white. Brought up in Washington, D.C., in a complicated family, she went to Harvard, where she met her husband. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a hospital in central Philadelphia, when he told her he couldn't move with her. Her marriage at an end, Harper began her new life in a new city, in a new job, as a newly single woman.In the ensuing years, as Harper learned to become an effective ER physician, bringing insight and empathy to every patient encounter, she came to understand that each of us is broken--physically, emotionally, psychically. How we recognize those breaks, how we try to mend them, and where we go from there are all crucial parts of the healing process. The Beauty in Breaking is the poignant true story of Harper's journey toward self-healing. Each of the patients Harper writes about taught her something important about recuperation and recovery. How to let go of fear even when the future is murky. How to tell the truth when it's simpler to overlook it. How to understand that compassion isn't the same as justice. As she shines a light on the systemic disenfranchisement of the patients she treats as they struggle to maintain their health and dignity, Harper comes to understand the importance of allowing ourselves to make peace with the past as we draw support from the present. In this hopeful, moving, and beautiful book, she passes along the precious, necessary lessons that she has learned as a daughter, a woman, and a physician.
The Beauty of Dusk
by Frank BruniFrom New York Times columnist and bestselling author Frank Bruni comes &“a book about vision loss that becomes testimony to human courage, a moving memoir that offers perspective, comfort, and hope&” (Booklist, starred review).One morning in late 2017, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni woke up with strangely blurred vision. He wondered at first if some goo or gunk had worked its way into his right eye. But this was no fleeting annoyance, no fixable inconvenience. Overnight, a rare stroke had cut off blood to one of his optic nerves, rendering him functionally blind in that eye—forever. And he soon learned from doctors that the same disorder could ravage his left eye, too. He could lose his sight altogether. In this &“moving and inspiring&” (The Washington Post) memoir, Bruni beautifully recounts his adjustment to this daunting reality, a medical and spiritual odyssey that involved not only reappraising his own priorities but also reaching out to, and gathering wisdom from, longtime friends and new acquaintances who had navigated their own traumas and afflictions. The result is a poignant, probing, and ultimately &“a positive message, a powerful reminder that with great vulnerability also comes great reward&” (Oprah Winfrey). Bruni&’s world blurred in one sense, as he experienced his first real inklings that the day isn&’t forever and that light inexorably fades, but sharpened in another. Confronting unexpected hardship, he felt more blessed than ever before. The Beauty of Dusk is &“a wonderful book. Honest. Poetic. Uplifting.&” (Lesley Stahl).
The Beauty of Living Twice
by Sharon StoneSharon Stone tells her own story: a journey of healing, love, and purpose.
Sharon Stone, one of the most renowned actresses in the world, suffered a massive stroke that cost her not only her health, but her career, family, fortune, and global fame. In The Beauty of Living Twice, Stone chronicles her efforts to rebuild her life and writes about her slow road back to wholeness and health. In a business that doesn’t accept failure, in a world where too many voices are silenced, Stone found the power to return, the courage to speak up, and the will to make a difference in the lives of men, women, and children around the globe.
Over the course of these intimate pages, as candid as a personal conversation, Stone talks about her pivotal roles, her life-changing friendships, her worst disappointments, and her greatest accomplishments. She reveals how she went from a childhood of trauma and violence to a career in an industry that in many ways echoed those same assaults, under cover of money and glamour. She describes the strength and meaning she found in her children, and in her humanitarian efforts. And ultimately, she shares how she fought her way back to find not only her truth, but her family’s reconciliation and love.
Stone made headlines not just for her beauty and her talent, but for her candor and her refusal to “play nice,” and it’s those same qualities that make this memoir so powerful. The Beauty of Living Twice is a book for the wounded and a book for the survivors; it’s a celebration of women’s strength and resilience, a reckoning, and a call to activism. It is proof that it’s never too late to raise your voice and speak out.
A New York Times Bestseller
Begin Again
by Eddie S. GlaudeJames Baldwin grew disillusioned by the failure of the civil rights movement to force America to confront its lies about race. In our own moment, when that confrontation feels more urgently needed than ever, what can we learn from his struggle?
We live, according to Eddie S. Glaude Jr., in a moment when the struggles of Black Lives Matter and the attempt to achieve a new America have been challenged by the election of Donald Trump, a president whose victory represents yet another failure of America to face the lies it tells itself about race. From Charlottesville to the policies of child separation at the border, his administration turned its back on the promise of Obama’s presidency and refused to embrace a vision of the country shorn of the insidious belief that white people matter more than others.
We have been here before: For James Baldwin, these after times came in the wake of the civil rights movement, when a similar attempt to compel a national confrontation with the truth was answered with the murders of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. In these years, spanning from the publication of The Fire Next Time in 1963 to that of No Name in the Street in 1972, Baldwin transformed into a more overtly political writer, a change that came at great professional and personal cost. But from that journey, Baldwin emerged with a sense of renewed purpose about the necessity of pushing forward in the face of disillusionment and despair.
In the story of Baldwin’s crucible, Glaude suggests, we can find hope and guidance through our own after times, this Trumpian era of shattered promises and white retrenchment. Mixing biography—drawn partially from newly uncovered interviews—with history, memoir, and trenchant analysis of our current moment, Begin Again is Glaude&’s endeavor, following Baldwin, to bear witness to the difficult truth of race in America today. It is at once a searing exploration that lays bare the tangled web of race, trauma, and memory, and a powerful interrogation of what we all must ask of ourselves in order to call forth a new America.
A New York Times Bestseller
Behind the Seams
by Dolly PartonA beautiful celebration of Dolly Parton’s iconic sense of style through entertaining personal stories and 450 full-color photographs, including exclusive images from her private costume archive
In Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones, global superstar Dolly Parton shares, for the first time, the full story behind her lifelong passion for fashion, including how she developed her own, distinctly Dolly style, which has defied convention and endeared her to fans around the world.
Featuring behind-the-scenes stories from Dolly Parton’s life and career, and the largest reveal of her private costume archive, this gorgeously photographed book spotlights her most unforgettable looks from the 1960s to now. The sky-high heels, famous wigs, bold makeup, eye-catching stage clothes—she shares them all. Along the way, Parton discusses memorable outfits from her past, from the clothes her mother would sew out of feed sacks (including her “Coat of Many Colors”) and the bold dresses and hairdos that shook up Nashville, to the bunny suit on the cover of Playboy, evening wear at Studio 54, costumes from her most famous film and TV roles, and the daring styles that continue to entertain and inspire today.
Filled with candor, humor, and lots and lots of rhinestones, Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones is a shining tribute to one of the most beloved musicians in history, a treasured keepsake for anyone who loves Dolly Parton, and an indispensable guide to forging your own path to beauty and confidence.
New York Times Bestseller
The Best of Me
by David SedarisFor more than twenty-five years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to read without laughing.
Now, for the first time collected in one volume, the author brings us his funniest and most memorable work. In these stories, Sedaris shops for rare taxidermy, hitchhikes with a lady quadriplegic, and spits a lozenge into a fellow traveler’s lap. He drowns a mouse in a bucket, struggles to say “give it to me” in five languages, and hand-feeds a carnivorous bird.
But if all you expect to find in Sedaris’s work is the deft and sharply observed comedy for which he became renowned, you may be surprised to discover that his words bring more warmth than mockery, more fellow-feeling than derision. Nowhere is this clearer than in his writing about his loved ones. In these pages, Sedaris explores falling in love and staying together, recognizing his own aging not in the mirror but in the faces of his siblings, losing one parent and coming to terms—at long last—with the other.
Taken together, the stories in The Best of Me reveal the wonder and delight Sedaris takes in the surprises life brings him. No experience, he sees, is quite as he expected—it’s often harder, more fraught, and certainly weirder—but sometimes it is also much richer and more wonderful.
Full of joy, generosity, and the incisive humor that has led David Sedaris to be called “the funniest man alive” (Time Out New York), The Best of Me spans a career spent watching and learning and laughing—quite often at himself—and invites readers deep into the world of one of the most brilliant and original writers of our time.
A New York Times Bestseller
The Best Strangers in the World
by Ari ShapiroINSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER“The Best Strangers in the World is a witty, poignant book that captures Ari Shapiro’s love for the unusual, his pursuit of the unexpected, and his delight at connection against the odds.”—Ronan Farrow, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and New York Times-bestselling author of Catch and Kill and War on PeaceFrom the beloved host of NPR's All Things Considered, a stirring memoir-in-essays that is also a lover letter to journalism.In his first book, broadcaster Ari Shapiro takes us around the globe to reveal the stories behind narratives that are sometimes heartwarming, sometimes heartbreaking, but always poignant. He details his time traveling on Air Force One with President Obama, or following the path of Syrian refugees fleeing war, or learning from those fighting for social justice both at home and abroad.As the self-reinforcing bubbles we live in become more impenetrable, Ari Shapiro keeps seeking ways to help people listen to one another; to find connection and commonality with those who may seem different; to remind us that, before religion, or nationality, or politics, we are all human. The Best Strangers in the World is a testament to one journalist’s passion for Considering All Things—and sharing what he finds with the rest of us.
Best Wishes, Warmest Regards
by Daniel Levy and Eugene LevyThe official tie-in book for the beloved, nine-time Emmy® Award-winning series Schitt's Creek. This beautifully produced, keepsake coffee-table book is the ultimate celebration of the series, the town, the characters, and the state of mind that is Schitt's Creek. Capturing the essence and alchemy of all six seasons of what is now considered to be one of the most groundbreaking comedy television series of the last decade, Best Wishes, Warmest Regards is a gift to fans everywhere who have made the show their own.
Included are character profiles from the cast of Johnny, Moira, David, and Alexis, and all of the characters that populate the town, major moments from Moira's endorsement of Herb Ertlinger Winery, to Patrick and David's first kiss, to Cabaret and the Rose Family Christmas episode. Also included are special features, such as the complete, illustrated catalogs of David's knits and Moira's wigs, Moira's vocabulary, Alexis's adventures, and behind-the-scenes moments from Dan and Eugene Levy and the cast of Schitt's Creek.
A New York Times Best Seller
Betrayal
by Jonathan KarlPicking up where the New York Times bestselling Front Row at the Trump Show left off, this is the explosive look at the aftermath of the election—and the events that followed Donald Trump’s leaving the White House—from ABC News' chief Washington correspondent.
Nobody is in a better position to tell the story of the shocking final chapter of the Trump show than Jonathan Karl. As the reporter who has known Donald Trump longer than any other White House correspondent, Karl told the story of Trump’s rise in the New York Times bestseller Front Row at the Trump Show. Now he tells the story of Trump’s downfall, complete with riveting behind-the-scenes accounts of some of the darkest days in the history of the American presidency and packed with original reporting and on-the-record interviews with central figures in this drama who are telling their stories for the first time.
This is a definitive account of what was really going on during the final weeks and months of the Trump presidency and what it means for the future of the Republican Party, by a reporter who was there for it all. He has been taunted, praised, and vilified by Donald Trump, and now Jonathan Karl finds himself in a singular position to deliver the truth.
The Betrayal of Anne Frank
by Rosemary SullivanLess a mystery unsolved than a secret well kept...Using new technology, recently discovered documents and sophisticated investigative techniques, an international team—led by an obsessed retired FBI agent—has finally solved the mystery that has haunted generations since World War II: Who betrayed Anne Frank and her family? And why?
Over thirty million people have read The Diary of a Young Girl, the journal teen-aged Anne Frank kept while living in an attic with her family and four other people in Amsterdam during World War II, until the Nazis arrested them and sent them to a concentration camp. But despite the many works—journalism, books, plays and novels—devoted to Anne’s story, none has ever conclusively explained how these eight people managed to live in hiding undetected for over two years—and who or what finally brought the Nazis to their door.
With painstaking care, retired FBI agent Vincent Pankoke and a team of indefatigable investigators pored over tens of thousands of pages of documents—some never before seen—and interviewed scores of descendants of people familiar with the Franks. Utilizing methods developed by the FBI, the Cold Case Team painstakingly pieced together the months leading to the infamous arrest—and came to a shocking conclusion. The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation is the riveting story of their mission. Rosemary Sullivan introduces us to the investigators, explains the behavior of both the captives and their captors and profiles a group of suspects. All the while, she vividly brings to life wartime Amsterdam: a place where no matter how wealthy, educated, or careful you were, you never knew whom you could trust.
Between Two Kingdoms
by Suleika JaouadIn the summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing, as they say in commencement speeches, to enter “the real world.” She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone.
It started with an itch—first on her feet, then up her legs, like a thousand invisible mosquito bites. Next came the exhaustion, and the six-hour naps that only deepened her fatigue. Then a trip to the doctor and, a few weeks shy of her twenty-third birthday, a diagnosis: leukemia, with a 35 percent chance of survival.
Just like that, the life she had imagined for herself had gone up in flames. By the time Jaouad flew home to New York, she had lost her job, her apartment, and her independence. She would spend much of the next four years in a hospital bed, fighting for her life and chronicling the saga in a column for The New York Times.
When Jaouad finally walked out of the cancer ward—after countless rounds of chemo, a clinical trial, and a bone marrow transplant—she was, according to the doctors, cured. But as she would soon learn, a cure is not where the work of healing ends; it’s where it begins.
She had spent the past 1,500 days in desperate pursuit of one goal—to survive. And now that she’d done so, she realized that she had no idea how to live. How would she reenter the world and live again? How could she reclaim what had been lost?
Jaouad embarked—with her new best friend, Oscar, a scruffy terrier mutt—on a 100-day, 15,000-mile road trip across the country. She set out to meet some of the strangers who had written to her during her years in the hospital: a teenage girl in Florida also recovering from cancer; a teacher in California grieving the death of her son; a death-row inmate in Texas who’d spent his own years confined to a room. What she learned on this trip is that the divide between sick and well is porous, that the vast majority of us will travel back and forth between these realms throughout our lives.
Between Two Kingdoms is a profound chronicle of survivorship and a fierce, tender, and inspiring exploration of what it means to begin again.
New York Times Bestseller
Beyond the Wand
by Tom FeltonFrom the magical moments on set as Draco Malfoy to the challenges of growing up in the spotlight, get a backstage pass into Tom Felton&’s life on and off the big screen in this #1 New York Times bestseller. Tom Felton&’s adolescence was anything but ordinary. His early rise to fame in beloved films like The Borrowers catapulted him into the limelight, but nothing could prepare him for what was to come after he landed the iconic role of the Draco Malfoy, the bleached blonde villain of the Harry Potter movies. For the next ten years, he was at the center of a huge pop culture phenomenon and yet, in between filming, he would go back to being a normal teenager trying to fit into a normal school. Speaking with great candor and his signature humor, Tom shares his experience growing up as part of the wizarding world while also trying to navigate the muggle world. He tells stories from his early days in the business like his first acting gig where he was mistaken for fellow blonde child actor Macaulay Culkin and his Harry Potter audition where, in a very Draco-like move, he fudged how well he knew the books the series was based on (not at all). He reflects on his experiences working with cinematic greats such as Alan Rickman, Sir Michael Gambon, Dame Maggie Smith, and Ralph Fiennes (including that awkward Voldemort hug). And, perhaps most poignantly, he discusses the lasting relationships he made over that decade of filming, including with Emma Watson, who started out as a pesky nine-year-old whom he mocked for not knowing what a boom mic was but who soon grew into one of his dearest friends. Then, of course, there are the highs and lows of fame and navigating life after such a momentous and life-changing experience. Tom Felton&’s Beyond the Wand is an entertaining, funny, and poignant must-read for any Harry Potter fan. Prepare to meet a real-life wizard.
Bibi
by Benjamin NetanyahuIn Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s sweeping, moving autobiography, one of the most formidable and insightful leaders of our time tells the story of his family, his path to leadership, and his unceasing commitment to defending Israel and securing its future.
From their earliest days, Bibi and his close-knit brothers, Yoni and Iddo, were instilled with purpose. Born in the wake of the Holocaust at the dawn of Israel’s independence and raised in a family with a prominent Zionist history, they understood that the Jewish state was a hard-won and still precarious gift. All three studied in American high schools—where they learned to appreciate the United States—before returning to their cherished homeland. The brothers joined an elite special forces outfit of the Israeli Defense Forces known as “the Unit.”
At twenty-two, Bibi was wounded while leading his team in the rescue of hostages from a hijacked plane. Four years later, in 1976, Yoni was killed in Entebbe, Uganda, while leading his men in one of the most daring hostage-rescue missions in modern times. Yoni became a legend; Bibi felt he would never recover from his grief. Yet, inspired by Yoni’s legacy and guided by the wisdom of his visionary historian father, Bibi thrust himself into the international struggle against terrorism, ultimately becoming the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history.
In this memoir Bibi weaves together his gripping personal story with the dramatic history of Israel and the Jewish people. Through a host of vivid anecdotes, he narrates his own evolution from soldier to statesman, while providing a unique perspective on leadership, the fraught geopolitics of the Middle East, and his successful efforts to liberate Israel’s economy, which helped turn it into a global powerhouse of technological innovation. Netanyahu gives colorful, detailed, and revealing accounts of his often turbulent relationships and negotiations with Presidents Clinton, Obama, and Trump. With eye-opening candor, he delves into the back channels of high diplomacy—including his struggle against the radical forces that threaten Israel and the world at large, and the decisive events that led to Israel’s groundbreaking 2020 peace agreements with four Arab states.
Offering an unflinching account of a life, a family, and a nation, Netanyahu writes from the heart and embraces controversy head-on. Steely and funny, high-tempo and full of verve, this autobiography will stand as a defining testament to the value of political conviction and personal courage.
New York Times Bestseller
The Big Lie
by Jonathan LemireINSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERFrom the WHITE HOUSE BUREAU CHIEF OF POLITICO and the host of MSNBC's WAY TOO EARLY comes a probing and illuminating analysis of the current state of American politics, democracy, and elections.“[Lemire] has done his homework.” –The GuardianJonathan Lemire uncovers that “The Big Lie,” as it’s been termed, isn’t just about the 2020 election. It's become a political philosophy that has only further divided the two parties.Donald Trump first tried it out in 2016, at an August rally in Ohio. He said that perhaps he wouldn’t accept the election results in his race against Hillary Clinton, that the election was “rigged.” He didn’t have to challenge the result that year, but the stage was set. When he lost in 2020, he started the lie back up again and to devastating results: an insurrection at the Capitol in January 2021.In the more than five tumultuous, paradigm-shifting years of Donald Trump’s presidency and beyond, his near-constant lying has become a fixture of political life. It is inextricably linked with how his party behaves, how the Democrats respond to it, and how he remains relevant, even after a decisive loss in 2020. Jonathan Lemire brings his connections, profile, and dogged reportorial instincts to bear in his first book that explores how this phenomenon shapes our politics.Written with sharp political insight and detailed with dozens of interviews, The Big Lie is the first book to examine this unprecedented and tenuous moment in our nation’s politics.
Billie Eilish
by Billie EilishLegendary recording artist Billie Eilish shares an intimate inside look at her life—both on and off the stage—in this stunning, photo-filled book.
Billie Eilish is a phenomenon. With distinctive visual flare and darkly poignant lyrics that are unparalleled among music icons of the 21st century, Billie is a musician who stands out from the crowd. Between her record-shattering award-winning music and her uncompromising and unapologetic attitude, it's no surprise that her fanbase continues to grow by millions month after month. She is that rare combination of wildly popular and highly respected for her prodigious talent, a once in a generation superstar.
Now in this stunning visual narrative journey through her life, she is ready to share more with her devoted audience for the first time, including hundreds of never-before-seen photos. This gorgeous book will capture the essence of Billie inside and out, offering readers personal glimpses into her childhood, her life on tour, and more. A must-have for any fan.
A New York Times Bestseller
The Bill of Obligations
by Richard HaassA New York Times BestsellerA provocative guide to how we must reenvision citizenship if American democracy is to surviveThe United States faces dangerous threats from Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, terrorists, climate change, and future pandemics. The greatest peril to the country, however, comes not from abroad but from within, from none other than ourselves. The question facing us is whether we are prepared to do what is necessary to save our democracy. The Bill of Obligations is a bold call for change. In these pages, New York Times bestselling author Richard Haass argues that the very idea of citizenship must be revised and expanded. The Bill of Rights is at the center of our Constitution, yet our most intractable conflicts often emerge from contrasting views as to what our rights ought to be. As former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer pointed out, &“Many of our cases, the most difficult ones, are not about right versus wrong. They are about right versus right.&” The lesson is clear: rights alone cannot provide the basis for a functioning, much less flourishing, democracy.But there is a cure: to place obligations on the same footing as rights. The ten obligations that Haass introduces here are essential for healing our divisions and safeguarding the country&’s future. These obligations reenvision what it means to be an American citizen. They are not a burden but rather commitments that we make to fellow citizens and to the government to uphold democracy and counter the growing apathy, anger, selfishness, division, disinformation, and violence that threaten us all. Through an expert blend of civics, history, and political analysis, this book illuminates how Americans can rediscover and recover the attitudes and behaviors that have contributed so much to this country&’s success over the centuries.As Richard Haass argues, &“We get the government and the country we deserve. Getting the one we need, however, is up to us.&” The Bill of Obligations gives citizens across the political spectrum a plan of action to achieve it.
Bittersweet
by Susan CainIn her new masterpiece, the author of the bestselling phenomenon Quiet reveals the power of a bittersweet outlook on life, and why we’ve been so blind to its value. Bittersweetness is a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. It recognizes that light and dark, birth and death —bitter and sweet—are forever paired.
If you’ve ever wondered why you like sad music . . . If you find comfort or inspiration in a rainy day . . . If you react intensely to music, art, nature, and beauty . . . Then you probably identify with the bittersweet state of mind.
With Quiet, Susan Cain urged our society to cultivate space for the undervalued, indispensable introverts among us, thereby revealing an untapped power hidden in plain sight. Now she employs the same mix of research, storytelling, and memoir to explore why we experience sorrow and longing, and how embracing the bittersweetness at the heart of life is the true path to creativity, connection, and transcendence.
Cain shows how a bittersweet state of mind is the quiet force that helps us transcend our personal and collective pain. If we don’t acknowledge our own heartache, she says, we can end up inflicting it on others via abuse, domination, or neglect. But if we realize that all humans know—or will know—loss and suffering, we can turn toward one another. At a time of profound discord and personal anxiety, Bittersweet brings us together in deep and unexpected ways.
New York Times Bestseller
Black AF History
by Michael HarriotNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael Harriot, a searingly smart and bitingly hilarious retelling of American history that corrects the record and showcases the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans.America’s backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our collective memory. It is the story of the pilgrims on the Mayflower building a new nation. It is George Washington’s cherry tree and Abraham Lincoln’s log cabin. It is the fantastic tale of slaves that spontaneously teleported themselves here with nothing but strong backs and negro spirituals. It is a sugarcoated legend based on an almost true story.It should come as no surprise that the dominant narrative of American history is blighted with errors and oversights—after all, history books were written by white men with their perspectives at the forefront. It could even be said that the devaluation and erasure of the Black experience is as American as apple pie.In Black AF History, Michael Harriot presents a more accurate version of American history. Combining unapologetically provocative storytelling with meticulous research based on primary sources as well as the work of pioneering Black historians, scholars, and journalists, Harriot removes the white sugarcoating from the American story, placing Black people squarely at the center. With incisive wit, Harriot speaks hilarious truth to oppressive power, subverting conventional historical narratives with little-known stories about the experiences of Black Americans. From the African Americans who arrived before 1619 to the unenslavable bandit who inspired America’s first police force, this long overdue corrective provides a revealing look into our past that is as urgent as it is necessary. For too long, we have refused to acknowledge that American history is white history. Not this one. This history is Black AF.
The Black Church
by Henry Louis GatesFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Stony the Road and one of our most important voices on the African American experience comes a powerful new history of the Black church as a foundation of Black life and a driving force in the larger freedom struggle in America.
The companion book to the upcoming PBS series.
For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, residentially segregated West Virginia town, the church was a center of gravity—an intimate place where voices rose up in song and neighbors gathered to celebrate life's blessings and offer comfort amid its trials and tribulations. In this tender and expansive reckoning with the meaning of the Black Church in America, Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today’s political landscape. At road’s end, and after Gates’s distinctive meditation on the churches of his childhood, we emerge with a new understanding of the importance of African American religion to the larger national narrative—as a center of resistance to slavery and white supremacy, as a magnet for political mobilization, as an incubator of musical and oratorical talent that would transform the culture, and as a crucible for working through the Black community’s most critical personal and social issues.
In a country that has historically afforded its citizens from the African diaspora tragically few safe spaces, the Black Church has always been more than a sanctuary. This fact was never lost on white supremacists: from the earliest days of slavery, when enslaved people were allowed to worship at all, their meetinghouses were subject to surveillance and destruction. Long after slavery’s formal eradication, church burnings and bombings by anti-Black racists continued, a hallmark of the violent effort to suppress the African American struggle for equality. The past often isn’t even past—Dylann Roof committed his slaughter in the Mother Emanuel AME Church 193 years after it was first burned down by white citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, following a thwarted slave rebellion.
But as Gates brilliantly shows, the Black church has never been only one thing. Its story lies at the heart of the Black political struggle, and it has produced many of the Black community's most notable leaders. At the same time, some churches and denominations have eschewed political engagement and exemplified practices of exclusion and intolerance that have caused polarization and pain. Those tensions remain today, as a rising generation demands freedom and dignity for all within and beyond their communities, regardless of race, sex, or gender. Still, as a source of faith and refuge, spiritual sustenance and struggle against society’s darkest forces, the Black Church has been central, as this enthralling history makes vividly clear.
A New York Times Bestseller
Black Ops
by Ric PradoA memoir by the highest-ranking covert warrior to lift the veil of secrecy and offer a glimpse into the shadow wars that America has fought since the Vietnam Era.
Enrique Prado found himself in his first firefight at age seven. The son of a middle-class Cuban family caught in the midst of the Castro Revolution, his family fled their war-torn home for the hope of a better life in America. Fifty years later, the Cuban refugee retired from the Central Intelligence Agency as the CIA equivalent of a two-star general.
Black Ops is the story of Ric’s legendary career that spanned two eras, the Cold War and the Age of Terrorism. Operating in the shadows, Ric and his fellow CIA officers fought a little-seen and virtually unknown war to keep USA safe from those who would do it harm. After duty stations in Central, South America, and the Philippines, Black Ops follows Ric into the highest echelons of the CIA’s headquarters at Langley, Virginia. In late 1995, he became Deputy Chief of Station and co-founding member of the Bin Laden Task Force. Three years later, after serving as head of Korean Operations, Ric took on one of the most dangerous missions of his career: to re-establish a once-abandoned CIA station inside a hostile nation long since considered a front line of the fight against Islamic terrorism.
He and his team carried out covert operations and developed assets that proved pivotal in the coming War on Terror. A harrowing memoir of life in the shadowy world of assassins, terrorists, spies and revolutionaries, Black Ops is a testament to the courage, creativity and dedication of the Agency’s Special Activities Group and its elite shadow warriors.
New York Times Bestseller
Blackout
by Candace OwensIt’s time for a black exit. Political activist and social media star Candace Owens addresses the many ways that Democrat Party policies hurt, rather than help, the African American community, and why she and many others are turning right.
Black Americans have long been shackled to the Democrats. Seeing no viable alternative, they have watched liberal politicians take the black vote for granted without pledging anything in return.
In Blackout, Owens argues that this automatic allegiance is both illogical and unearned. She contends that the Democrat Party has a long history of racism and exposes the ideals that hinder the black community’s ability to rise above poverty, live independent and successful lives, and be an active part of the American Dream. Instead, Owens offers up a different ideology by issuing a challenge: It’s time for a major black exodus. From dependency, from victimhood, from miseducation—and the Democrat Party, which perpetuates all three.
Owens explains that government assistance is a double-edged sword, that the Left dismisses the faith so important to the black community, that Democrat permissiveness toward abortion disproportionately affects black babies, that the #MeToo movement hurts black men, and much more.
Weaving in her personal story, which ushered her from a roach-infested low-income apartment to1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, she demonstrates how she overcame her setbacks and challenges despite the cultural expectation that she should embrace a victim mentality. Well-researched and intelligently argued, Blackout lays bare the myth that all black people should vote Democrat—and shows why turning to the right will leave them happier, more successful, and more self-sufficient.
A New York Times Bestseller