Sunday, May 31, 2020

On My Radar:

Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth: The President's Falsehoods, Misleading Claims, and Flat-Out Lies
by The Washington Post Fact Checker Staff
Scribner
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth is based on the only comprehensive compilation and analysis of the more than 16,000 fallacious statements that Trump has uttered since the day of his inauguration. He has repeated many of his most outrageous claims dozens or even hundreds of times as he has sought to bend reality to his political fantasy and personal whim.

Drawing on Trump’s tweets, press conferences, political rallies, and TV appearances, The Washington Post identifies his most frequently used misstatements, biggest whoppers, and most dangerous deceptions. This book unpacks his errant statements about the economy, immigration, the impeachment hearings, foreign policy, and, of critical concern now, the coronavirus crisis as it unfolded.

Fascinating, startling, and even grimly funny, Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth by The Washington Post is the essential, authoritative record of Trump’s shocking disregard for facts.

Friday, May 29, 2020

In My TBR Stack:

Perfectly Paired: The Love Affair Behind Silver Oaks Cellars
a memoir by Bonny Meyer
Meyer Family Enterprises
Trade Paperback

From the author's website:

Set in the romantic era of Napa Valley as it rose to world renowned fame in the latter half of the century, Bonny and Justin’s love story began while she was a college student and he a monk. Their forbidden love could not be contained and so began the next thirty years of their life together. They raised a family alongside owning and  establishing two wineries. 

Through a heart-felt exploration of her life, Meyer weaves her beautiful story of love and loss, passion and grief. Beginning with the tragedy of her husband’s sudden death, the author takes the reader on the journey of their life together, intricately intertwined with wine.

Perfectly Paired is a love story, detailing the passion that nourished and supported Bonny and Justin throughout the ups and downs of life and business. Through her deep grief and abiding love, Meyer shares wisdom on moving forward to live a full life with joy and purpose. 

Thursday, May 28, 2020

On My Radar:

Inside Camp David: The Private World of the Presidential Retreat
by Rear Admiral Michael Giorgione
Little Brown
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Never before have the gates of Camp David been opened to the public. Intensely private and completely secluded, the president’s personal campground is situated deep in the woods, up miles of unmarked roads that are practically invisible to the untrained eye. Now, for the first time, we are allowed to travel along the mountain route and directly into the fascinating and intimate complex of rustic residential cabins, wildlife trails, and athletic courses that make up the presidential family room.

For seventy-five years, Camp David has served as the president’s private retreat. A home away from the hustle and bustle of Washington, this historic site is the ideal place for the First Family to relax, unwind, and, perhaps most important, escape from the incessant gaze of the media and the public. It has hosted decades of family gatherings for thirteen presidents, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Barack Obama, including holiday celebrations, reunions, and even a wedding. But more than just a weekend getaway, Camp David has also been the site of private meetings and high-level summits with foreign leaders to foster diplomacy.

Former Camp David commander Rear Admiral Michael Giorgione, CEC, USN (Ret.), takes us deep into this enigmatic and revered sanctuary. Combining fascinating first-person anecdotes of the presidents and their families with storied history and interviews with commanders both past and present, he reveals the intimate connection felt by the First Families with this historic retreat.

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

On My Radar:

Wild and Crazy Guys: How the Comedy Mavericks of the '80s Changed Hollywood Forever
by Nick de Semlyen
Broadway Books
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Wild and Crazy Guys opens in 1978 with Chevy Chase and Bill Murray taking bad-tempered swings at each other backstage at Saturday Night Live, and closes 21 years later with the two doing a skit in the same venue, poking fun at each other, their illustrious careers, triumphs and prat falls. In between, Nick de Semlyen takes us on a trip through the tumultuous ’80s, delving behind the scenes of movies such as National Lampoon’s Vacation, Beverly Hills Cop, The Blues Brothers, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and dozens more. Chronicling the off-screen, larger-than-life antics of Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, John Belushi, John Candy, and Rick Moranis, it’s got drugs, sex, punch-ups, webbed toes, and Bill Murray being pushed into a swimming pool by Hunter S. Thompson while tied to a lawn chair. What’s not to like?

Based on candid interviews from many of the stars themselves, as well as those in their immediate orbit, including directors John Landis, Carl Reiner, and Amy Heckerling, Wild and Crazy Guys is a fantastic insider account of the friendships, feuds, triumphs, and disasters experienced by these beloved comedians. Hilarious and revealing, it is both a hidden history of the most fertile period ever for screen comedy and a celebration of some of the most popular films of all time.

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

On My Radar:

How Did We Get Here? From Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump
by Robert Dallek
Harper Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

The struggle to preserve the Republic has never been easy or without perils. The rise of conflicting political parties, which the founders opposed, and President John Adams’ Alien and Sedition Acts repressing First Amendment rights made Franklin’s observation at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention—“a republic, if you can keep it”—seem prescient.
In the twentieth century, America endured numerous struggles: economic depression, World War II, McCarthyism, the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Iran-contra scandal, the war in Iraq—all of which gave rise to demagogues, as did the growth and reach of mass media. But this wasn’t the Founding Fathers’ vision for our leadership. The resistance to putting a demagogue in the White House survived the anti-Communist agitation of the 1950s and the Vietnam War in the 1960s. But the latter opened the way for Richard Nixon’s election in 1968 and Watergate, which again tested our democratic institutions and the rule of law. Nixon’s resignation in August 1974 moved Vice President Gerald Ford, his successor, to declare, “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”
But was it? Donald Trump’s 2016 election has presented a new challenge. How did past politics and presidential administrations pave the way for this current assault on American democracy? Our nation’s history provides reassurance that we will restore our better angels to government. Yet it must be considered that earlier administrations and public outlook facilitated the rise of such an un-presidential character as Trump in the first place. In How Did We Get Here?, Robert Dallek considers a century of modern administrations, from Teddy Roosevelt to today, shining a light on the personalities behind the politics and the voters who elected each. His cautionary tale reminds us that the only constant in history is change, but whether for good or ill the choice is Americans’ to make. 

Monday, May 25, 2020

On My Radar:

Gullible's Travels: A Comical History of the Trump Era
by Marvin Kitman
Seven Stories Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Kitman describes the land of Gulliblesylvania as a democratic country ruled by 34.9 % of the people, "a minority better known as 'the base,' of whom a candidate said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and they would still vote for him." At first Kitman assumed that Trump's candidacy was a publicity stunt. After he realized it was serious, as a satirist he felt very lucky and began to keep a comical journal, modeled after A Journal of the Plague Yearwhich Daniel Defoe described as "Observations of the most remarkable occurrence, which happened in London during the last great visitation in 1665"—which is not to compare the Trump administration to the bubonic plague, Kitman hastens to add. "For one thing, as our POTUS has been telling us, he's made America Great again—AND IT ONLY TOOK A YEAR AND A HALF!" Kitman adds, "And I have never before had such a good time observing and writing about the follies of our country."

Gullible's Travels includes 32 "Trumponicles; the debate over the president's intellectual capacity; "That Russian Thing;" "Who is Agent Orange"; and a CODA that asks the question, "How Will It All End?" Impeachment? 25th Amendment sacking? Resignation? Or reelection?

Sunday, May 24, 2020

On My Radar:

Tom Seaver and Me
by Pat Jordan
Post Hill Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

The story of a forty-year friendship between two strong-willed, talented men—one a great success as a baseball pitcher, the other an abject failure.
I tell him what Hemingway said about writing talent, “It’s like a knife blade. If you save it it gets dull and rusty. Better to use it constantly to keep it sharp even if it wears down.”
Tom tilts his head like dogs do when confused by their master. He says, with a small smile, “You just keep thinking, Butch. That’s what you’re good at.”
I say, “I got vision, Sundance, and the rest of the world wears bifocals.”
Tom throws again. Fastball, low outside corner to a right handed batter.
I shake my head and say, “If I could have thrown my fastball to that spot, Big Guy, you’d be interviewing me now.”
***
Pat Jordan, a $50,000 bonus pitcher with the Milwaukee Braves in 1959, first met Tom Seaver, himself a $50,000 bonus pitcher with the New York Mets—and the greatest pitcher of his generation—in 1971. Combustible, combative, hilarious, and even touching at times,Tom Seaver and Me tells the story of the forty-year friendship that followed.

Friday, May 22, 2020

On My Radar:

Fire in Paradise: An American Tragedy
by Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano
W.W. Norton
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

There is no precedent in postwar American history for the destruction of the town of Paradise, California. On November 8, 2018, the community of 27,000 people was swallowed by the ferocious Camp Fire, which razed virtually every home and killed at least 85 people. The catastrophe seared the American imagination, taking the front page of every major national newspaper and top billing on the news networks. It displaced tens of thousands of people, yielding a refugee crisis that continues to unfold.
Fire in Paradise is a dramatic and moving narrative of the disaster based on hundreds of in-depth interviews with residents, firefighters and police, and scientific experts. Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano are California-based journalists who have reported on Paradise since the day the fire began. Together they reveal the heroics of the first responders, the miraculous escapes of those who got out of Paradise, and the horrors experienced by those who were trapped. Their accounts are intimate and unforgettable, including the local who left her home on foot as fire approached while her 82-year-old father stayed to battle it; the firefighter who drove into the heart of the inferno in his bulldozer; the police officer who switched on his body camera to record what he thought would be his final moments as the flames closed in; and the mother who, less than 12 hours after giving birth in the local hospital, thought she would die in the chaotic evacuation with her baby in her lap. Gee and Anguiano also explain the science of wildfires, write powerfully about the role of the power company PG&E in the blaze, and describe the poignant efforts to raise Paradise from the ruins.
This is the story of a town at the forefront of a devastating global shift—of a remarkable landscape sucked ever drier of moisture and becoming inhospitable even to trees, now dying in their tens of millions and turning to kindling. It is also the story of a lost community, one that epitomized a provincial, affordable kind of Californian existence that is increasingly unattainable. It is, finally, a story of a new kind of fire behavior that firefighters have never witnessed before and barely know how to handle. What happened in Paradise was unprecedented in America. Yet according to climate scientists and fire experts, it will surely happen again.

Thursday, May 21, 2020

In My TBR Stack:

Act of Deception: A Doc Brady Mystery
by John Bishop MD
Mantid Press
Trade Paperback

From the author's website:

Is it medical malpractice, or is the attorney just another ambulance chaser?
It’s 1995, and Houston orthopedic surgeon Dr. Jim Bob Brady has been sued for medical malpractice; a mysterious infection caused a knee replacement to end up as an amputation. Donovan Shaw, a ruthless plaintiff’s attorney, has taken the case and doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that he and Brady share a number of friends. “It’s not personal!” Shaw says. But it feels personal—especially when Shaw threatens, “I will do anything, and I mean anything, to win the case, even if I have to destroy you and that pretty wife of yours. I will stop at nothing. You remember that!”
And Brady isn’t the only one in his practice being sued. How is Shaw getting his inside information? Can the patients afford to say no to filing lawsuits, even if the claims aren’t valid? Through a series of twists and turns, and with the support of his wife Mary Louise and their professional investigator son J. J, Brady once again doggedly goes into “sleuth mode” to get to the truth of the matter—even after his life is put in jeopardy. Will he survive, only to find himself at the mercy of the wild and wooly Houston court system? Is this whole mess his fault? Or is there an act of deception involved?

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

New Release:

America's Secret History: How the Deep State, the Fed, the JFK, MLK, and RFK Assassinations and Much More Led to Donald Trump's Presidency
by Steve Harris
Skyhorse Publishing
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

The Truth Behind the Stories They Don’t Want You to Know

America’s Secret History presents an undistorted picture of the history of the United States.  Never in one volume have so many unknown facts that disprove America’s history books been brought together in a cohesive historical context, all based on verifiable information.
  
  • Utilizing the House of Representative’s little-known 1953 Reece Committee revelations, the Carnegie, Rockefeller, Guggenheim, and Ford foundations have systematically controlled education and the high-level appointees to the US State Department for the last century with the full knowledge and approval of the United States government.
  • Conclusive proof that there has been one attempted coup d’état, and three successful peaceful coups in America’s history, and that all were obvious Deep State initiatives to mold the government into its intended purposes.
  • Twenty-six people owned the same wealth as the poorest 50 percent of the world (almost four billion people in 2020). America’s Secret History shows how the Deep State, the Fed, and world governments caused this to happen.
Not another conspiracy theory book, America’s Secret History reveals The Truth Behind the Stories They Don’t Want You to Know, weaving all of them together to explain just how we find ourselves in Donald Trump’s America.

Monday, May 18, 2020

New Release:

The Wife Stalker
by Liv Constantine
Harper
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Breezing into the upscale seaside paradise of Westport, Connecticut, gorgeous thirtysomething Piper Reynard sets down roots, opening a rehab and wellness space and joining a local yacht club. When she meets Leo Drakos, a handsome, successful lawyer, the wedding ring on his finger is the only thing she doesn’t like about him. Yet as Piper well knows, no marriage is permanent.
Meanwhile, Joanna has been waiting patiently for Leo, the charismatic man she fell in love with all those years ago, to re-emerge from the severe depression that has engulfed him. Though she’s thankful when Leo returns to his charming, energetic self, paying attention again to Evie and Stelli, the children they both love beyond measure, Joanna is shocked to discover that it’s not her loving support that’s sparked his renewed happiness—it’s something else. 
Piper. Leo has fallen head over heels for the flaky, New Age-y newcomer, and unrepentant and resolute, he’s more than willing to leave Joanna behind, along with everything they’ve built. Of course, he assures her, she can still see the children.
Joanna is devastated—and determined to find something, anything, to use against this woman who has stolen her life and her true love. As she digs deeper into Piper’s past, Joanna begins to unearth disturbing secrets . . . but when she confides to her therapist that she fears for the lives of her ex-husband and children, her concerns are dismissed as paranoia. Can she find the proof she needs in time to save them?

Saturday, May 16, 2020

E-Book News:

My One True North
by Milly Johnson
E-book
Simon & Schuster

From the publisher's website:

Laurie and Pete should never have met. But life has a different idea.

Six months ago, on the same night, Laurie and Pete both lost their partners. Overwhelmed by their grief, they join the same counselling group…and change their lives forever.

From their profound sadness, Pete and Laurie begin to find happiness and healing. Except, the more they get to know one another, the more Laurie begins to spot the strange parallels in their stories. Then Pete discovers a truth that changes everything—one which threatens to reverse everything they’ve worked towards.

But, as surely as a compass points north, some people cannot be kept apart.

With Milly Johnson’s signature “warm, optimistic, and romantic” (Katie Forde, bestselling author) style, My One True North is an unforgettable exploration of the power of love, friendship, and hope.





The Magnificent Mrs. Mayhew
E-Book
Simon & Schuster

From the publisher's website:

Behind every successful man is a woman.
Behind the fall of every successful man is usually another woman.

Sophie Mayhew seems to have the perfect life. The glamourous wife of a rising political star who is one step away from the highest position in the government, she matches her husband in looks, pedigree, and money. But he has made some stupid mistakes on his way to the top, and some of those mistakes are just now threatening to emerge. Still, this can all be swept under the rug so long as Sophie the Trophy plays her part in front of the cameras. But the words that tumble out of Sophie’s mouth one morning on the doorstep of their country house are not the words the spin doctors drilled into her head.

Bursting out of the restrictive mold that has been tightening around her since birth, Sophie flees to a small village on the coast, a safe haven from her childhood days, where she intends to be alone. But once there, she finds a community that warms her soul and makes her feel as if she is breathing properly for the first time in her life. Sophie knows she won’t be left in peace for long, though, so she must decide: where does her real future lie?





Friday, May 15, 2020

New Release:

The Story I Am: Mad about the Writing Life
by Roger Rosenblatt
Turtle Point Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Roger Rosenblatt has always been "mad about the writing life." In this new collection, he shares the stories and insights about writing that have inspired him, as a journalist, a columnist for The Washington Post, an essayist for Time magazine and The New Republic, and then as the author of best-selling books like Making Toast, Rules for Aging, Kayak Morning, and Unless It Moves the Human Heart. The new and beloved pieces in The Story I Am: Mad About the Writing Life, drawn from his vast body of work, celebrate the art, the craft, and the soul of writing.

Here are essays and excerpts on the rewards and punishments of the life of a writer, along with thoughts on how to write, what to write, and why writing lies at the heart of human hope and experience. Reviewing Rosenblatt's memoir The Boy Detective in the New York Times Book Review, Pete Hamill said Rosenblatt "writes the way a great jazz musician plays, moving from one emotion to another." For Rosenblatt, writing, like jazz, is the art of improvisation. Rosenblatt writes that "Writing makes justice desirable, evil intelligible, grief endurable, and love possible." In a nutshell, it's worth a life.

Thursday, May 14, 2020

New Release:

Up All Night: Ted Turner, CNN, and the Birth of 24-Hour News
by Lisa Napoli
Abrams Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

How did we get from an age of dignified nightly news broadcasts on three national networks to the age of 24-hour channels and constantly breaking news? The answer—thanks to Ted Turner and an oddball cast of cable television visionaries, big league rejects, and nonunion newbies—can be found in the basement of an abandoned country club in Atlanta. Because it was there, in the summer of 1980, that this motley crew somehow, against all odds, launched CNN.
Lisa Napoli’s Up All Night is an entertaining inside look at the founding of the upstart network that set out to change the way news was delivered and consumed. Mixing media history, a business adventure story, and great characters, Up All Night tells the story of a network that succeeded beyond even the wildest imaginings of its charismatic and uncontrollable founder, and paved the way for the world we live in today.

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

In My TBR Stack:

Saving Sara: A Memoir of Food Addiction
by Sara Somers
She Writes Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

For nearly fifty years, Sara Somers suffered from untreated food addiction. In this brutally honest and intimate memoir, Somers offers readers an inside view of a food addict’s mind, showcasing her experiences of obsessive cravings, compulsivity, and powerlessness regarding food.
Saving Sara chronicles Somers’s addiction from childhood to adulthood, beginning with abnormal eating as a nine-year-old. As her addiction progresses in young adulthood, she becomes isolated, masking her shame and self-hatred with drugs and alcohol. Time and again, she rationalizes why this time will be different, only to have her physical cravings lead to ever-worse binges, to see her promises of doing things differently next time broken, and to experience the amnesia that she—like every addict—experiences when her obsession sets in again.
Even after Somers is introduced to the solution that will eventually end up saving her, the strength of her addiction won’t allow her to accept her disease. Twenty-six more years pass until she finally crawls on hands and knees back to that solution, and learns to live life on life’s terms. A raw account of Somers’s decades-long journey, Saving Sara underscores the challenges faced by food addicts of any age—and the hope that exists for them all.

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

New Release:

One Tough Out Fighting Off Life's Curveballs
by Rod Carew with Jaime Aron
Triumph Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

For a generation of American League baseball fans, Rod Carew was the definition of "batting champion." An insecure boy from Panama raised by a brutal father, Carew ascended to baseball stardom, tormenting pitchers with a smooth swing from a crouched stance and winning seven batting titles on his way to the Hall of Fame. It wasn't until he lost his beautiful 17-year-old daughter to an aggressive and rare form of leukemia that Carew had to re-gather himself and find new purpose outside of baseball. Then he was struck with a near-fatal heart attack and discovered that the heart transplant he received came from a 29-year-old pro football player whom he happened to have met years before. Now the parents of Konrad Reuland listen to their son's heart beating strong in Carew's chest, and Carew works to honor his daughter's wish that he "make a difference." Carew uses his own journey to show readers that regardless of what you may be facing–heart disease, cancer, divorce, an abusive relationship, premature retirement–you can persist and grow with the kind of grace, character, and determination that he learned to cultivate on the field and beyond.

Monday, May 11, 2020

New Release:

24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid
by Willie Mays and John Shea
St. Martins Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

The legendary Willie Mays shares the inspirations and influences responsible for guiding him on and off the field in this reflective and inspirational memoir.
"Even if, like me, you thought you had pretty much read and heard all there was to read and hear about Willie Mays, this warmhearted book will inform and reward you. And besides, what true baseball fan can ever get enough of Willie Mays? Say Hey! Read on and enjoy." From the Foreword by Bob Costas 

“It’s because of giants like Willie that someone like me could even think about running for President.” —President Barack Obama

Widely regarded as the greatest all-around player in baseball history because of his unparalleled hitting, defense and baserunning, the beloved Willie Mays offers people of all ages his lifetime of experience meeting challenges with positivity, integrity and triumph in 24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid.

Presented in 24 chapters to correspond with his universally recognized uniform number, Willie’s memoir provides more than the story of his role in America’s pastime. This is the story of a man who values family and community, engages in charitable causes especially involving children and follows a philosophy that encourages hope, hard work and the fulfillment of dreams.


“I was very lucky when I was a child. My family took care of me and made sure I was in early at night. I didn’t get in trouble. My father made sure that I didn’t do the wrong thing. I’ve always had a special place in my heart for children and their well-being, and John Shea and I got the idea that we should do something for the kids and the fathers and the mothers, and that’s why this book is being published. We want to reach out to all generations and backgrounds. Hopefully, these stories and lessons will inspire people in a positive way.” —Willie Mays

Friday, May 8, 2020

Book Focus:

Moving Beyond Trauma: The Roadmap to Healing from Your Past and Living with Ease and Vitality
by Ilene Smith
Lioncrest Publishing
Trade Paperback

From the author's website:

Trauma to some degree impacts all of us. It is how we resolve it that can be the difference between a life of living and a life of thriving. In my book, I share the profound impacts Somatic Experiencing (SE) had on my own life and my clients.
My book explains what SE is and how you can bring your body into the healing process to truly heal from trauma within. I share assessments, real-life stories and actionable steps to create a life of ease and vitality.

WHAT IS TRAUMA?

Trauma touches everyone in some form or another, whether through an acute situation such as a car accident, or a chronic one like living in an environment filled with conflict. When left unresolved, trauma gets locked in our bodies, resulting in a compromised nervous system that leads to both poor mental and physical health. Whether one is experiencing emotional pain, anxiety, eating disorders, chronic stress, OCD, depression, or any other maladaptive behavior, the cause is often rooted in unresolved trauma.

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

New Release:

Resistance: A Songwriter's Story of Hope, Change, and Courage
by Tori Amos
Atria Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Since the release of her first, career-defining solo album Little Earthquakes, Tori Amos has been one of the music industry’s most enduring and ingenious artists. From her unnerving depiction of sexual assault in “Me and a Gun” to her post-September 11 album, Scarlet’s Walk, to her latest album, Native Invader, her work has never shied away from intermingling the personal with the political.

Amos began playing piano as a teenager for the politically powerful at hotel bars in Washington, DC, during the formative years of the post-Goldwater and then Koch-led Libertarian and Reaganite movements. The story continues to her time as a hungry artist in Los Angeles to the subsequent three decades of her formidable music career. Amos explains how she managed to create meaningful, politically resonant work against patriarchal power structures—and how her proud declarations of feminism and her fight for the marginalized always proved to be her guiding light. She teaches us to engage with intention in this tumultuous global climate and speaks directly to supporters of #MeToo and #TimesUp, as well as young people fighting for their rights and visibility in the world.

Filled with compassionate guidance and actionable advice—and using some of the most powerful, political songs in Amos’s canon—this book is for anyone determined to steer the world back in the right direction.

Monday, May 4, 2020

New Release:

Pelosi
by Molly Ball
Henry Holt
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

She’s the iconic leader who puts Donald Trump in his place, the woman with the toughness to take on a lawless president and defend American democracy. Ever since the Democrats took back the House in the 2018 midterm elections, Nancy Pelosi has led the opposition with strategic mastery and inimitable elan. It’s a remarkable comeback for the veteran politician who for years was demonized by the right and taken for granted by many in her own party—even though, as speaker under President Barack Obama, she deserves much of the credit for epochal liberal accomplishments from universal access to health care to saving the US economy from collapse, from reforming Wall Street to allowing gay people to serve openly in the military. How did an Italian grandmother in four-inch heels become the greatest legislator since LBJ?

Ball’s nuanced, page-turning portrait takes readers inside the life and times of this historic and underappreciated figure. Based on exclusive interviews with the Speaker and deep background reporting, Ball shows Pelosi through a thoroughly modern lens to explain how this extraordinary woman has met her moment.

Friday, May 1, 2020

Coming Soon:

The Lincoln Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill America's 16th President — and Why It Failed
by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch
Flatiron Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Everyone knows the story of Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865, but few are aware of the original conspiracy to kill him four years earlier in 1861, literally on his way to Washington, D.C., for his first inauguration. The conspirators were part of a pro-Southern secret society that didn't want an antislavery President in the White House. They planned an elaborate scheme to assassinate the brand new President in Baltimore as Lincoln's inauguration train passed through en route to the Capitol. The plot was investigated by famed detective Allan Pinkerton, who infiltrated the group with undercover agents, including one of the first female private detectives in America. Had the assassination succeeded, there would have been no Lincoln Presidency, and the course of the Civil War and American history would have forever been altered.