Now in Paperback:

 Sonic Boom: The Impossible Rise of Warner Bros. Records From Hendrix to Fleetwood Mac to Madonna to Prince

by Peter Ames Carlin

Henry Holt

Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

The roster of Warner Brothers Records and its subsidiary labels reads like the roster of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, James Taylor, Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, Prince, Van Halen, Madonna, Tom Petty, R.E.M., Red Hot Chili Peppers, and dozens of others. But the most compelling figures in the Warner Bros. story are the sagacious Mo Ostin and the unlikely crew of hippies, eccentrics, and enlightened execs. Ostin and his staff transformed an out-of-touch company, revolutionized the industry, and, within just a few years, created the most successful record label in the history of the American music industry.

How did they do it? One day in 1967, the newly tapped label president Mo Ostin called his team together to share his grand strategy: he told them to stop trying to make hit records.

“Let’s just make good records and turn those into hits.”

With that, Ostin ushered in a counterintuitive model that matched the counterculture. His offbeat crew recruited outsider artists and gave them free rein, while rejecting out-of-date methods of advertising, promotion, and distribution. And even as they set new standards for in-house weirdness, the upstarts’ experiments and innovations paid off, to the tune of hundreds of legendary hit albums.

Warner Bros. Records conquered the music business by focusing on the music rather than the business. Their story is as raucous as it is inspiring—pure entertainment that also maps a route to that holy grail: love and money.

On My Radar:

 When A Killer Calls: A Haunting Story of Murder, Criminal Profiling, and Justice in a Small Town

by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker

Dey Streeet Books

Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

 

On May 31, 1985, two days before her high school graduation, Shari Smith was abducted from the driveway of her family home in South Carolina. Based on the crime scene and the abductor’s repeated and taunting calls to the family, law enforcement quickly realized they were dealing with a sophisticated and highly dangerous criminal. A letter arrived the next day entitled “Last Will & Testament,” in which Shari, knowing she was to be murdered, wrote bravely and achingly of her love for her parents, siblings, and boyfriend, saying that while they would miss her, she knew they would persevere through their faith. The abduction rocked her quiet town, triggering a massive manhunt and bringing in the FBI, which enlisted profiler John Douglas. A few days later, a phone call told the family where they could find Shari’s body.

Then nine-year-old Debra May Helmick was kidnapped from her yard, confirming the harsh realization that Smith’s murder was no random act. A serial killer was evolving, and the only way to stop him would be to use the study of criminal behavior to anticipate his next move before he could kill again. Douglas devised a risky and emotionally fraught strategy to use Shari’s lookalike older sister Dawn as bait to draw out the unknown subject. Dawn and her parents courageously agreed.

One of the most haunting investigations of Douglas’s storied career, this case details how the eerily accurate profile he created—alongside his carefully crafted and stage-managed manipulation of the killer’s psychology—combined with dedicated police work and cutting-edge forensic science to end a reign of criminal terror. As Shari’s family took incredible personal risks to lure her killer from the shadows, Douglas and the FBI pushed criminal profiling to its limits, culminating in one of his most dramatic and effective confrontations with a sadistic and remorseless killer.

 

In My TBR Stack:

 All Are Welcome: How to Build a Real Workplace Culture of Inclusion That Delivers Results

by Cynthia Owyoung

McGraw Hill

Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Studies prove that companies with more diversity in their ranks are more innovative, expand their markets, and perform better financially. Why, then, has so little progress been made, especially when it comes to corporate leadership? Because most companies have yet to develop and implement effective diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) initiatives. And the ones that have too often focus mainly on hiring a diversity of staff or rolling out unconscious bias training without improving results. 

DEIB expert Cynthia Owyoung has spent more than two decades working in this space. She’s seen it all, and she knows what works—and what doesn’t. In All Are Welcome, Owyoung explains what DEIB is and why it matters, and she delivers the information and insights you need to make DEIB a key element of your company culture. You’ll learn how to:

• Break old habits that keep DEIB efforts from moving forward
• Retain talent from underrepresented groups 
• Conduct an audit of the state of DEIB at your company today
• Engage and excite leaders and managers around DEIB efforts
• Weave DEIB into all your talent pool management methods
• Uplevel employee resource groups to effectively support business goals 
• Measure your progress with qualitative and quantitative data
• Connect your DEIB efforts to driving better business results

DEIB begins but doesn’t end with hiring. When you deeply understand all the nuances of diversity, equity, inclusiveness, and belonging, you’ll be able to put them all together for a better, more productive, and happier workplace. 

With All Are Welcome, you have everything you need to build a workforce and a company designed to compete in the twenty-first century while doing your part to make the world a better place to live—and work.

BookSpin Excerpt:

Excerpt from:

Inhuman Trafficking: A Legal Thriller

by Mike Papantonio and Alan Russell

Skyhorse Publishing

Hardcover

                I

The unfamiliar red Mustang pulled up alongside Lily Reyes, matching her pace as she walked on the sidewalk. Lily didn’t like the feeling of being stalked. She began walking faster, and looked around to see if any- one was outside. The Tallahassee heat and humidity had the neighborhood looking like a ghost town; everyone was at work or had retreated inside their air-conditioned homes. The Mustang continued to creep along and pace her. Its windows were tinted, only offering her a general outline of the male driver wearing a baseball cap.

Maybe I should run up to a house and ring the doorbell, Lily thought. But what if no one was home, and her stalker took that opportunity to come after her?

The car came to a hard stop right next to her. As the passenger window inched downward, Lily took a breath to scream.

“You getting in?”

“Oh, god,” she said, blowing out pent-up air. “I thought you were like some disgusting creep. Where’d you get the car?”

“Borrowed it from a friend.”

Lily opened the passenger door, tossed her backpack inside, and got comfortable in her seat. The cooling AC blew over her. “Nice ride. Must be a good friend to let you borrow it.”

“It’s a business thing.”

Lily decided not to press him for answers. Carlos never liked it when she asked too many questions, and she didn’t want him getting uptight. He seemed distracted about something. Why, he’d barely looked at her. 

Lily was kind of hoping he would have noticed how she’d dressed up for him.

“I thought you were going to pick me up at Subway,” Lily said.

“Decided to spare you the walk.”

Lily’s mom, Sylvia, didn’t know about Carlos. No one knew about him, except for Lily’s best friend, Madison, and even she wasn’t supposed to know anything. Carlos was paranoid about being busted. When Lily had first started dating him, she’d lied about her age, telling him she was eighteen. It was only after they’d been going together for a month that Lily admitted she was only fifteen. Of course, she hadn’t been the only one stretching the truth. When they’d first hooked up, Carlos had said he was nineteen, not the twenty-one he really was.

“Did you bring some change of clothes?” Carlos asked.

“In the backpack, even though you never explained why I needed them.”

“Always nice to have options.”

“Where we going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

Lily tried to play it cool, and hid her smile. Madison seemed to think that Carlos was just using her, but she didn’t know him like Lily did.

“Stopped and got you a wild cherry Slurpee,” he said. “Better drink it before it melts.”

He had remembered her favorite drink. She would certainly mention that to Madison. Lily reached for the Slurpee, and took a long sip.

“Want some?” she asked.

“Not without adding some rum.” “I’m okay with that.”

“Maybe later.”

Carlos liked to party, and liked it even more when Lily joined in with him. She had to be careful, though. Her mom was always in her business.

As if reading her mind, Carlos said, “How long did your mom let you off the leash?”

“I told her I’d probably be eating dinner at Madison’s.”

 

“That gives us a little time.”

“Sure does,” she said.

Lily reached out her hand, and ran it along his leg. Carlos needed to see she was grown-up, and not some kid, but instead of positioning her hand on him like he usually did, Carlos acted preoccupied. Maybe he was just in one of his moods.

She withdrew her hand and began drinking her Slurpee. “Sure you don’t want some?”

He shook his head, and she continued to sip. Halfway through the cup, Lily’s skin began tingling.

“I feel weird,” she said.

“We can get some fresh air at Cascades Park.” “Is that where we’re going?”

Carlos nodded. He still wasn’t looking at her, and seemed unusually attentive to his driving, continually checking the rearview and side mirrors.

“It feels like we’re floating,” she said.

Lily flapped the hand not holding her drink. “I’m flying. Whoa.”

Something wasn’t right. Why was she feeling out of it? Her gaze fell to the Slurpee. One look, and the pieces came together. Lily’s accusation was shrill: “You put something in my drink!”

“Relax. I just made you a Molly and benzo cocktail to help loosen you up.”

Lily tried to process her panic, along with Carlos’s explanation. She wanted to feel reassured, but didn’t. One by one, words emerged from her mouth. Each syllable felt as if it were weighted down on her tongue. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted you to be calm while I explained a few things.”

“Oh, shit.” This was bad. “You’re breaking up with me.”

“No, baby, never.”

Lily struggled to find the words, and speak them. “We’re. Still. Together?”

“Forever, baby. It’s just that things didn’t work out with my big plan. Remember we talked about that?”

“Big score.”

 

“That’s right. And it would have been, but my luck went bad, really bad.”

Lily managed to say, “That’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay. Everything went to shit. It put me in the hole for almost five thousand bucks.”

“I can help you . . .”

Lily had earned almost two hundred dollars babysitting. She’d give it to him. But Carlos interrupted before she could finish.

“Thank you, baby. I knew I could count on you. They were going to mess me up bad, maybe even kill me. You were my only hope.”

Lily tried to follow what he was saying, but her brain couldn’t find its balance. Everything was hazy.

“After you work off my marker, baby, we’ll get back together. I promise.”

“Don’t understand.”

“A guy I know fronted the money I owed, but he needed collateral.” “What?”

“I had to put up something of value. And nothing’s more valuable to me than you. I love you.”

Lily had been waiting for a long time to hear those words. But now they sounded wrong. Felt wrong. Love?

Carlos said, “You’re a lifesaver. It will just be for a few months. And when you come back to me, things will be better than ever between us.”

Too dizzy to support her chin, Lily’s face dropped down to her chest. Talking was beyond her. She didn’t know how long they drove, and was barely aware when they came to a stop. She heard two men talking, but it was like listening in to a dream.

“Is she good to go?”

Lily had never heard that voice before. She would have remembered it if she had. There was something scary about it, a rasp with a serrated edge.

“She agreed to work off what I owe.”

“You explain what would happen to you if she didn’t?”

 “I told her.”

“Okay, then. I’ll find you if there’s a problem. Count on it. Give me the keys.”

 

Lily heard retreating footsteps. Carlos didn’t say goodbye. There was a part of her that was still listening for his voice, that wanted him to declare his love for her once more.

She couldn’t lift her head to acknowledge the new occupant of the driver’s seat, but heard the ugly voice.

“Hey, pretty lady,” he said. “I’m your Tío Leo.”

 

(Excerpt reprinted with permisson. Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved)

 

 

 

In My TBR Stack:

Finding Normal: Sex, Love, and Taboo in Our Hyperconnected World

by Alexa Tsoulis-Reay

St. Martin's Press

Hardcover


From the publisher's website:



Finding Normal explores how people are using the internet to find community, forge connections, and create identity in ways that challenge a variety of sexual norms. Based on a highly candid interview series conducted for New York magazine's human science column—"What It's Like"—each story in Finding Normal intimately immerses the reader in the world of a person who is grappling with a unique set of circumstances relating to sexuality.

Finding Normal at once celebrates the power of our evolving media landscape for helping people rewrite the script for their lives and offers a wanring about the danger of that seemingly limitless freedom. Tsoulis-Reay shows the enduring power of the search for belonging—for humans and society. Like happiness of life purpose, finding normal is perhaps the definitive human struggle.

On My Radar:

The Doomsday Mother: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and the End of an American Family
by John Glatt
St. Martin's Press
Hardcover


From the publisher's website:

At first, the residents of Kauai Beach Resort took little notice of their new neighbors. The glamorous blonde and her tall husband fit the image of the ritzy gated community. The couple seemed to keep to themselves—until the police knocked on their door with a search warrant. Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell had fled to Hawaii in the midst of being investigated for the disappearance of Lori’s children back in Idaho—Tylee and JJ—who hadn’t been seen alive in five months.

For years, Lori Vallow had been devoted to her children and her Mormon faith. But when her path crossed with Chad Daybell, a religious zealot who taught his followers how to prepare for the end-times, the tumultuous relationship transformed her into someone unrecognizable. As authorities searched for Lori’s children, they uncovered more suspicious deaths with links to both Lori and Chad, including the death of Lori’s third and fourth husbands, her brother, and Chad’s wife. In June 2020, the gruesome remains of JJ and Tylee were discovered on Chad’s property, and the newlyweds were arrested and charged with murder. And in a shocking development, horrifying statements revealed that the couple’s fanatical beliefs had convinced them the children had become zombies--a belief that may have led to their deaths.

Bestselling author and journalist John Glatt takes readers deeper into the devastating story of Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell in an attempt to unravel the lethal relationship of this doomsday couple.

On My Radar:

Putting the Rabbit in the Hat: A Memoir

by Brian Cox

Grand Central Publishing

Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

From Hannibal Lecktor in Manhunter to media magnate Logan Roy in HBO's Succession, Brian Cox has made his name as an actor of unparalleled distinction and versatility. We are familiar with him on screen, but few know of his extraordinary life story. Growing up in Dundee, Scotland, Cox lost his father when he was just eight years old and was brought up by his three elder sisters in the aftermath of his mother's nervous breakdowns and ultimate hospitalization. After joining the Dundee Repertory Theatre at the age of fifteen, you could say the rest is history — but that is to overlook the enormous effort that has gone into the making of the legend we know today.

Rich in emotion and meaning, with plenty of laughs along the way, this seminal autobiography captures both Cox's distinctive voice and his very soul.

On My Radar:

Tim: The Official Biography of Avicii
by Mans Mosesson
Mobius Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

The intimate biography of the iconic DJ who was lost too soon.

Tim Bergling was a musical visionary who, through his sense for melodies, came to define the era when Swedish and European house music took over the world.

But Tim Bergling was also an introverted and fragile young man who was forced to grow up at an inhumanly fast pace. After a series of emergencies resulting in hospital stays, he stopped touring in the summer of 2016. Barely two years later, he took his own life.

Tim - The Biography of Avicii is written by the award-winning journalist Måns Mosesson, who through interviews with Tim's family, friends and colleagues in the music business, has intimately gotten to know the star producer. The book paints an honest picture of Tim and his search in life, not shying from the difficulties that he struggled with.

On My Radar:

This Will Be Funny Later
by Jenny Pentland
Harper Books
Hardcover


From the publisher's website:

Growing up, Jenny Pentland’s life was a literal sitcom. Many of the storylines for her mother’s smash hit series, Roseanne, were drawn from Pentland’s early family life in working-class Denver. But that was only the beginning of the drama. Roseanne Barr’s success as a comedian catapulted the family from the Rockies to star-studded Hollywood—with its toxic culture of money, celebrity, and prying tabloids that was destabilizing for a child in grade school.

By adolescence, Jenny struggled with anxiety and eating issues. Her parents and new stepfather, struggling to help, responded by sending Jenny and her siblings on a grand tour of the self-help movement of the ’80s—from fat camps to brat camps, wilderness survival programs to drug rehab clinics (even though Jenny didn’t take drugs). Becoming an adult, all Jenny wanted was to get married and have kids, despite Roseanne’s admonishments not to limit herself to being just a wife and mother.

In this scathingly funny and moving memoir, Pentland reveals what it’s like to grow up as the daughter of a television star and how she navigated the turmoil, eventually finding her own path. Now happily married and raising five sons on a farm, Pentland has worked tirelessly to create the stable family she never had, while coming to terms at last with her deep-seated anxiety.

This Will Be Funny Later is a darkly funny and frank chronicle of transition, from childhood to adulthood and motherhood—one woman’s journey to define herself and create the life she always wanted.

Coming Soon:

At Heaven's Door: What Shared Journeys to the Afterlife Teach About Dying Well and Living Better

Available January 18th, 2022

by William J. Peters

Simon & Schuster

Hardcover

From the publisher's website:



In 2000, end-of-life therapist William Peters was volunteering at the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco when he had an extraordinary experience as he was reading aloud to a patient: he suddenly felt himself floating in midair, completely out of his body. The patient, who was also aloft, looked at him and smiled. The next moment, Peters felt himself return to his body…but the patient never regained consciousness and died.

Perplexed and stunned by what had happened, Peters began searching for other people who’d shared similar experiences. He would spend the next twenty years gathering and meticulously categorizing their stories to identify key patterns and features of what is now known as the “shared crossing” experience. The similarities, which cut across continents and cultures and include awe-inspiring visual and sensory effects, and powerful emotional after-effects, were impossible to ignore.

Long whispered about in the hospice and medical communities, these extraordinary moments of final passage are openly discussed and explained in At Heaven’s Door. The book is filled with powerful tales of spouses on departing this earth after decades together and bereaved parents who share their children’s entry into the afterlife. Applying rigorous research, Peters digs into the effect these shared crossing experiences impart—liberation at the sight of a loved one finding joy, a sense of reconciliation if the relationship was fraught—and explores questions like: What can explain these shared death experiences? How can we increase our likelihood of having one? What do these experiences tell us about what lies beyond? And, most importantly, how can they help take away the sting of death and better prepare us for our own final moments? How can we have both a better life and a better death?

On My Radar:

The Hag: The Life, Times, and Music of Merle Haggard

by Marc Eliot

Hachette Books

Hardcover



From the publisher's website:

Merle Haggard was one of the most important country music musicians who ever lived. His astonishing musical career stretched across the second half of the 20th Century and into the first two decades of the next, during which he released an extraordinary 63 albums, 38 that made it on to Billboard's Country Top Ten, 13 that went to #1, and 37 #1 hit singles. With his ample songbook, unique singing voice and brilliant phrasing that illuminated his uncompromising commitment to individual freedom, cut with the monkey of personal despair on his back and a chip the size of Monument Valley on his shoulder, Merle's music and his extraordinary charisma helped change the look, the sound, and the fury of American music.

The Hag tells, without compromise, the extraordinary life of Merle Haggard, augmented by deep secondary research, sharp detail and ample anecdotal material that biographer Marc Eliot is known for, and enriched and deepened by over 100 new and far-ranging interviews. It explores the uniquely American life of an angry rebellious boy from the wrong side of the tracks bound for a life of crime and a permanent home in a penitentiary, who found redemption through the music of "the common man."

Merle Haggard's story is a great American saga of a man who lifted himself out of poverty, oppression, loss and wanderlust, to catapult himself into the pantheon of American artists admired around the world. Eliot has interviewed more than 100 people who knew Haggard, worked with him, were influenced by him, loved him or hated him. The book celebrates the accomplishments and explore the singer's infamous dark side: the self-created turmoil that expressed itself through drugs, women, booze, and betrayal. The Hag offers a richly anecdotal narrative that will elevate the life and work of Merle Haggard to where both properly belong, in the pantheon of American music and letters.

The Hag is the definitive account of this unique American original, and will speak to readers of country music and rock biographies alike.

On My Radar:

Lightning Striking: Ten Transformative Moments in Rock and Roll

by Lenny Kaye

Ecco Books

Hardcover


From the publisher's website:

Memphis, 1954. New Orleans 1957. Philadelphia 1959. Liverpool, 1962. San Francisco 1967. Detroit 1969. New York, 1975. London 1977. Los Angeles 1984 / Norway 1993. Seattle 1991.

Rock and roll was birthed in basements and garages, radio stations and dance halls, in cities where unexpected gatherings of artists and audience changed and charged the way music is heard and celebrated, capturing lightning in a bottle. Musician and writer Lenny Kaye explores ten crossroads of time and place that define rock and roll, its unforgettable flashpoints, characters and visionaries, how each generation came to be, how it was discovered by the world. Whether describing Elvis Presley’s Memphis, the Beatles’ Liverpool, Patti Smith’s New York or Kurt Cobain’s Seattle, Lightning Striking reveals the communal energy that creates a scene, a guided tour inside style and performance, to see who’s on stage, along with the movers and shakers, the hustlers and hangers-on, and why everybody is listening.

Grandly sweeping and minutely detailed, informed by Kaye’s acclaimed knowledge and experience as a working musician, Lightning Striking is an ear-opening insight into our shared musical and cultural history, a carpet ride of rock and roll’s most influential movements and moments.

On My Radar:

The Rise: Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality

by Mike Sielski

St. Martin's Press

Hardcover


From the publisher's website:

Kobe Bryant’s death in January 2020 did more than rattle the worlds of sports and celebrity. The tragedy of that helicopter crash, which also took the life of his daughter Gianna, unveiled the full breadth and depth of his influence on our culture, and by tracing and telling the oft-forgotten and lesser-known story of his early life, The Rise promises to provide an insight into Kobe that no other analysis has.

In The Rise, readers will travel from the neighborhood streets of Southwest Philadelphia—where Kobe’s father, Joe, became a local basketball standout—to the Bryant family’s isolation in Italy, where Kobe spent his formative years, to the leafy suburbs of Lower Merion, where Kobe’s legend was born. The story will trace his career and life at Lower Merion—he led the Aces to the 1995-96 Pennsylvania state championship, a dramatic underdog run for a team with just one star player—and the run-up to the 1996 NBA draft, where Kobe’s dream of playing pro basketball culminated in his acquisition by the Los Angeles Lakers.

In researching and writing The Rise, Mike Sielski had a terrific advantage over other writers who have attempted to chronicle Kobe’s life: access to a series of never-before-released interviews with him during his senior season and early days in the NBA. For a quarter century, these tapes and transcripts preserved Kobe’s thoughts, dreams, and goals from his teenage years, and they contained insights into and told stories about him that have never been revealed before.

This is more than a basketball book. This is an exploration of the identity and making of an icon and the effect of his development on those around him—the essence of the man before he truly became a man.

On My Radar:

Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom

by Carl Bernstein

Henry Holt

Hardcover

From the publisher's website:



In 1960, Bernstein was just a sixteen-year-old at considerable risk of failing to graduate high school. Inquisitive, self-taught—and, yes, truant—Bernstein landed a job as a copyboy at the Evening Star, the afternoon paper in Washington. By nineteen, he was a reporter there.

In Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom, Bernstein recalls the origins of his storied journalistic career as he chronicles the Kennedy era, the swelling civil rights movement, and a slew of grisly crimes. He spins a buoyant, frenetic account of educating himself in what Bob Woodward describes as “the genius of perpetual engagement.”

Funny and exhilarating, poignant and frank, Chasing History is an extraordinary memoir of life on the cusp of adulthood for a determined young man with a dogged commitment to the truth.

In My TBR Stack:

Treachery Times Two: A Koa Kane Hawaiian Mystery
by Robert McCaw
Oceanview Publishing
Hardcover


From the publisher's website:

On Hawaii Island, a volcanic earthquake disrupts an abandoned cemetery—unearthing the body of a woman mutilated by her killer to conceal her identity.

The search for her identity leads Hilo Hawaii’s Chief Detective Koa Kane to a mysterious defense contractor with a politically connected board of directors. Defying his chief of police, Koa pursues the killer, only to become entangled in an FBI espionage investigation of Deimos, a powerful secret military weapon. Is the FBI telling all it knows—or does it, too, have a duplicitous agenda?

At the same time, Koa—a cop who thirty years earlier killed his father’s nemesis and covered up the murder—faces exposure by the dead man’s grandson. Koa is forced to investigate his own homicide, and step by step, his cover-up unravels until another man is falsely accused.

Can Koa stand by and let an innocent man pay for his crime?

In My TBR Stack:

Nailing It: How History's Awesome Twentysomethings Got It Together
by Robert L. Dilenschneider
Citadel Press
Trade Paperback


From the publisher's website:

Do you think Albert Einstein had his act together by his mid-20s? Think again. Would you assume style icon and humanitarian Audrey Hepburn's life was always as beautiful as she was? Far from it. At the other end of the spectrum is the revolutionary Steve Jobs, who was at the top of his game by age 25. But Jobs's beginnings were marked by his adoption, displacement, bullying, and then a rocky personal life. This absorbing book examines the trajectories of 25 iconic figures—from Toni Morrison to Albert Einstein and Golda Meir to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart—to reveal where they were in their lives in their mid-twenties and the choices that enabled them to make their historic marks.

For those who are coming of age now, and for those who care about them and their futures, these captivating profiles provide inspiration, instruction, and encouragement.

In My TBR Stack:

Heart Medicine: How to Stop Painful Patterns and Find Peace and Freedom — at Last
by Radhule Weininger, MD, PhD
Shambhala Publications
Trade Paperback


From the publisher's website:

Do you ever feel trapped by experiencing challenging feelings over and over again—sometimes without realizing it? Or do you find yourself thinking "Why is this happening to me again?" or "Why do I always feel this way?" You're not alone. With Heart Medicine, you can learn to identify your emotional and behavioral patterns through the lens of loving awareness—without self-judgment or blame, learning to hold yourself as you would a dear friend, with space and grace.

Radhule Weininger draws on decades of experience as a therapist and meditation teacher to help readers understand the trauma behind their patterns, then offers twelve simple steps to work towards healing. Each chapter features short practices so readers can begin to put the book's concepts to work for transformation in their own lives. With Heart Medicine you can finally be equipped with the tools to break through the patterns that hold you back and begin to live with more freedom, confidence, and peace. And that's good medicine, indeed.

On My Radar:

It Could Happen Here: Why America is Tipping from Hate to the Unthinkable — and How We Can Stop It
by Jonathan Greenblatt
Mariner Books
Hardcover, ebook, E-Audio, and audio


From the publisher's website:

It’s almost impossible to imagine that unbridled hate and systematic violence could come for us or our families. But it has happened in our lifetimes in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. And it could happen here.

Today, as CEO of the storied ADL (the Anti-Defamation League), Jonathan Greenblatt has made it his personal mission to demonstrate how antisemitism, racism, and other insidious forms of intolerance can destroy a society, taking root as quiet prejudices but mutating over time into horrific acts of brutality. In this urgent book, Greenblatt sounds an alarm, warning that this age-old trend is gathering momentum in the United States—and that violence on an even larger, more catastrophic scale could be just around the corner.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Drawing on ADL’s decades of experience in fighting hate through investigative research, education programs, and legislative victories as well as his own personal story and his background in business and government, Greenblatt offers a bracing primer on how we—as individuals, as organizations, and as a society—can strike back against hate. Just because it could happen here, he shows, does not mean that the unthinkable is inevitable.