Now Available:

Escape into Meaning:  Essays on Superman, Public Benches, and Other Obsessions

by Evan Puschak

Atria Books

Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

As YouTube’s The Nerdwriter, Evan Puschak plays the polymath, posing questions and providing answers across a wide range of fields—from the power of a split diopter shot in Toy Story 4 to the political dangers of schadenfreude. Now, he brings that same insatiable curiosity and striking wit to this engaging and unputdownable essay collection.

Perfect for fans of Trick Mirror and the writing of John Hodgman and Chuck Klosterman, Escape into Meaning is a compendium of fascinating insights into obsession. Whether you’re interested in the philosophy of Jerry Seinfeld or how Clark Kent is the real hero, there’s something for everyone in this effervescent collection.

Now Available:

Scenes from My Life:  A Memoir

by Michael K. Williams and Jon Sternfeld

Crown Publishing

Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

When Michael K. Williams died on September 6, 2021, he left behind a career as one of the most electrifying actors of his generation. From his star turn as Omar Little in The Wire to Chalky White in Boardwalk Empire to Emmy-nominated roles in HBO’s The Night Of and Lovecraft Country, Williams inhabited a slew of indelible roles that he portrayed with a rawness and vulnerability that leapt off the screen. Beyond the nominations and acclaim, Williams played characters who connected, whose humanity couldn’t be denied, whose stories were too often left out of the main narrative.

At the time of his death, Williams had nearly finished a memoir that tells the story of his past while looking to the future, a book that merges his life and his life’s work. Mike, as his friends knew him, was so much more than an actor. In Scenes from My Life, he traces his life in whole, from his childhood in East Flatbush and his early years as a dancer to his battles with addiction and the bar fight that left his face with his distinguishing scar. He was a committed Brooklyn resident and activist who dedicated his life to working with social justice organizations and his community, especially in helping at-risk youth find their voice and carve out their future. Williams worked to keep the spotlight on those he fought for and with, whom he believed in with his whole heart.

Imbued with poignance and raw honesty, Scenes from My Life is the story of a performer who gave his all to everything he did—in his own voice, in his own words, as only he could.

Now Available:

The Liar:  How a Double Agent in the CIA Became the Cold War's Last Honest Man

by Benjamin Cunningham

Public Affairs Books

Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

In the mid-1970s, the CIA and KGB watched Karel Koecher closely—they were both convinced he was working for the enemy. And they were both right. Traveling with his wife, Hana, Koecher posed as a Czechoslovak asylum seeker and arrived in the US as a Communist sleeper agent. After parlaying a doctorate from Columbia into a job at the CIA, Koecher proceeded to operate as a double agent at the height of the Cold War.
 
Shunning a low profile, the Koechers embraced Manhattan’s high life—with cocaine, swinging, and parties emblematic of the times and their penchant for risk. Hana, who was no more than a shy teenager when she arrived, grew into a sophisticated international diamond dealer who relayed messages to Karel’s handlers. Riding a wave of euphoria, the Koechers felt unstoppable. But it was too good to last.
 
Using newly declassified documents, interrogation tapes, and extraordinary firsthand accounts from the Koechers themselves, Cunningham reconstructs their double lives and the fading Cold War, where a strange moral fog made it hard to know what truth was being fought for, and to what end.

Now Available:

Still on Fire:  A Memoir

by Renee Linnell

Pink Skeleton Publishing

Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Magic, miracles, travel, and romance—this is where Renee leads you in her long-awaited sequel to The Burn Zone. From love affairs with men half her age, to being rescued by angels, to getting stranded at 22,000 feet in the Himalayas and being electrocuted in the Maldives, Renee takes you on a wild page-turning adventure; sharing with you soul-soothing wisdom she gained along the way.

Where The Burn Zone was an exploration of what happens when we don’t listen to our Inner Guidance, Still on Fire is an exposition of what happens when we do. As Renee courageously takes leap after leap into the unknown, picks up the pieces after being shattered, or recounts hilarious attempts to regain her mojo, you will see yourself in her stories. You will remember it is not only okay, but necessary to try and fail. And your heart will lift as you become reminded of a deep Truth you have always known but may have forgotten along the way—life is magic and anything is possible.

Now Available:

 The Fun Master:  A Father's Journey of Love, Loss, and Learning to Live One Day at a Time

by Jeff Seitzer

SparkPress

Trade Paperback

From the author's website:

A self-involved academic struggling to cope with his own neurological problems, Jeff could hardly take care of himself, let alone a child with special needs, when his son, Ethan, was born. But despite multiple surgeries, hospitalizations, serious breathing and swallowing problems, hearing loss, and a challenging social environment in his first months of life, Ethan thrived—all the while teaching Jeff to take things as they came. And eight years later, the arrival from China of adopted baby sister Penelope took Jeff's on-the-job training to a whole new level.

Ethan's instinct for fun proved the perfect complement to Jeff's determination to live life fully. He died too young, but not before he, Penelope, and their mother, Janet, taught Jeff that the true path to happiness was putting other people's needs before his own—and living in the moment rather than trying to control it.

Now Available:

Beyond Loss in a Pandemic:  Find Hope and Move Through Grief After Someone Close to You Dies

by Linda Donovan

Thought Leadership Success, LLC

Trade Paperback

From the author's website:

After losing someone it can be impossibly difficult to feel whole again, particularly when the loss is unexpected, and in every case there’s an overwhelming sense of uncertainty and isolation.

That’s why Linda Donovan, who provides grief support for hospice, offers a uniquely empathetic approach that’s both compassionate and practical.

In Beyond Loss you can expect to uncover the following:

• Why loss is more challenging now than ever before
• What to expect the first year after loss
• How to work through the grief process
• How to deal with emotional triggers
• How to gain introspective insight from loss
• How to set healthy goals
• How you can expect to feel better over time
• The different types of losses and how that impacts your experience
• How to find happiness again

Linda is both comforting, and inspirational, as she honestly and respectfully taps into her own experiences with loss and those of the families she’s worked with.

You owe it to yourself, and your loved ones.

Learn how to feel better, stay connected with others, and focus on achieving your most important priorities.

Now Available:

If You Lived Here You'd Be Famous By Now:  True Stories from Calabasas

by Via Bleidner

Flatiron Books

Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

For Via Bleidner, transferring to Calabasas High from the private Catholic school she’s attended since second grade is a culture shock, not to mention absolutely lonely. Suddenly thrust into an unfamiliar world of celebrities, affluenza, and McMansions, Via takes a page from Cameron Crowe and pretends she’s on a journalism assignment, taking notes on her classmates and jotting down bits of overheard gossip.

Getting through high school in Calabasas is something else—from Kim Kardashian endorsing the students’ favorite hidden lunch spot, to the theater program hiring a famous dog to play Elle Woods' Chihuahua in its production of Legally Blonde, and Kanye trying to take control of your school to make it the very first YEEZY institution.

But instead of floating through high school detached from her peers, Via finds that putting herself out there—for her writing, of course—just might have been exactly what she needed. She unexpectedly finds an eclectic group of friends to call her own, including a multi-multi-millionaire, a wild-card throwback intent on going viral, a former Disney actor, and a doughnut-dealing madman.

With wit, candor, and sharp observations, twenty-one-year-old Via grounds the surreal glamour of Calabasas with reflections on her own coming-of-age, sharing her teenage misadventures as she struggles to fit in, faces crushing social pressure, and eventually makes her own way.

Now Available:

A  Year of Playing Catch:  What A Simple Daily Experiment Taught Me About Life

by Ethan D. Bryan

Zondervan 

Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Ethan Bryan played and wrote about baseball for years. Then his daughters challenged him to set out on a yearlong experiment: to play catch with someone every day. This experience led him across 10 states and 12,000 miles on a quest both quixotic and inspiring.

Taking you from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to the home of the Daytona Tortugas in Florida, Bryan played ball and swapped stories with public school teachers, veterans, journalists, nurses, musicians, entertainers, entrepreneurs, athletes from every level--amateur to pro--and members of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Plus, he visited famous destinations such as the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Miracle League fields, and the original "Field of Dreams" in Iowa.

But throughout the book, Bryan reveals it's about much more than who he played catch with: it's what he learned from their vastly different stories. Lessons include:

• How play can reignite a fire within you and transform your life
• How to find joy in the simple things
• How one life can impact a whole community
• . . . and more.

For baseball fans and everyone who loves a good story, A Year of Playing Catch is an inspiring journey about finding joy in the simple things, and the power of play to transform our lives.

Now Available in Paperback:

Stolen:  An Adolescence Lost to the Troubled Teen Industry

by Elizabeth Gilpin

Grand Central Publishing

Trade Paperback

 

From the publisher's website:

 

At fifteen, Elizabeth Gilpin was an honor student, a state-ranked swimmer and a rising soccer star, but behind closed doors her undiagnosed depression was wreaking havoc on her life. Growing angrier by the day, she began skipping practices and drinking to excess. At a loss, her parents turned to an educational consultant who suggested Elizabeth be enrolled in a behavioral modification program. That recommendation would change her life forever.

The nightmare began when she was abducted from her bed in the middle of the night by hired professionals and dropped off deep in the woods of Appalachia. Living with no real shelter was only the beginning of her ordeal: she was strip-searched, force-fed, her name was changed to a number and every moment was a test of physical survival. 

After three brutal months, Elizabeth was transferred to a boarding school in Southern Virginia that in reality functioned more like a prison. Its curriculum revolved around a perverse form of group therapy where students were psychologically abused and humiliated. Finally, at seventeen, Elizabeth convinced them she was rehabilitated enough to “graduate” and was released.

In this eye-opening and unflinching book, Elizabeth recalls the horrors she endured, the friends she lost to suicide and addiction, and—years later—how she was finally able to pick up the pieces of her life and reclaim her identity.

Now Available in Paperback:

The Speckled Beauty:  A Dog and His People

by Rick Bragg

Vintage

Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Speck is not a good boy. He is a terrible boy, a defiant, self-destructive, often malodorous boy, a grave robber and screen door moocher who spends his days playing chicken with the Fed Ex man, picking fights with thousand-pound livestock, and rolling in donkey manure, and his nights howling at the moon. He has been that way since the moment he appeared on the ridgeline behind Rick Bragg’s house, a starved and half-dead creature, seventy-six pounds of wet hair and poor decisions.

Speck arrived in Rick’s life at a moment of looming uncertainty. A cancer diagnosis, chemo, kidney failure, and recurring pneumonia had left Rick lethargic and melancholy. Speck helped, and he is helping, still, when he is not peeing on the rose of Sharon. Written with Bragg’s inimitable blend of tenderness and sorrow, humor and grit, The Speckled Beauty captures the extraordinary, sustaining devotion between two damaged creatures who need each other to heal.

Now Available:

The Music Never Stops:  What Putting On 10,000 Shows Has Taught Me Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Magic

by Peter Shapiro with Dean Budnick

Hachette Books

Hardcover

 

From the publisher's website:

 

Peter Shapiro is the best known and most influential concert promoter of his generation. He owned the legendary Wetlands in Tribeca and has gone on to much bigger things, including Brooklyn Bowl (NYC, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, and Nashville), the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, producing U2 3D, and promoting the Grateful Dead’s fiftieth-anniversary tour (“Fare Thee Well”) featuring the Core Four and Trey Anastasio . . . and so much more.

In The Music Never Stops, Shapiro shares the inside story of how he became a power-house in the music industry—an island in an increasingly consolidated landscape of venues, ticketing, and touring—through the lens of fifty iconic concerts. Along the way, readers gain insight into what it was like to work with some of the most celebrated bands in modern music, including not just the Grateful Dead and U2, but also Bob Dylan, Phish, Dave Matthews Band, Al Green, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Jason Isbell, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, The Roots, Robert Plant, Leonard Cohen, and many more.

Featuring never-before-published back-stage anecdotes, insights, and photographs of the biggest bands in the business and the concerts that later became legendary, The Music Never Stops is a perfect guide for any-one who wants to understand the modern live music industry. 

Now Available in Paperback:

Murder in Canaryville:  The True Story Behind a Cold Case and a Chicago Cover-Up

by Jeff Coen

Chicago Review Press

Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

The cold-case murder of John Hughes, the son of a Chicago Outfit member suspected of pulling the trigger, and the efforts of a determined detective to unravel a cover-up The grandson and great-grandson of Chicago police officers, Chicago Police Detective James Sherlock was CPD through-and-through. His career had seen its share of twists and turns, from his time working undercover to thwart robberies on Chicago's L trains to his years as a homicide detective. He thought he had seen it all.  But on this day, he was at the records center to see the case file for the murder of John Hughes, who was seventeen years old when he was gunned down on Chicago's Southwest Side in 1976. The case's threads led everywhere: Police corruption. Hints of the Chicago Outfit. A crooked judge. Even the belief that the cover-up extended to "hizzoner" himself—legendary Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley.  A murder that had roiled the city and had been investigated for years had been reduced to a few reports and photographs. What should have been a massive file with notes and transcripts from dozens of interviews was nowhere to be found. Sherlock could have left the records center without the folder and cruised into retirement, and no one would have noticed.  Instead, he tucked the envelope under his arm and carried it outside.