In My TBR Stack:

Reagan: The Life
by H.W. Brands
Doubleday
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

    In his magisterial new biography, H. W. Brands brilliantly establishes Ronald Reagan as one of the two great presidents of the twentieth century, a true peer to Franklin Roosevelt. Reagan conveys with sweep and vigor how the confident force of Reagan’s personality and the unwavering nature of his beliefs enabled him to engineer a conservative revolution in American politics and play a crucial role in ending communism in the Soviet Union. Reagan shut down the age of liberalism, Brands shows, and ushered in the age of Reagan, whose defining principles are still powerfully felt today.

     Reagan follows young Ronald Reagan as his ambition for ever larger stages compelled him to leave behind small-town Illinois to become first a radio announcer and then that quintessential public figure of modern America, a movie star. When his acting career stalled, his reinvention as the voice of The General Electric Theater on television made him an unlikely spokesman for corporate America. Then began Reagan’s improbable political ascension, starting in the 1960s, when he was first elected governor of California, and culminating in his election in 1980 as president of the United States.

     Employing archival sources not available to previous biographers and drawing on dozens of interviews with surviving members of Reagan’s administration, Brands has crafted a richly detailed and fascinating narrative of the presidential years. He offers new insights into Reagan’s remote management style and fractious West Wing staff, his deft handling of public sentiment to transform the tax code, and his deeply misunderstood relationship with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, on which nothing less than the fate of the world turned.

     Reagan is a storytelling triumph, an irresistible portrait of an underestimated politician whose pragmatic leadership and steadfast vision transformed the nation.

On My Radar:

The Millionaire and the Bard: Henry Folger's Obsessive Hunt for Shakespeare's First Folio
by Andrea Mays
Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Today it is the most valuable book in the world. Recently one sold for over five million dollars. It is the book that rescued the name of William Shakespeare and half of his plays from oblivion. The Millionaire and the Bard tells the miraculous and romantic story of the making of the First Folio, and of the American industrialist whose thrilling pursuit of the book became a lifelong obsession.

When Shakespeare died in 1616 half of his plays died with him. No one—not even their author—believed that his writings would last, that he was a genius, or that future generations would celebrate him as the greatest author in the history of the English language. By the time of his death his plays were rarely performed, eighteen of them had never been published, and the rest existed only in bastardized forms that did not stay true to his original language.

Seven years later, in 1623, Shakespeare’s business partners, companions, and fellow actors, John Heminges and Henry Condell, gathered copies of the plays and manuscripts, edited and published thirty-six of them. This massive book, the First Folio, was intended as a memorial to their deceased friend. They could not have known that it would become one of the most important books ever published in the English language, nor that it would become a fetish object for collectors. 

The Millionaire and the Bard is a literary detective story, the tale of two mysterious men—a brilliant author and his obsessive collector—separated by space and time. It is a tale of two cities—Elizabethan and Jacobean London and Gilded Age New York. It is a chronicle of two worlds—of art and commerce—that unfolded an ocean and three centuries apart. And it is the thrilling tale of the luminous book that saved the name of William Shakespeare “to the last syllable of recorded time.”

On My Radar:

City by City: Dispatches from the American Metropolis
edited by Keith Gessen and Stephen Squibb
n+1 / Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

City by City is a collection of essays—historical, personal, often somewhere in between—about the present and future of American cities. It looks at the national rollback in industry that has caused the death of factory towns like Greensboro, North Carolina, and Reading, Pennsylvania. It also looks at the miniature engines of prosperity that have gentrified places like Brooklyn and Boise. In between are stories both telling and strange.  

Providence, Rhode Island, experiences a civic renaissance that disguises lingering corruption in its mobbed-up political system. The two hundred citizens of Whittier, Alaska, are approached about starring in a reality TV show. A would-be savior announces plans for the biggest mall in the world in Syracuse, New York. Meanwhile, racial profiling by the police haunts Cincinnati, Palm Coast, and Baltimore in advance of the protests that will go on to sweep the nation.

A cross between Hunter S. Thompson and Studs Terkel, Slouching Towards Bethlehem and the Depression–era WPA guides to each state in the Union, City by City brings this tradition of American storytelling to the era of our own Great Recession.

On My Radar:

Criminal That I Am: A Memoir
by Jennifer Ridha
Scribner
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

A candid memoir from a talented young lawyer who becomes romantically entangled with the convicted drug felon she represents—Cameron Douglas, son of film actor Michael Douglas—and who soon makes the mistake of her life. Or does she?

Criminal That I Am is a defense attorney’s account of the criminal justice system as seen through the prism of a particular case: her own. Jennifer Ridha is enlisted to defend Cameron Douglas in a federal drug trafficking case while he is incarcerated in a maximum-security prison under difficult, even dangerous, conditions. As media scrutiny and the pressures of Cameron’s case mount and as Jennifer becomes increasingly transfixed by her charismatic but troubled client, he asks her to do the unthinkable: commit a crime. In a decision inexplicable even to herself, guided only by her indignation and infatuation, she agrees. When her transgression is discovered, her criminal case begins, and her life as she knows it is over.

A page-turning trip through professional self-destruction, tabloid scandal, and self-reckoning, Criminal That I Am is about the choices one woman makes: how they define her, how she lives with them, and, ultimately, how she is transformed by them. Recounted with brutal introspection and self-deprecating humor, this strange and twisted love story contemplates what we make of crime and punishment...and what it makes of us.

In My TBR Stack:

How to Be a Man (And Other Illusions)
by Duff McKagan
Da Capo Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

The cofounder of Guns N' Roses, Velvet Revolver, and Walking Papers shares what the hard-knock rock life has taught him about how to be a good dude (in spite of it all).

One wouldn't usually turn to a veteran of Guns N' Roses for advice on how to live, but Duff McKagan is not a typical rock musician. As chronicled in the New York Times bestseller It's So Easy (and other lies), Duff got sober at thirty, went back to school, got smart about money, fell in love, became a father, and got his life back on track. Through trial and considerable error, Duff has learned to strike the balance between family and work, travel and contentment, financial aptitude and sacrifice.

In How to Be a Man (and other illusions), Duff takes the reader into the life of an international rock musician and shares, with disarming candor and humor, the solid life lessons he's learned along the way to success and fulfillment in both his family life and his career. From hard-won advice on such basics as starting with a strong base and staying humble, to techniques on how to stave off depression and transform darker impulses into something productive, How to Be a Man is the ultimate guide to rocking life—not as a dissolute train-wreck "rock star," but as a man destined for success and longevity.

On My Radar:

When to Rob a Bank: … and 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants
by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
William Morrow Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the landmark book Freakonomics comes this curated collection from the most readable economics blog in the universe. It’s the perfect solution for the millions of readers who love all things Freakonomics. Surprising and erudite, eloquent and witty, When to Rob a Bank demonstrates the brilliance that has made the Freakonomics guys an international sensation, with more than 7 million books sold in 40 languages, and 150 million downloads of their Freakonomics Radio podcast.

When Freakonomics was first published, the authors started a blog—and they’ve kept it up. The writing is more casual, more personal, even more outlandish than in their books. In When to Rob a Bank, they ask a host of typically off-center questions: Why don’t flight attendants get tipped? If you were a terrorist, how would you attack? And why does KFC always run out of fried chicken?

Over the past decade, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have published more than 8,000 blog posts on Freakonomics.com. Many of them, they freely admit, were rubbish. But now they’ve gone through and picked the best of the best. You’ll discover what people lie about, and why; the best way to cut gun deaths; why it might be time for a sex tax; and, yes, when to rob a bank. (Short answer: never; the ROI is terrible.) You’ll also learn a great deal about Levitt and Dubner’s own quirks and passions, from gambling and golf to backgammon and the abolition of the penny. 

On My Radar:

The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor
by Mark Schatzker
Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

A lively and important argument from an award-winning journalist proving that the key to reversing America’s health crisis lies in the overlooked link between nutrition and flavor.

In The Dorito Effect, Mark Schatzker shows us how our approach to the nation’s number one public health crisis has gotten it wrong. The epidemics of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes are not tied to the overabundance of fat or carbs or any other specific nutrient. Instead, we have been led astray by the growing divide between flavor—the tastes we crave—and the underlying nutrition. 

Since the late 1940s, we have been slowly leeching flavor out of the food we grow. Those perfectly round, red tomatoes that grace our supermarket aisles today are mostly water, and the big breasted chickens on our dinner plates grow three times faster than they used to, leaving them dry and tasteless. Simultaneously, we have taken great leaps forward in technology, allowing us to produce in the lab the very flavors that are being lost on the farm. Thanks to this largely invisible epidemic, seemingly healthy food is becoming more like junk food: highly craveable but nutritionally empty. We have unknowingly interfered with an ancient chemical language—flavor—that evolved to guide our nutrition, not destroy it.

With in-depth historical and scientific research, The Dorito Effect casts the food crisis in a fascinating new light, weaving an enthralling tale of how we got to this point and where we are headed. We’ve been telling ourselves that our addiction to flavor is the problem, but it is actually the solution. We are on the cusp of a new revolution in agriculture that will allow us to eat healthier and live longer by enjoying flavor the way nature intended.

In My TBR Stack:

The Smartest Book in the World: A Lexicon of Literacy A Rancorous Reportage, A Concise Curriculum of Cool
by Greg Proops
Touchstone Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

From the brazen, bold, and beloved comic and podcast star Greg Proops comes an electrifying, thought-provoking, and unrelenting collection of rapid-fire references, historical name-checking, Satchel Paige bon mots, and genuine wisdom.

Greg Proops is an internationally renowned comedian, best known for starring on the hit improv comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway? and for his popular award-winning podcast, “The Smartest Man in the World,” which Rolling Stone called “some of the boldest comedy on the podcasting frontier right now.” But Proops is also a fountain of historical knowledge, a wealth of pop culture trivia, and a generally charming know-it-all. 

The Smartest Book in the World is based on Proops’s sensational, iTunes Top 10 podcast that has been downloaded more than nine million times, in which his “bold, never-boring voice takes center stage” (The New York Times). The book is a rollicking reference guide to the most essential areas of knowledge in Proops’s universe, from the noteworthy names of the ancient world and baseball, to the movies you must see and the albums you must hear.

Complete with history’s juiciest tales and curious back-stories, Proops expounds on the merits of poetry and proper punctuation, delivering this wealth of information with his signature style and Proopsian panache. An off-beat and exuberant guide to everything, The Smartest Book in the World gives you everything you need to know to always be the smartest person in the room. Well, unless the Proopmaster is there, too.

On My Radar:

The Spy's Son: The True Story of the Highest-Ranking CIA Officer Ever Convicted of Espionage and the Son He Trained to Spy for Russia
by Bryan Denson
Atlantic Monthly Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Investigative reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist Bryan Denson tells the riveting and extraordinary true story of the Nicholsons—father and son co-conspirators who deceived their country by selling national secrets to Russia.

Jim Nicholson was one of the CIA’s top veteran case officers. By day, he taught spycraft at the CIA’s clandestine training center, The Farm. By night, he was a minivan-driving single father racing home to have dinner with his three kids. But Nicholson led a double life. For more than two years, he had met covertly with agents of Russia’s foreign intelligence service in locations around the world and turned over troves of classified documents, including the identities of hundreds of trainees. In 1997, Nicholson became the highest ranking CIA officer ever convicted of espionage. But his duplicity didn’t stop there.

While behind the bars of a federal prison, the former mole systematically groomed the one person he trusted most to serve as his stand-in: his youngest son, Nathan. In his early twenties, deeply depressed after suffering a serious injury during military training, Nathan was easy prey for his father. When Nicholson asked him to courier messages out of prison to his Russian contacts, Nathan saw an opportunity to not only make something of himself but to make his father proud by following him into the spy world.

The Spy’s Son is a fast-paced, thrilling account that takes readers inside the private meeting rooms of the FBI and CIA, into the intrigues of international cat-and-mouse espionage games, and behind the closed doors of a family struggling to stay together through the deepest of betrayals.

In My TBR Stack:

War on the Basepaths: The Definitive Biography of Ty Cobb
by Tim Hornbaker
Sports Publishing
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

During his twenty-four-year career, Ty Cobb was an MVP, Triple Crown-winner, twelve-time batting champion, and was elected in the inaugural ballot for the National Baseball Hall of Fame (along with Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson). As someone who retired from the game over eighty-five years ago, he is still the leader for career batting average, second in runs, hits, and triples, and a mainstay in dozens of other categories.

However, when most people think of “The Georgia Peach,” they’re reminded of his reputation as a “dirty” player. It was said that got so many of his steals because he would sharpen his metal cleats and “spike” the second basemen if they would try to tag him out. It’s also said that he was rude, nasty, a racist, and hated by peers and the press alike.

As author Tim Hornbaker did for Charles Comiskey in Turning the Black Sox White, War on the Basepaths is an unbiased biography of one of the greatest players to ever grace a baseball diamond. Based on detailed research and analysis, Tim Hornbaker offers the full story of Cobb’s life and career; some of which has been altered for almost a century. While he retired in 1928 and passed away in 1961, War on the Basepaths will show how Ty Cobb really was and place readers in the box seats of his incredible life.

On My Radar:

The Bill of Rights: The Fight to Secure America's Liberties
by Carol Berkin
Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

The real story of how the Bill of Rights came to be: a concise, vivid history of political strategy, big egos, and partisan interest that set the terms of the ongoing contest between the federal government and the states.

Revered today for articulating America’s founding principles, the first ten amendments—the Bill of Rights—was in fact a political stratagem executed by James Madison to preserve the Constitution, the Federal government, and the latter’s authority over the states. In the skilled hands of award-winning historian Carol Berkin, the story of the Founders’ fight over the Bill of Rights comes alive in a gripping drama of partisan politics, acrimonious debate, and manipulated procedure. From this familiar story of a Congress at loggerheads, an important truth emerges. 

In 1789, the young nation faced a great ideological divide around a question still unanswered today: should broad power and authority reside in the federal government or should it reside in state governments? The Bill of Rights, from protecting religious freedom and the people’s right to bear arms to reserving unenumerated rights to the states, was a political ploy first, and matter of principle second. How and why Madison came to devise this plan, the divisive debates it fostered in the Congress, and its ultimate success in defeating antifederalist counterplans to severely restrict the powers of the federal government is more engrossing than any of the myths that shroud our national beginnings.

The debate over the founding fathers’ original intent still continues through myriad Supreme Court decisions. By pulling back the curtain on the political, short-sighted, and self-interested intentions of the founding fathers in passing the Bill of Rights, Berkin reveals the inherent weakness in these arguments and what it means for our country today.

On My Radar:

Hotel Life: The Story of a Place Where Anything Can Happen
by Caroline Field Levander and Matthew Pratt Guterl
The University of North Carolina Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

What is a hotel?

 As Caroline Field Levander and Matthew Pratt Guterl show us in this thought-provoking book, even though hotels are everywhere around us, we rarely consider their essential role in our modern existence and how they help frame our sense of who and what we are. They are, in fact, as centrally important as other powerful places like prisons, hospitals, or universities. More than simply structures made of steel, concrete, and glass, hotels are social and political institutions that we invest with overlapping and contradictory meaning. These alluring places uniquely capture the realities of our world, where the lines between public and private, labor and leisure, fortune and failure, desire and despair are regularly blurred. Guiding readers through the story of hotels as places of troublesome possibility, as mazelike physical buildings, as inspirational touchstones for art and literature, and as unsettling, even disturbing, backdrops for the drama of everyday life, Levander and Guterl ensure that we will never think about this seemingly ordinary place in the same way again.

On My Radar:

On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City
by Alice Goffman
University of Chicago Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Forty years in, the War on Drugs has done almost nothing to prevent drugs from being sold or used, but it has nonetheless created a little-known surveillance state in America’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods. Arrest quotas and high-tech surveillance techniques criminalize entire blocks, and transform the very associations that should stabilize young lives—family, relationships, jobs—into liabilities, as the police use such relationships to track down suspects, demand information, and threaten consequences.

Alice Goffman spent six years living in one such neighborhood in Philadelphia, and her close observations and often harrowing stories reveal the pernicious effects of this pervasive policing. Goffman introduces us to an unforgettable cast of young African American men who are caught up in this web of warrants and surveillance—some of them small-time drug dealers, others just ordinary guys dealing with limited choices. All find the web of presumed criminality, built as it is on the very associations and friendships that make up a life, nearly impossible to escape. We watch as the pleasures of summer-evening stoop-sitting are shattered by the arrival of a carful of cops looking to serve a warrant; we watch—and can’t help but be shocked—as teenagers teach their younger siblings and cousins how to run from the police (and, crucially, to keep away from friends and family so they can stay hidden); and we see, over and over, the relentless toll that the presumption of criminality takes on families—and futures.

While not denying the problems of the drug trade, and the violence that often accompanies it, through her gripping accounts of daily life in the forgotten neighborhoods of America's cities, Goffman makes it impossible for us to ignore the very real human costs of our failed response—the blighting of entire neighborhoods, and the needless sacrifice of whole generations.