Oops! I just realized I never scheduled tonight’s diary. Here I am! Sorry I’m late.
- John Lewis: A Life, by David Greenberg. A comprehensive, authoritative biography of Civil Rights icon John Lewis, “the conscience of the Congress,” drawing on interviews with Lewis and approximately 275 others who knew him at various stages of his life, as well as never-before-used FBI files and documents. Thoroughly researched and dramatically told, Greenberg’s biography captures John Lewis’s influential career through documents from dozens of archives, interviews with hundreds of people who knew Lewis, and long-lost footage of Lewis himself speaking to reporters from his hospital bed following his severe beating on “Bloody Sunday” in Selma. With new details about his personal and professional relationships, John Lewis: A Life is the definitive biography of a man whose heroism during the Civil Rights movement helped to bring America a new birth of freedom. “John Lewis: A Life is a book especially for these challenging times when so much of Black history is under attack. David Greenberg’s book provides the kind of in-depth history that spells out in vivid detail how obstacles are overcome via people like John and the many others chronicled in the book. A much needed roadmap to the effort John embraced—to ‘make America one.’””—Charlayne Hunter Gault
- Unredacted: Russia, Trump, and the Fight for Democracy, by Christopher Steele. The intelligence officer behind the explosive “Steele Dossier” steps out of the shadows, revealing a searing new report on the threat Putin and Trump pose to democracy, based on alarming intelligence exposed in these pages for the first time. To a unique degree, Christopher Steele has been an eyewitness observer of modern Russian history. He was a British diplomat and intelligence professional in Moscow when the Soviet Union was collapsing. Steele was there when the putsch against Mikhail Gorbachev took place and when Boris Yeltsin took over the newly independent Russia. After Vladimir Putin came to power, Steele rose to become one of British government’s leading Russia experts and played a central role in the investigation into the Kremlin-ordered murder of Alexander Litvinenko. Then, in 2016, he wrote a series of explosive reports about the then presidential candidate Donald Trump and his links to Russia. Now known to the world as the “Steele Dossier,” these intelligence documents drew the world’s attention to Russia’s relationship with Trump—and reluctantly thrust Steele into the center of a global maelstrom.
Since Trump’s election, he has quietly continued his work. Indeed, Steele has had even better access to sources of information and intelligence on Russia—ones that have given him a privileged view of what’s going on inside the Kremlin, and how much we in the West should worry about it.
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Vigilante Nation: How State-Sponsored Terror Threatens Our Democracy, by Jon Michaels and David Noll. Two legal scholars expose the MAGA Republican strategy to roll back civil, political, and privacy rights and subvert American democracy—and prescribe a plan for beating the Christian nationalists at their own game. Time and again, when confronted with serious challenges to their power and privilege, white Christian nationalists seek solace—and satisfaction—in state-supported forms of vigilantism. This was true at the dawn of the American republic, when Northern abolitionists threatened the Southern slavocracy. It was also true in the aftermath of the Civil War, when emancipated Black Americans and their Northern allies sought to fulfill the promises of Reconstruction. And though this pattern was seemingly broken after the Civil Rights revolution of the 1950s and ’60s—and abandoned once and for all—legal vigilantism has made a surprising, roaring comeback in the months and years following the failed coup of January 6, 2021.
Committed to never again losing power, let alone experiencing the humiliation that followed on the heels of the ham-fisted insurrection, overlapping networks of right-wing lawyers, politicians, plutocrats, and preachers have resurrected state-supported vigilantism.
- The Anti-Ableist Manifesto: Smashing Stereotypes, Forging Change, and Building a Disability-Inclusive World, by Tiffany Yu. As the Asian American daughter of immigrants, living with PTSD, and sustaining a permanent arm injury at age nine, Tiffany Yu is well aware of the intersections of identity that affect us all. She navigated the male-dominated world of corporate finance as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs before founding Diversability, an award-winning community business run by disabled people building disability pride, power, and leadership, and creating the viral Anti-Ableism series on TikTok.
Organized from personal to professional, domestic to political, Me to We to Us, The Anti-Ableist Manifesto frames context for conversations, breaks down the language of ableism, identifies microaggressions, and offers actions that lead to authentic allyship.
- The World in Books: 52 Works of Great Short Nonfiction, by Kenneth C. Davis. A delightful, inspiring, and idea-rich selection of fifty-two of the best, most important short nonfiction works of all time—from Plato to Michael Pollan and Dante to Joan Didion. From ancient times to the present day, The World in Books offers a wide-ranging historical education through pleasure reading—and a fantastic introduction to some of the most thought-provoking, profound, and interesting nonfiction works of all time. From Sun Tzu’s The Art of War to bell hooks’s All About Love, as well as such recent classics as Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists, Davis’s guide suggests a world of nonfiction books and explains just why they’re so historically meaningful and culturally relevant today. “In an age of screens, AI, and shrinking attention spans, a good book is more important and valuable than ever… A wealth of succinct, entertaining advice.” —Kirkus Reviews
- Wild Chocolate: Across the Americas in Search of Cacao's Soul, by Rowan Jacobsen. When Rowan Jacobsen first heard of a chocolate bar made entirely from wild Bolivian cacao, he was skeptical. The waxy mass-market chocolate of his childhood had left him indifferent to it, and most experts believed wild cacao had disappeared from the rainforest centuries ago. But one dazzling bite of Cru Sauvage was all it took. Chasing chocolate down the supply chain and back through history, Jacobsen travels the rainforests of the Amazon and Central America to find the chocolate makers, activists, and indigenous leaders who are bucking the system that long ago abandoned wild and heirloom cacao in favor of high-yield, low-flavor varietals preferred by Big Chocolate. Full of vivid characters, vibrant landscapes, and surprising history, Wild Chocolate promises to be as rich, complex, and addictive as good chocolate itself. “An amazing adventure through forests, down rivers, and into the depths of history to uncover the beauty and culture of cacao, truly the food of the gods. Rowan Jacobsen is a master storyteller, and Wild Chocolate tells one of the best stories under the sun.” —José Andres, chef and humanitarian
- The Driving Machine: A Design History of the Car, by Witold Rybczynski.
In this lively and entertaining work, Witold Rybczynski tells the story of the most distinctive cars in history and the artists, engineers, dreamers, and gearheads who created them. Delving into more than 170 years of ingenuity in design, technology, and engineering, he takes us from Carl Benz’s three-wheel motorcar in 1855 to the present-day shift to electric cars. Along the way, he looks at the emergence of mass production with Henry Ford’s Model T; the Golden Age of American car design and the rise of car culture; postwar European subcompacts typified by the Mini Cooper; and the long tradition of the streamlined and elegant sports car.
Rybczynski explores how cars have been reflections of national character (the charming Italian Fiat Cinquecento), icons of a subculture (the VW bus for American hippies), and even emblems of an era (the practical Chrysler minivan). He explains key developments in automotive technology, including the electric starter, rack-and-pinion steering, and disc brakes, bringing to light how the modern automobile is the result of more than a century of trial and error. And he weaves in charming accounts of the many cars he’s owned and driven, starting with his first—the iconic Volkswagen Beetle.
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Ghosts of Crook County: An Oil Fortune, a Phantom Child, and the Fight for Indigenous Land, by Russell Cobb. In the early 1900s, at the dawn of the “American Century,” few knew the intoxicating power of greed better than white men on the forefront of the black gold rush. When oil was discovered in Oklahoma, these counterfeit tycoons impersonated, defrauded, and murdered Native property owners to snatch up hundreds of acres of oil-rich land. Writer and fourth-generation Oklahoman Russell Cobb sets the stage for one such oilman’s chicanery: Tulsa entrepreneur Charles Page’s campaign for a young Muscogee boy’s land in Creek County. Problem was, “Tommy Atkins,” the boy in question, had died years prior—if he ever lived at all. “Russell Cobb is a master storyteller, as well as being prolific. He is dedicated to digging out and revealing the corruption and crookedness of his and my home state. Ghosts of Crook County is his best yet.” —Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, American Book Award-winning author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
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The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World, by Atossa Araxia Abrahamian. A globe shows the world we think we know: neatly delineated sovereign nations that grant or restrict their citizens’ rights. Beneath, above, and tucked inside their borders, however, another universe has been engineered into existence. It consists of thousands of extraterritorial zones that operate largely autonomously, and increasingly for the benefit of the wealthiest individuals and corporations. They take the form of free trade zones, flags of convenience, offshore detention centers, charter cities controlled by foreign corporations, and even into outer space. “A revelatory look at a globe-spanning collection of 'offshore jurisdictions,' 'legal black holes,' and 'free zones'. . . .Abrahamian begins by delving into the histories of contemporary tax havens. . .but her scope is far broader. . .an impressive achievement." –Publishers Weekly
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Night of Power: The Betrayal of the Middle East. by Robert Fisk. The final work from foreign correspondent Robert Fisk, picking up the story in the Middle East where his internationally bestselling The Great War of Civilisation left off, starting with the aftermath of the Iraq invasion in 2005. From the Arab uprisings and the Syrian civil war to Israel's conflicts with Palestine and Lebanon, Fisk condemns the West's ongoing hypocrisy and interference while revealing the horrific truth of life on the ground. Unafraid to criticise authority and unpick complex truths, hecreates a compelling narrative of passionate and engaging journalism, historical analysis and eyewitness reporting. “Every sentence of Robert Fisk radiates his loathe of wars and the inevitable dehumanization they produce, which makes his (sadly) last book an everlasting warning, beyond its value as a meticulous historical recount and analysis of today's events” --Amira Hass, journalist, Haaretz
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Only in America: Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer, by Richard Bernstein. A poor, Yiddish-speaking newcomer navigating a racially segregated and antisemitic America, young Jolson dreamed of becoming a star, and he did. Thanks to his immense talent and his knack for assimilating into new environments, by the time he reached his twenties he was the most famous and highly paid entertainer in America, making almost $5,000 a week at a time when the average American made $800 a year. Through Jolson, Bernstein simultaneously breaks open the history and legacy of the cultural sensation The Jazz Singer. Not only was The Jazz Singer the first feature length film with synchronized music and dialogue, but it was also taboo smashing in its content: The Jazz Singer is all about Jews, Orthodox and otherwise. Bernstein expounds on the making of The Jazz Singer, what the film meant then and now, introducing the many individuals involved in its production, including Samson Raphaelson, a young Jewish writer whose short story was the basis for the movie; the four Warner brothers, who made a fortune off it; and George Jessel, Jolson’s rival and the star of Raphaelson's stage adaptation of his short story. In the background emerges a picture of old Hollywood in the Roaring Twenties: cutthroat and greedy yet visionary and progressive. And while The Jazz Singer represented the future in many ways, it also dredged up the worst of the past, including Jolson’s use of blackface, common at the time.
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How Do You Feel?: One Doctor's Search for Humanity in Medicine, by Jessi Gold. While reassessing her own complex relationship to the health-care industry, Dr. Jessi Gold begins to examine it through the eyes of some of her healthcare worker patients—a thirty-something resident with OCD, a pregnant nurse suffering from PTSD, an aspiring medical student with crippling test anxiety, and an experienced ER physician who feels completely overwhelmed. In their discussions of burnout, perfectionism, empathy, and the emotional burden of working in health care, and through her own personal therapy sessions, Jessi recognizes that she is not alone in struggling to maintain her humanity, in a field that she chose because of its humanity in the first place. "A psychiatrist shines a much-needed light on the mental health challenges that healthcare workers face. With clarity and compassion, Jessi Gold reveals how we can do a better job caring for caregivers." –Adam Grant
- The Silver Snarling Trumpet: The Birth of the Grateful Dead—The Lost Manuscript of Robert Hunter, by Robert Hunter, John Mayer (Foreword by), Dennis McNally (Introduction by), Brigid Meier (Afterword by). Discovered at last, the legendary lost manuscript of Grateful Dead co-founder and primary lyricist Robert Hunter, written in the early 1960s—a wry, richly observed, and enlightening remembrance of “the scene” in Palo Alto that gave rise to an incredible partnership of Hunter and Jerry Garcia, and then to the Grateful Dead itself. In these pages, readers are privy to the early days of Hunter, Garcia, and their cohorts, who sit at coffee shops passing around a single cup of bottomless coffee because they lacked the funds for more than one. Follow these truth-seeking souls into the stacks at Kepler’s Books, renting instruments at Swain’s House of Music, and through the countryside on mind-expanding road trips. Witness impromptu jams, inspired intellectual pranks, and a dialogue that is, by turns, amusing and brilliant and outrageous. “An essential document in the Deadhead library, and a pleasure to read.”—Kirkus Reviews
- A Place Called Yellowstone: The Epic History of the World’s First National Park, by Randall K. Wilson. It has been called Wonderland, America’s Serengeti, the crown jewel of the National Park System, and America’s best idea. But how did this faraway landscape evolve into one of the most recognizable places in the world? As the birthplace of the national park system, Yellowstone witnessed the first-ever attempt to protect wildlife, to restore endangered species, and to develop a new industry centered on nature tourism.
Yellowstone remains a national icon, one of the few entities capable of bridging ideological divides in the United States. Yet the park’s history is also filled with episodes of conflict and exclusion, setting precedents for Native American land dispossession, land rights disputes, and prolonged tensions between commercialism and environmental conservation. Yellowstone’s legacies are both celebratory and problematic. A Place Called Yellowstone tells the comprehensive story of Yellowstone National Park as the story of the nation itself. "Wilson’s talent as a storyteller shines through in turning dry bureaucratic bumbling and crony corruption into a focus on individual exploits and entertaining tales. It makes for great reading." —Lorraine Berry, Los Angeles Times
- Born with a Tail: The Devilish Life and Wicked Times of Anton Szandor LaVey, Founder of the Church of Satan, by Doug Brod. When Anton LaVey burst onto the San Francisco scene right before the Summer of Love, he parlayed his eerie obsessions into a philosophy and lifestyle that capitalized on a New Age rage. With his signature cape, horn-studded hood, and Ming the Merciless beard, LaVey was a media-savvy provocateur who took what he did seriously, but was always in on the joke.
From a spooky old house on an otherwise unremarkable street, he founded the Church of Satan, where young women squirmed nude on the mantel of his ritual chamber as he delivered a doctrine of self-deification and indulgence that combined the writings of Ayn Rand, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Aleister Crowley with the pulpy fictions of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. Later, his bestselling book The Satanic Bible (still in print since 1969) struck an ominous chord with both the hip and the alienated—the fringe dwellers who were goth before there were goths. But LaVey’s influence could be felt far beyond his flock, namely in the nightmarish and supernatural entertainment that dominated pop culture in the 1970s and continues to make an impact today.
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Low-Hanging Fruit: Sparkling Whines, Champagne Problems, and Pressing Issues from My Gay Agenda, by Randy Rainbow. He’s back! Musical satirist Randy Rainbow has a few things on his mind that he wants to talk about. As a savvy social commentator tuned into the public discourse, his unfailing intuition tells him that the perspective everyone in America is clamoring for is that of a privileged white male complaining about a bunch of shit. While writing his New York Times bestseller Playing With Myself, Randy saw an America in crisis. He knew that what the country needed to get back on its high heels was a hard-hitting gay agenda and here it is - Low Hanging Fruit - a book filled with sparkling whines, a few flutes of champagne problems and a Birkin bag of the most pressing issues facing the US, from dancing TikTok grandmas, to Elon Musk, the GOP, and Donald Jessica Trump.
