RIP—both Rest in Peace and Rest in Power--to the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who died early this morning at age 84. Before moving on to this week’s notable new nonfiction, I thought I would offer some books on this icon of the Civil Rights Movement.
Published just a handful of months ago is A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power, by Abby Phillip, which centers on his runs for president in 1984 and 1988. Bakari writes of the book:
“Reverend Jackson's early-eighties presidential campaigns were a transcendent turning point for Black political power—he boldly showed that a broad coalition of folks from different social classes and diverse points of views could be built with integrity, charisma, energy, intelligence, and an openness to all kinds of people. In A Dream Deferred, Abby Phillip brings those aspects of his healing and ultimately heartbreaking campaigns to glorious life in a book that is engrossing, revelatory and urgent in understanding how we got here.”
Author David Masciotra had personal access to Jackson for several years, and conducted over one hundred interviews with Jackson, as well as interviews with a wide variety of elected officials and activists who Jackson has inspired and influenced. His book I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters argues for Jackson place in the expansion of American politics.
A collection of Jackson’s sermons and speeches was put out by Orbis Books: Keeping Hope Alive: Sermons and Speeches of Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.
For over fifty years, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr., a Baptist minister, activist, and organizer, has worked for civil rights, peace, and the promise of true democracy. From his years in the Civil Rights movement, his work as founder of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, and as an international ambassador for human rights, he has left an indelible mark on the history of our time. These speeches and sermons, delivered both to the downtrodden and the powerful, from Senegal and Bangkok to Chicago include the famous speeches he delivered at the Democratic Party conventions of 1984 and 1988 following his historic campaigns for the presidential nomination.
THIS WEEK’S NOTABLE NEW NONFICTION
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Nonviolent: A Memoir of Resistance, Agitation, and Love, by Reverend James Lawson, Jr. Rev. Lawson was one of the most influential yet unheralded heroes of the civil rights era. He rose as a strategist, teacher, and organizer in pivotal campaigns on the national stage against racial and economic injustice.
Lawson’s memoir spans 95 years, but it begins far from the spotlight in a large, working-class Ohio family. The son and grandson of Methodist ministers, he receives his license to preach before graduating from high school.
Lawson goes on to serve time in prison for refusing the Korean War draft, and learns from independence movements during three years in India and Africa. He then fortifies the principles of a new American Revolution when he teaches nonviolent direct action centered in love and moral clarity to the Little Rock Nine, the Mississippi Freedom Summer volunteers, and countless others. He also becomes a leader in the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, the 1963 Birmingham campaign, the 1966 Meredith March Against Fear, and the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers' strike.
Nonviolent delivers an intimate self-portrait of Lawson as a man who recognized the inherent dignity of everyone, and challenged all forms of violence, including police brutality, enforced poverty, and what he called plantation capitalism. It shows his quest for justice continuing in Los Angeles well into the 21st century, as he helped foster a more inclusive labor movement and an enduring immigrant rights movement. “What is school without the teacher? Reverend Lawson taught a generation of young civil rights leaders, from the Nashville Movement to SNCC, and paved the way for America's modern fight to become a just Union. As we fight for yet another moral shift in this country, his story is essential, and could not be more timely.”—Joy-Ann Reid, author of Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America
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A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides, by Gisèle Pelicot. In 2024, Gisèle Pelicot waived her right to anonymity in her legal fight against her ex-husband and the fifty men accused of sexually assaulting her, a courageous decision that inspired millions of people around the world. Only four years prior, Gisèle had made the shattering discovery that her partner, Dominique Pelicot, had been secretly drugging and raping her, and inviting strangers to also abuse her in their home for nearly a decade. “Shame must change sides,” Gisèle bravely declared at the opening of the trial in Avignon, France, and the dictum soon became an international rallying cry to radically transform public sentiment and legislation surrounding cases of sexual violence. By the time Dominique and the dozens of men accused were found guilty three and a half months later, Gisèle had become a global figure, and her message—that she and other victims of sexual abuse have no reason to feel ashamed—galvanized a movement that triggered protests and demonstrations around the world.
In A Hymn to Life, Gisèle tells her story for the very first time, not as victim, but as witness. Beginning in 2020, when she received the first phone call from a local police station, Gisèle recounts the fateful investigation that turned her life inside out. With unwavering honesty and devastating grace, she retraces the steps of a life built over the course of five decades, the final decade of her marriage and its hidden abuse, and the long path of emotional healing that ensues. Here is a free link to an interview with Gisèle Pelicot in The New York Times: The Interview
‘They All Tried to Break Me’: Gisèle Pelicot Shares Her Story
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Citizenship: Notes on an American Myth, by Daisy Hernández. In this one-of-a-kind book, Daisy Hernández fiercely interrogates one of the most complicated subjects of contemporary life and politics: citizenship. Braiding memoir, history, and cultural criticism, she exposes the truths and lies of how we define ourselves as a country and a people. Turning to her own family’s stories—her mother arrived from Colombia, while her father was a political refugee from Castro’s Cuba—Hernández shows how the very idea of citizenship is a myth, one of the stories we tell ourselves about the American soul and psyche.
Reframing our understanding of what it means to be an American, Citizenship is an urgent and necessary account of the laws, customs, and language we use to include and exclude, especially those who come from Latin America. With her scholar’s mind and memoirist’s gift for narrative, Hernández weaves a story both personal and national, while reckoning with our country’s ongoing debate about who belongs and providing fresh ways of thinking about citizenship. “The most comprehensive book on citizenship/immigration I’ve ever read. Daisy Hernández marvelously blends her family's story with the story of citizenship itself. In her pen, everything is illuminated to a point in which we can understand our present moment better. This book is a must-read!”—Javier Zamora, author of Solito
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Separation of Powers: How to Preserve Liberty in Troubled Times, by Cass R. Sunstein. In this essential and immensely timely book, Separation of Powers, Cass Sunstein explains why the separation of powers is necessary for both freedom and self-government. He shows that freedom from fear is a central goal of the system of separation of powers. He also explains why the executive branch is the most dangerous branch, why the idea of presidential immunity is a terrible one, and why an independent judiciary is crucial. “Separation of Powers is as powerful as it is timely. Subtly drawing parallels between Nazi Germany’s obedience to its führer and the current obsequious treatment of the leader of the United States, Sunstein mounts a devastating attack on the Supreme Court’s recent decisions that undermine the separation of powers and threaten the liberty that the separation of powers has protected for nearly 250 years.”—Jack Beermann, Philip S. Beck Professor of Law, Boston University
- American Struggle: Democracy, Dissent, and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union: An Anthology, by Jon Meacham. I wonder if Meacham, when conceiving the idea for this anthology in honor of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, envisioned how far the attack on American democracy and Constitutional law would have extended, how deep the danger to the country. I’m curious about the tone of the commentary he offers on these primary sources of American history. In American Struggle, Jon Meacham illuminates the nation’s complicated past. This rich and diverse collection covers a wide spectrum of history, from 1619 to the twenty-first century, with primary-source documents that take us back to critical moments in which Americans fought over the meaning and the direction of the national experiment. From the founders to Lincoln to Obama, from Andrew Jackson to Theodore Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan, from Seneca Falls to the March on Washington, this chorus—sometimes discordant and always fascinating—tells the story of the country and of its people. As clashes over liberty and slavery, inclusion and exclusion, play out, these voices, brilliantly framed by Meacham’s singular commentary, remind us that contentious citizenship and fair-minded observations are essential to bringing about the more perfect union envisioned in the Preamble to the Constitution, which Frederick Douglass called a “glorious liberty document.”
- Kennedy's Coup: A White House Plot, a Saigon Murder, and America's Descent into Vietnam, by Jack Cheevers. Based on a decade of research and writing, enriched by eyewitness interviews and revealing documents obtained through dozens of freedom of information requests, Kennedy’s Coup vividly recreates the Kennedy Administration’s secret encouragement of the fatal 1963 military coup against South Vietnam’s defiant president.
The brutal assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem by his own generals—which capped weeks of bitter White House infighting amid JFK’s wavering—led to dreadful consequences for the United States, opening the door to nine years of costly and futile warfare in Vietnam. A meticulous researcher and fluid writer, Jack Cheevers etches unforgettable portraits of the people behind this fascinating drama. While many Vietnam books mention Diem’s murder in passing, this gripping account delves into the participants’ personalities, motives, and actions in greater detail than ever before. The definitive history of one of the most catastrophic decisions ever made by a US president, shedding new light on events that altered the world, Kennedy’s Coup will be a work of lasting importance. "The importance of what Jack Cheevers does in this book cannot be overestimated. He presents the first inside account of President John F. Kennedy's role in the overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem, considered America's "Miracle Man" by Life magazine only a few years earlier. Cheevers explains in detail for the first time one of the most important and secret chapters in America's war in Vietnam and Kennedy's involvement in it."
–Christopher Goscha, Professor of International Relations, Université du Québec à Montréal, author of Vietnam: A New History
- On Morrison, by Namwali Serpell. Toni Morrison, Nobel Laureate and one of our most beloved writers, has inspired generations of readers. But her artistic genius is often overshadowed by her monumental public persona, perhaps because, as Namwali Serpell puts it, “she is our only truly canonical black female writer—and her work is highly complex.” In On Morrison, Serpell brings her unique experience as both an award-winning writer and a professor who teaches a course on Morrison to illuminate her masterful experiments with literary form.
This is Morrison as you’ve never encountered her before, a journey through her oeuvre—her fiction and criticism, as well as her lesser-known dramatic works and poetry—with contextual guidance and original close readings. At once accessible and uncompromisingly rigorous, On Morrison is a primer not only on how to read one of the most significant American authors of all time but also on how to read great works of literature in general. This dialogue on the page between two black women artist-readers is stylish, edifying, and thrilling in its scope and intelligence. “In On Morrison, Serpell applies her prodigious intellect, vast literary archive, and her own calling as a novelist to magnificent effect in this breathtaking, provocative, and refreshing engagement with Morrison as a thinker as well as an artist.”—Imani Perry, author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
- Mafia: A Global History, by Ryan Gingeras. From backroom deals to global power plays, this compelling narrative spans two centuries, unraveling the complex ties between crime syndicates and law enforcement—and how these relationships have reshaped both sides in unexpected ways.
Drawing on over a decade of in-depth research into the global drug trade, Gingeras profiles legendary figures like Al Capone, Pablo Escobar, El Chapo, and Dawood Ibrahim, bringing their stories to life while exposing how these mafias have tested the boundaries of state power. By challenging the law, these criminal networks force governments to adapt, leaving an indelible mark on governance, society, and the global economy.
Gingeras identifies three key spheres of transformation: the legal limits tested by mafias, their economic activities reflecting the Western bloc’s dominance in global trade, and their undeniable presence in pop culture. As crime syndicates continue to evolve in the 21st century, Gingeras highlights the alarming blurring of lines between gangsters, corporations, and political leaders—a trend that threatens to destabilize the global order. “From ancient bandits to modern hackers, organized criminals have long been unheralded architects of the evolution of state and society. Ryan Gingeras offers us an important and eye-opening guide to the way the underworld and upperworld shape each other.” —Mark Galeotti, author of Homo Criminalis: How Crime Organizes the World
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Traversal, by Maria Popova. From the Marginalian creator and bestselling author Maria Popova, a bold exploration of what makes a meaningful life.
In Traversal, Maria Popova illuminates our various instruments of reckoning with the bewilderment of being alive—our telescopes and our treatises, our postulates and our poems—through the intertwined lives, loves, and legacies of visionaries both celebrated and sidelined by history, people born into the margins of their time and place who lived to write the future: Mary Shelley, Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, Fanny Wright, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, Marie Tharp, Alfred Wegener, Humphry Davy, Ruth Benedict, and Margaret Mead. Woven throughout their stories are other threads—the first global scientific collaboration, the Irish potato famine, the decoding of the insulin molecule, the invention of the bicycle, how nature creates blue—to make the tapestry of meaning more elaborate yet clearer as the book advances, converging on the ultimate question of what makes life alive and worth living. “Maria Popova is a national treasure. She combines poetic writing with prodigious historical research, a wide-ranging mind, and an extraordinary ability to connect literature and events from different places and times. Traversal is an intellectual feast of discovery and imagination.” —Alan Lightman, author of Einstein’s Dreams
- Clearing the Air: A Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change in 50 Questions and Answers, by Hannah Ritchie. It’s hard to have any hope now that Trump has opened the gates of climate change hell and trashed decades of scientific research. But this book aims to make you feel there is still hope. We can’t afford to delay climate action, but with all the shouting and disagreement, it’s hard to know where to turn. In Clearing the Air, data scientist and bestselling author Hannah Ritchie answers 50 key climate questions once and for all, clearing the air so we can take action and fix things.
The first piece of good news is that Ritchie is here with answers and the steps we need to take right now. Using simple, clear data, she tackles questions such as: Is it too late? Won’t we run out of minerals? Aren’t we too polarized? The second piece of good news: The truth is far more hopeful than you might think.
We’re at a critical moment for our planet, and getting the facts straight is step one. But even more crucial is feeling hopeful about what we can do next. The third piece of good news? We already have many of the solutions we need to create a more sustainable planet for future generations.
- The Collective Cure: Upstream Solutions for Better Public Health, by Monica L. Wang. This is another area where it is tough to feel hope, given Trump’s attacks on our health system, and another book that tries to give you hope. A powerful blend of deeply human stories and rigorous research, The Collective Cure reveals how social and structural factors like income, occupation, race and ethnicity, neighborhood conditions, and social connections, profoundly shape our well-being. Dr. Monica Wang, an award-winning public health researcher, educator, and working mother who came of age as an Asian American bussing student, brings a personal lens to these complex issues and shares a hopeful, action-oriented vision for building healthier communities from the ground up. Through her own personal and professional journey and the lives of three extraordinary women across the U.S., readers are invited to see how health is shaped in everyday spaces. “In The Collective Cure, Monica Wang offers a clear, compelling case for why health must be rooted in collective care. Drawing on history, policy, and lived experience, the book teaches us how reimagining our systems through the lens of justice and community can lead to health that is more equitable and sustainable.” —Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, author of The Turning Point: Reflections on a Pandemic
- Feed the People!: Why Industrial Food Is Good and How to Make It Even Better, by
Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel N. Rosenberg. The food industry is a major driver of climate change, pollution, obesity, animal suffering, and workplace exploitation. Many food writers blame the industrial food system and tell individual eaters to fix these problems by buying local, artisanal food from small farmers—a solution most Americans can’t afford.
But, as food-policy experts Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel Rosenberg remind us, modern technology has made food more affordable, abundant, varied, and tastier than at any other time in history. In Feed the People!, they argue that modern food pleasures like Waffle House waffles, and the industrial systems that make them possible, are actually good. With smart technology and commonsense policies, we can make them even better. “Dutkiewicz and Rosenberg have a knack for writing against food orthodoxies in a way that is surprising, refreshing, and informative. Polemical but reasoned and based in the idea that everyone deserves access to food pleasures, this exciting book informs about the food systems we have inherited and imagines the food worlds that could be. A rethinking of common ideas about food that is sure to radically upend how we think about what we do eat, what we should eat, and what we could eat, if only we could redistribute access to the everyday hedonism that we all deserve.” —Kyla Tompkins, James Beard award–winning author of Racial Indigestion
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How Equality Wins: A New Vision for an Inclusive America, by Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow. In this groundbreaking manifesto, Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow, founders of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at NYU School of Law, candidly unpack where DEI went wrong and offer a roadmap to rebuild equality for the new era.
Drawing on their peerless legal expertise and extensive experience advising leaders in corporate America, academia, and the non-profit sector, Yoshino and Glasgow share tangible strategies to put this nation back on a more inclusive path, such as by fostering free speech and dissent, reclaiming the concept of merit, and welcoming groups that felt neglected by DEI. In doing so, they provide an urgently needed blueprint to ensure the work of equality can overcome the backlash and emerge stronger on the other side. “By rejecting binary arguments and replacing tired tropes with actionable strategies, the authors signal that we have a joint obligation to fight for a nation that sees all and serves all - through addition, not subtraction or erasure. A must read for patriots in these troubled times."—Stacey Abrams, bestselling author and civic leader
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The Price of Mercy: Unfair Trials, a Violent System, and a Public Defender's Search for Justice in America, by Emily Galvin Almanza. As Americans, we are told a rose-tinted story about our criminal courts—that these are the hallowed halls of justice, that the purpose of our legal process is to find the truth, and that those who enforce the law are both equitable and heroic. But what if the reality is purposefully obscured to hide something rotten at the system’s core?
In The Price of Mercy, attorney and former public defender Emily Galvin Almanza weaves hard data and unforgettable stories, dark humor and compelling evidence to tell us the truth about what’s really going on behind the closed doors of America’s criminal courts. She shows us how jails actually increase future crime, the dirty tricks police use to make millions in overtime pay, how a man could spend decades in prison because scientists mistook dog hair for his own, the perverse incentives that push prosecutors to seek convictions even when they themselves don’t want to, and how judges may decide cases differently after lunch. “In a political moment in which so much of the narrative around our criminal legal system is being distorted, misrepresented, and weaponized, The Price of Mercy steps in to provide a necessary corrective. It is grounded in research, based in evidence, and centers the experiences of real people entangled in the system. I learned so much from these pages and I’m so glad this book exists.”—Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
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The Problem of Personhood: Giving Rights to Trees, Corporations and Robots, by Lisa Siraganian. Over the last twenty-five years, the concept of per-sonhood has become central to many contentious debates. Corporations have won free speech protections, as if they were individuals. The right to life or freedom has been claimed on behalf of fetuses, trees, and elephants. The fund of human rights is spilling over into the nonhuman.
The Problem of Personhood reveals the unsettling consequences of granting rights to imagined persons, such as Sophia the robot citizen or New Zealand’s Whanganui River. Synthesizing the political and philosophical debates on personhood and drawing on a varied cast of thinkers that includes Simone Weil, Hannah Arendt, and Dr. Seuss, Lisa Siraganian uncovers the disturbing impact of this contemporary development. Awarding rights to robots and rivers all too easily becomes a legal tool to turn people into capital. When robot Sophia is made a citizen, “she” is transformed into a subject in the law without the corresponding legal duties that protect us from her. At the root of this trend is the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling that grants First Amendment rights to corporations as if they were individuals. The result has not been the transformation of things into humans so much as humans into things.
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In Botanical Time: The Extraordinary Lifespans of the World's Oldest Living Plants, by Christopher Woods. How do some plants live for thousands of years? Which adaptations and evolutionary strategies allow them to thrive in some of the harshest places on the planet for so long—and so well?
Renowned plantsman, author, and longtime botanical garden designer Christopher Woods takes readers on a popular science exploration of twenty-three of the world’s most amazing species, seeking answers to these questions by explaining their incredible survival mechanisms. Woods emphasizes how human cultures have interacted with plants over time and what we may, critically, be able to learn from them about sustainability in extreme climates. Some species will be familiar to readers, while some are outright surprising—such as the aptly named Welwitschia mirabilis, which lives happily in the Namib Desert for up to two thousand years, although many of those years receive zero precipitation. "Woods' compassion for these trees, shrubs, and herbaceous wonders shines on every page...Illustrated with spectacular photos, this book can be devoured cover to cover or dipped into one random chapter at a time. Either way, the next time you plant a tree, In Botanical Time might make you pause and consider the privilege of sharing a small slice of its life with yours." —AHS American Gardener Magazine
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The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster, by Shelley Puhak. There have long been whispers, coming from the castle; from the village square; from the dark woods. The great lady-a countess, from one of Europe's oldest families-is a vicious killer. Some even say she bathes in the blood of her victims. When the king's men force their way into her manor house, she has blood on her hands, caught in the act of murdering yet another of her maids. She is walled up in a tower and never seen again, except in the uppermost barred window, where she broods over the countryside, cursing all those who dared speak up against her.
Told and retold in many languages, the legend of the Blood Countess has consumed cultural imaginations around the world. But despite claims that Elizabeth Bathory tortured and killed as many as 650 girls, some have wondered if the Countess was herself a victim- of one of the most successful disinformation campaigns known to history. So, was Elizabeth Bathory a monster, a victim, or a bit of both? With the breathlessness of a whodunit, drawing upon new archival evidence and questioning old assumptions, Shelley Puhak traces the Countess's downfall, bringing to life an assertive woman leader in a world sliding into anti-scientific, reactionary darkness-a world where nothing is ever as it seems. “Shelley Puhak skillfully reveals the layers of deception and fear surrounding Countess Elizabeth Bathory, portraying her as a complex and misunderstood figure: commanding, powerful, and punished for defying the limits imposed on women. A new image emerges-a formidable woman fighting against men eager to seize her property and power. The Blood Countess reveals how influential women are often vilified and underscores the significant role myths play in shaping our understanding of history.” —Lydia Reeder, author of The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine That Changed Women's Lives Forever
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Chasing Lewis's Monkeyflower: The Amazing Afterlife of the Lewis and Clark Expedition's Wild Plants, by Elizabeth Adelman. The two hundred-year saga of finding, losing, and finding the wild plants collected on America’s first exploration west, the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Thomas Jefferson handpicked Meriwether Lewis to lead the expedition, gather notable specimens along the way, and then write the journals, with one volume to include science-worthy descriptions and classifications of the plants that Lewis collected and pressed to preserve. Not a botanist, Lewis needed help to write this part of the journals. Ambition, deceit, theft, wealth, debt, alcoholism, loss, suicide, serendipity, and stubborn persistence cross the plants’ paths in Philadelphia, New York, and London. This is the first work detailing the places, practices, and times of a cavalcade of people who touched the plants. A fascinating chronicle of an unexplored byway of the great American story. “A botanical detective story rooted in the fruitful ground of human misbehavior. . . [with] a delightful epilogue covers[ing] expedition plants the home gardener might consider planting and why, and an appendix lists all
the plants discovered." —Kirkus Reviews
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Becoming Martian: How Living in Space Will Change Our Bodies and Minds, by Scott Solomon. This book sounds like an Elon Musk fantasy, and I’d be perfectly happy to rocket him into space with a copy. We are on the cusp of a golden age of space travel in which, for the first time, it will be possible for large numbers of people to venture into space. Some intend to stay. But what happens—and will happen—to us in the extreme conditions of space? What should space tourists expect to happen to them during a journey to an orbiting space station, the Moon, or Mars? What would happen to children born on another planet? Would they evolve into a new species? In Becoming Martian, Scott Solomon explores the many ways in which humanity’s migration into space will change our bodies and our minds.
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Bottom Shelf: How a Forgotten Brand of Bourbon Saved One Man's Life, by Fred Minnick. Before he became one of the most influential voices in American whiskey, Fred Minnick was a combat veteran wrestling with the invisible wounds of war. What started as a quiet exploration of taste and ritual soon became something more—a way to calm his mind, reconnect with his senses, and slowly rebuild a life.
Today, Fred's palate shapes the industry. His reviews move markets, his instincts set trends. So when he casually named a dusty 1969 bottle of Old Crow as his all-time favorite in an interview, the response was seismic: prices soared from $40 to $3,000 almost overnight. But behind the buzz was a deeper mystery. Once revered by presidents, poets, and distillers alike, Old Crow had been stripped of its legacy and banished to the bottom shelf. Why was one of bourbon's most iconic brands abandoned—and what really happened to the whiskey itself?
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A Place Both Wonderful and Strange: The Extraordinary Untold History of Twin Peaks, by Scott Meslow. For the first time, the complete history of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks—from the landmark, original cult series that changed the course of television to its 25-years-in-the-making sequel—is told through fascinatingly detailed reporting and exclusive interviews with the show's cast and creators.
From its start, when studio executives drafted a plan to recoup costs after what they predicted would be the series' inevitable failure, to the 1992 prequel movie that earned scathing reviews at Cannes, to its unexpected and acclaimed return some twenty-five years later, Twin Peaks garnered millions of devoted fans who refused to let it die.
For a series that left as many questions unanswered as answered, Meslow’s deep reporting will give readers a new perspective, detailing scenes left on the cutting–room floor and how Season Two’s finale stunned and infuriated studio execs in what Mark Frost calls “a defiant middle finger to what they [studio executives] thought the show should be.”
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Playmakers: The Jewish Entrepreneurs Who Created the Toy Industry in America, by Michael Kimmel. In 1902, Morris and Rose Michtom invented the Teddy Bear—bound by clothing scraps, stuffed with sawdust, and given button eyes with a sad, longing expression—in the back room of their Brooklyn candy store. Together they launched the Ideal Toy Corporation, joining a set of other poor, first-generation Jewish toymakers: the Hassenfeld brothers of Hasbro, Ruth Moskowicz and Elliot Handler of Mattel, and Joshua Lionel Cowan of Lionel Trains.
From Barbie and G.I. Joe to Popeye, Superman, and Mr. Potato Head, Playmakers reveals how the toy industry created the idealized American childhood: an enchanted world, full of wild creatures and eternal struggles between good and evil, with endless realms of fantasy and beauty. For much of the twentieth century, every part of the American toy business was largely Jewish—the company founders, executives, and designers, as well as the factory workers, wholesale distributors, retail outlets, and armies of salesmen. A descendant of the founders of the Ideal Toy Corporation, Michael Kimmel shows how these poor, often Yiddish-speaking, tenement-dwelling children of immigrants invented a world they never experienced for themselves.
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