Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City by Russell Shorto

 

 

Amsterdam is not just any city. Despite its relative size it has stood alongside its larger cousins - Paris, London, Berlin - and has influenced the modern world to a degree that few other cities have. Sweeping across the city's colourful thousand year history, Amsterdam will bring the place to life: its sights and smells; its politics and people. Concentrating on two significant periods - the late 1500s to the mid 1600s and then from the Second World War to the present, Russell Shorto's masterful biography looks at Amsterdam's central preoccupations. Just as fin-de-siecle Vienna was the birthplace of psychoanalysis, seventeenth century Amsterdam was the wellspring of liberalism, and today it is still a city that takes individual freedom very seriously. A wonderfully evocative book that takes Amsterdam's dramatic past and present and populates it with a whole host of colourful characters, Amsterdam is the definitive book on this great city.

Amsterdam (Touring Club Italiano)

 

 

Il nucleo medievale. La cerchia dei canali. Il quartiere ebraico e il Plantage. La città sul mare. I quartieri meridionali. Centinaia di immagini e la cartografia Touring con il consueto dettaglio: carte territoriali, piante di città, la metropolitana di Amsterdam. Oltre 300 indirizzi utili: informazioni pratiche, indirizzi dove dormire, ristoranti e locali. Amsterdam sempre aggiornata su touringclub.it/guideverdi

Chasing the Light: Writing, Directing, and Surviving Platoon, Midnight Express by Oliver Stone

 

 

An intimate memoir by the controversial and outspoken Oscar-winning director and screenwriter about his complicated New York childhood, volunteering for combat, and his struggles and triumphs making such films as Platoon, Midnight Express, and Scarface.

Before the international success of Platoon in 1986, Oliver Stone had been wounded as an infantryman in Vietnam, and spent years writing unproduced scripts while driving taxis in New York, finally venturing westward to Los Angeles and a new life. Stone, now 73, recounts those formative years with in-the-moment details of the high and low moments: We see meetings with Al Pacino over Stone’s scripts for Scarface, Platoon, and Born on the Fourth of July; the harrowing demon of cocaine addiction following the failure of his first feature, The Hand (starring Michael Caine); his risky on-the-ground research of Miami drug cartels for Scarface; his stormy relationship with The Deer Hunter director Michael Cimino; the breathless hustles to finance the acclaimed and divisive Salvador; and tensions behind the scenes of his first Academy Award–winning film, Midnight Express.

Chasing the Light is a true insider’s look at Hollywood’s years of upheaval in the 1970s and ’80s.

Quentin Tarantino: The iconic filmmaker and his work (Iconic Filmmakers Series) by Ian Nathan

 

 

Get an intimate look at the cult filmmaker of our generation. Packaged in a handsome slipcase and loaded with stunning pictures from the Kobal archives, this biography explores the genesis of Tarantino's unique directorial style and provides insight into his inspirations and his frequent collaborations with favored actors. An 8-page foldout timeline presents Tarantino’s entire filmography in the heart of the book.

Through in-depth and informative text written by renowned film journalist Ian Nathan, this book examines the entirety of Tarantino's work, including his early writing on screenplays such as True Romance and Natural Born Killers, his break-out directorial debut Reservoir Dogs and the career-defining Pulp Fiction, as well as his later iconic films, such as Kill Bill Volumes 1 and 2, Inglourious Basterds, and Django Unchained. You'll also go behind the scenes of Tarantino's latest epic, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. As you make your way through Tarantino's incredible career, discover what inspired him, his working methods, and the breadth of his talent.

With a visually arresting design that mimics Tarantino's approach to film-making and chapters organized by film, the pages are brimming with images taken on set and behind the scenes.

This is the ultimate celebration for any Tarantino fan.

 

Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History by Kurt Andersen

 

 

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • When did America give up on fairness? The author of Fantasyland tells the epic history of how America decided that big business gets whatever it wants, only the rich get richer, and nothing should ever change—and charts a way back to the future.
 
“The one book everyone must read as we figure out how to rebuild our country.”—Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci

During the twentieth century, America managed to make its economic and social systems both more and more fair and more and more prosperous. A huge, secure, and contented middle class emerged. All boats rose together. But then the New Deal gave way to the Raw Deal. Beginning in the early 1970s, by means of a long war conceived of and executed by a confederacy of big business CEOs, the superrich, and right-wing zealots, the rules and norms that made the American middle class possible were undermined and dismantled. The clock was turned back on a century of economic progress, making greed good, workers powerless, and the market all-powerful while weaponizing nostalgia, lifting up an oligarchy that served only its own interests, and leaving the huge majority of Americans with dwindling economic prospects and hope.

Why and how did America take such a wrong turn? In this deeply researched and brilliantly woven cultural, economic, and political chronicle, Kurt Andersen offers a fresh, provocative, and eye-opening history of America’s undoing, naming names, showing receipts, and unsparingly assigning blame—to the radical right in economics and the law, the high priests of high finance, a complacent and complicit Establishment, and liberal “useful idiots,” among whom he includes himself.

Only a writer with Andersen’s crackling energy, deep insight, and ability to connect disparate dots and see complex systems with clarity could make such a book both intellectually formidable and vastly entertaining. And only a writer of Andersen’s vision could reckon with our current high-stakes inflection point, and show the way out of this man-made disaster.

The Last Days of John Lennon by James Patterson

 

 

 

Time of the Magicians: Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the Decade That Reinvented Philosophy

 

 

A grand narrative of the intertwining lives of Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Ernst Cassirer, major philosophers whose ideas shaped the twentieth century

The year is 1919. The horror of the First World War is still fresh for the protagonists of Time of the Magicians, each of whom finds himself at a crucial juncture. Walter Benjamin, having survived the flu during the 1918 pandemic, is trying to flee his overbearing father and floundering in his academic career. Ludwig Wittgenstein, by contrast, has dramatically decided to divest himself of the monumental fortune he stands to inherit as a scion of one of the wealthiest industrial families in Europe, in search of absolute spiritual clarity. Meanwhile, Martin Heidegger, having managed to avoid combat in war by serving instead as a meteorologist, is carefully cultivating his career. Finally, Ernst Cassirer is working furiously in academia, applying himself intensely to his writing and the possibility of a career at Hamburg University. The stage is set for a great intellectual drama, which will unfold across the next decade. The lives and ideas of this extraordinary philosophical quartet will converge as they become world historical figures. But with the Second World War looming on the horizon, their fates will be very different.

Wolfram Eilenberger stylishly traces the paths of these remarkable and turbulent lives, which feature not only philosophy but some of the most important other figures of the century, including John Maynard Keynes, Hannah Arendt, and Bertrand Russell. In doing so, he tells a gripping story about four of history's most ambitious and passionate thinkers, and illuminates with rare clarity and economy their brilliant ideas, which all too often have been regarded as enigmatic or opaque.

Stanley Kubrick, Director: A Visual Analysis Ulrich Ruchti

 

 

A grand narrative of the intertwining lives of Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Ernst Cassirer, major philosophers whose ideas shaped the twentieth century

The year is 1919. The horror of the First World War is still fresh for the protagonists of Time of the Magicians, each of whom finds himself at a crucial juncture. Walter Benjamin, having survived the flu during the 1918 pandemic, is trying to flee his overbearing father and floundering in his academic career. Ludwig Wittgenstein, by contrast, has dramatically decided to divest himself of the monumental fortune he stands to inherit as a scion of one of the wealthiest industrial families in Europe, in search of absolute spiritual clarity. Meanwhile, Martin Heidegger, having managed to avoid combat in war by serving instead as a meteorologist, is carefully cultivating his career. Finally, Ernst Cassirer is working furiously in academia, applying himself intensely to his writing and the possibility of a career at Hamburg University. The stage is set for a great intellectual drama, which will unfold across the next decade. The lives and ideas of this extraordinary philosophical quartet will converge as they become world historical figures. But with the Second World War looming on the horizon, their fates will be very different.

Wolfram Eilenberger stylishly traces the paths of these remarkable and turbulent lives, which feature not only philosophy but some of the most important other figures of the century, including John Maynard Keynes, Hannah Arendt, and Bertrand Russell. In doing so, he tells a gripping story about four of history's most ambitious and passionate thinkers, and illuminates with rare clarity and economy their brilliant ideas, which all too often have been regarded as enigmatic or opaque.

The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock: An Anatomy of the Master of Suspense by Edward White

 

 

A fresh, innovative biography of the twentieth century’s most iconic filmmaker.

In The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock, Edward White explores the Hitchcock phenomenon―what defines it, how it was invented, what it reveals about the man at its core, and how its legacy continues to shape our cultural world.

The book’s twelve chapters illuminate different aspects of Hitchcock’s life and work: “The Boy Who Couldn’t Grow Up”; “The Murderer”; “The Auteur”; “The Womanizer”; “The Fat Man”; “The Dandy”; “The Family Man”; “The Voyeur”; “The Entertainer”; “The Pioneer”; “The Londoner”; “The Man of God.” Each of these angles reveals something fundamental about the man he was and the mythological creature he has become, presenting not just the life Hitchcock lived but also the various versions of himself that he projected, and those projected on his behalf.

From Hitchcock’s early work in England to his most celebrated films, White astutely analyzes Hitchcock’s oeuvre and provides new interpretations. He also delves into Hitchcock’s ideas about gender; his complicated relationships with “his women”―not only Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren but also his female audiences―as well as leading men such as Cary Grant, and writes movingly of Hitchcock’s devotion to his wife and lifelong companion, Alma, who made vital contributions to numerous classic Hitchcock films, and burnished his mythology. And White is trenchant in his assessment of the Hitchcock persona, so carefully created that Hitchcock became not only a figurehead for his own industry but nothing less than a cultural icon.

Ultimately, White’s portrayal illuminates a vital truth: Hitchcock was more than a Hollywood titan; he was the definitive modern artist, and his significance reaches far beyond the confines of cinema.

32 photographs

 

Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused by Melissa Maerz

 

 

“Melissa Maerz’s brilliant oral history is the definitive account of a cult-classic movie that took a slow ride into the Seventies and defined the Nineties.” –Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone

The definitive oral history of the cult classic Dazed and Confused, featuring behind-the-scenes stories from the cast, crew, and Oscar-nominated director Richard Linklater.

Dazed and Confused not only heralded the arrival of filmmaker Richard Linklater, it introduced a cast of unknowns who would become the next generation of movie stars. Embraced as a cultural touchstone, the 1993 film would also make Matthew McConaughey’s famous phrase—alright, alright, alright—ubiquitous. But it started with a simple idea: Linklater thought people might like to watch a movie about high school kids just hanging out and listening to music on the last day of school in 1976.    

To some, that might not even sound like a movie. But to a few studio executives, it sounded enough like the next American Graffiti to justify the risk. Dazed and Confused underperformed at the box office and seemed destined to disappear. Then something weird happened: Linklater turned out to be right. This wasn’t the kind of movie everybody liked, but it was the kind of movie certain people loved, with an intensity that felt personal. No matter what their high school experience was like, they thought Dazed and Confused was about them.

Alright, Alright, Alright is the story of how this iconic film came together and why it worked. Combining behind-the-scenes photos and insights from nearly the entire cast, including Matthew McConaughey, Parker Posey, Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, and many others, and with full access to Linklater’s Dazed archives, it offers an inside look at how a budding filmmaker and a cast of newcomers made a period piece that would feel timeless for decades to come.

 

Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker (Jewish Lives) by David Mikics

 

An engrossing biography of one of the most influential filmmakers in cinematic history

"A cool, cerebral book about a cool, cerebral talent. . . . A brisk study of [Kubrick's] films, with enough of the life tucked in to add context as well as brightness and bite.”—Dwight Garner, New York Times

"An engaging and well-researched primer to the work of a cinematic legend."—Library Journal

Kubrick grew up in the Bronx, a doctor’s son. From a young age he was consumed by photography, chess, and, above all else, movies. He was a self‑taught filmmaker and self‑proclaimed outsider, and his films exist in a unique world of their own outside the Hollywood mainstream. Kubrick’s Jewishness played a crucial role in his idea of himself as an outsider. Obsessed with rebellion against authority, war, and male violence, Kubrick was himself a calm, coolly masterful creator and a talkative, ever‑curious polymath immersed in friends and family.
 
Drawing on interviews and new archival material, David Mikics for the first time explores the personal side of Kubrick’s films.

Le note della Cabala di Grazia Piscopo (I Quaderni del Bardo Edizioni di Stefano Donno)

"Il libro è interessante per la sua valenza umana, esistenziale e sociale. Si presta a una lettura scorrevole perché denota una carica emotiva, creativa che spinge l’autrice a ricercare e dimostrare con metodo scientifico (per eludere ogni pregiudizio), quanto sia nobile la mistica Cabala e quanto possa aiutare chi è “alla ricerca della Verità e della Luce”. La sua è un’operazione catartica; non serve per autocelebrarsi o per attirare l’attenzione mediatica ma, per aumentare la propria energia vitale con l’aiuto della musica, le frequenze, le vibrazioni e il ritmo. Grazia, con lo studio della Cabala sa che Tutto è collegato: corpo, mente e spirito sono ”piani compenetrati”. Prefazione Maestra Prof.ssa Anna Ciaccia

Grazia Piscopo nata a Taranto il 10 febbraio 1961, si trasferisce a Lecce nel 1967 con la famiglia per ragioni professionali del padre. Compie studi umanistici, soprattutto le lingue antiche come il latino, il greco e l’ebraico. Frequenta inoltre con successo la facoltà di Scienze Teologiche e Religiose presso la Curia Vescovile di Lecce. Il 15 marzo 2001 fonda l’Associazione culturale per lo studio delle scienze olistiche “Thorah” (oggi Horah e ricoprendo il ruolo di Presidente della stessa associazione) e diffonde a Lecce e nel Salento la cultura della Cristalloterapia, fino ad allora sconosciuta, e le “cure olistiche” inserite in un contesto mistico. L’amministrazione comunale di Lecce, le affida sedi prestigiose come il Conservatorio S. Anna per diffondere questa disciplina. Il suo vero interesse era sempre e comunque la lingua ebraica, la sua filosofia mistica e la Cabala. La cabala da secoli cenerentola per pochi eletti ebrei, diventa finalmente cultura, storia, Pensiero. Ha pubblicato per i Quaderni del Bardo Edizioni per i cui tipi cura la collana di studi e cultura ebraica, La via della Cabala … la via del cuore (2019). Le note della Cabala è il suo secondo lavoro

Info link 

 

Giunti al Punto

https://www.giuntialpunto.it/product/b089hxtbt1/libri-le-note-della-cabala-piscopo-grazia

 

Amazon

https://www.amazon.it/Note-della-Cabala-Grazia-Piscopo/dp/B089HXTBT1/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_it_IT=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&dchild=1&keywords=Grazia+Piscopo+le+note+della+cabala&qid=1592208301&sr=8-1

 

 

La manutenzione dei ricordi di Pier Luigi Celli (#Chiarelettere)

Lavazza ... macchine a modo mio! Store on Amazon (shop now!)

vv.aa Madrid: Retrato de una ciudad

 

 

This book of more than 150 photographs shows an exceptional portrait of Madrid from the beginning of the 19th century to the present, together with a prologue signed by the writer Antonio Muñoz Molina. Its pages show the great photographs of Alfonso, perhaps the greatest graphic chronicler of Madrid at the beginning of the 20th century; the prewar and war images of Henri Cartier- Bresson, Robert Capa and Gerda Taro; the postwar portrait of William Klein, Francesc Català-Roca, Ramón Masats, Inge Morath or Cas Oorthyus; the incipient development society that photographers like Gianni Ferrari, Ferdinando Scianna or Joana Biarnés immortalized; the Madrid Movement of Alberto García- Alix, Miguel Trillo, Ouka Leele or Pablo Pérez Mínguez; and the cultural, social and economic environment of the 21st century from the perspective of Cristina García Rodero, Alex Webb or Thomas Struth. A tour of the historical, architectural, cultural, sporting events... that have marked daily life, the urban landscape and the unique character of the capital.

Anthony, Ham, Madrid, Con, cartina,

 

 

Esperienze straordinarie: foto suggestive, i consigli degli autori e la vera essenza dei luoghi. Personalizza il tuo viaggio: gli strumenti e gli itinerari per pianificare il viaggio che preferisci. Scelte d'autore: i luoghi più famosi e quelli meno noti per rendere unico il tuo viaggio. In questa guida: A tavola con i madrileni; Gite in un giorno da Madrid; Visitare il Museo del Prado; Il flamenco.

Madrid da morire di Tommaso Franco

 

 

Una rapina finita male. Un amore perduto. Una vita da sommelier fallito, prigioniero dei rimpianti. Ma quando il passato chiama, Max Volpi ritorna a Madrid a caccia della verità, seguendo una scia di vino e sangue tra criminali, ex amici, doppiogiochisti, sicari e morti ammazzati, fino a scoprire per che cosa è davvero disposto a morire.Un thriller mozzafiato che ti sconvolgerà il cuore dalla prima all’ultima pagina."Madrid da morire" appartiene alla collana "Brivido capitale", una serie di thriller indipendenti di Tommaso Franco che comprende anche "Parigi in nero" e "Tokyo mozzafiato".

Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change by Stacey Abrams

 

 

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER from the author of OUR TIME IS NOW

"Abrams's own grit, coupled with her descriptions of much stumbling and self-doubt, will...touch you in a way few books by politicians can." ―The New York Times

PRAISE FOR STACEY ABRAMS
"In a time when too many folks are focused simply on how to win an election, Stacey’s somebody who cares about something more important: why we should. That’s the kind of politics we should practice. That’s why I’m proud to give Stacey Abrams my support." President Barack Obama

National leader Stacey Abrams has written the guide to harnessing the strengths of being an outsider and succeeding anyway.

Leadership is hard. Convincing others―and yourself―that you are capable of taking charge and achieving more requires insight and courage. Lead from the Outside is the handbook for outsiders, written with an eye toward the challenges that hinder women, people of color, the working class, members of the LGBTQ community, and millennials ready to make change. Stacey uses her hard-won insights to break down how ambition, fear, money, and failure function in leadership, and she includes practical exercises to help you realize your own ambition and hone your skills. Lead from the Outside discusses candidly what Stacey has learned over the course of her impressive career in politics, business and the nonprofit world: that differences in race, gender, and class provide vital strength, which we can employ to rise to the top and create real and lasting change.

Caste (Oprah's Book Club): The Origins of Our Discontents Isabel Wilkerson

 

 

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST • “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

NAMED THE #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR BY TIME, ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY People • The Washington Post • Publishers Weekly AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • NPR • Bloomberg • Christian Science Monitor • New York Post • The New York Public Library • Fortune • Smithsonian Magazine • Marie Claire • Town & Country • Slate • Library Journal • Kirkus Reviews • LibraryReads • PopMatters

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Finalist • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Longlist

“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.”
 
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.
 
Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.

Beautifully written, original, and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.

 

 

On the House: A Washington Memoir by John Boehner

 

 

* INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER *

“A rollicking, foil-mouthed” [memoir]....Boehner has delivered a classic Washington “tell-all,” albeit one with his typical jocular style.” --The Washington Post

Former Speaker of the House John Boehner shares colorful tales from the halls of power, the smoke-filled rooms around the halls of power, and his fabled tour bus.

John Boehner is the last of a breed. At a time when the arbiters of American culture were obsessing over organic kale, cold-pressed juice, and SoulCycle, the man who stood second in line to the presidency was unapologetically smoking Camels, quaffing a glass of red, and hitting the golf course whenever he could.

There could hardly have been a more diametrically opposed figure to represent the opposition party in President Barack Obama's Washington. But when Boehner announced his resignation, President Obama called to tell the outgoing Speaker that he'd miss him. "Mr. President," Boehner replied, "yes you will." He thought of himself as a "regular guy with a big job," and he enjoyed it.

In addition to his own stories of life in the swamp city and of his comeback after getting knocked off the leadership ladder, Boehner offers his impressions of leaders he's met and what made them successes or failures, from Ford and Reagan to Obama, Trump, and Biden. He shares his views on how the Republican Party has become unrecognizable today; the advice--some harsh, some fatherly--he dished out to members of his own party, the opposition, the media, and others; and his often acid-tongued comments about his former colleagues. And of course he talks about golfing with five presidents.

Through Speaker Boehner's honest and self-aware reflections, you'll be reminded of a time when the adults were firmly in charge.

Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself by Jill Biden

 

 

An intimate look at the love that built the Biden family and the delicate balancing act of the woman at its center

"How did you get this number?" Those were the first words Jill Biden spoke to U.S. senator Joe Biden when he called her out of the blue to ask her on a date.

Growing up, Jill had wanted two things: a marriage like her parents'―strong, loving, and full of laughter―and a career. An early heartbreak had left her uncertain about love, until she met Joe. But as they grew closer, Jill faced difficult questions: How would politics shape her family and professional life? And was she ready to become a mother to Joe's two young sons?

She soon found herself falling in love with her three "boys," learning to balance life as a mother, wife, educator, and political spouse. Through the challenges of public scrutiny, complicated family dynamics, and personal losses, she grew alongside her family, and she extended the family circle at every turn: with her students, military families, friends and staff at the White House, and more.

This is the story of how Jill built a family―and a life―of her own. From the pranks she played to keep everyone laughing to the traditions she formed that would carry them through tragedy, hers is the spirited journey of a woman embracing many roles.

Where the Light Enters is a candid, heartwarming glimpse into the creation of a beloved American family, and the life of a woman at its center.Age range:Adult

 

My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg

 

 

 The New York Times bestselling book from Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—“a comprehensive look inside her brilliantly analytical, entertainingly wry mind, revealing the fascinating life of one of our generation's most influential voices in both law and public opinion” (Harper’s Bazaar).

My Own Words “showcases Ruth Ginsburg’s astonishing intellectual range” (The New Republic). In this collection Justice Ginsburg discusses gender equality, the workings of the Supreme Court, being Jewish, law and lawyers in opera, and the value of looking beyond US shores when interpreting the US Constitution. Throughout her life Justice Ginsburg has been (and continues to be) a prolific writer and public speaker. This book’s sampling is selected by Justice Ginsburg and her authorized biographers Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams, who introduce each chapter and provide biographical context and quotes gleaned from hundreds of interviews they have conducted.

Witty, engaging, serious, and playful, My Own Words is a fascinating glimpse into the life of one of America’s most influential women and “a tonic to the current national discourse” (The Washington Post).

Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any by Age Sanjay Gupta M.D.

 

 

Keep your brain young, healthy, and sharp with this science-driven guide to protecting your mind from decline by neurosurgeon and CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta.

Throughout our life, we look for ways to keep our mind sharp and effortlessly productive. Now, globetrotting neurosurgeon Dr. Sanjay Gupta offers insights from top scientists all over the world, whose cutting-edge research can help you heighten and protect brain function and maintain cognitive health at any age.

Keep Sharp debunks common myths about aging and cognitive decline, explores whether there’s a “best” diet or exercise regimen for the brain, and explains whether it’s healthier to play video games that test memory and processing speed, or to engage in more social interaction. Discover what we can learn from “super-brained” people who are in their eighties and nineties with no signs of slowing down—and whether there are truly any benefits to drugs, supplements, and vitamins. Dr. Gupta also addresses brain disease, particularly Alzheimer’s, answers all your questions about the signs and symptoms, and shows how to ward against it and stay healthy while caring for a partner in cognitive decline. He likewise provides you with a personalized twelve-week program featuring practical strategies to strengthen your brain every day.

Keep Sharp is the only owner’s manual you’ll need to keep your brain young and healthy regardless of your age!

Decision Points by George W. Bush

 

 

In this candid and gripping account, President George W. Bush describes the critical decisions that shaped his presidency and personal life.

George W. Bush served as president of the United States during eight of the most consequential years in American history. The decisions that reached his desk impacted people around the world and defined the times in which we live.

Decision Points brings readers inside the Texas governor's mansion on the night of the 2000 election, aboard Air Force One during the harrowing hours after the attacks of September 11, 2001, into the Situation Room moments before the start of the war in Iraq, and behind the scenes at the White House for many other historic presidential decisions.

For the first time, we learn President Bush's perspective and insights on:

• His decision to quit drinking and the journey that led him to his Christian faith
• The selection of the vice president, secretary of defense, secretary of state, Supreme Court justices, and other key officials
• His relationships with his wife, daughters, and parents, including heartfelt letters between the president and his father on the eve of the Iraq War
• His administration's counterterrorism programs, including the CIA's enhanced interrogations and the Terrorist Surveillance Program
• Why the worst moment of the presidency was hearing accusations that race played a role in the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, and a critical assessment of what he would have done differently during the crisis
• His deep concern that Iraq could turn into a defeat costlier than Vietnam, and how he decided to defy public opinion by ordering the troop surge
• His legislative achievements, including tax cuts and reforming education and Medicare, as well as his setbacks, including Social Security and immigration reform
• The relationships he forged with other world leaders, including an honest assessment of those he did and didn’t trust
• Why the failure to bring Osama bin Laden to justice ranks as his biggest disappointment and why his success in denying the terrorists their fondest wish—attacking America again—is among his proudest achievements

A groundbreaking new brand of presidential memoir, Decision Points will captivate supporters, surprise critics, and change perspectives on eight remarkable years in American history—and on the man at the center of events.

Since leaving office, President George W. Bush has led the George W. Bush Presidential Center at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. The center includes an active policy institute working to advance initiatives in the fields of education reform, global health, economic growth, and human freedom, with a special emphasis on promoting social entrepreneurship and creating opportunities for women around the world. It will also house an official government archive and a state-of-the-art museum that will open in 2013.

 

Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power Susan Page

 

 

The definitive biography of Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful woman in American political history, written by New York Times bestselling author and USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page.
 
Featuring more than 150 exclusive interviews with those who know her best—and a series of in-depth, news-making interviews with Pelosi herself—MADAM SPEAKER is unprecedented in the scope of its exploration of Nancy Pelosi’s remarkable life and of her indelible impact on American politics.
 
Before she was Nancy Pelosi, she was Nancy D’Alesandro. Her father was a big-city mayor and her mother his political organizer; when she encour­aged her young daughter to become a nun, Nancy told her mother that being a priest sounded more appealing. She didn’t begin running for office until she was forty-six years old, her five children mostly out of the nest. With that, she found her calling.
 
Nancy Pelosi has lived on the cutting edge of the revolution in both women’s roles and in the nation’s movement to a fiercer and more polarized politics. She has established herself as a crucial friend or for­midable foe to U.S. presidents, a master legislator, and an indefatigable political warrior. She took on the Democratic establishment to become the first female Speaker of the House, then battled rivals on the left and right to consolidate her power. She has soared in the sharp-edged inside game of politics, though she has struggled in the outside game—demonized by conservatives, second-guessed by progressives, and routinely underestimated by nearly everyone.
 
All of this was preparation for the most historic challenge she would ever face, at a time she had been privately planning her retirement. When Donald Trump was elected to the White House, Nancy Pelosi became the Democratic counterpart best able to stand up to the disruptive president and to get under his skin. The battle between Trump and Pelosi, chronicled in this book with behind-the-scenes details and revelations, stands to be the titanic political struggle of our time.

The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country by Amanda Gorman

 

 

The instant #1 New York Times bestseller and #1 USA Today bestseller
 
Amanda Gorman’s electrifying and historic poem “The Hill We Climb,” read at President Joe Biden’s inauguration, is now available as a collectible gift edition, perfect for Mother’s Day, graduation, or any special occasion.
 
“Stunning.” —CNN
“Dynamic.” —NPR
“Deeply rousing and uplifting.” —Vogue
 
 
On January 20, 2021, Amanda Gorman became the sixth and youngest poet to deliver a poetry reading at a presidential inauguration. Taking the stage after the 46th president of the United States, Joe Biden, Gorman captivated the nation and brought hope to viewers around the globe with her call for unity and healing. Her poem “The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country” can now be cherished in this special gift edition, perfect for any reader looking for some inspiration. Including an enduring foreword by Oprah Winfrey, this remarkable keepsake celebrates the promise of America and affirms the power of poetry.

The Truths We Hold: An American Journey (Young Readers Edition) by Kamala Harris

 

 

Now adapted for young readers, Vice President Kamala Harris's empowering memoir about the values and inspirations that guided her life.

With her election to the vice presidency, her election to the U.S. Senate, and her position as attorney general of California, Kamala Harris has blazed trails throughout her entire political career. But how did she achieve her goals? What values and influences guided and inspired her along the way?
 
In this young readers edition of Kamala Harris’s memoir, we learn about the impact that her family and community had on her life, and see what led her to discover her own sense of self and purpose. The Truths We Hold traces her journey as she explored the values she holds most dear—those of community, equality, and justice. An inspiring and empowering memoir, this book challenges us to become leaders in our own lives and shows us that with determination and perseverance all dreams are possible.

This Is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism by Don Lemon

 

 

In this ‘vital book for these times’ (Kirkus Reviews), Don Lemon brings his vast audience and experience as a reporter and a Black man to today’s most urgent question: How can we end racism in America in our lifetimes?
 
The host of CNN Tonight with Don Lemon is more popular than ever. As America’s only Black prime-time anchor, Lemon and his daily monologues on racism and antiracism, on the failures of the Trump administration and of so many of our leaders, and on America’s systemic flaws speak for his millions of fans. Now, in an urgent, deeply personal, riveting plea, he shows us all how deep our problems lie, and what we can do to begin to fix them.

Beginning with a letter to one of his Black nephews, he proceeds with reporting and reflections on his slave ancestors, his upbringing in the shadows of segregation, and his adult confrontations with politicians, activists, and scholars. In doing so, Lemon offers a searing and poetic ultimatum to America. He visits the slave port where a direct ancestor was shackled and shipped to America. He recalls a slave uprising in Louisiana, just a few miles from his birthplace. And he takes us to the heart of the 2020 protests in New York City. As he writes to his young nephew: We must resist racism every single day. We must resist it with love.

Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency Jonathan AllenJonathan Allen

 

 

The inside story of the historic 2020 presidential election and Joe Biden’s harrowing ride to victory, from the #1 New York Times bestselling authors of Shattered, the definitive account of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
 
Almost no one thought Joe Biden could make it back to the White House—not Donald Trump, not the two dozen Democratic rivals who sought to take down a weak front-runner, not the mega-donors and key endorsers who feared he could not beat Bernie Sanders, not even Barack Obama. The story of Biden’s cathartic victory in the 2020 election is the story of a Democratic Party at odds with itself, torn between the single-minded goal of removing Donald Trump and the push for a bold progressive agenda that threatened to alienate as many voters as it drew.
 
In Lucky, #1 New York Times bestselling authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes use their unparalleled access to key players inside the Democratic and Republican campaigns to unfold how Biden’s nail-biting run for the presidency vexed his own party as much as it did Trump. Having premised his path on unlocking the Black vote in South Carolina, Biden nearly imploded before he got there after a relentless string of misfires left him freefalling in polls and nearly broke.
 
Allen and Parnes brilliantly detail the remarkable string of chance events that saved him, from the botched Iowa caucus tally that concealed his terrible result, to the pandemic lockdown that kept him off the stump, where he was often at his worst. More powerfully, Lucky unfolds the pitched struggle within Biden’s general election campaign to downplay the very issues that many Democrats believed would drive voters to the polls, especially in the wake of Trump’s response to nationwide protests following the murder of George Floyd. Even Biden’s victory did not salve his party’s wounds; instead, it revealed a surprising, complicated portrait of American voters and crushed Democrats’ belief in the inevitability of a blue wave.
 
A thrilling masterpiece of political reporting, Lucky is essential reading for understanding the most important election in American history and the future that will come of it.

Beautiful Things: A Memoir Hunter BidenHunter Biden

 

 

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“I come from a family forged by tragedies and bound by a remarkable, unbreakable love,” Hunter Biden writes in this deeply moving memoir of addiction, loss, and survival.

When he was two years old, Hunter Biden was badly injured in a car accident that killed his mother and baby sister. In 2015, he suffered the devastating loss of his beloved big brother, Beau, who died of brain cancer at the age of forty-six. These hardships were compounded by the collapse of his marriage and a years-long battle with drug and alcohol addiction.

In Beautiful Things, Hunter recounts his descent into substance abuse and his tortuous path to sobriety. The story ends with where Hunter is today—a sober married man with a new baby, finally able to appreciate the beautiful things in life.