Like
many, I lament our political polarization and growing income (and influence)
inequality. I thought I understood how money corrupts our government. Still, Jane Mayer, a staff writer for The New Yorker, offers a revelatory and
persuasive history of billionaires bankrolling political changes that advance
their interests … and harm ours.
With engaging profiles and insightful data, she
stoked my anger and protest.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
Who are the immensely wealthy right-wing ideologues shaping the fate of America today? From the bestselling author of The Dark Side, an electrifying work of investigative journalism that uncovers the agenda of this powerful group.
In her new preface, Jane Mayer discusses the results of the most recent election and Donald Trump's victory, and how, despite much discussion to the contrary, this was a huge victory for the billionaires who have been pouring money in the American political system.
Jill
Lapore’s essays startle, offering unexpected angles on topics I thought I
understood. As an example, she enriched my insights into this country’s
founding by profiling Benjamin Franklin’s sister. Lapore possesses a joyful
curiosity and expansive intelligence.
The essays may seem diverse and
unrelated, but I longed for each new evocation.
Few, if any, historians have brought such insight, wisdom, and empathy to public discourse as Jill Lepore. Arriving at The New Yorker in 2005, Lepore, with her panoptical range and razor-sharp style, brought a transporting freshness and a literary vivacity to everything from profiles of long-dead writers to urgent constitutional analysis to an unsparing scrutiny of the woeful affairs of the nation itself. The astonishing essays collected in The Deadline offer a prismatic portrait of Americans' techno-utopianism, frantic fractiousness, and unprecedented-but armed-aimlessness. From lockdowns and race commissions to Bratz dolls and bicycles, to the losses that haunt Lepore's life, these…
It’s a cliché that America is a land of immigrants,
but Mary Kay Zuravleff offers a rich and engaging take on a particular
community- Old Believer Russian Orthodox. Through the viewpoint of the family’s
first American-born child, she weaves a tale of struggle, grief, and joy.
With
Zuravleff’s vivid details and integration of Russian folk tales, I became a
time traveler with eyes widened.
A woman growing up in a family of Russian immigrants in the 1910s seeks a thoroughly American life.
Yelena is the first American born to her Old Believer Russian Orthodox parents, who are building a life in a Pennsylvania Appalachian town. This town, in the first decades of the 20th century, is filled with Russian transplants and a new church with a dome. Here, boys quit grade school for the coal mines and girls are married off at fourteen. The young pair up, give birth to more babies than they can feed, and make shaky starts in their new world.…
Nikola Tesla, a Serbian-American, invented the radio, the induction motor, the neon lamp, and the remote control. His breakthrough came in alternating current, which pitted him against Thomas Edison's direct current empire, and bitter patent battles ensued. But Tesla's technology was superior, and he prevailed. He had no business sense, could not capitalize on this success, and his most advanced ideas were unrecognized for decades.
Tesla's personal life was magnificently bizarre. Strikingly handsome, he was germophobic and never shook hands. He required nine napkins when he sat down to dinner. In later years, he ate only white food and conversed with the pigeons in Bryant Park.
This authoritative and highly readable biography takes account of all phases of this remarkable life.
