There’s a Book for That
YOU NEVER FORGET YOUR FIRST: A BIOGRAPHY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON by Alexis Coe
With irresistible style and warm humor, You Never Forget Your First combines rigorous research and lively storytelling that will have readers—including those who thought presidential biographies were just for dads—inhaling every page.
GRANT by Ron Chernow
Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Chernow returns with a sweeping and dramatic portrait of one of our most compelling generals and presidents, Ulysses S. Grant. The definitive biography, Grant is a grand synthesis of painstaking research and literary brilliance that makes sense of all sides of Grant's life, explaining how this simple Midwesterner could at once be so ordinary and so extraordinary.
CONVERSATIONS WITH JFK: A FICTIONAL DIALOGUE BASED ON BIOGRAPHICAL FACTS by Michael O'Brien, Foreword by Gore Vidal
Imagined by one of the world’s foremost JFK scholars, this fictionalized conversation presents the essential biography of America’s most glamorous and mythologized president. The book is divided into two parts: a biographical essay that provides a concise overview of JFK’s life, achievements, scandals and controversies; and a Q&A dialogue based on rigorous research and incorporating JFK’s actual spoken or written words whenever possible, along with rigorously researched biographical interpretations of his various views and positions.
DESTINY OF THE REPUBLIC: A TALE OF MADNESS, MEDICINE AND THE MURDER OF A PRESIDENT by Candice Millard
Though he was a reluctant president, the legacy of James Garfield extended far beyond his lifetime, and Destiny of the Republic revisits his meteoric rise within the military and government with meticulous research and intimate focus. Garfield was a passionate advocate of freed slaves, a reformer at odds with Republican power brokers and machine politics, a devoted father, and a spellbinding speech-giver. Four months after taking office he was shot twice by an unhinged office-seeker, Charles Guiteau, and a nation already recently fractured by war shattered, leaving the wounded president at the center of a bitter, behind-the-scenes struggle for power.
IN THE PRESIDENT'S SECRET SERVICE: BEHIND THE SCENES WITH AGENTS IN THE LINE OF FIRE AND THE PRESIDENTS THEY PROTECT by Ronald Kessler
Secret Service agents, acting as human surveillance cameras, observe everything that goes on behind the scenes during the presidency. Kessler reveals what they have seen, providing startling, previously untold stories about presidents from Barack Obama and George W. Bush back to John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, as well as about their families, Cabinet officers, and White House aides. Only Secret Service agents know the real story, and Ronald Kessler is the only journalist who has won their trust.
FROM THE CORNER OF THE OVAL: A MEMOIR by Beck Dorey-Stein
The New York Times bestselling, compulsively readable, behind-the-scenes memoir that takes readers inside the Obama White House, through the eyes of a young staffer learning the ropes, falling in love, and finding her place in the world.
MR. PRESIDENT: HOW AND WHY THE FOUNDERS CREATED A CHIEF EXECUTIVE by Ray Raphael
The dramatic and penetrating story of the political maneuverings and personalities behind the creation of the office of the president, with ramifications that continue to this day.
THOMAS JEFFERSON: THE ART OF POWER by Jon Meacham
Jon Meacham brings to life the complete man, from birth to his last days—through the Revolutionary War and his years as President. We see the Founding Father who steered the states to nationhood, wrote the Declaration of Independence, and, as a master politician President, doubled the size of America through the Louisiana Purchase. With a powerful narrrative, Meacham guides us through the life and extraordinary times of a man often admired but, before now, never truly understood in all his complexity.
THE RISE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT by Edmund Morris
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE AND THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time. This classic biography is the story of seven men—a naturalist, a writer, a lover, a hunter, a ranchman, a soldier, and a politician—who merged at age forty-two to become the youngest President in history.
THE PATH TO POWER: THE YEARS OF LYNDON JOHNSON by Robert A. Caro
The Path to Power, Book One, reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and urge to power that set LBJ apart. Chronicling the startling early emergence of Johnson’s political genius, it follows him from his Texas boyhood through the years of the Depression in the Texas hill Country to the triumph of his congressional debut in New Deal Washington, to his heartbreaking defeat in his first race for the Senate, and his attainment, nonetheless, of the national power for which he hungered.
FOR YOUNGER READERS
WHAT IS THE PRESIDENT'S JOB?
Find out what the president does as you learn about the executive branch of government and see what a day in the life of the commander in chief is really like.
THOMAS JEFFERSON: LIFE< LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF EVERYTHING by Maira Kalman
Renowned artist Maira Kalman sheds light on the fascinating life and interests of the Renaissance man who was our third president.
I AM KIND: A LITTLE BOOK ABOUT ABRAHAM LINCOLN by Brad Meltzer and Christopher Eliopoulos
This friendly, fun biography series focuses on the traits that made our heroes great—the traits that kids can aspire to in order to live heroically themselves. The short text focuses on drawing inspiration from these iconic heroes, and includes an interactive element and factual tidbits that young kids will be able to connect with. This volume tells the story of Abraham Lincoln, America’s sixteenth president.
For more on these and related titles visit: PRESIDENTS DAY
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SALT & STRAW ICE CREAM COOKBOOK by Tyler Malek, JJ Goode
Salt & Straw is the ice cream brainchild of two cousins, Tyler and Kim Malek, who had a vision but no recipes. They turned to their friends for advice: chefs, chocolatiers, brewers, and food experts of all kinds, and what came out is a super-simple base that takes five minutes to make, and an ice cream company that sees new flavors and inspiration everywhere they look. This book reveals what they’ve learned, how to tap your own creativity and how to invent flavors of your own, based on whatever you see around you. Because ice cream isn’t just a thing you eat, it’s a way to live.
THE PERFECT SCOOP, REVISED AND UPDATED: 200 RECIPES FOR ICE CREAMS, SORBETS, GELATOS, GRANITAS, AND SWEET ACCOMPANIMENTS: A COOKBOOK by David Lebovitz
A revised and updated edition of the best-selling ice cream book, featuring a dozen new recipes, a fresh design, and all-new photography. This comprehensive collection of homemade ice creams, sorbets, gelatos, granitas, and accompaniments from New York Times best-selling cookbook author and blogger David Lebovitz emphasizes classic and sophisticated flavors alongside a bountiful helping of personality and proven technique.
MEXICAN ICE CREAM: BELOVED RECIPES AND STORIES: A COOKBOOK by Fany Gerson
A collection of 60+ flavor-packed recipes for ice creams and frozen treats rooted in Mexico's rich and revered ice cream traditions. Oaxacan-style Lime Sorbet, Avocado-Chocolate Ice Cream, and Rice-Almond Ice Cream with Cinnamon. All recipes are created with the home cook in mind. Mexican Ice Cream features vibrant location photography and captures the authentic Mexican heladerias that Fany Gerson has been visiting for decades.
HELLO, MY NAME IS ICE CREAM: THE ART AND SCIENCE OF THE SCOOP by Dana Cree
With more than 100 recipes for ice cream flavors and revolutionary mix-ins from a James Beard-nominated pastry chef, Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream explains not only how to make amazing ice cream, but also the science behind the recipes so you can understand ice cream like a pro.
N'ICE CREAM: 80+ RECIPES FOR HEALTHY HOMEMADE VEGAN ICE CREAMS by Virpi Mikkonen, Tuulia Talvio
Just in time to beat the summer heat, Award-winning Finnish author Virpi and coauthor Tuulia show that making your own ice cream can be easy and good for you at the same time. N'ice Cream offers 80 decadent and healthy ice cream recipes made from all-natural, wholesome vegan ingredients like fruits, berries, and plant-based milks and nuts--as the authors say, "no weird stuff." These recipes can be made with or without an ice cream maker, and include foolproof instant ice creams that can be savored right away.
SWEET CREAM AND SUGAR CONES: 90 RECIPES FOR MAKING YOUR OWN ICE CREAM AND FROZEN TREATS FROM BI-RITE CREAMERY: A COOKBOOK by Kris Hoogerhyde, Anne Walker, Dabney Gough
San Francisco’s Bi-Rite Creamery is as well known for its small-batch, handcrafted, show-stopping, inventive ice cream as it is for the long line that snakes around the block. Guests young and old flock to the destination ice cream shop, craving a toasty banana split, a jewel-toned ice pop, a scoop of cooling sorbet, a mouthwatering ice cream sandwich, or one of the best ice cream cakes around. Now you can make your own with this irresistible guide to making 90 intensely flavorful handmade ice creams including the smash hits Salted Caramel and Balsamic Strawberry, plus other favorites.
THE CIAO BELLA BOOK OF GELATO AND SORBETTO: BOLD, FRESH FLAVORS TO MAKE AT HOME by F. W. Pearce, Danilo Zecchin
When you think of the most delicious and fresh gelato and sorbetto in America, you are craving Ciao Bella. The premier gelato and sorbetto maker in the country may be known for using the world’s finest ingredients—Sicilian lemons, Valrhona chocolate, Louisiana pralines—but you don’t need to travel the globe to experience the bold flavors yourself. All you need is a handful of simple, fresh ingredients; a standard ice cream machine; and your imagination.
For more on these and other great books for young readers visit the collection: Ice Cream
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THE INVENTION OF RUSSIA: FROM GORBACHEV'S FREEDOM TO PUTIN'S WAR by Arkady Ostrovsky
A highly original narrative history by The Economist’s Moscow Bureau Chief is a breathtakingly ambitious book that reaches back to the darkest days of the cold war to tell the story of the fight for the soul of a nation. With the deep insight only possible of a native son, Arkady Ostrovsky introduces us to the propagandists, oligarchs and fixers who have set Russia’s course since the collapse of the Soviet Union, inventing a new and more ominous identity for a country where ideas are all too often wielded like a cudgel.
THE PERFECT WEAPON: WAR, SABOTAGE, AND FEAR IN THE CYBER AGE by David E. Sanger
From the premiere New York Times national security correspondent, a stunning and incisive look into how cyberwarfare is influencing elections, threatening national security, and changing diplomacy and war.
THE FUTURE IS HISTORY: HOW TOTALITARIANISM RECLAIMED RUSSIA by Masha Gessen
Winner of the 2017 National Book Award for Nonfiction: The essential journalist and bestselling biographer of Vladimir Putin reveals how, in the space of a generation, Russia surrendered to a virulent new strain of autocracy. Powerful and urgent, The Future Is History is a cautionary tale for our time and for all time.
A VERY EXPENSIVE POISON: THE ASSASSINATION OF ALEXANDER LITVINENKO AND PUTIN'S WAR WITH THE WEST by Luke Harding
A true story of murder and conspiracy that points directly to Vladimir Putin, by The Guardian’s former Moscow bureau chief. On November 1, 2006, journalist and Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in London. He died twenty-two days later. The cause of death? Polonium—a rare, lethal, and highly radioactive substance. Here Luke Harding unspools a real-life political assassination story—complete with KGB, CIA, MI6, and Russian mobsters. From his investigations of the downing of flight MH17 to the Panama Papers, Harding sheds a terrifying light on Russia’s fracturing relationship with the West.
THE NEW TSAR: THE RISE AND REIGN OF VLADIMIR PUTIN by Steven Lee Myers
Former New York Times Moscow bureau chief Steven Lee Myers has followed Vladimir Putin’s journey for many years, and gives us the fullest, most absorbing account we have of his rise to power: The epic tale of Putin’s path to power—detailing the current Russian president’s emergence from shrouded obscurity and deprivation to become one of the most consequential and complicated leaders in modern history.
TRUMP AND A POST-TRUTH WORLD: AN EVOLUTIONARY SELF-CORRECTION by Ken Wilber
The world is in turmoil. As populist waves roil the Brexit-bound U.K., along with Europe, Turkey, Russia, Asia—and most visibly, the U.S. with the election of Donald Trump—nationalist and extremist political forces threaten the progress made over many decades. Democracies are reeling in the face of nihilism and narcissism. How did we get here? And how, with so much antagonism, cynicism, and discord, can we mend the ruptures in our societies? A cutting-edge philosopher of our times, Ken Wilber, offers a provocative and balanced examination of our current social and political situation: It is only when members of society’s leading edge can heal themselves that a new, Integral evolutionary force can emerge to move us beyond the social and political turmoil of our current time to offer genuine leadership toward greater wholeness.
PUTIN'S LABYRINTH: SPIES, MURDER, AND THE DARK HEART OF THE NEW RUSSIA by Steve Levine
For politicos, dissidents, and Eastern European buffs, a brazen book about the culture of murder in Russia.
THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE: THE UNLIKELY RISE OF VLADIMIR PUTIN by Masha Gessen
The Man Without a Face is the chilling account of how a low- level, small-minded KGB operative ascended to the Russian presidency and, in an astonishingly short time, destroyed years of progress and made his country once more a threat to her own people and to the world. As a journalist living in Moscow, Masha Gessen experienced this history firsthand and has drawn on information and sources no other writer has tapped.
COLLUSION: SECRET MEETINGS, DIRTY MONEY, AND HOW RUSSIA HELPED DONALD TRUMP WIN by Luke Harding
From the author of The Snowden Files comes an explosive exposé that lays out the Trump administration’s ties to Moscow, and Russia’s decades-in-the-making political game that upended the 2016 election.
FACTS AND FEARS: HARD TRUTHS FROM A LIFE IN INTELLIGENCE by James R. Clapper, Trey Brown
The former Director of National Intelligence’s candid and compelling account of the intelligence community’s successes—and failures—in facing some of the greatest threats to America.
Coming in September:
HOUSE OF TRUMP, HOUSE OF PUTIN: THE UNTOLD STORY OF DONALD TRUMP AND THE RUSSIAN MAFIA by Craig Unger
House of Trump, House Of Putin offers the first comprehensive investigation into the decades-long relationship among Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Russian Mafia that ultimately helped win Trump the White House.
For more on these and related titles, visit the collection: Russia
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WITHOUT PRECEDENT: CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN MARSHALL AND HIS TIMES by Joel Richard Paul
This is the astonishing true story of how a rough-cut frontiersman - born in Virginia in 1755 and with little formal education - invented himself as one of the nation’s preeminent lawyers and politicians who then reinvented the Constitution to forge a stronger nation. Without Precedent is the engrossing account of the life and times of this exceptional man, who with cunning, imagination, and grace shaped America’s future as he held together the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the country itself.
DISSENT AND THE SUPREME COURT: ITS ROLE IN THE COURT'S HISTORY AND THE NATION'S CONSTITUTIONAL DIALOGUE by Melvin I. Urofsky
In Dissent and the Supreme Court, acclaimed historian Melvin Urofsky examines the great dissents throughout the Court’s history. Urofsky looks at the many aspects of American constitutional life that were affected by the Earl Warren Court, the rise of conservatism, and the present age of incivility. Yet within the Marble Palace, the members of the Supreme Court continue to hear arguments, vote, and draft majority opinions, while the minority continues to “respectfully dissent.” The Framers understood that if a constitution doesn’t grow and adapt, it atrophies and dies, and if it does, so does the democratic society it has supported.
THE COURT AND THE WORLD: AMERICAN LAW AND THE NEW GLOBAL REALITIES by Stephen Breyer
A fascinating account of how an increasingly globalized and interdependent world influences the deliberations of America’s highest court, by the sitting justice and author of Making Our Democracy Work and Active Liberty.
SHOWDOWN: THURGOOD MARSHALL AND THE SUPREME COURT NOMINATION THAT CHANGED AMERICA by Wil Haygood
An authoritative biography of the first African American Supreme Court justice—one of the giants of the civil rights movement, and one of the most transforming Supreme Court justices of the twentieth century.
THE U.S. SUPREME COURT DECISION ON MARRIAGE EQUALITY, as delivered by Justice Anthony Kennedy
A beautifully packaged gift edition of Obergefell et al. v. Hodges, Justice Anthony Kennedy’s landmark Supreme Court decision on marriage equality
SUPREME COURT DECISIONS by Richard Beeman, Jay M. Feinman
The Supreme Court is one of America's leading expositors of and participants in debates about American values. Legal expert Jay M. Feinman introduces and selects some of the most important Supreme Court Decisions of all time, which touch on the very foundations of American society. These cases cover a vast array of issues, from the powers of government and freedom of speech to freedom of religion and civil liberties. Feinman offers commentary on each case and excerpts from the opinions of the Justices that show the range of debate in the Supreme Court and its importance to civil society.
THE NINE: INSIDE THE SECRET WORLD OF THE SUPREME COURT by Jeffrey Toobin
In this gripping and definitive account of the modern Supreme Court, acclaimed journalist Jeffrey Toobin pulls back the curtain on one of the least well-known - and most important - forces shaping contemporary America.
Coming in September…
THE MOST DANGEROUS BRANCH: INSIDE THE SUPREME COURT'S ASSAULT ON THE CONSTITUTION by David A. Kaplan
In the bestsellling tradition of The Nine and The Brethren, David A. Kaplan, the former legal affairs editor of Newsweek, takes us into the secret world of the Supreme Court. Never before has the Court been more central in American life. It is the nine justices who too often now decide the controversial issues of our time—from abortion and same-sex marriage, to gun control, campaign finance and voting rights. Kaplan shows how too often the nine justices subvert the role of other branches of government—and how we’ve come to accept that at our peril.
For more on these and related titles, visit the collection: Supreme Court
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THE LINE BECOMES A RIVER: DISPATCHES FROM THE BORDER by Francisco Cantú
For Francisco Cantú, the border is in the blood: his mother, a park ranger and daughter of a Mexican immigrant, raised him in the scrublands of the Southwest. Haunted by the landscape of his youth, Cantú joins the Border Patrol. He and his partners are posted to remote regions crisscrossed by drug routes: They haul in the dead and deliver to detention those they find alive. Cantú tries not to think where the stories go from there. Plagued by nightmares, he abandons the Patrol for civilian life. But when an immigrant friend travels to Mexico to visit his dying mother and does not return, Cantú must know the whole story. Searing and unforgettable, The Line Becomes a River goes behind the headlines, making urgent and personal the violence our border wreaks on both sides of the line.
WE BUILT THE WALL: HOW THE US KEEPS OUT ASYLUM SEEKERS FROM MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA AND BEYOND by Eileen Truax
A Mexican-American lawyer exposes corruption in the US asylum procedure and despotism in the Mexican government
We Built the Wall is an immersive look at the new front in the immigration wars. It follows the gripping stories of people like Saúl Reyes, forced to flee his home after a drug cartel murdered several members of his family, and Delmy Calderón, a forty-two-year-old woman leading an eight-woman hunger strike in an El Paso detention center. Truax tracks the heart-wrenching trials of refugees like Yamil, the husband and father who chose a prison cell over deportation to Mexico, and Rocío Hernández, a nineteen-year-old who spent nearly her entire life in Texas and is now forced to live in a city where narcotraffickers operate with absolute impunity.
DETAINED AND DEPORTED: STORIES OF IMMIGRANT FAMILIES UNDER FIRE by Margaret Regan
Compelling and heart-wrenching, Detained and Deported offers a rare glimpse into the lives of people ensnared in America’s immigration dragnet.
MIDNIGHT IN MEXICO: A REPORTER’S JOURNEY THROUGH A COUNTRY’S DESCENT INTO DARKNESS by Alfredo Corchado
In a country where the powerful are rarely scrutinized, noted Mexican American journalist Alfredo Corchado refused to shrink from reporting on government corruption, murders in Juarez, or the ruthless drug cartels of Mexico. A paramilitary group spun off from the Gulf cartel, the Zetas, controls key drug routes in the north of the country. In 2007, Corchado received a tip that he could be their next target—and he had twenty four hours to find out if the threat was true. Rather than leave his country, Corchado went out into the Mexican countryside to investigate the threat.
Midnight in Mexico is the story of one man’s quest to report the truth of his country—as he raced to save his own life.
THE DEATH OF JOSSELINE: IMMIGRATION STORIES FROM THE ARIZONA BORDERLANDS by Margaret Regan
Dispatches from Arizona—the front line of a massive human migration—including the voices of migrants, Border Patrol, ranchers, activists, and others.
COYOTES: A JOURNEY ACROSS BORDERS WITH AMERICA'S MEXICAN MIGRANTS by Ted Conover
To discover what becomes of Mexicans who come illegally to the United States, Conover disguised himself as an illegal alien, traveling and working across America for more than a year. This is the chronicle of his journey.
For more on these and related titles, visit the collection: U.S.-Mexico Border
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SOMETHING IN THE WATER: A NOVEL by Catherine Steadman
Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick for June!
Erin and Mark seem to have it all: he’s a successful banker, she’s a documentary filmmaker on the brink of a professional breakthrough; they’re young and in love, about to embark on their dream honeymoon to Bora Bora. But when, after a blissful day of scuba diving, they discover a mysterious bag filled with incalculable riches, their subsequent choices trigger a sequence of events that will change their lives—and their marriage—forever.
INTO THE WATER: A NOVEL by Paula Hawkins
When a single mother and a teenage girl each turn up dead at the bottom of the river, just weeks apart, the ensuing investigation dredges up a complicated history. Like she did in The Girl on the Train, Hawkins’s Into the Water hinges on a powerful understanding of human instincts and the damage they can inflict.
THE WATERS & THE WILD: A NOVEL by DeSales Harrison
A debut novel about a New York City psychoanalyst, and single dad of a teenage daughter, haunted by a past crime and a past lover—a story that examines what it means to love, to betray, and to forgive.
THE WATER KNIFE by Paolo Bacigalupi
In the near future, the Colorado River has dwindled to a trickle. Detective, assassin, and spy, Angel Velasquez “cuts” water for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, ensuring that its lush archology developments can bloom in Las Vegas. When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in Phoenix, Angel is sent south, hunting for answers that seem to evaporate as the heat index soars and the landscape becomes more and more oppressive.
THE SHAPE OF WATER by Andrea Camilleri, Stephen Sartarelli (translator)
The Shape of Water is the first book in the sly, witty, and engaging Inspector Montalbano mystery series with its sardonic take on Sicilian life.
SONG OF THE WATER SAINTS: A NOVEL by Nelly Rosario
This vibrant, provocative début novel explores the dreams and struggles of three generations of Dominican women.
OUR TOWNS: A 100,000-MILE JOURNEY INTO THE HEART OF AMERICA by James Fallows, Deborah Fallows
For the last five years, James and Deborah Fallows have been traveling across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, they have met hundreds of civic leaders, workers, immigrants, educators, environmentalists, artists, public servants, librarians, business people, city planners, students, and entrepreneurs to take the pulse and understand the prospects of places that usually draw notice only after a disaster or during a political campaign. Their view of the country is as complex and contradictory as America itself, but it also reflects the energy, the generosity and compassion, the dreams, and the determination of many who are in the midst of making things better. Our Towns is the story of their journey—and an account of a country busy remaking itself.
THE SOUL OF AMERICA: THE BATTLE FOR OUR BETTER ANGELS by Jon Meacham
We have been here before. In this timely and revealing book, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham helps us understand the present moment in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in our history when hope overcame division and fear. With clarity and purpose, Meacham explores contentious periods and how presidents and citizens came together to defeat the forces of anger, intolerance, and extremism.
FANTASYLAND: HOW AMERICA WENT HAYWIRE: A 500-YEAR HISTORY by Kurt Andersen
From a razor-sharp thinker, a new understanding of our post-truth world—the American instinct to believe in make-believe, from the Pilgrims to P.T. Barnum to Disneyland to zealots of every stripe…to Donald Trump.
SCARS OF INDEPENDENCE: AMERICA'S VIOLENT BIRTH by Holger Hoock
The American Revolution is often portrayed as an orderly, restrained rebellion, with brave patriots defending their noble ideals against an oppressive empire. But as historian Holger Hoock shows in this deeply researched and elegantly written account of America’s founding, the Revolution was also a profoundly violent civil war—one that shaped the nation, and the British Empire, in ways we have only begun to understand. Vivid and authoritative, Scars of Independence offers a new origins story that is both relevant and necessary—an important reminder that forging a nation is rarely bloodless.
TALES OF TWO AMERICAS: STORIES OF INEQUALITY IN A DIVIDED NATION by John Freeman
Thirty-four major contemporary writers—including Anthony Doerr, Ann Patchett, Roxane Gay, Edwidge Danticat, Rebecca Solnit, Joyce Carol Oates, Hector Tobar, and Karen Russell—examine life in a deeply divided America. Tales of Two Americas demonstrates how boundaries can break down when experiences are shared, and that in sharing our stories we can help to alleviate a suffering that touches us all.
ONE SUMMER: AMERICA, 1927 by Bill Bryson
The summer of 1927 began with Charles Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic. Meanwhile, Babe Ruth was closing in on the home run record. In Newark, New Jersey, Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly sat atop a flagpole for twelve days, and in Chicago, the gangster Al Capone was tightening his grip on bootlegging. The first true “talking picture,” Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer, was filmed, forever changing the motion picture industry. All this and much, much more transpired in the year Americans attempted and accomplished outsized things—and when the twentieth century truly became the American century. One Summer transforms it all into narrative nonfiction of the highest order.
THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS: THE EPIC STORY OF AMERICA'S GREAT MIGRATION by Isabel Wilkerson
In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life.
THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA'S BEST IDEA by Dayton Duncan, Ken Burns
America’s national parks spring from an idea as radical as the Declaration of Independence: that the nation’s most magnificent and sacred places should be preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but for everyone. In this evocative and lavishly illustrated narrative, Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan delve into the history of the park idea, from the first sighting by white men in 1851 of the valley that would become Yosemite and the creation of the world’s first national park at Yellowstone in 1872, through the most recent additions to a system that now encompasses nearly four hundred sites and 84 million acres.
TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY IN SEARCH OF AMERICA by John Steinbeck
An intimate journey across America, as told by one of its most beloved writers. To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the trees, to see the colors and the light—these were John Steinbeck's goals as he set out, at the age of fifty-eight, to rediscover the country he had been writing about for so many years.
FOR YOUNGER READERS
WORDS THAT BUILT A NATION: VOICES OF DEMOCRACY THAT HAVE SHAPED AMERICA’S HISTORY by Marilyn Miller, Ellen Scordato and Dan Tucker; Illustrated by Mary Kate Mcdevitt
Words that Built a Nation was hailed for bringing together the United States’ most important historical essays, speeches, and documents into one accessible collection for kids. This history lovers’ must-have has been revised, revamped, and expanded for the 21st century.
WE CAME TO AMERICA by Faith Ringgold
From the Native Americans who first called this land their home, to the millions of people who have flocked to its shores ever since, America is a country rich in diversity. Some of our ancestors were driven by dreams and hope. Vividly expressed in Faith Ringgold’s sumptuous colors and patterns, We Came to America is an ode to every American who came before us, and a tribute to each child who will carry its proud message of diversity into our nation’s future.
THE CAMPING TRIP THAT CHANGED AMERICA: THEODORE ROOSEVELT, JOHN MUIR, AND OUR NATIONAL PARKS by Barb Rosenstock; Illustrated by Mordecai Gerstein
Caldecott medalist Mordicai Gerstein captures the majestic redwoods of Yosemite in this little-known but important story from our nation's history. In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt joined naturalist John Muir on a trip to Yosemite. Camping by themselves in the uncharted woods, the two men saw sights and held discussions that would ultimately lead to the establishment of our National Parks.
For more on these and other great books for dad, visit the collection: America
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ROOM TO DREAM: A LIFE by David Lynch, Kristine McKenna; Read by David Lynch and Kristine McKenna
An unprecedented look into the personal and creative life of the visionary auteur David Lynch, through his own words and those of his closest colleagues, friends, and family — adapted by David Lynch from the print book especially for this audio program. With insights into…Eraserhead; The Elephant Man; Dune; Blue Velvet; Twin Peaks; Mulholland Drive and more!
YOU CAN'T SPELL AMERICA WITHOUT ME: THE REALLY TREMENDOUS INSIDE STORY OF MY FANTASTIC FIRST YEAR AS PRESIDENT Donald J. Trump (A So-Called Parody) by Alec Baldwin, Kurt Andersen
Political satire as deeper truth: Donald Trump’s presidential memoir, as recorded by two world-renowned Trump scholars, and experts on greatness generally
UNCOMMON TYPE: SOME STORIES by Tom Hanks; Read by Tom Hanks
A collection of seventeen wonderful short stories showing that two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks is as talented a writer as he is an actor. Featuring additional performances by Peter Gerety, Peter Scolari, Cecily Strong, Holland Taylor, and Wilmer Valderrama on “Stay With Us.”
HEARTBURN by Nora Ephron; Read by Meryl Streep
Is it possible to write a sidesplitting novel about the breakup of the perfect marriage? If the writer is Nora Ephron, the answer is a resounding yes. For in this inspired confection of adultery, revenge, group therapy, and pot roast, the creator of “Sleepless in Seattle” reminds us that comedy depends on anguish as surely as a proper gravy depends on flour and butter.
M TRAIN by Patti Smith; Read by Patti Smith
From the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids: an unforgettable odyssey of a legendary artist, told through the prism of the cafés and haunts she has worked in around the world. It is a book Patti Smith has described as “a roadmap to my life.”
FOR ALL AGES
GOOD NIGHT STORIES FOR REBEL GIRLS
The beloved New York Times bestsellers and Kickstarter crowdfunding sensations are available on audio for the first time, read by a star-studded fierce female cast including Alicia Keys, Ashley Judd, Danai Gurira, Esperanza Spalding, Janeane Garofalo, Mozhan Marnò, Phillipa Soo, Rowan Blanchard, and Samira Wiley! Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls reinvents fairy tales, inspiring listeners with the stories of 100 heroic women, from Elizabeth I to Serena Williams. Painters, scientists, dancers, chefs, astronauts, jazz singers, pharaohs, boxers, writers, political leaders…from every corner of the globe!
THE PURLOINING OF PRINCE OLEOMARGARINE by Mark Twain, Philip C. Stead, Erin Stead; Read by Keegan-Michael Key and Philip Stead
A never-before-published, previously unfinished Mark Twain children’s story is brought to life by Caldecott Medal winners Philip Stead and Erin Stead.
In a hotel in Paris one evening in the 1879, Mark Twain sat with his young daughters, who begged their father for a story. Choosing a picture from a magazine to get started, Twain began telling them the tale of Johnny, a poor boy in possession of some magical seeds, who finds himself on a quest to rescue a stolen prince. Later, Twain would jot down some rough notes about the story, but the tale was left unfinished…until now. With Mark Bramhall as the voice of Mark Twain, Julia Whelan as Susy Clemens, and an Editor’s Note read by Frances Gilbert.
APPLEBLOSSOM THE POSSUM by Holly Goldberg Sloan: Read by Dustin Hoffman
Fans of E.B. White and Dick King-Smith will adore this heartwarming and funny animal adventure by the award-winning author of Counting by 7s.
A WRINKLE IN TIME by Madeleine L'Engle; Read by Hope Davis
Madeleine L’Engle’s ground-breaking, Newbery Medal-winning science fiction and fantasy classic was adapted into a major motion picture earlier this year. This movie tie-in audiobook includes an introduction read by director Ava DuVernay, a foreword read by the author, and an afterword read by Madeleine L’Engle’s granddaughter Charlotte Jones Voiklis.
THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM - 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis; Read by LeVar Burton
Enter the hilarious world of ten-year-old Kenny and his family, the Weird Watsons of Flint, Michigan. There's Momma, Dad, little sister Joetta, Kenny, and Byron, Kenny's older brother, who, at thirteen, is an "official juvenile delinquent." When Momma and Dad decide it's time for a visit to Grandma, Dad comes home with the amazing Ultra-Glide, and the Watsons set out on a trip like no other. Heading South, they're going to Birmingham, Alabama, and toward one of the darkest moments in America's history. By turns comic, tragic, and touching, this remarkable Newbery Honor work, delightfully performed by LeVar Burton in this unabridged production, will delight listeners young and old as they meet Christopher Paul Curtis, a storyteller of bold ambition and a true and original voice and his inimitable Watsons.
For more on these and other great audiobooks, visit the collection: June is Audiobook Month
There’s a Book for That! is brought to you by Penguin Random House’s Sales department. Please follow our Tumblr by clicking here—and share this link with your accounts: theresabookforthat.tumblr.com. Thank you! Did you see something on the news or read about something on your commute? Perhaps you noticed something trending on Twitter? Did you think: “There’s a book for that!”? Then please, send it our way at theresabookforthat@penguinrandomhouse.com
A FRENCH WEDDING by Hannah Tunnicliffe
The Big Chill meets The Little French Bistro in this sumptuous novel about six college friends reuniting on the coast of Brittany to celebrate one of their own’s fortieth birthday. With delicious food and plenty of wine, the table is set for tricky romantic entanglements and the spilling of longheld secrets.
A NANTUCKET WEDDING: A NOVEL by Nancy Thayer
It’s summer on Nantucket and Alison is finally engaged to the love of her life. Things would be perfect—if only she could make peace between her daughters. Felicity, wild at heart yet a loving mother to her own children, and Jane, the extremely organized and high-earning businesswoman, arrive on the island hoping to get through these next few weeks without ruining their mother’s big day. But when Felicity’s husband reveals a long-term affair and Jane falls for her soon-to-be step-brother, everyone gets way more drama than they bargained for.
THE WEDDING DATE by Jasmine Guillory
“What a charming, warm, sexy gem of a novel….One of the best books I’ve read in a while.”—Roxane Gay
A groomsman and his last-minute guest are about to discover if a fake date can go the distance in this fun and flirty multicultural romance debut.
WEDDING STORIES by Diana Secker Tesdell
A bouquet of great wedding stories—by turns funny, passionate, bittersweet, and romantic—by famous writers from across the past two centuries. From F. Scott Fitzgerald to Lorrie Moore, and from Stephen Crane to Edwidge Danticat. EVERYMAN’S LIBRARY POCKET CLASSICS. The stories collected here—including such gems as Stephen Crane’s “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky,” O. Henry’s “The Marry Month of May,” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Bridal Party,” Joy Williams’s “The Wedding,” and Lorrie Moore’s “Thank You For Having Me”—encompass comic wedding mishaps, engagements broken and mended, honeymoon adventures, and scenes both heartwarming and heartbreaking.
SAVE THE DATE: THE OCCASIONAL MORTIFICATIONS OF A SERIAL WEDDING GUEST by Jen Doll
An “engaging and disarmingly honest” (People) examination of the search for love and the meaning of marriage in a time of anxiety, independence, and indecision.
Wedding experiences come in as varied an assortment as the gowns at any bridal shop, and Doll turns a keen eye to each, delivering a heartfelt exploration of contemporary relationships. Funny, honest, and affecting, Save the Date is a fresh and spirited look at the many ways in which we connect to one another.
WEDDING NIGHT: A NOVEL by Sophie Kinsella
Lottie is thirty-three and sick of long-term boyfriends who don’t want to commit to marriage. When her old boyfriend Ben reappears after fifteen years and reminds her of their pact to get married if they were both still single at thirty, she jumps at the chance. There will be no dates and no engagement—just a straight wedding march to the altar! Next comes the honeymoon on the Greek island where they first met. But not everyone is thrilled with Lottie and Ben’s rushed marriage, and family and friends are determined to intervene. Will Lottie and Ben have a wedding night to remember or one to forget?
THE WEDDING: A NOVEL by Dorothy West
In her final novel, Dorothy West offers an intimate glimpse into African American middle class. Set on bucolic Martha's Vineyard in the 1950s, The Wedding tells the story of life in the Oval, a proud, insular community made up of the best and brightest of the East Coast's black bourgeoisie. With elegant, luminous prose, Dorothy West crowns her literary career by illustrating one family's struggle to break the shackles of race and class.
For more on these and other great books for dad, visit the collection: Wedding Lit
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GHOSTBUSTER'S DAUGHTER: LIFE WITH MY DAD, HAROLD RAMIS by Violet Ramis Stiel
From the daughter of comedy legend Harold Ramis (and featuring a Foreword by Seth Rogen) comes a hilarious and heartwarming account of his life, work, and legacy.
While the book offers a comprehensive history of her father’s career, Ghostbuster’s Daughter also provides a profound homage to their special father-daughter relationship.
DAD IS FAT by Jim Gaffigan
In his New York Times bestseller, popular comedian—and father of five!—Jim Gaffigan shares his fresh and hilarious observations on family life. Dad Is Fat is sharply observed, explosively funny, and a cry for help from a man who has realized he and his wife are outnumbered in their own home.
NINE LESSONS I LEARNED FROM MY FATHER by Murray Howe
Part Tuesdays with Morrie, part Mr. Hockey, Nine Lessons I Learned from My Father is a son’s intimate account of all that lies behind the towering legacy of the beloved Gordie Howe.
AN ODYSSEY: A FATHER, A SON, AND AN EPIC by Daniel Mendelsohn
From award-winning memoirist and critic, and bestselling author of The Lost comes a deeply moving tale of a father and son’s transformative journey in reading—and reliving—Homer’s epic masterpiece.
THE RETURN: FATHERS, SONS AND THE LAND IN BETWEEN by Hisham Matar
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
In 2012, after the overthrow of Qaddafi, the acclaimed novelist Hisham Matar journeys to his native Libya after an absence of thirty years. The Return is the memoir of a son’s search for the truth behind his father’s disappearance.
THE FATHER: POEMS by Sharon Olds
The Father is a sequence of poems, a daughter’s vision of a father’s illness and death. It chronicles these events in a connected narrative, from the onset of the illness to reflections in the years after the death. The book is, most of all, a series of acts of understanding. The poems are impelled by a passion to know, and a freedom to follow wherever the truth may lead. The book goes into area of feeling and experience rarely entered in poetry.
FATHER AND SON: A STUDY OF TWO TEMPERAMENTS by Edmund Gosse, Peter Abbs
Father and Son, a memoir first published anonymously in 1907, focuses on the relationship between a sternly religious father who rejects the new evolutionary theories of his scientific colleague Charles Darwin and the son's gradual coming of age and rejection of his father's fundamentalist religion. It was immediately acclaimed for its courage in flouting the conventions of Victorian autobiography and is still a moving account of self-discovery.
RENOIR, MY FATHER by Jean Renoir
In this delightful memoir, Jean Renoir, the director of such masterpieces of the cinema as Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game, tells the life story of his father, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the great Impressionist painter. Jean Renoir’s book is both a wonderful double portrait of father and son and, in the words of the distinguished art historian John Golding, it "remains the best account of Renoir, and, furthermore, among the most beautiful and moving biographies we have."
FATHER AND SON by E.O Plauen; Afterword by Elke Schulze; Translated from the German by Joel Roteberg
Father and Son is one of the most beloved comic strips ever drawn—an uproarious, timeless ode to the pleasures, pitfalls, and endless absurdity of family life.
FOR YOUNGER READERS
MY DAD IS THE BEST PLAYGROUND by Luciana Navarro Powell
This joyful story celebrates Dad as the most fun person in the world and the best playground ever! He’s the highest swing and a great climbing wall, he’s a bouncing trampoline and merry as a merry-go-round. And then, when playtime is over, Dad is the best for reading and snuggling with before bed. Luciana Navarro Powell’s spirited writing is perfectly paired with her colorful, energetic, and very humorous artwork. Dads and their kids will love reading and rereading this glorious celebration of fathers.
MY DAD USED TO BE SO COOL by Keith Negley
Keith Negley’s playful and emotional art tells this story of a new father who is no longer the cool guy he once was. He looks back wistfully on his crazy times playing in a band, riding a motorcycle, and getting tattoos. Those days may be behind him, but his young son still thinks he’s the coolest guy in the world.
PET DAD by Elanna Allen
Plum wants the perfect pet, but instead realizes she has the perfect dad in this charming and hilarious picture book that’s great for father’s day.
For more on these and other great books for dad, visit the collection: Fathers Day 2018
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Friday Reads: Presidents' Day
February 14, 2020
On Monday, February 17, we honor Presidents’ Day. Established in 1885, it is still officially called “Washington’s Birthday” by the federal government. As we reflect on American Presidents, past and present, the 2020 Presidential primary season is in full gear. We are of the opinion that your holiday weekend reading would be well-served by the following distinctive and notable collection of presidential literature.
YOU NEVER FORGET YOUR FIRST: A BIOGRAPHY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON by Alexis Coe
With irresistible style and warm humor, You Never Forget Your First combines rigorous research and lively storytelling that will have readers—including those who thought presidential biographies were just for dads—inhaling every page.
GRANT by Ron Chernow
Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Chernow returns with a sweeping and dramatic portrait of one of our most compelling generals and presidents, Ulysses S. Grant. The definitive biography, Grant is a grand synthesis of painstaking research and literary brilliance that makes sense of all sides of Grant's life, explaining how this simple Midwesterner could at once be so ordinary and so extraordinary.
CONVERSATIONS WITH JFK: A FICTIONAL DIALOGUE BASED ON BIOGRAPHICAL FACTS by Michael O'Brien, Foreword by Gore Vidal
Imagined by one of the world’s foremost JFK scholars, this fictionalized conversation presents the essential biography of America’s most glamorous and mythologized president. The book is divided into two parts: a biographical essay that provides a concise overview of JFK’s life, achievements, scandals and controversies; and a Q&A dialogue based on rigorous research and incorporating JFK’s actual spoken or written words whenever possible, along with rigorously researched biographical interpretations of his various views and positions.
DESTINY OF THE REPUBLIC: A TALE OF MADNESS, MEDICINE AND THE MURDER OF A PRESIDENT by Candice Millard
Though he was a reluctant president, the legacy of James Garfield extended far beyond his lifetime, and Destiny of the Republic revisits his meteoric rise within the military and government with meticulous research and intimate focus. Garfield was a passionate advocate of freed slaves, a reformer at odds with Republican power brokers and machine politics, a devoted father, and a spellbinding speech-giver. Four months after taking office he was shot twice by an unhinged office-seeker, Charles Guiteau, and a nation already recently fractured by war shattered, leaving the wounded president at the center of a bitter, behind-the-scenes struggle for power.
IN THE PRESIDENT'S SECRET SERVICE: BEHIND THE SCENES WITH AGENTS IN THE LINE OF FIRE AND THE PRESIDENTS THEY PROTECT by Ronald Kessler
Secret Service agents, acting as human surveillance cameras, observe everything that goes on behind the scenes during the presidency. Kessler reveals what they have seen, providing startling, previously untold stories about presidents from Barack Obama and George W. Bush back to John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, as well as about their families, Cabinet officers, and White House aides. Only Secret Service agents know the real story, and Ronald Kessler is the only journalist who has won their trust.
FROM THE CORNER OF THE OVAL: A MEMOIR by Beck Dorey-Stein
The New York Times bestselling, compulsively readable, behind-the-scenes memoir that takes readers inside the Obama White House, through the eyes of a young staffer learning the ropes, falling in love, and finding her place in the world.
MR. PRESIDENT: HOW AND WHY THE FOUNDERS CREATED A CHIEF EXECUTIVE by Ray Raphael
The dramatic and penetrating story of the political maneuverings and personalities behind the creation of the office of the president, with ramifications that continue to this day.
THOMAS JEFFERSON: THE ART OF POWER by Jon Meacham
Jon Meacham brings to life the complete man, from birth to his last days—through the Revolutionary War and his years as President. We see the Founding Father who steered the states to nationhood, wrote the Declaration of Independence, and, as a master politician President, doubled the size of America through the Louisiana Purchase. With a powerful narrrative, Meacham guides us through the life and extraordinary times of a man often admired but, before now, never truly understood in all his complexity.
THE RISE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT by Edmund Morris
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE AND THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time. This classic biography is the story of seven men—a naturalist, a writer, a lover, a hunter, a ranchman, a soldier, and a politician—who merged at age forty-two to become the youngest President in history.
THE PATH TO POWER: THE YEARS OF LYNDON JOHNSON by Robert A. Caro
The Path to Power, Book One, reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and urge to power that set LBJ apart. Chronicling the startling early emergence of Johnson’s political genius, it follows him from his Texas boyhood through the years of the Depression in the Texas hill Country to the triumph of his congressional debut in New Deal Washington, to his heartbreaking defeat in his first race for the Senate, and his attainment, nonetheless, of the national power for which he hungered.
FOR YOUNGER READERS
WHAT IS THE PRESIDENT'S JOB?
Find out what the president does as you learn about the executive branch of government and see what a day in the life of the commander in chief is really like.
THOMAS JEFFERSON: LIFE< LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF EVERYTHING by Maira Kalman
Renowned artist Maira Kalman sheds light on the fascinating life and interests of the Renaissance man who was our third president.
I AM KIND: A LITTLE BOOK ABOUT ABRAHAM LINCOLN by Brad Meltzer and Christopher Eliopoulos
This friendly, fun biography series focuses on the traits that made our heroes great—the traits that kids can aspire to in order to live heroically themselves. The short text focuses on drawing inspiration from these iconic heroes, and includes an interactive element and factual tidbits that young kids will be able to connect with. This volume tells the story of Abraham Lincoln, America’s sixteenth president.
For more on these and related titles visit: PRESIDENTS DAY
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Friday Reads: Ice Cream!
July 19, 2019
Make that a double scoop… July is National Ice Cream Month! Is there a more favorite summer treat? We think not! Artisanal ice cream is all the rage, but the round-the-block lines are daunting. Skip the line this weekend! With the books we are serving up, now you can wow friends and family with homemade ice cream, gelato, sorbets and the like. What’s more, you’ll learn about flavors to savor, as well as the business, science and culture of ice cream.
SALT & STRAW ICE CREAM COOKBOOK by Tyler Malek, JJ Goode
Salt & Straw is the ice cream brainchild of two cousins, Tyler and Kim Malek, who had a vision but no recipes. They turned to their friends for advice: chefs, chocolatiers, brewers, and food experts of all kinds, and what came out is a super-simple base that takes five minutes to make, and an ice cream company that sees new flavors and inspiration everywhere they look. This book reveals what they’ve learned, how to tap your own creativity and how to invent flavors of your own, based on whatever you see around you. Because ice cream isn’t just a thing you eat, it’s a way to live.
THE PERFECT SCOOP, REVISED AND UPDATED: 200 RECIPES FOR ICE CREAMS, SORBETS, GELATOS, GRANITAS, AND SWEET ACCOMPANIMENTS: A COOKBOOK by David Lebovitz
A revised and updated edition of the best-selling ice cream book, featuring a dozen new recipes, a fresh design, and all-new photography. This comprehensive collection of homemade ice creams, sorbets, gelatos, granitas, and accompaniments from New York Times best-selling cookbook author and blogger David Lebovitz emphasizes classic and sophisticated flavors alongside a bountiful helping of personality and proven technique.
MEXICAN ICE CREAM: BELOVED RECIPES AND STORIES: A COOKBOOK by Fany Gerson
A collection of 60+ flavor-packed recipes for ice creams and frozen treats rooted in Mexico's rich and revered ice cream traditions. Oaxacan-style Lime Sorbet, Avocado-Chocolate Ice Cream, and Rice-Almond Ice Cream with Cinnamon. All recipes are created with the home cook in mind. Mexican Ice Cream features vibrant location photography and captures the authentic Mexican heladerias that Fany Gerson has been visiting for decades.
HELLO, MY NAME IS ICE CREAM: THE ART AND SCIENCE OF THE SCOOP by Dana Cree
With more than 100 recipes for ice cream flavors and revolutionary mix-ins from a James Beard-nominated pastry chef, Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream explains not only how to make amazing ice cream, but also the science behind the recipes so you can understand ice cream like a pro.
N'ICE CREAM: 80+ RECIPES FOR HEALTHY HOMEMADE VEGAN ICE CREAMS by Virpi Mikkonen, Tuulia Talvio
Just in time to beat the summer heat, Award-winning Finnish author Virpi and coauthor Tuulia show that making your own ice cream can be easy and good for you at the same time. N'ice Cream offers 80 decadent and healthy ice cream recipes made from all-natural, wholesome vegan ingredients like fruits, berries, and plant-based milks and nuts--as the authors say, "no weird stuff." These recipes can be made with or without an ice cream maker, and include foolproof instant ice creams that can be savored right away.
SWEET CREAM AND SUGAR CONES: 90 RECIPES FOR MAKING YOUR OWN ICE CREAM AND FROZEN TREATS FROM BI-RITE CREAMERY: A COOKBOOK by Kris Hoogerhyde, Anne Walker, Dabney Gough
San Francisco’s Bi-Rite Creamery is as well known for its small-batch, handcrafted, show-stopping, inventive ice cream as it is for the long line that snakes around the block. Guests young and old flock to the destination ice cream shop, craving a toasty banana split, a jewel-toned ice pop, a scoop of cooling sorbet, a mouthwatering ice cream sandwich, or one of the best ice cream cakes around. Now you can make your own with this irresistible guide to making 90 intensely flavorful handmade ice creams including the smash hits Salted Caramel and Balsamic Strawberry, plus other favorites.
THE CIAO BELLA BOOK OF GELATO AND SORBETTO: BOLD, FRESH FLAVORS TO MAKE AT HOME by F. W. Pearce, Danilo Zecchin
When you think of the most delicious and fresh gelato and sorbetto in America, you are craving Ciao Bella. The premier gelato and sorbetto maker in the country may be known for using the world’s finest ingredients—Sicilian lemons, Valrhona chocolate, Louisiana pralines—but you don’t need to travel the globe to experience the bold flavors yourself. All you need is a handful of simple, fresh ingredients; a standard ice cream machine; and your imagination.
For more on these and other great books for young readers visit the collection: Ice Cream
There’s a Book for That! is brought to you by Penguin Random House’s Sales department. Please follow our Tumblr by clicking here—and share this link with your accounts: theresabookforthat.tumblr.com. Thank you! Did you see something on the news or read about something on your commute? Perhaps you noticed something trending on Twitter? Did you think: “There’s a book for that!”? Then please, send it our way at theresabookforthat@penguinrandomhouse.com
There's a Book for That: Russia, Putin and Trump
July 18, 2018
This week’s dominant story is President Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. At the time of this post, news and social media is abuzz with reactions to the summit on the heels of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report indicting 12 Russian officers. To add context, we offer the following expertly researched titles full of trenchant analysis and narrative history by world-renowned journalists and insiders:
THE INVENTION OF RUSSIA: FROM GORBACHEV'S FREEDOM TO PUTIN'S WAR by Arkady Ostrovsky
A highly original narrative history by The Economist’s Moscow Bureau Chief is a breathtakingly ambitious book that reaches back to the darkest days of the cold war to tell the story of the fight for the soul of a nation. With the deep insight only possible of a native son, Arkady Ostrovsky introduces us to the propagandists, oligarchs and fixers who have set Russia’s course since the collapse of the Soviet Union, inventing a new and more ominous identity for a country where ideas are all too often wielded like a cudgel.
THE PERFECT WEAPON: WAR, SABOTAGE, AND FEAR IN THE CYBER AGE by David E. Sanger
From the premiere New York Times national security correspondent, a stunning and incisive look into how cyberwarfare is influencing elections, threatening national security, and changing diplomacy and war.
THE FUTURE IS HISTORY: HOW TOTALITARIANISM RECLAIMED RUSSIA by Masha Gessen
Winner of the 2017 National Book Award for Nonfiction: The essential journalist and bestselling biographer of Vladimir Putin reveals how, in the space of a generation, Russia surrendered to a virulent new strain of autocracy. Powerful and urgent, The Future Is History is a cautionary tale for our time and for all time.
A VERY EXPENSIVE POISON: THE ASSASSINATION OF ALEXANDER LITVINENKO AND PUTIN'S WAR WITH THE WEST by Luke Harding
A true story of murder and conspiracy that points directly to Vladimir Putin, by The Guardian’s former Moscow bureau chief. On November 1, 2006, journalist and Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in London. He died twenty-two days later. The cause of death? Polonium—a rare, lethal, and highly radioactive substance. Here Luke Harding unspools a real-life political assassination story—complete with KGB, CIA, MI6, and Russian mobsters. From his investigations of the downing of flight MH17 to the Panama Papers, Harding sheds a terrifying light on Russia’s fracturing relationship with the West.
THE NEW TSAR: THE RISE AND REIGN OF VLADIMIR PUTIN by Steven Lee Myers
Former New York Times Moscow bureau chief Steven Lee Myers has followed Vladimir Putin’s journey for many years, and gives us the fullest, most absorbing account we have of his rise to power: The epic tale of Putin’s path to power—detailing the current Russian president’s emergence from shrouded obscurity and deprivation to become one of the most consequential and complicated leaders in modern history.
TRUMP AND A POST-TRUTH WORLD: AN EVOLUTIONARY SELF-CORRECTION by Ken Wilber
The world is in turmoil. As populist waves roil the Brexit-bound U.K., along with Europe, Turkey, Russia, Asia—and most visibly, the U.S. with the election of Donald Trump—nationalist and extremist political forces threaten the progress made over many decades. Democracies are reeling in the face of nihilism and narcissism. How did we get here? And how, with so much antagonism, cynicism, and discord, can we mend the ruptures in our societies? A cutting-edge philosopher of our times, Ken Wilber, offers a provocative and balanced examination of our current social and political situation: It is only when members of society’s leading edge can heal themselves that a new, Integral evolutionary force can emerge to move us beyond the social and political turmoil of our current time to offer genuine leadership toward greater wholeness.
PUTIN'S LABYRINTH: SPIES, MURDER, AND THE DARK HEART OF THE NEW RUSSIA by Steve Levine
For politicos, dissidents, and Eastern European buffs, a brazen book about the culture of murder in Russia.
THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE: THE UNLIKELY RISE OF VLADIMIR PUTIN by Masha Gessen
The Man Without a Face is the chilling account of how a low- level, small-minded KGB operative ascended to the Russian presidency and, in an astonishingly short time, destroyed years of progress and made his country once more a threat to her own people and to the world. As a journalist living in Moscow, Masha Gessen experienced this history firsthand and has drawn on information and sources no other writer has tapped.
COLLUSION: SECRET MEETINGS, DIRTY MONEY, AND HOW RUSSIA HELPED DONALD TRUMP WIN by Luke Harding
From the author of The Snowden Files comes an explosive exposé that lays out the Trump administration’s ties to Moscow, and Russia’s decades-in-the-making political game that upended the 2016 election.
FACTS AND FEARS: HARD TRUTHS FROM A LIFE IN INTELLIGENCE by James R. Clapper, Trey Brown
The former Director of National Intelligence’s candid and compelling account of the intelligence community’s successes—and failures—in facing some of the greatest threats to America.
Coming in September:
HOUSE OF TRUMP, HOUSE OF PUTIN: THE UNTOLD STORY OF DONALD TRUMP AND THE RUSSIAN MAFIA by Craig Unger
House of Trump, House Of Putin offers the first comprehensive investigation into the decades-long relationship among Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Russian Mafia that ultimately helped win Trump the White House.
For more on these and related titles, visit the collection: Russia
There’s a Book for That! is brought to you by Penguin Random House’s Sales department. Please follow our Tumblr by clicking here—and share this link with your accounts: theresabookforthat.tumblr.com. Thank you! Did you see something on the news or read about something on your commute? Perhaps you noticed something trending on Twitter? Did you think: “There’s a book for that!”? Then please, send it our way at theresabookforthat@penguinrandomhouse.com
There's a Book for That: The Supreme Court
July 11, 2018
Given Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s decision to retire, President Trump announced this week his nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh currently serves on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He will now make “courtesy calls” with senators though his confirmation hearings are yet to be announced.
The Supreme Court has also entered popular culture this summer with the hit documentary, RBG, about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. At 85 years-old, Justice Ginsburg is the eldest on the court. As testament to her popularity, FCTRY, a Brooklyn-based product design company, has raised more than $600,000 for a Ruth Bader Ginsburg life-like action figure, exceeding its funding goal of $15,000 by over 4,000%.
With public interest percolating, we’re highlighting books about the highest court in the land – its history, landmark cases, personalities and its crucial role in American democracy.
WITHOUT PRECEDENT: CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN MARSHALL AND HIS TIMES by Joel Richard Paul
This is the astonishing true story of how a rough-cut frontiersman - born in Virginia in 1755 and with little formal education - invented himself as one of the nation’s preeminent lawyers and politicians who then reinvented the Constitution to forge a stronger nation. Without Precedent is the engrossing account of the life and times of this exceptional man, who with cunning, imagination, and grace shaped America’s future as he held together the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the country itself.
DISSENT AND THE SUPREME COURT: ITS ROLE IN THE COURT'S HISTORY AND THE NATION'S CONSTITUTIONAL DIALOGUE by Melvin I. Urofsky
In Dissent and the Supreme Court, acclaimed historian Melvin Urofsky examines the great dissents throughout the Court’s history. Urofsky looks at the many aspects of American constitutional life that were affected by the Earl Warren Court, the rise of conservatism, and the present age of incivility. Yet within the Marble Palace, the members of the Supreme Court continue to hear arguments, vote, and draft majority opinions, while the minority continues to “respectfully dissent.” The Framers understood that if a constitution doesn’t grow and adapt, it atrophies and dies, and if it does, so does the democratic society it has supported.
THE COURT AND THE WORLD: AMERICAN LAW AND THE NEW GLOBAL REALITIES by Stephen Breyer
A fascinating account of how an increasingly globalized and interdependent world influences the deliberations of America’s highest court, by the sitting justice and author of Making Our Democracy Work and Active Liberty.
SHOWDOWN: THURGOOD MARSHALL AND THE SUPREME COURT NOMINATION THAT CHANGED AMERICA by Wil Haygood
An authoritative biography of the first African American Supreme Court justice—one of the giants of the civil rights movement, and one of the most transforming Supreme Court justices of the twentieth century.
THE U.S. SUPREME COURT DECISION ON MARRIAGE EQUALITY, as delivered by Justice Anthony Kennedy
A beautifully packaged gift edition of Obergefell et al. v. Hodges, Justice Anthony Kennedy’s landmark Supreme Court decision on marriage equality
SUPREME COURT DECISIONS by Richard Beeman, Jay M. Feinman
The Supreme Court is one of America's leading expositors of and participants in debates about American values. Legal expert Jay M. Feinman introduces and selects some of the most important Supreme Court Decisions of all time, which touch on the very foundations of American society. These cases cover a vast array of issues, from the powers of government and freedom of speech to freedom of religion and civil liberties. Feinman offers commentary on each case and excerpts from the opinions of the Justices that show the range of debate in the Supreme Court and its importance to civil society.
THE NINE: INSIDE THE SECRET WORLD OF THE SUPREME COURT by Jeffrey Toobin
In this gripping and definitive account of the modern Supreme Court, acclaimed journalist Jeffrey Toobin pulls back the curtain on one of the least well-known - and most important - forces shaping contemporary America.
Coming in September…
THE MOST DANGEROUS BRANCH: INSIDE THE SUPREME COURT'S ASSAULT ON THE CONSTITUTION by David A. Kaplan
In the bestsellling tradition of The Nine and The Brethren, David A. Kaplan, the former legal affairs editor of Newsweek, takes us into the secret world of the Supreme Court. Never before has the Court been more central in American life. It is the nine justices who too often now decide the controversial issues of our time—from abortion and same-sex marriage, to gun control, campaign finance and voting rights. Kaplan shows how too often the nine justices subvert the role of other branches of government—and how we’ve come to accept that at our peril.
For more on these and related titles, visit the collection: Supreme Court
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There's a Book for That: U.S.- Mexico Border
July 5, 2018
Mexico has a new President: Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, won Mexico’s presidential election by a large margin last Sunday. López Obrador’s party, Morena, is new and he defeated two candidates from parties that have ruled Mexico for a century. He ran on a message of tackling corruption and more government aid to the poor.
The United States’ current border issues with Mexico draw attention to the hardships of life there. CNN reports that nearly 35,000 individuals were arrested crossing the southern US border illegally in June. The separation of children from their families created public outcry and nationwide human rights protests. To educate ourselves further, here is a selection of books about Mexico and border crossing:
THE LINE BECOMES A RIVER: DISPATCHES FROM THE BORDER by Francisco Cantú
For Francisco Cantú, the border is in the blood: his mother, a park ranger and daughter of a Mexican immigrant, raised him in the scrublands of the Southwest. Haunted by the landscape of his youth, Cantú joins the Border Patrol. He and his partners are posted to remote regions crisscrossed by drug routes: They haul in the dead and deliver to detention those they find alive. Cantú tries not to think where the stories go from there. Plagued by nightmares, he abandons the Patrol for civilian life. But when an immigrant friend travels to Mexico to visit his dying mother and does not return, Cantú must know the whole story. Searing and unforgettable, The Line Becomes a River goes behind the headlines, making urgent and personal the violence our border wreaks on both sides of the line.
WE BUILT THE WALL: HOW THE US KEEPS OUT ASYLUM SEEKERS FROM MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA AND BEYOND by Eileen Truax
A Mexican-American lawyer exposes corruption in the US asylum procedure and despotism in the Mexican government
We Built the Wall is an immersive look at the new front in the immigration wars. It follows the gripping stories of people like Saúl Reyes, forced to flee his home after a drug cartel murdered several members of his family, and Delmy Calderón, a forty-two-year-old woman leading an eight-woman hunger strike in an El Paso detention center. Truax tracks the heart-wrenching trials of refugees like Yamil, the husband and father who chose a prison cell over deportation to Mexico, and Rocío Hernández, a nineteen-year-old who spent nearly her entire life in Texas and is now forced to live in a city where narcotraffickers operate with absolute impunity.
DETAINED AND DEPORTED: STORIES OF IMMIGRANT FAMILIES UNDER FIRE by Margaret Regan
Compelling and heart-wrenching, Detained and Deported offers a rare glimpse into the lives of people ensnared in America’s immigration dragnet.
MIDNIGHT IN MEXICO: A REPORTER’S JOURNEY THROUGH A COUNTRY’S DESCENT INTO DARKNESS by Alfredo Corchado
In a country where the powerful are rarely scrutinized, noted Mexican American journalist Alfredo Corchado refused to shrink from reporting on government corruption, murders in Juarez, or the ruthless drug cartels of Mexico. A paramilitary group spun off from the Gulf cartel, the Zetas, controls key drug routes in the north of the country. In 2007, Corchado received a tip that he could be their next target—and he had twenty four hours to find out if the threat was true. Rather than leave his country, Corchado went out into the Mexican countryside to investigate the threat.
Midnight in Mexico is the story of one man’s quest to report the truth of his country—as he raced to save his own life.
THE DEATH OF JOSSELINE: IMMIGRATION STORIES FROM THE ARIZONA BORDERLANDS by Margaret Regan
Dispatches from Arizona—the front line of a massive human migration—including the voices of migrants, Border Patrol, ranchers, activists, and others.
COYOTES: A JOURNEY ACROSS BORDERS WITH AMERICA'S MEXICAN MIGRANTS by Ted Conover
To discover what becomes of Mexicans who come illegally to the United States, Conover disguised himself as an illegal alien, traveling and working across America for more than a year. This is the chronicle of his journey.
For more on these and related titles, visit the collection: U.S.-Mexico Border
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Friday Reads: Water
June 29, 2018
Welcome summer! As many of us seek bodies of water to refresh ourselves in the heat… refreshing reads with “water” in the title have become conspicuous to us. Water doesn’t only sustain, it entertains! So dip into this glimmering selection of fiction – including mysteries, thrillers, historical tales, and children’s classics – which take readers to exotic and domestic locales… Care for a ticket to Nevada or Bora Bora?
SOMETHING IN THE WATER: A NOVEL by Catherine Steadman
Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick for June!
Erin and Mark seem to have it all: he’s a successful banker, she’s a documentary filmmaker on the brink of a professional breakthrough; they’re young and in love, about to embark on their dream honeymoon to Bora Bora. But when, after a blissful day of scuba diving, they discover a mysterious bag filled with incalculable riches, their subsequent choices trigger a sequence of events that will change their lives—and their marriage—forever.
INTO THE WATER: A NOVEL by Paula Hawkins
When a single mother and a teenage girl each turn up dead at the bottom of the river, just weeks apart, the ensuing investigation dredges up a complicated history. Like she did in The Girl on the Train, Hawkins’s Into the Water hinges on a powerful understanding of human instincts and the damage they can inflict.
THE WATERS & THE WILD: A NOVEL by DeSales Harrison
A debut novel about a New York City psychoanalyst, and single dad of a teenage daughter, haunted by a past crime and a past lover—a story that examines what it means to love, to betray, and to forgive.
THE WATER KNIFE by Paolo Bacigalupi
In the near future, the Colorado River has dwindled to a trickle. Detective, assassin, and spy, Angel Velasquez “cuts” water for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, ensuring that its lush archology developments can bloom in Las Vegas. When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in Phoenix, Angel is sent south, hunting for answers that seem to evaporate as the heat index soars and the landscape becomes more and more oppressive.
THE SHAPE OF WATER by Andrea Camilleri, Stephen Sartarelli (translator)
The Shape of Water is the first book in the sly, witty, and engaging Inspector Montalbano mystery series with its sardonic take on Sicilian life.
SONG OF THE WATER SAINTS: A NOVEL by Nelly Rosario
This vibrant, provocative début novel explores the dreams and struggles of three generations of Dominican women.
There’s a Book for That: America
June 27, 2018
As we ready ourselves for the festivities of July 4th, Independence Day, The people of the United States of America are in the throes of declaring their values while grappling with many complex issues. For the occasion, we’ve selected contemporary and classic titles which showcase our country’s vast natural beauty and history alongside portraits of current communities and people’s lives here in America:
OUR TOWNS: A 100,000-MILE JOURNEY INTO THE HEART OF AMERICA by James Fallows, Deborah Fallows
For the last five years, James and Deborah Fallows have been traveling across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, they have met hundreds of civic leaders, workers, immigrants, educators, environmentalists, artists, public servants, librarians, business people, city planners, students, and entrepreneurs to take the pulse and understand the prospects of places that usually draw notice only after a disaster or during a political campaign. Their view of the country is as complex and contradictory as America itself, but it also reflects the energy, the generosity and compassion, the dreams, and the determination of many who are in the midst of making things better. Our Towns is the story of their journey—and an account of a country busy remaking itself.
THE SOUL OF AMERICA: THE BATTLE FOR OUR BETTER ANGELS by Jon Meacham
We have been here before. In this timely and revealing book, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham helps us understand the present moment in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in our history when hope overcame division and fear. With clarity and purpose, Meacham explores contentious periods and how presidents and citizens came together to defeat the forces of anger, intolerance, and extremism.
FANTASYLAND: HOW AMERICA WENT HAYWIRE: A 500-YEAR HISTORY by Kurt Andersen
From a razor-sharp thinker, a new understanding of our post-truth world—the American instinct to believe in make-believe, from the Pilgrims to P.T. Barnum to Disneyland to zealots of every stripe…to Donald Trump.
SCARS OF INDEPENDENCE: AMERICA'S VIOLENT BIRTH by Holger Hoock
The American Revolution is often portrayed as an orderly, restrained rebellion, with brave patriots defending their noble ideals against an oppressive empire. But as historian Holger Hoock shows in this deeply researched and elegantly written account of America’s founding, the Revolution was also a profoundly violent civil war—one that shaped the nation, and the British Empire, in ways we have only begun to understand. Vivid and authoritative, Scars of Independence offers a new origins story that is both relevant and necessary—an important reminder that forging a nation is rarely bloodless.
TALES OF TWO AMERICAS: STORIES OF INEQUALITY IN A DIVIDED NATION by John Freeman
Thirty-four major contemporary writers—including Anthony Doerr, Ann Patchett, Roxane Gay, Edwidge Danticat, Rebecca Solnit, Joyce Carol Oates, Hector Tobar, and Karen Russell—examine life in a deeply divided America. Tales of Two Americas demonstrates how boundaries can break down when experiences are shared, and that in sharing our stories we can help to alleviate a suffering that touches us all.
ONE SUMMER: AMERICA, 1927 by Bill Bryson
The summer of 1927 began with Charles Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic. Meanwhile, Babe Ruth was closing in on the home run record. In Newark, New Jersey, Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly sat atop a flagpole for twelve days, and in Chicago, the gangster Al Capone was tightening his grip on bootlegging. The first true “talking picture,” Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer, was filmed, forever changing the motion picture industry. All this and much, much more transpired in the year Americans attempted and accomplished outsized things—and when the twentieth century truly became the American century. One Summer transforms it all into narrative nonfiction of the highest order.
THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS: THE EPIC STORY OF AMERICA'S GREAT MIGRATION by Isabel Wilkerson
In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life.
THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA'S BEST IDEA by Dayton Duncan, Ken Burns
America’s national parks spring from an idea as radical as the Declaration of Independence: that the nation’s most magnificent and sacred places should be preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but for everyone. In this evocative and lavishly illustrated narrative, Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan delve into the history of the park idea, from the first sighting by white men in 1851 of the valley that would become Yosemite and the creation of the world’s first national park at Yellowstone in 1872, through the most recent additions to a system that now encompasses nearly four hundred sites and 84 million acres.
TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY IN SEARCH OF AMERICA by John Steinbeck
An intimate journey across America, as told by one of its most beloved writers. To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the trees, to see the colors and the light—these were John Steinbeck's goals as he set out, at the age of fifty-eight, to rediscover the country he had been writing about for so many years.
FOR YOUNGER READERS
WORDS THAT BUILT A NATION: VOICES OF DEMOCRACY THAT HAVE SHAPED AMERICA’S HISTORY by Marilyn Miller, Ellen Scordato and Dan Tucker; Illustrated by Mary Kate Mcdevitt
Words that Built a Nation was hailed for bringing together the United States’ most important historical essays, speeches, and documents into one accessible collection for kids. This history lovers’ must-have has been revised, revamped, and expanded for the 21st century.
WE CAME TO AMERICA by Faith Ringgold
From the Native Americans who first called this land their home, to the millions of people who have flocked to its shores ever since, America is a country rich in diversity. Some of our ancestors were driven by dreams and hope. Vividly expressed in Faith Ringgold’s sumptuous colors and patterns, We Came to America is an ode to every American who came before us, and a tribute to each child who will carry its proud message of diversity into our nation’s future.
THE CAMPING TRIP THAT CHANGED AMERICA: THEODORE ROOSEVELT, JOHN MUIR, AND OUR NATIONAL PARKS by Barb Rosenstock; Illustrated by Mordecai Gerstein
Caldecott medalist Mordicai Gerstein captures the majestic redwoods of Yosemite in this little-known but important story from our nation's history. In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt joined naturalist John Muir on a trip to Yosemite. Camping by themselves in the uncharted woods, the two men saw sights and held discussions that would ultimately lead to the establishment of our National Parks.
For more on these and other great books for dad, visit the collection: America
There’s a Book for That! is brought to you by Penguin Random House’s Sales department. Please follow our Tumblr by clicking here—and share this link with your accounts: theresabookforthat.tumblr.com. Thank you! Did you see something on the news or read about something on your commute? Perhaps you noticed something trending on Twitter? Did you think: “There’s a book for that!”? Then please, send it our way at theresabookforthat@penguinrandomhouse.com
There's an Audiobook for That! Celebrity Readers
June 21, 2018
Happy Summer Solstice! The longest day of the year allows for more listening, and June is Audiobook Month! We congratulate this year’s Audie Award winners, view them here. We’d also like to draw attention to this week’s new release, BEDTIME STORIES FOR REBEL GIRLS, as well as other outstanding audiobooks brought to vivid life by celebrity narrators. These adult and children’s titles, available in the CD format and as audio downloads, are ideal for vacations, commutes or while walking the dog! So turn up the volume…your Summer listening may commence!
ROOM TO DREAM: A LIFE by David Lynch, Kristine McKenna; Read by David Lynch and Kristine McKenna
An unprecedented look into the personal and creative life of the visionary auteur David Lynch, through his own words and those of his closest colleagues, friends, and family — adapted by David Lynch from the print book especially for this audio program. With insights into…Eraserhead; The Elephant Man; Dune; Blue Velvet; Twin Peaks; Mulholland Drive and more!
YOU CAN'T SPELL AMERICA WITHOUT ME: THE REALLY TREMENDOUS INSIDE STORY OF MY FANTASTIC FIRST YEAR AS PRESIDENT Donald J. Trump (A So-Called Parody) by Alec Baldwin, Kurt Andersen
Political satire as deeper truth: Donald Trump’s presidential memoir, as recorded by two world-renowned Trump scholars, and experts on greatness generally
UNCOMMON TYPE: SOME STORIES by Tom Hanks; Read by Tom Hanks
A collection of seventeen wonderful short stories showing that two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks is as talented a writer as he is an actor. Featuring additional performances by Peter Gerety, Peter Scolari, Cecily Strong, Holland Taylor, and Wilmer Valderrama on “Stay With Us.”
HEARTBURN by Nora Ephron; Read by Meryl Streep
Is it possible to write a sidesplitting novel about the breakup of the perfect marriage? If the writer is Nora Ephron, the answer is a resounding yes. For in this inspired confection of adultery, revenge, group therapy, and pot roast, the creator of “Sleepless in Seattle” reminds us that comedy depends on anguish as surely as a proper gravy depends on flour and butter.
M TRAIN by Patti Smith; Read by Patti Smith
From the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids: an unforgettable odyssey of a legendary artist, told through the prism of the cafés and haunts she has worked in around the world. It is a book Patti Smith has described as “a roadmap to my life.”
FOR ALL AGES
GOOD NIGHT STORIES FOR REBEL GIRLS
The beloved New York Times bestsellers and Kickstarter crowdfunding sensations are available on audio for the first time, read by a star-studded fierce female cast including Alicia Keys, Ashley Judd, Danai Gurira, Esperanza Spalding, Janeane Garofalo, Mozhan Marnò, Phillipa Soo, Rowan Blanchard, and Samira Wiley! Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls reinvents fairy tales, inspiring listeners with the stories of 100 heroic women, from Elizabeth I to Serena Williams. Painters, scientists, dancers, chefs, astronauts, jazz singers, pharaohs, boxers, writers, political leaders…from every corner of the globe!
THE PURLOINING OF PRINCE OLEOMARGARINE by Mark Twain, Philip C. Stead, Erin Stead; Read by Keegan-Michael Key and Philip Stead
A never-before-published, previously unfinished Mark Twain children’s story is brought to life by Caldecott Medal winners Philip Stead and Erin Stead.
In a hotel in Paris one evening in the 1879, Mark Twain sat with his young daughters, who begged their father for a story. Choosing a picture from a magazine to get started, Twain began telling them the tale of Johnny, a poor boy in possession of some magical seeds, who finds himself on a quest to rescue a stolen prince. Later, Twain would jot down some rough notes about the story, but the tale was left unfinished…until now. With Mark Bramhall as the voice of Mark Twain, Julia Whelan as Susy Clemens, and an Editor’s Note read by Frances Gilbert.
APPLEBLOSSOM THE POSSUM by Holly Goldberg Sloan: Read by Dustin Hoffman
Fans of E.B. White and Dick King-Smith will adore this heartwarming and funny animal adventure by the award-winning author of Counting by 7s.
A WRINKLE IN TIME by Madeleine L'Engle; Read by Hope Davis
Madeleine L’Engle’s ground-breaking, Newbery Medal-winning science fiction and fantasy classic was adapted into a major motion picture earlier this year. This movie tie-in audiobook includes an introduction read by director Ava DuVernay, a foreword read by the author, and an afterword read by Madeleine L’Engle’s granddaughter Charlotte Jones Voiklis.
THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM - 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis; Read by LeVar Burton
Enter the hilarious world of ten-year-old Kenny and his family, the Weird Watsons of Flint, Michigan. There's Momma, Dad, little sister Joetta, Kenny, and Byron, Kenny's older brother, who, at thirteen, is an "official juvenile delinquent." When Momma and Dad decide it's time for a visit to Grandma, Dad comes home with the amazing Ultra-Glide, and the Watsons set out on a trip like no other. Heading South, they're going to Birmingham, Alabama, and toward one of the darkest moments in America's history. By turns comic, tragic, and touching, this remarkable Newbery Honor work, delightfully performed by LeVar Burton in this unabridged production, will delight listeners young and old as they meet Christopher Paul Curtis, a storyteller of bold ambition and a true and original voice and his inimitable Watsons.
For more on these and other great audiobooks, visit the collection: June is Audiobook Month
There’s a Book for That! is brought to you by Penguin Random House’s Sales department. Please follow our Tumblr by clicking here—and share this link with your accounts: theresabookforthat.tumblr.com. Thank you! Did you see something on the news or read about something on your commute? Perhaps you noticed something trending on Twitter? Did you think: “There’s a book for that!”? Then please, send it our way at theresabookforthat@penguinrandomhouse.com
Friday Reads: Summer Weddings
June 15, 2018
Have your Facebook and Instagram feeds begun to fill with glorious wedding photos from romantic locales? Perhaps you are the one getting married this summer or are in the wedding party or a guest. Whatever the case, Summer is high season for matrimony. This weekend, catch our book bouquet – great for gifts or reading on the way to the wedding.
A FRENCH WEDDING by Hannah Tunnicliffe
The Big Chill meets The Little French Bistro in this sumptuous novel about six college friends reuniting on the coast of Brittany to celebrate one of their own’s fortieth birthday. With delicious food and plenty of wine, the table is set for tricky romantic entanglements and the spilling of longheld secrets.
A NANTUCKET WEDDING: A NOVEL by Nancy Thayer
It’s summer on Nantucket and Alison is finally engaged to the love of her life. Things would be perfect—if only she could make peace between her daughters. Felicity, wild at heart yet a loving mother to her own children, and Jane, the extremely organized and high-earning businesswoman, arrive on the island hoping to get through these next few weeks without ruining their mother’s big day. But when Felicity’s husband reveals a long-term affair and Jane falls for her soon-to-be step-brother, everyone gets way more drama than they bargained for.
THE WEDDING DATE by Jasmine Guillory
“What a charming, warm, sexy gem of a novel….One of the best books I’ve read in a while.”—Roxane Gay
A groomsman and his last-minute guest are about to discover if a fake date can go the distance in this fun and flirty multicultural romance debut.
WEDDING STORIES by Diana Secker Tesdell
A bouquet of great wedding stories—by turns funny, passionate, bittersweet, and romantic—by famous writers from across the past two centuries. From F. Scott Fitzgerald to Lorrie Moore, and from Stephen Crane to Edwidge Danticat. EVERYMAN’S LIBRARY POCKET CLASSICS. The stories collected here—including such gems as Stephen Crane’s “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky,” O. Henry’s “The Marry Month of May,” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Bridal Party,” Joy Williams’s “The Wedding,” and Lorrie Moore’s “Thank You For Having Me”—encompass comic wedding mishaps, engagements broken and mended, honeymoon adventures, and scenes both heartwarming and heartbreaking.
SAVE THE DATE: THE OCCASIONAL MORTIFICATIONS OF A SERIAL WEDDING GUEST by Jen Doll
An “engaging and disarmingly honest” (People) examination of the search for love and the meaning of marriage in a time of anxiety, independence, and indecision.
Wedding experiences come in as varied an assortment as the gowns at any bridal shop, and Doll turns a keen eye to each, delivering a heartfelt exploration of contemporary relationships. Funny, honest, and affecting, Save the Date is a fresh and spirited look at the many ways in which we connect to one another.
WEDDING NIGHT: A NOVEL by Sophie Kinsella
Lottie is thirty-three and sick of long-term boyfriends who don’t want to commit to marriage. When her old boyfriend Ben reappears after fifteen years and reminds her of their pact to get married if they were both still single at thirty, she jumps at the chance. There will be no dates and no engagement—just a straight wedding march to the altar! Next comes the honeymoon on the Greek island where they first met. But not everyone is thrilled with Lottie and Ben’s rushed marriage, and family and friends are determined to intervene. Will Lottie and Ben have a wedding night to remember or one to forget?
THE WEDDING: A NOVEL by Dorothy West
In her final novel, Dorothy West offers an intimate glimpse into African American middle class. Set on bucolic Martha's Vineyard in the 1950s, The Wedding tells the story of life in the Oval, a proud, insular community made up of the best and brightest of the East Coast's black bourgeoisie. With elegant, luminous prose, Dorothy West crowns her literary career by illustrating one family's struggle to break the shackles of race and class.
For more on these and other great books for dad, visit the collection: Wedding Lit
There’s a Book for That! is brought to you by Penguin Random House’s Sales department. Please follow our Tumblr by clicking here—and share this link with your accounts: theresabookforthat.tumblr.com. Thank you! Did you see something on the news or read about something on your commute? Perhaps you noticed something trending on Twitter? Did you think: “There’s a book for that!”? Then please, send it our way at theresabookforthat@penguinrandomhouse.com
There's a Book for That: Fathers
June 13, 2018
Anyone who tells you fatherhood is the greatest thing that can happen to you, they are understating it.―Mike Myers
Sunday, June 17, is Father’s Day. As is true for all relationships, the Hallmark card model doesn’t necessarily speak to the complexities between father and child. Penguin Random House titles do though! To honor the role of fatherhood in our lives – the joys and hurts of the bond, whether present or missing – take a look at our wide range of subjects (including the famous), voices and perspectives on fathers. Add to those, some great titles for kids!
GHOSTBUSTER'S DAUGHTER: LIFE WITH MY DAD, HAROLD RAMIS by Violet Ramis Stiel
From the daughter of comedy legend Harold Ramis (and featuring a Foreword by Seth Rogen) comes a hilarious and heartwarming account of his life, work, and legacy.
While the book offers a comprehensive history of her father’s career, Ghostbuster’s Daughter also provides a profound homage to their special father-daughter relationship.
DAD IS FAT by Jim Gaffigan
In his New York Times bestseller, popular comedian—and father of five!—Jim Gaffigan shares his fresh and hilarious observations on family life. Dad Is Fat is sharply observed, explosively funny, and a cry for help from a man who has realized he and his wife are outnumbered in their own home.
NINE LESSONS I LEARNED FROM MY FATHER by Murray Howe
Part Tuesdays with Morrie, part Mr. Hockey, Nine Lessons I Learned from My Father is a son’s intimate account of all that lies behind the towering legacy of the beloved Gordie Howe.
AN ODYSSEY: A FATHER, A SON, AND AN EPIC by Daniel Mendelsohn
From award-winning memoirist and critic, and bestselling author of The Lost comes a deeply moving tale of a father and son’s transformative journey in reading—and reliving—Homer’s epic masterpiece.
THE RETURN: FATHERS, SONS AND THE LAND IN BETWEEN by Hisham Matar
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
In 2012, after the overthrow of Qaddafi, the acclaimed novelist Hisham Matar journeys to his native Libya after an absence of thirty years. The Return is the memoir of a son’s search for the truth behind his father’s disappearance.
THE FATHER: POEMS by Sharon Olds
The Father is a sequence of poems, a daughter’s vision of a father’s illness and death. It chronicles these events in a connected narrative, from the onset of the illness to reflections in the years after the death. The book is, most of all, a series of acts of understanding. The poems are impelled by a passion to know, and a freedom to follow wherever the truth may lead. The book goes into area of feeling and experience rarely entered in poetry.
FATHER AND SON: A STUDY OF TWO TEMPERAMENTS by Edmund Gosse, Peter Abbs
Father and Son, a memoir first published anonymously in 1907, focuses on the relationship between a sternly religious father who rejects the new evolutionary theories of his scientific colleague Charles Darwin and the son's gradual coming of age and rejection of his father's fundamentalist religion. It was immediately acclaimed for its courage in flouting the conventions of Victorian autobiography and is still a moving account of self-discovery.
RENOIR, MY FATHER by Jean Renoir
In this delightful memoir, Jean Renoir, the director of such masterpieces of the cinema as Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game, tells the life story of his father, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the great Impressionist painter. Jean Renoir’s book is both a wonderful double portrait of father and son and, in the words of the distinguished art historian John Golding, it "remains the best account of Renoir, and, furthermore, among the most beautiful and moving biographies we have."
FATHER AND SON by E.O Plauen; Afterword by Elke Schulze; Translated from the German by Joel Roteberg
Father and Son is one of the most beloved comic strips ever drawn—an uproarious, timeless ode to the pleasures, pitfalls, and endless absurdity of family life.
FOR YOUNGER READERS
MY DAD IS THE BEST PLAYGROUND by Luciana Navarro Powell
This joyful story celebrates Dad as the most fun person in the world and the best playground ever! He’s the highest swing and a great climbing wall, he’s a bouncing trampoline and merry as a merry-go-round. And then, when playtime is over, Dad is the best for reading and snuggling with before bed. Luciana Navarro Powell’s spirited writing is perfectly paired with her colorful, energetic, and very humorous artwork. Dads and their kids will love reading and rereading this glorious celebration of fathers.
MY DAD USED TO BE SO COOL by Keith Negley
Keith Negley’s playful and emotional art tells this story of a new father who is no longer the cool guy he once was. He looks back wistfully on his crazy times playing in a band, riding a motorcycle, and getting tattoos. Those days may be behind him, but his young son still thinks he’s the coolest guy in the world.
PET DAD by Elanna Allen
Plum wants the perfect pet, but instead realizes she has the perfect dad in this charming and hilarious picture book that’s great for father’s day.
For more on these and other great books for dad, visit the collection: Fathers Day 2018
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