Politics and Prose Presents

From Annie Jacobsen, the author of the bestselling Nuclear War: A Scenario, a book on a subject that has long orbited her reporting: biological warfare.A lab accident, a bio-attack, a global pandemic, and the collapse of human society. In this essential new book, based on dozens of new interviews with experts with high-level political, governmental, medical, and military responsibility, Annie Jacobsen examines this very scenario. It would be only a matter of days from such a global infection before the infrastructure built to handle this gravest of situations would be in a battle for human existence.The fallout: mass death, total societal breakdown, widespread insurrection, anarchy, and a plague-ravaged wasteland that no longer resembles modern civilization. In other words: dystopia.Following the gripping narrative style that launched Nuclear War to the New York Times bestseller list, Jacobsen looks deeply at a situation that is in some ways the opposite of a nuclear bomb: There is no mushroom cloud, no shock wave or blast. Instead, the scenario that could end the world as we know it begins with something so small, and something so malicious, that when used for evil, only evil can result. This is what could happen; a ticking-clock roadmap to the hours, days, and weeks following the release of a biological agent, that serves as the most essential, forward-looking journalism in preparation for urgent societal upheaval.Annie Jacobsen is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Nuclear War, Area 51, and Operation Paperclip, the Pulitzer Prize finalist in history The Pentagon’s Brain, First Platoon, and other books. She was a contributing editor at the Los Angeles Times Magazine. A graduate of Princeton University, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons. Jacobsen’s books have been named Best of the Year and Most Anticipated by outlets including The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Boston Globe. Coverage has ranged from the New York Times to Joe Rogan’s podcast. Audiences have included the Vatican and the United Nations.Jacobsen is in conversation with Shane Harris, a staff writer at The Atlantic. He has written about intelligence, security, and foreign policy for more than two decades. Previously, he was a staff writer for The Washington Post, where he was part of the team that won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. For his work as a writer, podcaster, and filmmaker, he has received the James Beard Media Award, the Gerald R. Ford Prize, the George Polk Award, and an Emmy nomination. He is the author of two books, The Watchers and @War.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9798217046034?ic_referral=rMdRJ-6d8Pdym_Ei4xDjgqmgGiRkGz2x4JHJ5swcO1MwM-LBsljHy_U0oPQSKRpkejnhrfTe18PKF0Fwijby7BjjMy-BeHsT-H7Vx32M-696JynwdYHifQ_Y6HY9nEqJ5Uj0-O0

From an acclaimed historian, a revelatory account of the Declaration of Independence, centered not on the lofty preamble but on the specific grievances that make up the bulk of the document and that offer an entirely new view into the Revolutionary era.We think of the Declaration of Independence as timeless. We know the sacred phrases: “all men are created equal,” “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” “self-evident truths,” “certain inalienable rights.” These are some of the most important words human beings have ever written. And they are all from the Declaration’s preamble, which has inspired people for centuries, including generations of revolutionaries all over the world.But as historian Robert G. Parkinson points out, the Declaration was not written as a timeless statement of political philosophy. It was, rather, produced in the heat of a confusing, bloody, and desperate war. And in that moment, it wasn’t high ideals alone that drove the patriots forward. Parkinson’s great innovation is to allow us, 250 years on, to see the Declaration as its authors did. For them, the opening paragraphs were not the main event. It was the body of the Declaration—the twenty-seven grievances against King George—that formed the essential part. Even Thomas Jefferson would have been puzzled by history’s fixation on his opening sentences.Parkinson takes us into the grievances, giving us stories of the Revolutionary era that are little known today but loomed large for the patriots. As the leaders of the Revolution saw it, they had been pushed to the breaking point by British officials who undermined colonial legislatures and courts, corrupted the judiciary, turned military power against civilians, inflamed slave revolts, forced colonists to fight one another—ultimately, waging war on their own people.In his brilliantly original reading of the Declaration, Parkinson asks fundamental questions that have too often been overlooked: Why did the colonies declare independence when they did? What were their nonnegotiable demands? Who were the individuals whose actions made reconciliation impossible? By recovering the people and conflicts behind the Declaration’s grievances, Parkinson offers a strikingly new account of the American Revolution—and shows that the issues that most alarmed colonists in 1776 are urgent once again today.Robert G. Parkinson is professor of history at Binghamton University. He is the author of The Common Cause, Thirteen Clocks, and Heart of American Darkness. He lives in Charles Town, West Virginia.Parkinson is joined in conversation with Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky, a presidential historian and Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon. Dr. Chervinsky is the author of the award-winning books Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic and The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, and co-editor of Mourning the Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture. Dr. Chervinsky regularly writes for public audiences in publications like the Washington Post, TIME, USA Today, CNN, The Wall Street Journal and provides commentary and historical context for outlets like CBS News, C-SPAN, Face the Nation, the New York Times, and NPR.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781324124542?ic_referral=8EWddKrzaPe4ObQF9XKxhAHF8eqj9CT1-y0TKCPw56UwM1-Kg5g0cEWFAalPCqd-E_VPoBaZK5A9ePw9h9ln8Up7Tm3kpR2Yr0DQEpDedV327a_f_2BOL8ooNuM7zElhguE7_LA

In 1970s Ethiopia, 13-year-old Elen, determined to escape her arranged marriage, secretly abandons her tiny village hoping to find her aunt living in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. Meanwhile, Girmai escapes his abusive stepmother after the death of his beloved father, only to end up homeless and starving on the streets of the city. Overcoming the odds, Elen and Girmai both grow up to be successful business owners, each with their own lives and familiesWhen the Derg regime overthrows the government, they turn Asmara into a nightmare of roaming bands of soldiers, who torture and kill civilians with impunity. Refusing to accept the injustice and mass killings of the Red Terror campaign, Elen and Girmai join the Eritrean People's Liberation Front's (EPLF) underground network to fight for freedom.The stakes rise as the horror of Derg-sanctioned torture leaks out of dissident detention centers. Elen and Girmai struggle to maintain their precarious fight for justice and a growing passion for each other. As they fall in love, they are faced with impossible choices, tragedy, and heroism in a cause much bigger than their own lives.Based on a true story, Born at the End of the World is a powerful narrative of patriotism, love, camaraderie, and courage, no less uplifting or appalling than Schindler's List.Donica Merhazion, born in the midst of Ethiopia's Red Terror, channels her family's experiences into her debut novel, Born at the End of the World. A former journalist and educator with degrees in journalism and education, she calls Eritrea, Zambia, and the United States home. Passionate about storytelling, she inspires her students to love learning and embrace their potential while finding time to write in her favorite quiet spots.Merhazion is in conversation with Bsrat Mezghebe. Mezghebe received an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, The Paris Review, and the anthology Well–Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves. She lives in the Washington, D.C. area. PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781960803337?ic_referral=NaUCwsjtx3oQxs9ZjcNVGB3R0W8XigH8AbDFmKqU4tcwMyzstpA0_so7hPvWgO4DeQs5KXJTM5Qyr4ibq-hu3rUh0MSxqsJk_n9A1_kEidugvfK4LbEN7uwtXwhycw9fmpMcMxs

As a Black child adopted out of the New York foster care system as a toddler and raised by white Evangelical parents, Rhonda Roorda had to learn how to walk in two different worlds. She often questioned “whether my skin was too dark” and if she “acted too white.” She recalls being haunted by feelings of shame and not “being enough.” Torn from the Root is her illuminating story of identity, belonging, and purpose, and lays bare the deep pain she felt navigating life as a vulnerable Black girl and how she healed herself.Roorda suffered trauma and abuse in her youth, but she also developed resilience. Eventually, she resolves to find her birth family and takes readers on her exciting and agonizing journey.Torn from the Root thinks critically about the child welfare system and the long-term impacts of transracial adoption. Roorda helps readers understand her experience, posing necessary questions about the challenges of transracial adoption. Her emotional story, full of wisdom and reflection, recounts how she “accepted the truth” of her adoption and found balance, not discomfort, in her own skin.Rhonda M. Roorda, M.A., is a nationally recognized speaker, author, and consultant on transracial adoption whose insights have been featured on Good Morning America and ABC News, in People magazine, and in the Emmy Award–winning television series This Is Us. A transracial adoptee, she is the author of the acclaimed In Their Voices: Black Americans on Transracial Adoption, recognized as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title, and the coauthor of a groundbreaking trilogy on transracial adoption. Through her writing, research, and speaking, Roorda has become a leading voice exploring identity, belonging, and the lifelong impact of adoption across racial and cultural boundaries. She lives in Michigan with her family.Roorda is in conversation with Jelani Freeman, a community leader, attorney and advocate for children and families. Jelani’s commitment to children & families grew from his lived experience of being placed in the foster care system at the age of 8. Jelani spent time in multiple foster homes, shelters, group homes and juvenile facilities,  but later in life was sworn into the New York State Bar by the very same court system that emancipated him from the foster care system at 18 years old, leaving him on his own. Pursuing his passion to serve the underserved, Jelani began his career in the office of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, working legislatively to improve the lives of children in the foster care system. Subsequently, he provided direct services to young people at the DC Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. His dedication to transforming the foster care system he endured and give back to young people navigating those all-too-familiar circumstances is the reason that Hillary Clinton in her book, It Takes a Village, wrote that when she needs inspiration, she looks to people like Jelani who “now works to bring opportunity to another generation of kids at risk." Jelani has served for years as a Board Member for non-profits such as the Center for Adoption Support & Education, Barker Adoption Foundation, the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute and currently serves as a Board Member for the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. Jelani relished being a mentor and an advocate for the rights of children in the DC foster care system in his role as a volunteer Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) and also regularly volunteered at Martha’s Table since 2011.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781439927939?ic_referral=UE5qwtDk96xgdMBhYlQ5GxZ5bFT0rzYeLrJcZXQoOGowMzoBIzSk4BlmuXYccz3nldUY2dYiJcJTAyxhNPJhZIUCCGtPxlWkchV4tb69MJSbNiYh9AWGfjlFxxOetsCvMVMSUYQ

When the Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School gymnastics team competes in the Ohio High School Athletic Association state gymnastics meet, they're expected to win. That's because they've won each year-since 2004. And as the streak builds, there's more pressure each year on the public school's team to continue that tradition. No year was more tense than the year that they were hoping to take home their 20th straight title.A Fraction of a Point follows the Bees throughout the intense 2022-2023 season as the team works toward the state meet. During one of their most competitive seasons in recent years, sports journalist Nina Mandell explores the gymnasts' backstories and traces the legacy of the Ganim family, the team's longtime coaches.But this isn't just a story about one historic season. At its heart, it's also about the teenagers balancing athletics with high school life, the larger community that supported the team, what it means to compete for the joy of the sport, and the athletes' and coaches' dedication even while facing immense pressure.Ultimately, the state title comes down to the final event. As the Bees line up to compete, the gym falls silent. Hundreds of gymnasts and their supporters from around the state watch and wonder: Will the Bees maintain their streak? Or will this be the year it all ends?Nina Mandell is a journalist living in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, who has written for Bustle, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, USA Today, The New York Daily News, and NBC Regional Sports Networks. She is the former managing editor of USA Today's "For The Win" site and the former digital director/managing editor of NBC Sports Washington, and currently works in sports marketing.Mandell is joined in conversation with Robert Samuels, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and national enterprise reporter at The Washington Post. For close to a decade, Robert has traveled across the country to chronicle politics, policy and the changing American identity. He is the co-author of His Name is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice, which won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award. Robert has also worked as a staff writer at The Miami Herald and the New Yorker. He grew up in The Bronx and resides in Washington, DC.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781606355077?ic_referral=d7z4Za7e6EaaRoTGKW7syfDgReIJ3lT4O5Jk_Fk_GW0wM6pNowqbREzMKB3Xe8TIgf3m_1IkK27dALQXet2zQB2HYWYXJdWUGVDX4CShcY5zvBojOFv5HL0Yl0q7Lf7Bn-G2zuY

The highly anticipated biography of one of the world’s most treasured literary voices, showcasing a life as triumphant and inspiring as the stories she crafted.To know the name Judy Blume is to know and love literature. Her influential novels turned classics—including Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret; Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing; Deenie; and Summer Sisters—touched the lives of tens of millions of readers. For more than fifty-five years her work has done something revolutionary: it rewired the world’s expectations of what literature for young people can be—frank, candid, earthy, and unafraid to show the messier sides of humanity. But little is known about the real woman behind the iconic persona, and the unlikely journey of her literary ascension, until now.In Judy Blume, journalist, historian, and longtime Blume aficionado Mark Oppenheimer pens a beautiful, multidimensional portrait of the acclaimed author through extensive interviews with Blume herself, invaluable access to her papers and correspondence, and thoughtful analysis of Blume’s beloved novels, including early, unpublished works that shed light on the pathbreaking writer she would become. Oppenheimer goes deep, exploring Blume’s middle-class 1950s upbringing, complicated childhood, varied relationships and marriages, unabashed sexual experiences, bouts of heartache and loss, and enduring legacy as a champion of free speech and contemporary literature. Oppenheimer peels back the curtain to reveal the woman behind the literary empire in all her complex, multifaceted glory—a true gift for anyone who grew up reading and loving these extraordinary books.Mark Oppenheimer is the author of four critically acclaimed books, including Squirrel Hill, Wisenheimer, and Thirteen and a Day. He has taught at NYU, Stanford, Yale, and Washington University in St. Louis, where he is Professor of Practice. Mark lives with his family in New Haven, Connecticut.Oppenheimer is in conversation with Katherine Marsh, an award-winning author of novels for middle-grade readers including The Lost Year; Nowhere Boy; The Night Tourist; and The Myth of Monsters series. Among her honors are National Book Award finalist, winner of the Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery, winner of the New York Historical Society Book Award, and winner of the Middle East Book Award. Her books have also been Junior Library Guild Selections, American Library Association Notables, and have been translated into eighteen languages. A former magazine journalist, Katherine lives in Washington, DC with her husband, two children and an astonishing array of pets.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9780593714447?ic_referral=zJV4wnKfGGAwxuSDLBpgvT1QTxDYBw6dL4uOI1O67qIwM7WBXbPKxr-tn33N8Dis9M6xHimb85tjc51-byVnhAf9y2GOsMlwmpRaVyobNPnsMzYZu_BXGad2q_fq7gZYALlBJhE

Why do some fights for justice hit a wall while others succeed? What does it take to win social change, especially now? It comes down to understanding one thing: the difference between presence and power.Failing to do so is one way we got into this mess, but understanding how power really works is a big part of how we get out of it. Rashad Robinson would know. A social change strategist, he’s spent more than twenty years at the highest levels of leadership in two of the most significant social movements of our time: the fight for LGBTQ rights and the fight for racial justice. He’s taken on tech giants and the criminal justice system, politicians in Washington and corporate executives in Hollywood. He’s been on the front lines of protest and in the back rooms of negotiation. Robinson argues that achieving presence—the visibility of marches, media fads, and making issues popular—is not the same as gaining the leverage required to change the rules for how society works or change the decisions that politicians, corporate executives, and other people in authority make. This book offers a set of essential lessons about power for anyone who wants to understand it, gain it, and use it to win the progress we all deserve—and to defeat the forces trying to take our freedoms away. Robinson provides the tools needed to help everyday people build real leverage in systems designed to prevent them from doing so.As someone who helped shape the resistance after the 2016 election, and continues to help leaders at every level find innovative ways to fight back and win progress today, Robinson offers a hopeful, practical guide to achieving positive impact in the most challenging times.Rashad Robinson is a social justice leader, strategist and organization builder. He has designed campaigns to change public policies, corporate practices, electoral outcomes, and media representations. He speaks widely on corporate accountability, narrative change, infrastructure for organizing, and strategies for creating a more equitable world. Through Rashad Robinson Advisors (RRA), he advises and collaborates on developing high-impact strategies to bring about progress with foundations, nonprofits and leaders across media, politics, government and business. He previously led Color Of Change for nearly fourteen years, transforming it from a start-up into a national force for racial justice, and also led programs at GLAAD, reshaping media representations of LGBTQ people during the fights to win marriage equality and end discrimination. More information about Rashad, including his weekly How We Win newsletter, can be found at www.rashadrobinson.com.Robinson is in conversation with Joy Ann Reid, a New York Times bestselling author, a former Emmy nominated, two time NAACP Image Award winning primetime host at the artist formerly known as MSNBC and the current host of The Joy Reid Show streaming podcast which you can find on YouTube at thejoyreidshow.com, on audio podcast platforms, and at joyannreid.com on Substack.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9780593243565?ic_referral=IKxCP2H8EHc963yofaM8vneG3kF0tRYv9hweGA5Ynf4wM_OWtl8iINx9GIacZtJBnFPlygOlPQu7mqvKOrRKN2aHwlv2OpT1MSN_0-VoyLJhXO8LV4g00YU4A9-Q6He3wgzekdU

Bronia Feldman never imagined she would become the backbone of an underground medical lifeline, least of all inside the brutal forced-labor system of the HASAG munitions factory in occupied Poland. Torn from her family in September 1942, she arrives there shattered by grief. The only force strong enough to keep her alive is the chance to save others.Left behind in the ghetto of Skarzysko-Kamienna are her husband and two young daughters. Her 13-year-old daughter, Hajuta, has been sent to a nearby labor site. Bronia seizes a rare opportunity to escape and manages to reach her daughter. After their brief reunion, she faces an impossible choice: flee into the forest to join the partisans, or slip back to the place she has just escaped.When they are reunited months later, the moment is both miraculous and heartbreaking. Hajuta is no longer the girl Bronia remembers. Together they endure still darker days when they are deported to Bergen-Belsen in January 1945.This true story of a Jewish mother and daughter is a testament to courage, devotion, and the fragile thread of hope that sustained them. Amid cruelty and terror, they also encounter moments of humanity.Throughout it all, both cling to memories of the River Kamienna, where they once danced, played music, and believed in a future. For Bronia and Hajuta, the river is more than a memory. It is a promise that one day they might return home.Pauline Steinhorn is an award-winning filmmaker and writer. Her essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal and Moment magazine. She is a Board Member of Generation After DC, a nonprofit network of Jewish Holocaust survivors and their children. When she's not writing or directing, Pauline shares her family’s Holocaust experiences at synagogues, Yom HaShoah commemorations, and in middle and high school classrooms. She and her husband, Bill Creed, live in Chevy Chase, MD.Steinhorn is in conversation with Deborah Kalb, a freelance writer and editor. She spent about two decades working as a journalist in Washington, D.C., for news organizations including Gannett News Service, Congressional Quarterly, U.S. News & World Report, and The Hill, mostly covering Congress and politics. Her book blog, Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, which she started in 2012, features hundreds of interviews she has conducted with a wide variety of authors.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9789493418844?ic_referral=YitakzOaC8XYOQCK0aXCDeMU5HtcnRxfiFyfzPkFGqQwMxBOAz8zgRLd7gdaQad8Cceeb7dVVte_EBeNrINE1UsFIxXFUb5xK0yeRbztUvloIYXSMF1qIswGfXHrJyAtwc5LVBg

Born to Run meets Why We Swim and Breath in a globe-spanning work of immersive narrative nonfiction that dives into the hidden world of cold water plunging and swimming—and what it reveals about the human body, mind, and need for connection."Mesmerizing...I loved this book.” —Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling authorWhen award-winning Sports Illustrated writer Chris Ballard receives a cryptic text promising to extend his athletic life, he has no idea it will lead him into a parallel athletic universe—one populated by record-breaking grandmothers, obsessive scientists, rogue visionaries chasing Olympic legitimacy, and everyday people willingly plunging into freezing water together, a realm that subverts the idea of what “elite” athletes are supposed to look like. What begins as curiosity becomes a three-year reporting journey across continents, from the saunas of Finland and seas of Ireland to Norway, England, and Boston.Blending adventure journalism with rigorous research, The Plunge traces humanity’s long relationship with cold water—from the ancient Greeks and Victorian sea bathers to polar plungers and modern laboratories studying stress, resilience, and mental health, a lifeline for those “drowning on dry land.” Reporting from the front lines of emerging science, Ballard explores how brief, voluntary cold exposure can sharpen focus, elevate mood, reduce inflammation, stunt cortisol, and retrain the body’s stress response, creating a rare state of being both calm and alert.Along the way, Ballard introduces pioneers like legendary distance swimmer Lynne Cox, follows Ram Barkai’s improbable quest to bring ice swimming to the Olympics, and charts a global movement that’s surged from fringe ritual to mainstream phenomenon. As his reporting deepens, so does his participation: Ballard graduates from cold plunges to competing alongside Olympians at the Ice Swimming World Championships. Along the way, his body and outlook change in surprising and measurable ways.Unfolding through vivid scenes and unforgettable characters, The Plunge is a story of endurance, science, and human connection, an exploration of why, in a climate-controlled, screen-saturated world, so many people are choosing to seek out discomfort—and what becomes possible when we do hard things together.Chris Ballard, a senior writer at Sports Illustrated for two decades, is the award-winning author of four books, including One Shot at Forever, and has contributed to National Geographic and The New York Times Magazine. Reporting Plunge took him from cold plunges to competing alongside Olympians at the Ice Swimming World Championships. Ballard is in conversation with S.L. Price, a Senior Writer at Sports Illustrated from 1994-2019, who has written five books—his most recent, The American Game: History and Hope in the Country of Lacrosse, a wide-ranging examination of the continent’s oldest and most representative sport. Of Price’s work, the New York Times said, “The seasoned reporter … is a master of the new journalism developed by Hunter Thompson, Gay Talese and Price’s personal paragon, Pete Hamill. Whenever he writes about sports–or about the craft of writing–he hits it over the fence.”PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781668055861?ic_referral=sGucsvDXSE-rI2w96hfVgyB2x68iScpgPhQTonsZgHIwM0_tpKqXIYtCUQP9F6QAYF9_Lz0xHbIle4Ye4TU29VeoeLsQ_kgeXqPfZy8fqCb0U4p6-g2fdbJ1l4gaaocbiO3iojY

When the Pickford siblings arrive at The Grand Hotel—a nostalgic tourist paradise of horse-drawn carriages, muddled cocktails, and white sweaters on the tennis court—they have every intention of spending the long weekend making nice. Pete, the nation’s foremost expert on gastropods (mollusks), is keen to wade around the lake in search of a rare and exciting Carthusian snail. Viv, reeling from the secret revelation that her husband is gay, is determined to put on a brave face for her daughter. And Corey, a charming, handsome grifter, has lucked into five pounds of cocaine he plans to sell to the first dumb rich guy he can find.But when Pete falls for the alluring mother of a local kid, when Viv’s daughter gets up to teenage trouble, and when Corey finds the wealthy guests less interested in party drugs than golf clubs and waffle cones, the long weekend of family bonding veers into disaster. Why did their father bring them to this cushy island resort in the first place? And why does Corey, the biggest screw-up of them all, seem to be the only one who knows the truth? As secrets spill, old flames are fanned, and an innocent snail is crushed beneath the unrelenting heel of a hiking boot. In a story that is as sneakily wise as it is absurdly funny, Ryan Effgen’s debut shows how sometimes the people who bring out your worst—your family—can also be the ones to bring you out of your shell.Ryan Effgen’s fiction has appeared in Best New American Voices, Fiction Magazine, Painted Bride Quarterly, and elsewhere. He has earned creative writing fellowships from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and George Mason University. He works as an instructional designer and lives in Virginia with his wife and children.Effgen is in conversation with Lina Patton. Patton is a writer, illustrator, and teacher. Originally from Maine, she moved to Minnesota at thirteen, trading the ocean for 10,000 lakes. Her work has appeared in ELLE, The Cut, Narrative, and Driftwood Press, among others. After seven years living abroad, she and her husband currently reside in Washington, DC, where she teaches Creative Writing at The George Washington University and co-produces the storytelling series Generation Women DC. The Lake Club is her first novel.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9798217208128?ic_referral=1ktDbeexnggMtPSoRlgmjwsLc3wMLR3KNpOs3gNCocYwMwaw_Rd7YKhjSvOj9wHpln8dsKdQX78InHhtKeT_YiTTbk9oPjW06cviNnPigg_YDfym2k_MfpSLqQuGHjRmAWesRuc

Around the world, antidemocratic forces are taking aim at women leaders. Misogynistic authoritarianism has entered the mainstream, seeking to reverse decades of progress. Weaponized digital technologies have unleashed sexualized smears and violent threats. There is a deep connection between attacks on women and attacks on democracy—and female leaders can show us how to fight back.Linda Robinson—an award-winning journalist and foreign policy expert—tells the powerful stories of the women on the frontlines of the battle between democracy and authoritarianism. Despite age-old obstacles and virulent new dangers, these remarkable leaders have strengthened their countries, expanded gender equality, and promoted policies that benefit all. Tsai Ing-wen crafted a strategy to defend Taiwan from Chinese aggression while advancing social reforms. Estonia’s Kaja Kallas and Moldova’s Maia Sandu fought Russian hybrid warfare by pursuing European integration. Balkan leaders Vjosa Osmani and Nataša Pirc Musar bolstered their democracies against Serbian and Russian destabilization. Mia Amor Mottley of Barbados became a global champion for climate justice, rising above sexist attacks to achieve international financial reforms. Robinson distills the hard-won lessons of these and other recent leaders—including New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, Finland’s Sanna Marin, and Sigrid Kaag of the Netherlands—providing a roadmap for countries facing existential threats. Timely and vivid, this book spotlights women’s leadership amid the global crisis of democracy.Linda Robinson is senior fellow for women and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. She was previously director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy at the RAND Corporation. A former foreign correspondent, Robinson is the author of three acclaimed and best-selling books about America's "long wars.Robinson is in conversation with Tamara Cofman Wittes, who became the fourth president of NDI in 2024. Before joining the Institute, she served as Director of Foreign Assistance in the U.S Department of State. Previously, she led the Russia sanctions effort for the State Department's sanctions coordination office. Dr. Wittes also served in the State Department from 2009 - 2012 as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, coordinating U.S. policy on democracy and human rights in the Middle East during the Arab uprisings. Dr. Wittes spent nearly twenty years as a foreign policy scholar at the Brookings Institution, including as director of its Center for Middle East Policy. She is a founder of the Leadership Council for Women in National Security, and served on the board of the National Democratic Institute from 2014 - 2022. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Women in International Security. A native of Michigan, Dr. Wittes lives in Washington, D.C., where she tends a robust pollinator garden..PURCHASE BOOK:https://politics-prose.com/book/9780231221740?ic_referral=t1YDNC6QCU4H-6y_TTjoKLASwPJVwot9897PpNwyYmcwM3WxnyDfmUJvsW4Y2L21NTuF7QnM1E3s-1hhNhJg6n53o3xTXIRDmkp6JGh2roRd4GUcB_mf7Yqv-Ot84p3fxfvnmgA

Living, Together features 21 writers and organizers on chosen family, hacking adulthood, and other lessons communal living can teach us about the future of housing in America.At age 29, when Samantha Paige Rosen made an unexpected move back home, she was surprised to find how much she loved living with her parents again. Inspired and curious, she began searching for others who had redefined home and community. The essays and Q&As in Living, Together are about carving out spaces of communal connection and joy in our 3-bed, 2-bath starter home culture. Although they recount life at different stages and in different regions, these stories showcase the delights and tradeoffs of more dynamic shapes of “home.” Across sections on family, intentional community, and what lies beyond housing, readers will hear from voices like:Samantha Paige Rosen's writing on identity, the arts, and culture has appeared in the Washington Post, Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE, Slate, Them, Literary Hub, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and lives outside of Philadelphia, where she is a freelance writer and editor, a writing tutor and coach, and an amateur potter. Living, Together: Reimagining Community in the Age of Disconnection is her first book.Rosen will be in conversation with Washington, D.C. locals and Living, Together contributors Rhaina Cohen, Hannah Grieco, and Ayesha Rascoe.Rhaina Cohen is an award-winning producer and editor for NPR’s documentary podcast, Embedded. Her work, often focused on social connection, has aired on numerous podcasts and radio shows, including Hidden Brain, Invisibilia, and All Things Considered, and her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New Republic and elsewhere. The recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Cohen is a graduate of Northwestern University and Oxford, where she was a Marshall Scholar. She lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband, friends, and her friends’ children.Hannah Grieco's debut short story collection First Kicking, Then Not is out now from Stanchion Books. Her work has been published in The Washington Post, The Independent, Al Jazeera, Huffington Post, Brevity, Craft, Poet Lore, Shenandoah, Fairy Tale Review, The Offing, and more. She writes a monthly literary column for the Washington City Paper and edits prose for a variety of independent presses and literary journals. Find her online at www.hgrieco.com and on most social media @writesloud.Ayesha Rascoe will moderate the conversation with Rosen, Cohen, and Grieco. Rascoe, host of NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday and the weekend host of the Up First podcast. In these roles, she interviews newsmakers, entertainers, and politicians, bringing her signature wit and sharp perspective to the stories shaping the national conversation. Beyond the airwaves, Rascoe is the editor of HBCU Made: A Celebration of the Black College Experience, a collection of essays highlighting the profound impact of historically Black institutions. She is a proud alumna of Howard University. Rascoe joined NPR in 2018 and quickly became a mainstay of the network’s programming. Before stepping into her role as host, she served as a White House Correspondent, covering three presidential administrations. She earned a reputation for her incisive questioning in the briefing room and reported from major international events, including the 2019 Hanoi Summit with Kim Jong Un and President Obama’s final NATO summit in Warsaw. During this time, she was also a regular fixture on the NPR Politics Podcast. Her versatile career includes guest-hosting It’s Been a Minute and appearing as a frequent contributor to Pop Culture Happy Hour.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9780807021293?ic_referral=rVNsOkZlv6mZLuchRgOjYZCHFRskLhDYahtprTiDrWcwM1VjrLskEc59kDCKn0evB6m3wL0tJ1tgdl6bGnGFttz2AvSuxMzPkCKIXqNOQBdlGhruRlwH7rkQuGW9RzFJfbras2s

From a New York Times bestselling author comes a gripping debut that defies all expectations—a story of feverish obsession, new motherhood, and a friendship pushed to the edgeEmily is unmoored as a new mother in Manhattan—exhausted, broke, and slipping away from her well-meaning husband. She becomes fixated on finding the one person who ever truly understood her: her college roommate Daisy who vanished years ago after dancing at a seedy strip club off campus.In her desperate search for Daisy, Emily tumbles from new-mom message boards into a world of porn, secrets, and a high-end escort service for global billionaires, hitting one dead end after another—until the unthinkable happens: Daisy suddenly reappears.Daisy infuses Emily’s life with newfound purpose and community as the two launch a new mothers’ group in a vacant luxury skyscraper (matcha on tap, vibrators on offer). But the joy of their reunion soon fades, revealing deep cracks in their friendship. Is Daisy the key to Emily’s happiness—or is she unraveling her world? And where has Daisy really been all these years?Amy Chozick is a bestselling author, screenwriter and award-winning journalist who has covered the biggest stories in politics, business and media for The New York Times. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Chasing Hillary, which she adapted into the HBO Max series The Girls on the Bus. In addition to the Times, Amy’s writing has appeared in Vogue, Vanity Fair, and other publications. Amy is currently adapting With Friends Like You into a major motion picture with Fifth Season and Academy Award-winning producer Brad Weston. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and son.Chozick will be in conversation with Adrienne LaFrance, the executive editor of The Atlantic, where she was previously a staff writer. She still reports regularly and writes about a wide range of topics: political violence, technology, the Pacific region, American comedy, and culture. PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9798217046546?ic_referral=IHcBgzlbOOQcDq8vzWkOABLQajEVmTrAwHH2Eo7Ra_gwMx1ryf0xmrb0G1ZcrDJeL0awqFRQ8qRgMaGgrKD3VnZ8WRVvce0FYiZjcULInT_CuJvPrdCfE5MDHc7oZZD4levJHPA

A call for unity in the face of growing dehumanization of marginalized people-from a powerful voice in the dialogue on racism today.The walk back on a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. The silence across communities as the undocumented, primarily Latino population faces attack. The grandstanding of nationalism and the intersection with white supremacy and ideas of genetic superiority. These issues are not temporary but rather exist on a continuum in the history of racism and divisiveness. Meeks, who has spent a lifetime fighting for racial justice and healing, offers collaborative strategies to fight systemic racism--together. She also addresses current cases with civil rights impact in areas such as zoning, voting, and immigration, and delivers a powerful message about the need for unity in combating these destructive decisions.This moment, Meeks argues, shows that othering is alive and well in America and a continuation of white supremacy. She also believes the United States has been complicit in continuing the destabilization of other countries and the cycles of ethnic cleansing. Within Black communities, she explains, there is a hesitance to join the conversations, but the fight is one that demands solidarity. Resistance is necessary to dispel hierarchies of human value and combat the failure of institutions.Dr. Catherine Meeks blends scholarly excellence with heartfelt activism, shaping her as a distinguished voice in socio-cultural studies and a beacon for community transformation. She spent 25 impactful years at Mercer University chairing the African American Studies Program and 9 years at Wesleyan College as the Clara Carter Acree Distinguished Professor of Socio-Cultural Studies. She is celebrated in both of these institutions for fostering a deep understanding of race, gender, and class among her students. Her literary contributions, include the reflective "The Night is Long but Light Comes in the Morning," and her memoir, "The Quilted Life, Reflections of A Sharecropper’s Daughter" which further underscore her commitment to racial healing and personal growth. Dr. Meeks' profound community impact is recognized by the President Joseph R. Biden Lifetime Achievement and Service Award and her distinction as one of Georgia Trend Magazine's notable women. Her engaging blogs and podcasts extend her influence, providing ongoing wisdom and inspiration. With honorary doctorates from Virginia Theological Seminary, the Seminary of the Southwest, and Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University, Dr. Meeks continues to illuminate paths toward understanding and collective wellness. Dr. Meeks’ expression of her commitment to wellness and freedom is captured in her current work as Founding Executive Director and Chief Midwife of the Turquoise and Lavender Institute for Transformation and Healing.PURCHASE BOOK:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781640659674?ic_referral=Oh1zNugcpHOTEh1fqlqmwNqg0aezlzx96yoR6m3qb9MwM7bk5dVG5GPQOBXHnjOQucQnHlD1MmsC1B1KTat7NK9Xh4GrT6sLEgFF_aHFgTAozVpVaaKdDxhPREf5aScYrVwKhzI

A rallying cry and resistance manual from one of the leaders breathing new life into the environmental movement.As the climate emergency worsens and biodiversity shrinks, we humans get used to it—we adapt, we normalize, we forget. Scientists call this “shifting baseline syndrome” and warn that it’s why we are increasingly sleepwalking toward disaster. In this positive and inspiring manifesto, the environmental activist and longtime editor-in-chief of Sierra magazine Jason Dove Mark offers an antidote, focusing on four simple but powerful rules that everyone can use to resist environmental amnesia: Go outside. Bear witness. Make a record. Pass it on. Mark makes the case for easy, everyday practices that can help us “remember the Earth” and support environmental conservation, restoration, and rewilding. And he shares moving examples of citizen scientists, birdwatchers, mountain climbers, and fishermen across the country who are putting them into practice. The Earth Said Remember Me is a hopeful, achievable prescription for protecting the planet, one citizen at a time.Jason Dove Mark has served as editor-in-chief of Sierra and editor of Earth Island Journal. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and the Atlantic. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.Mark is in conversation Mike Tidwell, a journalist, author, and climate activist living in Takoma Park, MD. His most recent book is an exploration of global warming’s impact in his own front yard, called The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue: A story of Climate and Hope on One American Street (St. Martin’s Press, March 2025). Publishers Weekly magazine named the book one of the best nonfiction books of 2025. A passionate conservationist, he founded the Chesapeake Climate Action Network in 2002, where he has led local and national campaigns for clean energy. He lives on Willow Avenue in Takoma Park, MD with his wife Beth and their cat Macy Gray.PURCHASE BOOK: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781324117889?ic_referral=uJq8gFBT8urMbLNW_e45bhzF2r9gxFVh7zJUakdS-iMwM2GSDFwsmVJ2EYGgKBRr_ofqZmNARbhsqjUb1kX24vdIe03-QO3OAF1kZ4-zXIV33Y474JCV3i-RuHuEJXUvcQVUCQk

"Ben Wikler is one of the most strategic and respected leaders of his generation. If we do what this book says, we will win."—Nancy PelosiFrom one of the most successful Democratic strategists of the last decade, a revelatory account of what you—yes, you—can do to defeat Trumpism.This Is the Plan is a hope-unleashing answer for anyone who has looked at the wreckage of American politics and asked: How the hell do we get out of this mess? Ben Wikler, hailed as the “preeminent state party chair” by Nancy Pelosi, led Wisconsin Democrats through a series of hold-your-breath fights against right-wing extremists that resulted, against the odds, in the unrigging of the political system of the most divided—and, until recently, most gerrymandered—state in the nation. Now, he draws on decades of experience in everything from school-board races to presidential elections to bring readers inside the hidden web of power that shapes our lives. At every step, he shows what individuals and small groups can do to help build a future where democracy thrives and our country works for everyone. With verve, infectious humor, and a rallying-cry energy that has inspired tens of thousands of volunteers, This Is the Plan is the book so many Americans have been waiting for: An idealistic-yet-practical guide to turning the present crisis into a better future.Ben Wikler is an American political organizer and strategist who served as the chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin from July 2019 to July 2025.Wikler will be joined in conversation with Nancy Pelosi & Judy Woodruff.Nancy Pelosi was elected the 52nd Speaker of the House in 2007—and served as the first woman Speaker for eight years, off and on until 2023. She came to Congress in 1987 for the children and to fight HIV/AIDS. Under Pelosi’s leadership, Congress enacted transformative legislation, most notably the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. A defender of democracy, she directed House efforts to investigate the January 6th insurrection and has spoken out forcefully for human rights globally. Pelosi continues to represent San Francisco in the House, a privilege she has treasured for thirty-seven years. Pelosi and her husband, Paul, have five children and ten grandchildren. Judy Woodruff is a senior correspondent and the former anchor and managing editor of the PBS News Hour. She has covered politics and other news for five decades at NBC, CNN and PBS.PURCHASE BOOK: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781324131434?ic_referral=v_7OE3V1sU2uq5bswA7_DIJQs457bqQsf96A3oOY2M0wMwlLBRo5oldnN3fvcK4MA6G0xqhYOWXn-u1LAzr3aTGu92wzFv7MrC083w4O6PD4VvtLvAKJyXmDKPhWIPR4HuCJ2kg

Why settle for nothing, when you can steal everything?Forget banks, casinos, museums—society’s most valuable treasure sits in the giant, anonymous data centers that power modern life. There, in endless rows of hard drives, lies the sum of our civilization’s knowledge, all of the world’s personal and private truths, uploaded and saved. They wait unseen, unexploited, and, most critically, unguarded.Tim is a climate journalist disillusioned with chronicling the end of the world. Virginia is an evasive, paranoid, and technologically savvy con artist who has found an ingenious way to live off the grid in the heart of Manhattan. Joined by desire and desperation, they hatch a plan to steal secrets. But they have secrets of their own—secrets they can’t tell each other, secrets that could destroy them both...With their last few dollars and some dimestore wigs they set out for the outskirts of Tulsa, Oklahoma, the unlikely site of the world’s largest repository of knowledge—a data center the size of a small city—to attempt a brazen heist that, whether they fail or succeed, will change their lives forever.But the heist is only the beginning. From the award-winning author Nathaniel Rich, Cloudthief is a heist novel for a new era, in which the most valuable things in life are virtual, privacy is a sick joke, and security is relative. After all is lost, what remains?Nathaniel Rich is the author of Cloudthief (2026) and three previous novels, all New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice selections: King Zeno (2018); Odds Against Tomorrow (2013); and The Mayor's Tongue (2008). His short fiction has won the Emily Clark Balch Prize and been a two-time finalist for the National Magazine Award for Fiction. He has also written two works of nonfiction: Second Nature (2021), which includes the story that serves as the basis for the film Dark Waters; and Losing Earth (2019), a finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Losing Earth is being adapted into a film directed by Tom McCarthy.Rich is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and a frequent contributor to The Atlantic, Harper’s, and The New York Review of Books. A 2025 Guggenheim Fellow, he teaches at Tulane University and lives in New Orleans.Rich is in conversation with Michael Svoboda, who joined the University Writing Program at The George Washington University in 2005, shortly after earning his interdisciplinary PhD from Penn State University, where he had owned and operated a bookstore for 17 years. Michael is also affiliated with GW’s Alliance for a Sustainable Future, for which, after working with the Sustainability Minor in several different capacities, he now serves as Senior Advisor for Academic Programs and Outreach. As a writer/critic, he has been a regular contributor to Yale Climate Connections and, since 2021, its book editor. Standouts among the many features and “bookshelves” he has contributed are his pieces on climate fiction, both in print and on the screen. “Cli-fi” films will be the focus of his final sabbatical from GW.  PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9780374619794?ic_referral=labEZGCllngxh0Json3bEP7jKkwA195KZAbiEuyC3CwwMzT5-js6x7E4nfb6IQqWqK6idcs9xXy_ktte30dqixsIFGgp-LANT4uNlpOGEH7oYGek1IJovvnX1kpjPSzUKHQ7sLo

A bold, culturally resonant guide to reclaiming boundaries, protecting your peace, and choosing yourself without guilt.Choose you. Every single time.In a world that constantly demands more, it’s easy to lose sight of who you are and what you truly need. You say “yes” to people who are never satisfied. Each day you give more of yourself away while putting your own dreams on hold. That ends here. It ends now.In YES TO YOU, NO TO THEM, New York Times bestselling author and podcaster Wallo267 delivers sharp truths, affirmations, and reflections that encourage you to let go of what refuses to grow. Drawing from lived experience, cultural insight, and hard-earned lessons, Wallo267 speaks directly to the pressures of modern life, from social media comparison and emotional exhaustion to misplaced loyalty and the fear of disappointing others. The message is clear—your peace is sacred, your energy is valuable, and your life belongs to you.When you’re ready to say “yes” to your power and priorities, this book is your passport to living a full, fulfilling life. Whether you’re building a business, navigating relationships, or craving contentment, YES TO YOU, NO TO THEM meets you where you are and pushes you to where you want to be. It’s time to reclaim your boundaries, protect your peace, and choose your path of growth with boldness and confidence.Wallace "Wallo267" Peeples is a New York Times best-selling author, cultural advisor at YouTube, former chief marketing officer of REFORM Alliance, and co-host of the globally influential podcast Million Dollaz Worth of Game. After serving twenty years behind bars, he transformed his life into a platform for accountability, discipline, and reinvention.Wallo is in conversation with Yasmine Cheyenne, a TODAY Show wellness expert and three-time author whose work helps millions reconnect with who they were before the world had a say. Through three books with HarperCollins—The Sugar Jar, Wisdom of the Path, and The Comeback Era—plus partnerships with global corporations such as Google, Pepsi, GE, Well & Good, Meta, and more, she's become the trusted guide for creating a life that feels as good as it looks. An Air Force Veteran, TEDx speaker, and mother of two, Yasmine proves that whether you're setting boundaries, navigating challenges, or ready for your comeback, transformation is always possible.PURCHASE BOOK: https://politics-prose.com/book/9798318605956?ic_referral=9nlm2lV0cYmyhfg-yxsN9IPBxqAhEi1s-oqbD3zK0cwwMz8rx0L3QN6NjnDcK9mKeda9TT_FxIaQVywjPCY1w-CnOBLvaPm0hzZ8_pH4PLphbLeJHfYFAUgA4xwD6u4u9iVODMQ

The inside story of one of the most successful US foreign aid programs in the Middle East in recent decadesWhat happens when the United States launches an unconventional foreign aid program in the aftermath of a national uprising? In this behind-the-scenes account of the Egyptian-American Enterprise Fund--a private investment fund created by the U.S. Congress to jumpstart Egypt's private sector after the 2011 Egyptian revolution A Daring Enterprise tells the story of one of the most effective, yet little known, U.S. foreign policy programs today in the Middle East.Through the firsthand account of the Fund's chairman James Harmon, a veteran investment banker and former Clinton administration official, the authors reveal how a small, U.S.-backed investment fund partnered with Egyptians to spark investment, create jobs, and expand opportunities for women in the Arab world's largest country--all against a backdrop of political instability, anti-Americanism, and Washington dysfunction.At a time when America's budget deficit is rising and foreign aid is being scaled back, A Daring Enterprise reveals how a new model of foreign assistance can tackle urgent development challenges while delivering real returns for U.S. taxpayers. Most importantly, it is a powerful reminder of the value of foreign aid and why smart foreign investment is key to America's future prosperity.Cornelius Queen is senior vice-president at the Egyptian-American Enterprise Fund. He previously managed a humanitarian aid program in Lebanon during the Syrian refugee crisis, served as a legislative aide in the U.S. Congress, and was a member of the Carter Center's election observation mission during Egypt's 2011-2012 elections. He holds an MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a BA from Johns Hopkins University. He is a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations. Queen is in conversation Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, an American lawyer serving as President and CEO of Global Refuge. She previously served in the Obama White House as Policy Director for First Lady Michelle Obama and at the State Department as Senior Advisor under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of State John Kerry.PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781649035059?ic_referral=BYXIfkb67J8jEu6lVhiBXqxTrZR0DRw9CJomezvTTX4wMwDAW5Epes_dCQ2syJNzcbD2tyvAYifEdAJA2S0C9Hh9QqyEL7OvNGI1tecXAD4rg9DNqV2jSh0zgUBOV-M9k2RcHBs

Have you ever taken a really good look at the bottom half of a bird? At long last, this birding guide from esteemed birder and New Yorker cartoonist Tommy Siegel, author of Candy Hearts, reveals the truth about the powerful legs and shapely rear ends that power our feathered friends to the skies! There's a reason brilliant naturalists from Audubon to Sibley have relied on illustration to bring birds to life on the page: Birds move remarkably fast and are often obscured by foliage; it would be nearly impossible to photograph them. But birding enthusiast and comic artist Tommy Siegel noticed a theme in these artists' guides: Their renderings focus too heavily on birds' wings and plumage while reducing their lower limbs to simple sticks. Could birds really achieve such varied feats of athleticism and migratory endurance if they had such rudimentary legs? Now, Tommy is poised to revolutionize the field of ornithology with his interpretation of how birds' beautiful legs and posteriors must truly appear (based on educated scientific guesses gleaned from observing their behavior in the field). The result is Extremely Accurate Birds, perhaps the most anatomically precise collection of bird illustrations ever assembled. Pairing his trailblazing bird drawings with (actually accurate, for real) birding tips on more than eighty common species found across North America, Tommy has created an essential addition to any birder's shelf.Tommy Siegel is a birder, cartoonist, and touring musician. As a cartoonist, he has amassed a viral following for his popular Candy Hearts and Extremely Accurate Birds series, among others. As a musician, he has played more than 1,000 shows around the world as a singer and guitarist in Jukebox the Ghost. More recently on his “Extremely Accurate Bird Songs” podcast, he and his co-host strive to write a song for every bird species.Siegel is in conversation Billy Libby, a touring musician with Ingrid Michaelson in addition to his career as an award-winning film, TV and podcast composer for outlets such as Time Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, several Gimlet media podcasts, and Apple TV’s Slumberkins, among others. Born in Portland, Maine, he now lives in Brooklyn, NY. In addition to composition work, he releases original music under the moniker Fort Gorgeous on all streaming platforms.PURCHASE BOOK:https://politics-prose.com/book/9798894140186?ic_referral=7zkkwChYcn1SXyjaCYAq-ployNJg7IbKndmXEbASu_wwM_flxIeNFaQpzgvX0hCEFGwLrkwDrdKdql9N8lxjUDGrg-S4wB4ZC7mRXKdqnM_a0zXOyesTZ-rU1UcGMgamOFT2T5M

Politics and Prose has partnered with The Atlantic for an evening of discussion surrounding the magazine’s July issue, published on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the United States, on "How to Tell the American Story.” Atlantic staff writer Clint Smith and deputy executive editor Yoni Appelbaum will explore their articles from the issue, including Smith’s report on “Being Black in Pete Hegseth’s Military” and Appelbaum’s “How America Gave Up on Its Own History.” They will discuss their approach to research and writing these magazine features, before broadening the discussion to the state of America at its 250th anniversary.Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of the narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed, and the poetry collections, Counting Descent and Above Ground. Yoni Appelbaum is a deputy executive editor of The Atlantic. Before joining The Atlantic, he was a lecturer on history and literature at Harvard University. He is the author of Stuck.

J Brooke's I Can Tell You the Version That Will Make You Take My Side begins in a childhood full of binaries, then navigates through an American queer / trans / nonbinary adulthood fraught with complexities including the question of top-surgery.J Brooke’s work is known for exploring gender, family, and the incendiary combination of the two. With this, their first book, they deliver candid commentary on a unique gender journey. Born intrinsically male, assigned female at birth, and raised in affluent dysfunction in New York City, their gender expression attempted male, cis straight female, and cis gay female before embracing a nonbinary identity. Living without surgical or hormonal interventions, their struggle to find authentic place traverses female anatomy, friendship, suicide, family, testosterone, politics, packers, social media, motherhood, royalty, natural phenomena, cancer, marriage, and the Pope. Brooke is Prose Reviews Editor at The Rumpus, and lives in New England with their beautiful spouse Beatrice.Brooke is joined in conversation with Aaron Hamburger, the author of the story collection The View from Stalin’s Head, winner of the Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the novels Faith for Beginners, nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, Nirvana Is Here, winner of a Bronze Medal from the Foreword Reviews Indies Book Awards, and Hotel Cuba, winner of the Bridge Book Award for American Fiction. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, O, The Oprah Magazine, Tablet, The Forward; and numerous other publications. He lives in Washington, DC.PURCHASE BOOK:https://politics-prose.com/product/i-can-tell-you-version-will-make-you-take-my-side-j-brooke?v=3924935&ic_referral=eiRCBu1oWFPKzttxTg1_XvNJdvhoDfRON2MIPHP7enMwM9dk50M_qlBaxEP5tlJlpUHNmwySbQwRRP9xPeQjMwoHqEw8PlFEssdWuTOlDyFzHiXeEf8oY7xWVrkBZCoQQz58W8M

From the author of Florence Adler Swims Forever and The House Is on Fire, a novel set on a remote Italian island about a navy wife’s reckoning with power, love, and the price of staying silent in the Atomic Age.When twenty-three-year-old Eileen O’Malley meets charismatic naval officer Paul Archer in a Charleston department store, she doesn’t expect to fall so hard, so fast. But Paul is funny and ambitious, and soon, Eileen’s got a ring on her finger and is following him to the tiny, sun-drenched Mediterranean island of La Maddalena, where Paul will be heading up Radiological Controls aboard a submarine tender.In La Maddalena, Eileen joins a makeshift community of navy wives who are hell-bent on making the island feel a little more like home. But for Eileen, whose brother died in Vietnam, home is a loaded word, and as she settles into life on the island—taking Italian lessons and learning to make culurgiones—she begins to love the place for all the ways it is not like where she comes from.Still, it doesn’t take long for Eileen to be confronted with the complexities of being an American abroad. The decision to send nuclear-powered subs into the La Maddalena Archipelago was a contentious one, and the U.S. government is doing whatever it can to ensure that the island—not to mention all of Italy—doesn’t go communist in the next election.When Italian activists and scientists begin to sound the alarm about possible nuclear contamination in the water, the island erupts in a series of protests, made worse by the ongoing mishaps of the U.S. Navy. Soon, Eileen’s marriage falters and her loyalties begin to shift as she is drawn into a web of secrets—and to a local journalist who forces her to imagine a life beyond the one she’s been handed.Atmospheric, sexy, and quietly defiant, The Half Life is a story of love, complicity, and awakening—of one woman forced to choose between loyalty to her husband and country and to the Italian locals who show her the high cost of American exceptionalism.Rachel Beanland is the author of The House Is on Fire and Florence Adler Swims Forever, which won the National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction. She is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and earned her MFA in creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University. She lives with her family in Richmond, Virginia.Beanland is in conversation with Brian Castleberry, whose first novel, Nine Shiny Objects, was a NYT Editor's Choice and long-listed for the PEN/Faulkner Award. His stories and essays have been published in Southern Review, LitHub, Narrative, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. His second novel, The Californians, is out now in paperback from Mariner Books. He teaches at William & Mary, where he is director of the creative writing program. PURCHASE BOOK:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781668069134?ic_referral=dVWXHXZh6NOAPtFxzLwWCvFvOhdpoOHm_xldXmIDLcYwM7GwRt1sQzHIdpV5TuajlwE5fHkBUfg1urn59yz4LhBfSBUgfMzIU5POPw6A3mfHqgR86BqX1kNseSDvWAs1tIjkZpI

In this highly-anticipated sequel to Swimming with Ghosts, the discovery of a desperately-hidden secret brings a family to the brink of collapse--the exact place where they may ultimately find true healing and forgiveness.One day before a freak accident lands devoted wife and mother Kristy Weinstein in a coma, her husband, David, discovers a devastating secret she'd been keeping for months. While Kristy sleeps, the Weinstein family experiences both heartache and miracles they never could have imagined for themselves. A hospital chaplain with an unforgettable voice and magical powers visits Kristy, eliciting hidden memories and future visions she needs to recover from her destructive love addiction.While Kristy's life hangs in the balance, broken-hearted David, a high-risk OB with a God complex, must grapple with his pride and demons in order make impossible decisions about his career, wife, and the new baby that has served as a joyful family distraction from the roiling tensions stemming from Kristy's betrayal. Kristy and David's college-aged daughter Mia, nicknamed "Scoop," clashes with her family as she tries to solve the mystery of the events leading up to her mother's coma, and Patrick, Kristy's half-brother, fights to hold on to his sobriety and his beloved fianc e while he nearly crumbles under the fear of losing his sister and the responsibility of showing up for Kristy's family.Ultimately, Kristy's coma serves as the catalyst for each family member to find kinship in surprising places and to heal old wounds by drawing near those who have damaged them the most. This is a timely story about the emotional and spiritual work it takes to repair an impossible rupture in a marriage, a relationship, a family, and in turn the larger communities in which we live, hope, and love.Michelle Brafman is the author of Washing the Dead, Bertrand Court: Stories, and Swimming with Ghosts, the companion novel to Draw Near to Me. Her work has appeared in Oprah Daily, O Quarterly, Slate, LitHub, Tablet, The Forward, and elsewhere. She teaches fiction writing in the Johns Hopkins University MA in Writing Program and spoken about her work and the creative process at more than 200 venues, including book stores, literary festivals, classrooms, synagogues, and myriad book groups. Learn more at michellebrafman.com.Brafman is joined in conversation with Mary Kay Zuravleff, the award-winning author of four novels. Her latest is the Oprah Spring Book pick, American Ending. Earlier books include Man Alive!, a Washington Post Notable Book, and The Frequency of Souls, winner of the American Academy’s Rosenthal Award. Mary Kay’s essays and short stories have been widely published, and she is an enthusiastic teacher in many writing programs. PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9798887981345?ic_referral=VcjsW6DzKu4XxX5pahPNCsH6UgMXQPJyZpuuNPxhK-YwMxr2fB9nwNauDKjDHI16yjG1Ldw4ItYYy92cfd38rN4pjcfXHELuUsIQckl8p6_ze_IQtSTsiIA2winwT7sQV1yvaDI

The first ever collection of short stories from the New York Times bestselling, National Book Award-winning author of The FriendOver the course of thirty years, Sigrid Nunez has become one of contemporary fiction’s most distinctive voices, producing nine penetrating, profound novels celebrated by fans and critics alike. Revered for their warm, unadorned style, Nunez’s books are “as sophisticated as they are straightforward” (New York Times Magazine), melding a “wry, withering wit” (NPR) with “explosions of pathos” (Washington Post) to conjure “world[s] of insight into death, grief, art, and love” (Wall Street Journal).But she has not, until now, produced a book of stories. In It Will Come Back to You, Nunez selects thirteen of her best stories from the decades-long sweep of her career, tracing the origins of her style and her remarkable artistic range. Moving from the momentous to the mundane, Nunez maintains her expert balance between gravity and levity while probing the philosophical questions that illuminate her work.What New York Times critic Dwight Garner says of Nunez’s novels is true of these stories as well: “They are . . . wise, provocative, funny—good and strong company.”Sigrid Nunez is the author of nine novels, including The Friend, What Are You Going Through, and The Vulnerables. She is also the author of Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. She has received the National Book Award, the Whiting Award, a Berlin Prize Fellowship, the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award, the Rome Prize in Literature, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Windham-Campbell Prize. Her work has been translated into thirty-five languages. She lives in New York City.Nunez is in conversation with Lily Meyer, a translator, a critic, and the author of the novel Short War. She is also a staff writer at The Atlantic. Her stories and translations can be found in The Dial, The Drift, The Sewanee Review, The Southern Review, and many other journals, and her essays and criticism appear in outlets including Bookforum, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Book Review.PURCHASE BOOK:https://politics-prose.com/book/9798217179152?ic_referral=dLCFxVVsUqz_6Jh4NbHJUnkvUWC-9UEcTBScOODrNawwM0LncOT0A8CFMAzNjNfugzTv-gPVXh3OIRGdStyw47qNkJCFa-HtRLp27UpFQCh7bPNSdR2DrSgVMAhTH3yAZxQ0WL0

In this ambitious and groundbreaking history, Lauren Collins weaves together stories of four Wilmington, North Carolina, families over 125 years to create a full accounting of the long-term effects of the 1898 white supremacist massacre and coup and its critical role in subverting American democracyAfter the Civil War, Reconstruction ushered in an era of political equality and economic opportunity for Black people, and it lasted longer in Wilmington than almost anywhere else. In 1898, Wilmington was a bastion of Black success: Black cultural life flourished, while a thriving Black middle class brimmed with lawyers, educators, and elected officials. The city became a symbol of Black hope—only for all of it to come to a violent end on November 10, 1898.In this epic, multigenerational narrative, Lauren Collins traces the fates of four Wilmington families: the Howes, the Halseys, the Moores, and the Bellamy/MacRaes, all of whom were present on the day when a mob of white supremacists launched a murderous coup to “take the city.” After issuing a “White Declaration of Independence,” white men gunned down scores of Black men, chasing their families into hiding. Then they marched to city hall, where they overthrew the democratically elected, multiracial local government at gunpoint in what is thought to be the only successful coup d’état on American soil. No one knows exactly how many Black citizens they murdered—surely dozens, likely hundreds—while driving thousands of survivors and their white allies out of town. Folklore among both Black and white Wilmingtonians holds that the Cape Fear River ran red. While the effects of this episode of racial terrorism would ricochet through the next century of our nation’s history, no one was ever prosecuted or punished, and many of the details have been largely—and deliberately—forgotten.In collaboration with living descendants of Black and white families, Collins seeks to create a more complete understanding of 1898 than can be drawn solely from the archives. She follows these four families and their descendants through the eras of segregation and Jim Crow, the Great Migration, the Civil Rights movement, and school desegregation, all the way up to the Black Lives Matter and racial justice protests in 2020, emphasizing the lasting and consequential effects of 1898 on the city and people of Wilmington.Weaving together each generation’s reckoning with their past and how it has imprinted on their present, They Stole a City is an ambitious and revelatory examination of American racial terror as it has played out in one Southern city, written in the conviction that the story of the 1898 Wilmington massacre and coup is, in fact, a story about America in 2025.Lauren Collins was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1980. She is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of When in French: Love in a Second Language, which The New York Times named one of its 100 Notable Books of 2016. She lives in Paris with her family.Collins is in conversation with Julia Ioffe, a Russian-born American journalist. She is the author of Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her articles have appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the New Yorker, Foreign Policy, Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek, The New Republic, Politico, and the Atlantic. Ioffe has appeared on television programs on MSNBC, CBS, PBS, and other news channels as a Russia expert. She is a founding partner and Washington correspondent at Puck.PURCHASE BOOK:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781984878816?ic_referral=qJNPN_sUHDXNDXdDviUv6cyBWL6_DHputD3rsbzrgQowM8SAK5--6Jb84srUH2z04GO0orQFbEpPAUIarc14iNEi48wwoFIchMo1Vjr8TTl2V8PjYhVO3EqN4nl0448JYhAE9rg

From bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize finalist Robert Wright comes a sweeping new view of artificial intelligence that argues this revolution will challenge us spiritually and could restore a missing ingredient in modern life—our sense of purpose.The God Test is the first book that sees AI not just as a technological tool with good and bad applications, but as an evolutionary force that will alter the trajectory of humanity itself. Written by one of our foremost public intellectuals, and informed by his decades of chronicling the digital age, the book boldly asserts that the current wave of AI progress is just the beginning. The changes we are about to witness will bring the most abruptly dramatic transformation in the history of our species.Wright provocatively suggests that to truly understand the significance of the AI revolution, we need to expand our perspective beyond the last century or even the whole history of technology and look back billions of years, across the entire history of life on Earth. All along, he says, evolution has been pushing life toward this technological threshold, which now confronts our species with a climactic challenge: Can we muster the political, moral, and spiritual resources needed to guide this technology wisely?If we fail this challenge, the consequences for the whole planet could be grave. But if we meet the challenge—if we pass “the God test”—we can live in a world where humanity thrives, finding not just happiness but deeper meaning and purpose. We can be enriched and uplifted by, rather than imperiled by, awesomely intelligent machines.Robert Wright is the New York Times bestselling author of The Evolution of God (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), Nonzero, The Moral Animal, Three Scientists and their Gods (a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award), and Why Buddhism Is True. He is the cofounder and editor-in-chief of the widely respected Bloggingheads.tv and MeaningofLife.tv. He has written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Time, Slate, and The New Republic. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania and at Princeton University, where he also created the popular online course “Buddhism and Modern Psychology.” He is currently Visiting Professor of Science and Religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Wright is joined in conversation with Joel Achenbach. Joel Achenbach retired in August from The Washington Post after 35 years as a reporter, columnist and blogger. In recent years he reported on health and science for the National Desk. He is the author of seven books, including “The Grand Idea: George Washington’s Potomac and the Race to the West” (2004).PURCHASE BOOK:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781668061657?ic_referral=G2T9cqxbmziJNoa9F1qtQ88KEFvaWNkui8vqftuGXG4wM9VF0KI9hhjArc11zBLv0MsP_B__Vq-c__AB_nhsq8cFEAzAn3mU4FN9ZOWkhEEv8kvCRHHNFJ5tabehkzoKPW4RbRw

Pulitzer Prize–winning author of G-Man and acclaimed historian Beverly Gage takes the ultimate road trip into the American past.Ride along with Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Beverly Gage as she travels the country to see the museums, historic sites, roadside attractions, reenactments, and souvenir shops where Americans learn—and fight—about our history. From the birth of the nation in Philadelphia to Disneyland and the California dream, This Land Is Your Land offers a guided tour of thirteen places and thirteen key moments that define America’s greatest successes and challenges.The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a document that proclaimed the liberty and equality of all human beings, but produced a country that often failed to agree upon—or live up to—those ideals. This Land Is Your Land is for everyone who wants to find that history—to experience it and confront it, to celebrate it and condemn it—in the places where it happened.Gage shows that Americans can face their past and still love their country. Toss the book in the back seat—or listen on audio with the windows down—and join the journey.Beverly Gage teaches American history at Yale. Her book G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Biography, the Bancroft Prize in American History, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Biography. She is also the author of The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in its First Age of Terror, and writes for numerous journals and magazines, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.Gage is joined in conversation with Timothy Shenk, a historian of modern American politics at George Washington University. His latest book, Left Adrift: What Happened to Liberal Politics, was named one of the best books of 2024 by the New Republic, and his previous book, Realigners: Partisan Hacks, Political Visionaries, and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy, was chosen as one of the best political books of 2022 by the Wall Street Journal. A former editor of Dissent, he was named GW’s best professor by the university’s student newspaper, the Hatchet, in 2024.PURCHASE BOOK:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781668033104?ic_referral=seeuBo9eqRLVxx-F6XitCwgkqK6qiTI9qW6xZpcDdhkwMzeDlWK6N46eEDLN6ln8qt6FJI0qcjp8taWNhvLk_b04H6S8iJrWtO0RPpH-8x0VS05xhSuMQOkWW2Lg9KjJfuzdqBo

“Only in America can you run for office and get elected by people who can’t even pronounce your name.”—Lily Qi Thirty years after her solo journey to America, Chinese-born Lily Qi became a Maryland state delegate. It was a gratifying moment she did not take for granted. Qi had overcome a viral WeChat disinformation campaign from her Chinese community and met with skepticism from the Democratic establishment before being elected.Elected American tells the inspirational story of Qi’s dreams, setbacks, and achievements with candor and humility. Growing up in Mao’s Shanghai when “politics meant danger,” she never imagined running for public office. However, living in America, Qi came to see political participation as a missed opportunity for immigrants. As she campaigned to energize her cultural base, Qi realized she had to teach first-time voters how to make their votes count in a system not designed for them.As the only U.S. state legislator to have lived through China’s Cultural Revolution, Qi brings a rare cross-system perspective to American politics and the modern-day Asian American identity. Elected American is a political memoir and an immigrant story that emphasizes that democracy doesn’t wait on the sidelines—it favors those who participate.Lily Qi has served in the Maryland House of Delegates since 2019, representing Montgomery County, a suburb of Washington DC. As a champion for economic competitiveness and cultural competency, Qi is a leading voice on immigrant integration, civic and political engagement, and the Asian American experience.Qi is in conversation with Josh Kurtz, the founder of Maryland Matters, a 9-year-old nonprofit news website that covers Maryland government and politics, and is the co-host of Maryland Now, a new podcast that makes deep dives into Maryland policy. PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781439927182?ic_referral=OaSVqi7Ax-2ACYgcOn0UWM-DMp_o-bdQ1NmPa9wzzWowM1XalISEQ8fE0x9sIRez7x7BE6rWl7jds3GrHHi40E7yBUdGPt7M_wiXVkfp08GdO8cc7yqETG6t4KKpQWj2kINtJVY

What if the real measure of your life isn't how fast you run, how much you do, how 'on time' you are, but how well you pay attention to what actually matters?Sometimes You Should Be Late is about the quiet courage to slow down when the world keeps shouting, hurry up. It's not really about clocks; it's about questioning the stories we've inherited about time and consciously, rebelliously, choosing our own path.We live in a culture that worships urgency. Like horses with blinders, we're trained to look straight ahead--at deadlines, meetings, and to-do lists. This book invites us to lift those blinders and see what we're missing: the colleague who has a sad look in their eye, the simple joy of a walk, the gift of a slow morning with loved ones, the stranger who needs help. Because sometimes being late is how we arrive on time for what truly matters.Drawing on stories from government, psychology, and everyday life, meditation teacher and writer Alex Snider offers a field guide for reclaiming your attention from urgency culture. This isn't about hacks or time-management tricks. It's about choosing presence over punctuality, kindness over checklists, and our humanity over the clock.Alex Snider is a writer, facilitator, and former government strategist who bridges the worlds of public service and mindfulness. He brings over 15 years of federal experience to his work, having shaped domestic policy through the President's Management Agenda, represented the United States as a diplomat at the Department of State, and served in roles at the World Bank, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, and the U.S. Senate. He holds degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.Alex writes about mindfulness, urgency culture, and relationships for Psychology Today, his Substack Slow Mindfulness, and other publications. A certified meditation and authentic relating instructor, he has led hundreds of workshops in Washington, DC, and beyond. He also co-founded Mindful Fed, a cross-government mindfulness community that has grown to thousands of participants, helping public servants slow down and show up with presence.Snider is in conversation with Rebecca Davis, who has produced for HBO, VICE, Al Jazeera and A&E — and was the supervising producer for Season 2 of Vox's Netflix show, Explained. She was a senior producer with NBC News for nearly a decade, where her work focused on social movements, environmental and economic justice, and community innovators.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781788609685?ic_referral=8fQfXuWkReYWIu1PArynQpNf6QJQngXW02cs-en8_zowM6MbDecWLOucv1FxruN6IrM99x090x_t6DDnM7doMKSSGSf0O5oeEx9ZgJqLkAVjY5fdtn1ESVKuPT5B_GTR_wnQAJs

A choreographic manifesto for life in motion, offering new ways to navigate change and thrive amidst instabilityA sequel to Hiking the Horizontal, Liz Lerman's Shape and Momentum: An Insomniac's Guide for a World in Constant Motion is a choreographic manifesto for living in motion--part memoir, part creative toolkit, part philosophical inquiry. Written in a series of essays, from single-paragraph meditations to expansive chapters, the book weaves together personal anecdotes, creative theory, and movement-based wisdom. Lerman draws on Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to frame a central question: how do we hold both shape and momentum--form and change--at once? With insight and generosity, she explores creativity as a life practice, rooted in embodied knowledge and accessible to all. Witches from her decade-long project Wicked Bodies appear throughout as fierce, funny guides, helping readers stay curious and grounded. Essays are grouped in thematic sections--lived experience, kinship, rejection, reflection, and radical imagination--culminating in an "Atlas of Creative Tools(R)," a practical and poetic resource. Bridging dance, education, politics, and spiritual practice, Shape and Momentum offers tools for navigating instability and making a more relational world.Liz Lerman is a choreographer, writer, educator, and the recipient of numerous honors, including a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship, the 2017 Jacob’s Pillow Award, and the 2002 MacArthur “Genius Grant” Award. Liz founded and led the Dance Exchange from 1976 until 2011, where she cultivated the company’s unique multi-generational ensemble. Current projects include building the Atlas of Creative Tools®, an online resource and archive, and Legacy Unboxed™ that involves a series of site-specific research performance events called My Body is a Library™. Lerman’s upcoming book is a collection of personal essays set to be published by Wesleyan University Press in 2025. Liz continues to evolve the Critical Response Process® through the annual certification program and an upcoming fundamentals course. Liz is the author of Teaching Dance to Senior Adults (1984), Hiking the Horizontal (2014), and co-author of Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process (2003) and Critique Is Creative (2022) with John Borstel. She is currently an Institute Professor at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts and a Fellow at the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy.Lerman will be in conversation with Diana Ayton-Shenker, CEO, Leonardo/ISAST (International Society of Arts, Science, Technology); Executive Director, Leonardo-ASU; Professor of Practice, ASU, and Senior Global Futures Scientist at Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Lab.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9780819501684?ic_referral=xP4NVtiPhmoUeFM6t5czwp_1H7-xcrLyCgm6LGO8aOwwM7APonZH38UX8oIuDp4iJ0OlWgJsatlNT4VRPh25-cZfYzTmg3sxmj7mQZYf6lIx_BkveiOr9j8KcG85tqNQFcBCqNM

A sweeping Cold War love story set against the crumbling Soviet empireMoscow, 1986. Natalie Chester has finally achieved her dream: a posting as an American news correspondent in the USSR at the very moment history pivots. But within days of her arrival, the Chernobyl disaster erupts, her fiancé abandons her, and her bureau chief wages a relentless campaign to destroy her career.Then she meets Anatoly Kuznetsov—a rising Soviet diplomat whose Nordic looks and reformist ideals set him apart from the gray functionaries of the Kremlin. Their attraction is immediate and dangerous. As they navigate secret meetings, KGB surveillance, and the disapproval of both governments, Natalie and Tolya become allies in a larger mission: to help end the Cold War before it ends humanity.From the radioactive aftermath of Chernobyl to clandestine trips through the Estonian countryside, from war-torn Afghanistan to a cherry blossom proposal in Tokyo, their love affair unfolds against the decade's most dramatic events—the Reykjavik summit, Gorbachev's glasnost reforms, and the brutal suppression of Baltic independence movements. But as the Soviet empire begins its death throes, the couple discovers that the hardliners willing to kill for the old order will stop at nothing to preserve their power.Inspired by the author's own experiences as a Moscow correspondent during perestroika, Dispatches from Moscow is a meticulously researched thriller that captures the intoxicating danger of journalism in an authoritarian state and the impossible choices faced by those who dare to imagine a better world. It's a story of professional ambition and personal sacrifice, of idealism tested by reality, and of a love that burns brightest in the shadow of the Iron Curtain's final days.Carol J. Williams is a retired foreign correspondent who covered the historic upheaval that ended the Cold War in an award-winning 35-year career with Associated Press and Los Angeles Times. She lived through the USSR's brief era of hope for reform and the tragic consequences of its failure. She followed Eastern Europe's euphoric rebellions that toppled Communist tyrants from Berlin to Bucharest. In Yugoslavia, she documented the rise of ethnic and religious nationalism fanned by corrupt leaders who pushed their peoples into devastating wars. Her dispatches from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine traced those conflicts to unresolved ideological disputes from their days of imperial oppression. Williams is a graduate of the University of Washington and holds a journalist law certificate from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. She lives with her husband Ken Olsen, a retired editor, in Silverdale, WA.Williams is in conversation with Marie Yovanovitch, the author of the New York Times best-selling memoir, Lessons from the Edge. During her thirty-three-year diplomatic career, Ambassador Yovanovitch served as the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine (2016-2019), the Republic of Armenia (2008-2011) and the Kyrgyz Republic (2005-2008).  She worked in a number of senior State Department positions, as well as at U.S. Embassies in Moscow, London, Ottawa, and Mogadishu. Ambassador Yovanovitch has earned multiple awards, including the Presidential Distinguished Service Award twice. She is currecntly a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a non-Resident Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University, and a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute of Global Politics, Columbia University.  PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781965766590?ic_referral=qzdovIxL0NQ5jnoPIQRcdSNJ4LxLJCAtHTAkkvuWpQwwM1xoX9jobDpXH98wjTzkSuR7CdzOsvrVbvnrkgWmtIO-FTlU6G7UZgA60XLAYYiiUGhTw7zE4BohESEG5_iskudq34U

A powerful firsthand look into the lives of grandparents and other relatives stepping in to raise children—and the people and policies that help them thrive. Today in the US, more than 2.4 million children whose parents are unable to care for them live in grandfamilies, where they are raised by grandparents or other loved ones. Until recently, their experiences have been all but invisible.These relative caregivers do time in waiting rooms and court hearings, put themselves at financial risk, and sacrifice their own health, all with the dream of making a better life for the kids they love. In Grandfamilies, Donna M. Butts, former longtime executive director of Generations United, sheds light on the ongoing fight for the recognition and resources these families deserve. Through heartfelt personal accounts, grandfamily members of all ages and backgrounds share their experiences, giving voice to the millions across this nation who have come together in the spirit of hope and resilience to imagine a better future for their loved ones.All book sale proceeds will go to Generations United to support their work with grandfamilies.Donna M. Butts is an award-winning nonprofit executive, author, and trusted voice frequently quoted in the national media. As Executive Director of Generations United, a role she served in for more than twenty-seven years, she was invited to testify before Congress, address the United Nations, and present in more than a dozen countries. As a fierce advocate for intergenerational solutions that benefit children, youth, older adults and families, she has helped pave the way for crucial legislation and support for grandfamilies. She lives in the Washington, DC, area.Butts is in conversation with Michelle Singletary, who writes the nationally syndicated personal finance column “The Color of Money,” which appears in The Washington Post on Wednesdays and Sundays. Her award-winning column is syndicated by The Washington Post News Service and Syndicate and is carried in dozens of newspapers nationwide. In 2021, she won the Gerald Loeb award for commentary. She has written four personal finance books, including, “What to Do With Your Money When Crisis Hits: A Survival Guide” and “The 21-Day FinanPURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9798896363286?ic_referral=dwu3G6D-uw_xS84lsgjp87gKm_2qo1yYzJdAF3K8FWAwMyJyXDnjovW1tbQyuan1vukrJTu1alpXHlsKkutS_VEK_0O4DxsKBxe9-v1DsKTtVcuL_8ObOYOABIXAIXJm-9Vyfns

From a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and a former White House senior advisor, a deeply reported manual about how anyone can defy an authoritarian – based on original interviews with more than 100 dissidents, activists, and theorists across the world.The United States is only the latest country to face a leader who wields fear as a weapon, punishes political enemies, disappears people off the street, and undermines free and fair elections. Today nearly three out of four people on earth live under authoritarianism, the highest rate since the late 1970s.But even under repressive conditions, each of us holds the power to help defeat autocrats. Based on their acclaimed The New Yorker essay “So You Want to Be a Dissident?,” veteran reporter Julia Angwin and political strategist Ami Fields-Meyer give us a captivating – and profoundly hopeful – guide to courage in an age of fear.Meet a student from Hong Kong who risked everything for democracy. A mom in a working-class neighborhood of Caracas who broke with the political movement that raised her. Cairo twentysomethings who staged a gutsy stunt to help bring down a dictator. A mild-mannered immigrant fighting to save a landmark U.S. civil rights law. People throughout the United States and across five continents who faced serious risks for dissenting in their workplace, their community, or their country. On Courage is the story of how they did it anyway – and how you can do it, too.Blending rich, previously untold narratives with history, spirituality, and movement research, Angwin and Fields-Meyer deliver a highly accessible book full of practical lessons – an inspiring resource for anyone, anywhere, who feel the walls of history closing in on them. On Courage is a roadmap to political courage and a powerful case for how taking personal risks can help save the free world.Julia Angwin is a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist, New York Times bestselling author, and monthly contributing writer for New York Times Opinion. In 2018, she founded The Markup, an award-winning nonprofit newsroom that produces meaningful data-centered journalism about technology and the people affected by it. Before founding The Markup, she led investigative teams at ProPublica and The Wall Street Journal that pioneered the coverage of privacy and algorithmic accountability. She is a winner and two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in journalism.Ami Fields-Meyer is a political strategist, speechwriter, and former White House senior policy advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris. He is a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, and has served as a top advisor to political candidates, leaders of major civil rights groups, and high-profile public officials from Los Angeles City Hall to the West Wing.Angwin and Fields-Meyer will be in conversation with Miles Taylor. What does it cost to tell the truth — and is it worth it? Miles Taylor answered that question the hard way. As Chief of Staff of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, he became one of the most prominent officials in American history to blow the whistle on a sitting president, publishing an anonymous New York Times essay that triggered a national reckoning. When he revealed his identity, he lost everything. He'd do it again. Miles has spent his career inside the haunted halls of power — the White House, the Pentagon, Capitol Hill, major U.S. tech companies, and beyond — and emerged with an uncommon vantage point on the threats to free society. As a national security expert, technologist, and one of the most recognized voices on democratic backsliding,.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9780063491946?ic_referral=vRZPVcle-th0Kwf9lBJp9FBJ9kJonOezXmf-0qfpx6EwM2VyC6RBxmwRN9pUAIeJ3UqhNhQHTvC769E0_cFrGLq7R-fJrUVoppdYXPP1Bct6y2vxJbpoCrMruhJ6sU5O9vCY9t4

A top Democratic Party strategist and media contributor offers a bold and urgent reminder that young Black women hold the key to saving our democracy and building a truly multi-racial future that benefits all Americans.Agitator. Troublemaker. Motivator. Initiator. Instigator.“How can we build a truly inclusive multi-racial democracy?” For Atima Omara, the answer is The Instigators—a name she has given to a demographic of Black women between the ages of 18 and 45. These women are uniquely equipped to save American democracy. They didn’t ask for this ability, she argues. It was forced on them because racism and sexism have made them the most marginalized group in American politics. We can all benefit from their strategic know-how as we rebuild our society.Black women have always been the most relentless instigators for change—building a democracy for all. Omara draws on her political knowledge and expertise, as well as history, to examine how they have responded to failed strategic decisions by movement leaders and the modern Democratic Party in previous elections as a context for the present. She also provides actionable recommendations to organizers, donors, candidates, strategists, political party leaders, that everyday people can use in their communities to build an inclusive democracy that endures beyond one election cycle.The Instigators is at once an urgent political guide, historical exploration, and a poignant memoir that pulls from Omara’s two decades of work in Democratic politics and the progressive movement as an elected Democratic Party leader, movement organizer, former candidate, gubernatorial aide, campaign staff to candidates at the national, state, and local level; and now political strategist. Powerful, insightful, and practical, it is imperative reading for everyone eager to protect and rebuild our democracy and create a better tomorrow for all.Atima Omara is a nationally recognized award-winning political strategist, leader, writer, speaker, and advocate. She holds a BA in American Studies from the University of Virginia, and is a commentator on national politics, candidates, policy, race, gender and culture having been quoted in national outlets including The New York Times, Boston Globe, and The Atlantic. She’s appeared on CNN, PBS, Fox News, BBC, CBC, NPR, and MSNBC including Joy Reid’s The ReidOut. She was named one of one hundred notable Black Americans by EBONY Magazine. Atima’s writing was published in Wake Up America: Black Women on the Future of Democracy edited by Kesha Blain. She’s also written for Washington Post, the American Prospect, The Root, Teen Vogue, and other national outlets.Omara is in conversation with Kimberly Atkins-Stohr, a senior opinion writer and columnist with more than 20 years of experience covering politics, policy and law. She is an on-air political analyst for MSNBC, a frequent panelist on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and co-host of the popular Politicon legal news podcast #SistersInLaw. Based in Washington, Kimberly focuses primarily on national political and legal analysis. PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9780063424876?ic_referral=MWzJB00LENQPb7KI876Bu1ygqVcbXpp-o2T42RCbzSgwM9Iqhr6qpiHuJpAoMzy5UmQfdwDxvcKTTkNG-UUv5Fs3En6u2_9YIB0fRJIm0MjXx5ovc81w8RjE6cJD6oT52qfRP18

Dear American,No part of life in the United States has been untouched by Donald Trump’s relentless weaponization of the Justice Department. This is a cautionary tale about how, once a president amasses such power, future presidents may never relinquish it.Whose votes get counted and whose get tossed out? Who gets prosecuted and who gets protected, like Jeffrey Epstein’s friends? Who gets to run our colleges and schools? How do citizens protest without getting killed? For generations, the Justice Department has sought to enforce the law fairly, without fear or favor. But Trump came into his second term with one obsession above all. “I was the hunted,” he said. “And now I’m the hunter.”In this shocking exposé, the three-time Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Devlin Barrett reveals the systematic way the president’s men and women have dismantled the department as it once existed and retooled it to hunt Trump’s enemies.This time around, the president and his team have been far shrewder about getting what they want: revenge against the people who investigated and prosecuted Trump; revenge against a legal system he believes was set to ruin not just his career but also his life; and, ultimately, revenge against the parts of America he despises.In a book filled with bombshells, Barrett describes how Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller drives the department and the FBI on a daily basis; how the White House decimated the justice divisions that protect civil rights and punish tax cheats; how prosecutors deploy a “charge first, ask questions later” approach against those they don’t like; and how lawyers are hired for the purpose of going after Trump’s personal targets, such as James Comey, Jerome Powell, Chuck Schumer, and even the mayor of Newark.Most concerning, Barrett shows how the Trump administration has shut down a program used to monitor and react to election security threats, raising concerns that future elections could be chaotic and that the Justice Department, rather than ensuring the integrity of the results, may instead serve as a megaphone for unfounded claims of fraud.This is the inside story of the damage—and a road map for putting our justice system back together.Devlin Barrett has covered federal law enforcement for more than twenty-five years. He writes about the Justice Department and FBI for The New York Times, and previously worked for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, and the New York Post. In the past decade, he has been part of three Pulitzer Prize–winning reporting teams—for Public Service, for National Reporting, and for Breaking News—and was a cofinalist for Pulitzer Prizes for International Reporting and Feature Writing. He is also the author of October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election, an account of the FBI's role in the 2016 presidential election. Barrett lives in Virginia with his wife and children.Barrett is in conversation with Evan Perez. Perez is a CNN Senior Justice Correspondent based in the Washington, D.C. Bureau, reporting on legal, crime, and national security issues.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781668065129?ic_referral=stiGUG9PxoILBCvlC0EgWyXEU5OCCGn4BL-nru8qpIcwMwG-eGozPe9BKtIsdQoHYrm60_ftji-opbE9btkJKvn7XJ_XhHLHiqCu7stMmXLWXHV7-WgR3VYSzvJvK6Ef1ckSvz0

The fascinating story of Prince William’s American ancestors, and how this often-rebellious lineage will help shape the future King of Great Britain.In this fresh and perspective-shifting narrative, American Crown is an absorbing blend of American history and royal biography that brings to life the past generations who will shape the Prince of Wales’s role in the future of Britain, America and the world. For the first time, Britain will have a monarch whose ancestors fought against the very crown he bears.It all goes back to the roots of Diana, Princess of Wales whose Spencer family has a friendship with the Washington clan of Sulgrave Manor that produced the founding father of America, but more fascinating is Diana’s maternal side whose American ancestors fought in the Revolution in New England, became successful in the new nation, and then (like many Gilded Age families) sent a daughter across the ocean to marry into the British elite. Other Spencers on the British side had bucked social trends in the 1770s even raised funds for the American rebels themselves. Embodying more interconnected history than any of his predecessors, William’s sense of his own role in the world is markedly different from anyone who’s ever held the throne. With sweeping locations from battlefields to Buckingham Palace and featuring grand personalities like Nathan Hale, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Winston Churchill, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II, Stephanie Green’s American Crown tells the story of a very new kind of royal family—one with the potential to bring two countries closer together in times of turmoil and bring the “special relationship” into next century.Stephanie Green is a cultural journalist and features writer. A longtime contributor to The Washington Post, she is a former reporter for Bloomberg News and The Washington Times. Her freelance work has appeared in Vogue, Vanity Fair, WWD, and a wide variety of print and online publications. She lives in Washington, DC. Green is in conversation with Amy Argetsinger. Argetsinger is an editor for The Washington Post’s acclaimed Style section, where she has overseen coverage of media, popular culture, politics and society. A staff writer since 1995, she covered local DC-area communities, higher education and the West Coast before authoring the paper’s signature Reliable Source gossip column for eight years. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and daughter. Her first book, There She Was: The Secret History of Miss America (SIMON & SCHUSTER, 2021) explored the subculture of the century-old beauty contest and the pageant's lingering impact on the larger culture.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9798897101054?ic_referral=zpttQY8ZU_abkI-TroT6iUy2EnuFNDnGGy4hSgfEJ-8wM4Hnisd9tlfUkU6Bdf7K_OK1WH_J_SZg466E1NL4sXfEt4c4bhHWh-nNsZ4URlGEjA96crZ1CeJDdz-e7UdLnls_xxo

A revolutionary work of erasure poetry that exposes the contradictions in Thomas Paine’s Common Sense—calling for a new definition of citizenship that embraces all AmericansIn his famous cry for inhabitants of the thirteen colonies to seek independence from Britain, Thomas Paine claims to call for total freedom and equality, yet his arguments are directed only at white men, excluding women and people of color. Crystal Simone Smith, known for writing poetry about the human condition and social change, offers a new poetic work that calls out the contradictions in one of the foundational texts of American democracy.Britain’s oppressive rule, while strongly criticized throughout Paine's text, was subsequently repeated by the founding fathers who, when forming our nation, established laws that oppressed racial groups and women. Smith uses the power of redaction to revise Pain’s approach, inviting readers to critically engage with the text and reimagine it anew. Retaining the original text as a translucent background, Smith highlights specific words and phrases to reveal new meanings that reflect not only the totality of America’s founding, but the ensuing fragile, if not failing, democracy of our present times.Perfect for students and US history buffs alike, this highly interactive collection functions as a textual reveal of historical biases and makes a case for a new, inclusive definition of citizenship that recognizes all Americans.Crystal Simone Smith is the author of three poetry chapbooks. In 2019, she won the North Carolina Poetry Society Bloodroot Haiku Award. Her work has appeared in numerous journals including Prairie Schooner, POETRY Magazine, Crab Orchard Review, Frogpond, and Modern Haiku. Her latest book, RUNAGATE: SONGS OF FREEDOM BOUND, a collection of Japanese forms of poetry written in response to slave artifacts including ads for runaway slaves, will be published by Duke University Press in Spring 2025.Crystal Simone Smith is in conversation with Gloria Browne-Marshall, an EMMY Award-winning writer, a professor of constitutional law at John Jay College (CUNY), playwright, legal commentator, and author of five books. Her previous works include She Took Justice: The Black Woman, Law, and Power and The Voting Rights War as well as essays and short stories. She was an Institute of Politics Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. Browne-Marshall has received numerous accolades, including the 2024 American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9780807023389?ic_referral=qrmn2Qz1glVUhV--2zCQwsWbBSP8GyUvEF2xkQ9bO5cwM3xeewinpJ0_Uac7eJcPEBJNW4RwjyKBNBnQBMzPWdVAw9EITG4tyWVXHGbBZ4isSaEsuCdY8ZiGf5PVxIdHkZ4Qu40

Since the advent of smallpox inoculation in the eighteenth century, the idea that a disease introduced to the body in some lesser, weakened form might prevent full-blown infection has been one of the greatest public health insights of the modern era, inspiring the invention of numerous vaccines and saving countless human lives. But, just as humanity acquired the god-like power to stop infectious disease in its tracks, some feared we had gone too far, leading to the skepticism that has hijacked public health discourse today.In three sweeping essays written for our current moment of scientific mistrust, Thomas Levenson searches for the origins of the most common arguments against vaccines: that they are unnatural; that they are more dangerous than the illnesses they claim to prevent; and that they are an affront to freedom. Each arose from the earliest development of particular vaccines and the campaigns to distribute them. Even as the pattern repeats, Levenson reveals how innocent that skepticism initially was and, in each case, how very human fears and questions ultimately turned into something darker, where no truth would be enough to overcome the doubt.Searing but ultimately empathetic, A Pox on Fools explores the human impulse to question and wonder—sometimes past the point at which the very act of questioning turns deadly.Thomas Levenson is a professor of science writing at MIT. He is the author of several books, including So Very Small, Money for Nothing, The Hunt for Vulcan, Einstein in Berlin, and Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist. He has also made ten feature-length documentaries (including a two-hour Nova program on Einstein) for which he has won numerous awards.Levenson is joined in conversation with Jennifer Ouellette, a senior writer covering science and culture at Ars Technica. She has been writing professionally about physics and related topics for more than two decades, and was the founding director of the National Academy of Sciences’ Science and Entertainment Exchange from 2008-2010. Her work has appeared in Discover, Slate, Smithsonian, Nature, Physics World, and Quanta, among other publications. She previously worked as science editor for Gizmodo, and is the author of four popular science books, most recently The Calculus Diaries (2010) and Me, Myself And Why (2014).PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9798217155002?ic_referral=6B7Cl7b6BKx0NOohnUDV37ABUTlhTnseKJ-9HbdsT4YwM2t4Cg81EliLouTPbgdr1OlVt_t_jKYw_BjsntCeWpvMDrIDq3en0mJozcoX5s0knRyGA4ayMJL1cZrYjfvxeVpJ6fk

A heartrending, transformative true story following Brad Ryan and his grandmother Joy Ryan as they embark on a seven-year journey to visit every US National Park.Raised in Appalachia, Grandma Joy lived a life shaped by constraints and hardships, while Brad grappled with the weight of family rifts and unresolved pain. Together, they embarked on a quest not only to witness the majesty of America’s wild landscapes but also to heal generations of struggles and misunderstandings. Over seven years, they sought to visit all sixty-three US National Parks. From the towering peaks of Denali to the otherworldly beauty of the Everglades, each park became a classroom, teaching them profound lessons about nature, resilience, and each other.Grandma Joy and Me follows a seven-year adventure of intergenerational healing, wherein a grandmother and grandson find themselves released from the injustices—real and imagined—that had long held them hostage. An emotionally charged exploration of love, forgiveness, and resilience, this unique bond between a young man and his ninety-year-old grandmother—the oldest person to visit every US National Park—is more than just any travel tale; it is a testament to what makes us deeply human.Brad Ryan is a veterinarian, wildlife conservationist, social media influencer, mental health advocate, and writer from Southeastern Ohio. He earned his BA from Miami University, an MSc in mammalian biology from the University of Pretoria, and both a DVM and MPH from The Ohio State University, specializing in wildlife medicine and veterinary public health.Ryan is in conversation with Jennifer D. Roberts, a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. Her scholarship focuses on the impact of built, social and natural environments, including the institutional and structural inequities of these environments, on physical activity and public health outcomes of marginalized communities. She is also the Executive Founding Director of the Wekesa Earth Center, Co-Founder/Co-Director of NatureRx@UMD, and Chair of the Nature and Health Alliance.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781668099261?ic_referral=TAznzTJEx9w3vlrRjR-IU-Y4JeBtsQucr6Vud99aoh0wM81vBjm1PQGf5rXzgQTW7nH_euQ2FoL5rnPbfC7WNVoGuSrQh1INK8Yvux-I-4bEexXI-G6Uhb6TJ6UfDwkQtZuFSJQ

America is the rare country that was founded on an idea, and it was a truly radical idea for its time: the belief that the people of a country could govern themselves.The Flag Was Still There offers a unique new narrative of the American Experiment. By focusing on five remarkable years marked by both progress and backlash—1776, 1826, 1876, 1926, and 1976—and with an eye to America’s 250th birthday, David McKean and M. Todd Bennett explore how the United States has sustained its founding idea. The centennial saw a country still struggling to confront the Civil War’s legacy, culminating in the birth of the Jim Crow era. In 1926, virulent nativism was at a peak, and a reascendant Ku Klux Klan marched on Washington. The bicentennial was marked by economic turmoil, post-Watergate political malaise, and the still-fresh wounds of the Vietnam War. America has yet to fully realize its founding principles. But as The Flag Was Still There reminds us, Americans have always striven to defend, renew, and extend the nation’s promise even in the face of staunch resistance—a determination that continues to this day.David McKean is the former US ambassador to Luxembourg and was director of policy planning in the Department of State. The author or coauthor of six previous books, he divides his time between Washington, DC, New Hampshire, and North Carolina. M. Todd Bennett is a professor of history at East Carolina University. He was formerly a historian at the US Department of State. The author of two previous books, he lives in Washington, DC.McKean and Bennett are in conversation with A'Lelia Bundles, the author of Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem RenaissanceandOn Her Own Ground,a New York TimesNotable Book about her entrepreneurial great-great-grandmother, Madam C. J. Walker.Aformer ABC News executiveandproducer, she serves onseveral nonprofit boardsthat reflect her interests in history, journalism and preservation.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781541704169?ic_referral=TkPi5A1ZX2cke77V5-tbokT6XyBYZvnecwjYLd0MFI8wMwzTOl1PGffOidoB9V1Qw3PlWcdEDT6-77_dYSCmAAObN9lWjIoalaOoKacDY3Cbz5fF8hFoIjjbcZhKf7lzpoS62J8

From award-winning journalist and author John A. Jenkins comes a revolutionary exploration of the summer before Watergate—a parallel world of a half-century ago when America faced events and crises strikingly similar to those of today—told through the lives and words of those who lived it.Inflation rages. Crime is rising. Abortion rights take center stage at the Supreme Court. China poses an existential threat. Black lives are under attack. The president battles the press as he seeks to subvert not just the political order but the rule of law itself. This is the Summer of ’71—a pivotal, operatic season of hope and despair, missed opportunities and era-changing decisions.More than a half-century later, it’s difficult to overstate the importance of events that defined the American experience during that fateful five-month period spanning May to September 1971. On May Day, President Nixon orchestrates a massive police-military response to disrupt the biggest anti-war demonstration in history. Two days later, the Supreme Court announces that it will take up Roe v. Wade. In the weeks and months that follow, friction escalates between the police and the Black Panthers, Congress debates universal healthcare, Attica prisoners riot, and the New York Times publishes the Pentagon Papers—a turning point that ultimately dooms Nixon’s presidency and his legacy.Summer of ’71 brings it all to the page through first-person accounts that are only now becoming available: the papers, diaries, and oral histories of key players. Award‑winning journalist and author John A. Jenkins witnessed many of the events himself, and draws on a multitude of sources, including Nixon’s White House tapes, to tell the story of that time as no one else could. Here is both a fascinating, brilliantly researched read in its own right, and a critical lens through which to view today’s political discord.John A. Jenkins is a multi-award-winning journalist, author, publisher, and entrepreneur. With a specialty in partisans and power, he’s written hundreds of features for major magazines in the U.S. and abroad, including The New York Times Magazine, GQ, and The Washington Monthly. A 4-time recipient of the American Bar Association's Gavel Award Certificate of Merit, one of the highest awards in legal journalism, he is the founder of Law Street Media, the most widely visited and highly engaged law-and-policy site on the web. Prior to starting Law Street, Jenkins served for 15 years as President & Publisher of CQ Press, the leading political science textbook and reference publishers. Currently, he co-leads the predictive-AI start-up PoliScio Analytics, which he co-founded in 2022. He lives on the east coast and can be found online at JohnaJenkins.com.Jenkins is in conversation with David Meyers, long-time editor and newsroom leader focused on politics and democracy, David joined OpenSecrets in January 2025 to lead the media and communications operation. In 2019, he launched The Fulcrum, the first nonprofit media platform dedicated to covering democracy reform and the bridge building movement. He previously spent more than two decades in leadership positions across CQ Roll Call. David graduated from Tufts University in 1996 with a bachelor's degree in English and political science. He is a past president of the Washington Press Club Foundation and the Tufts University Alumni Association.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9780806544465?ic_referral=77Rn_QbmS1NdFopGFsqA10uFS8flGvRlSo7CHb-akYkwMwIMTY7CBvhN5Li8tIT7Kic6ibJChu06hLtJPd2a0JcIwNkSqxhsmgStyc0CrkwOlfyQbpgYSbpTYNtQEAYLgjBLfK4

From the two reporters who have covered him more closely than perhaps anyone else over the past decade comes this definitive portrait of Donald Trump in the White House. Regime Change covers the first year of Trump’s second presidency—a term liberated from every constraint that defined his first. The generals who once told him “no” are gone, and the lawyers who remain have learned to pick their battles. His administration has flouted court orders and he has claimed powers that Congress once checked. What remains is a President willing to take enormous risks that have upended global markets and toppled heads of state; an imperial President operating almost entirely on instinct alone.Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent for The New York Times. A New York City native, Haberman worked at the New York Post, New York Daily News, and Politico, before joining the Times in 2015. She has covered six US presidential elections and several gubernatorial and New York City mayoral races. She was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on President Trump’s advisers and their connections to Russia. In 2021, she was part of a team that was a Pulitzer finalist for coverage of President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus. She has received the White House Correspondents’ Association’s Aldo Beckman Award, as well as the Newswomen’s Club of New York’s Front Page Award for Journalist of the Year. She is the author of Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. She lives in New York City with her husband and their three children.Jonathan Swan is a White House correspondent for The New York Times. Originally from Sydney, Australia, he has reported on Donald Trump since 2015, covering all three of his campaigns and his first term in office. Previously at Axios and The Hill, he won an Emmy Award for his 2020 interview of then-President Trump and received the White House Correspondents’ Association’s Aldo Beckman Award. He began his career as a teenage copy boy at a Sydney newspaper and later covered federal politics in Australia’s capital for The Sydney Morning Herald. He became a US citizen in 2024 and lives in Virginia with his wife and two children, with a third on the way.Haberman and Swan are in conversation with Tim Alberta. Tim Alberta is an award-winning journalist, best-selling author, and staff writer for The Atlantic magazine. Hailing from Brighton, Michigan, he attended Schoolcraft College and later Michigan State University, where his plans to become a baseball writer were altered by a serendipitous stint covering the legislature in LansingPURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781668067246?ic_referral=1X6QLUFM9u63XINLMYTV4f6U4k-sUQhbwClXCA_VcdcwM8JK7DrDkl7p1I52Uy7vDM-Bq7CV0An6Gr2ukXaRkHuWv3eQHOaOhP3MlaEMjZJFxe0w1OhNHbfBO4wCy-KM-dc_AEQ

A German psychoanalyst, his Jewish wife, and their young daughter are swept up in the rising tide of fascismGünter Zeitz, psychoanalyst-in-training and the son of a Catholic country doctor, and Josine Rosen, Sigmund Freud's patient and the daughter of a Jewish shipping magnate, first meet in 1924, in Freud's Viennese waiting room. As their intense affair develops, Freud arranges for Günter's appointment to the newly created Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. Shortly after the move, their daughter Hannah is born. But less than a decade later, all their hopes and ideals are profoundly challenged by political realities so horrific that they are, initially, beyond comprehension.A heartrending story of love in a time of hatred, an absorbing investigation into the Nazis' exploitation of psychoanalysis, and a cautionary tale about self-deception and the failures of a people to recognize the lies of their charismatic leader, We Want So Much to Be Ourselves examines the ways science can be corrupted and one's very identity transformed by historical circumstance.Stephen O'Connor is the author of seven books including two novels, Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings and We Want So Much to Be Ourselves, and the short story collection Here Comes Another Lesson. His fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and Best American Short Stories, among other publications, and his nonfiction has been published in the New York Times, Nation, Boston Globe, and elsewhere. He teaches fiction and nonfiction writing at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Manhattan.O'Connor is in conversation with David Ebenbach, the author of ten books of fiction, and non-fiction, winner of such awards as the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, the Juniper Prize, and the Orison Books' Fiction Prize. He lives in Washington, DC, where he teaches creative w and literature in Georgetown University's Center for Jewish Civilization and where he researches and promotes whole student and inclusive education through Georgetown's Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship. You can find out more at https://www.davidebenbach.com/. PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/stephen-oconnor-062926

How to become yourself without losing everyone else.We’re living in a time when it’s harder than ever to become a whole person—and to stay in authentic community. Some people dissolve into their group identities and lose themselves entirely. Others withdraw into ephemeral, online collectives they can float into and out of without consequence. Both are symptoms of the same problem: a fragmented sense of self in an age of social contagion. This fragmentation is more than a personal crisis—it’s the soil in which hollow and often dangerous mass movements take root, offering counterfeit belonging to those desperate for meaning.The One and the Ninety-Nine is a timely and inspiring exploration of what it means to forge a stable identity in the face of coercion, conformity, and the contagious desires of the crowd. Through compelling and original insights drawn from philosophy, psychology, and personal experience, author Luke Burgis examines how our lives are shaped by the groups we belong to—and how we, in turn, shape those groups. He offers a roadmap for engaging with modern society without losing our unique sense of personhood, and reveals the essential rites of passage and personal challenges that differentiate a life of meaning from one dictated by societal expectations.People who are able to find their solid self and thrive in the space between the one and the many—who can act with integrity while being part of a community—live freer and more comfortable lives and become models for others. The One and the Ninety-Nine is a call to reject passive conformity, rediscover the depth of personality, and choose a life that is both truly personal and deeply connected.Luke Burgis is the director of The Cluny Institute and a professor at The Catholic University of America, where he studies the invisible forces that shape human behavior. He is the author of Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life. He lives in Washington, D.C., and Michigan with his wife, Claire, and their children.Burgis is in conversation with Anne Snyder, the editor-in-chief of Comment, a magazine of public theology for the common good that is becoming a vibrant ecosystem of conversation and community. Rooted in the Christian humanist tradition, Comment now encompasses a growing podcast network, gatherings that span grassroots to institutional settings across North America and the U.K., and a three-day festival at the Washington National Cathedral. Anne also hosts The Whole Person Revolution podcast and co-edited Breaking Ground: Charting Our Future in a Pandemic Year (2022). The author of The Fabric of Character (2019), she writes widely and delights in weaving worlds together—in print, around the table, and across different sectors and ways of knowing.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781250373038?ic_referral=4HQZcoItn8ZonVX8DFUVFYTRW9i1uwPdkJni0gOx6uQwM-rhSzje2tfUZOIaXearSkudWydtklZpYnHozShxhAtpdXZmNZGLXSV87MY0UhBW80iWoKX0bMUhpbtIgZGY7PW3xuA

When life is cut short, what do we do with the time we have left?Joy Stern, a free-spirited photographer, thought she had it all together. She built a traveler’s life with her husband, Andre, an architect who designed their days like the buildings he created. Children weren’t part of the plan.When Joy’s mom dies suddenly, everything changes. Being behind the lens, capturing photos of families, doesn’t feel like enough anymore—until Joy discovers a hidden key to her mother’s diary. One entry inspires a choice that could transform the trajectory of her life.Then the unthinkable happens: Andre receives devastating news, which upends their carefully constructed world. As Joy struggles to pursue her own dreams while supporting the man she loves, Joy wonders: Can she do it all?An uplifting story of hope amid heartbreak, Shaken to the Core explores motherhood, chosen family, and love that transcends life’s greatest hardships.Dara Levan is an author, speaker, and the founder of Every Soul Has a Story, an inspiring podcast in which she interviews guests from around the globe. Dara is the author of the award-winning novel, It Could Be Worse, and a contributor to the USA Today bestselling anthology, On Being Jewish Now. She is a graduate of Indiana University with a bachelor’s degree in English and certificate in journalism. Dara earned her master’s degree in communication sciences and Disorders at Nova Southeastern University. Actively involved in her community, Dara is a board member of Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital Foundation/Memorial Foundation, board trustee of Interlochen Center for the Arts, and involved in several other organizations. She is a founding member of the Circle of Friends for the Alvin Sherman Library at Nova Southeastern University and a member of the Authors Guild and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. When she’s not writing in South Florida, you’ll find Dara with her family and fur babies, traveling, capturing moments through photos, and talking to strangers who become friends.Levan is in conversation with Abby Maslin, is the Washington Post bestselling author of Love You Hard and a contributing essayist in Moms Don’t Have Time to Have Kids. A writer and national speaker on caregiving and resilience, her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Sunday Paper, and other outlets. She also serves as COO of Amore Learning, where she supports young writers and learners. PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9798895652534?ic_referral=keCWYB18VWf6c7WEqDBLC20qmP4P0QbaVr3_E0G8RF8wMx2nZUxPNqQT826FSnExTQeMAD43xT2hNjkGhISejALwGB-LpiBTCKuHUwyYF2nauZE-LqoSM0HCyVBOx0IVq3KWBkw

Revisit the Salem Witch Trials, the Underground Railroad, and other resistance movements of American history to get a bold new understanding of how resistance shaped our past—and how its principles can change our future.The United States was shaped by resistance—but not in the way we’ve been taught. The Revolution did not secure liberty; it opened the door to either liberty or oppression, where only white men enjoyed all of the benefits and protections of citizenship.In A Resistance History of the United States, public historian Tad Stoermer shows how from the very beginning, that tension—between the ideals of resistance and the realities of power—has defined America more than the Enlightenment ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.Utililizing powerful storytelling to focus on key—and often lesser-known—moments in American history, this book reveals the truth of how resistance movements from Colonial times have opposed the powers that be. Stoermer covers an impressive roster of pivotal movements, with each chapter identifying a key resistance movement and principle meant to inspire contemporary readers, including: Bacon’s Rebellion/Metacomet’s War (1676)Salem Witch Trials (1692)The Black Loyalists (1783)The Underground Railroad (1850)Through these and many more examples, Stoermer dismantles the mythologies that pass for American history—exposing the curated nostalgia, moral evasions, and institutional silences that have long protected abusive power. What emerges is an essential look at how we can take lessons from the past to understand, and effectively respond to, the injustices we face today.Tad Stoermer is a public historian who trained at the University of Virginia, Johns Hopkins, and Harvard, with a particular focus on Colonial and Revolutionary America. He is also a former congressional staffer and speechwriter, and he served in the US Army and Reserves as a reconnaissance scout. He lives in Denmark.Stoermer is in conversation with Karen Attiah, an award-winning journalist, editor, and global thought leader whose work explores the intersections of race, culture, gender, media, and international affairs. A graduate of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and Northwestern University, Attiah is a former adjunct lecturer at Columbia, where she brought global expertise and academic rigor to her teaching. A former Fulbright Scholar to Ghana, she has reported from across the world, including Nigeria, Germany, and Curaçao. Her commentary and reporting have appeared in major international outlets such as the Associated Press, Al Jazeera, and Voice of America. She also holds an Honorary Doctorate of Journalism from Dickinson College. Attiah was formerly a columnist and the founding Global Opinion Editor for The Washington Post. She founded the Resistance Summer School in 2025, a learning community of over 1,000 students focused on subjects currently being banned or cancelled in the current political climate. She writes on Substack at The Golden Hour. She can be found on X, Instagram at @KarenAttiah.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781586424367?ic_referral=eGa1HIaXnwTcMkyr2NiK45xyagoZjoBwr_Vcf3Zuo6swMy00LNsjV-8xmSdW9yd2wluPDfDf0AzQQKahsO7jmGBFLl0bxXcB9DWH5yLNBqw2cn_v5fbNmatvEajo1fL8ElH1Teo

An out-of-work actress gets a job as a tour guide for an ultra-luxury time travel company—only to discover her trips to the past could upend her present—in this sharp, speculative debut novel.When Ash spots an ad for Retro during a depressing Instagram scroll—she’s in debt and unemployed; everyone else is, evidently, thriving—she’s surprised the algorithm sent it her way. She’s heard of recreational time travel, but it’s way out of her budget. Then she sees the caption: Come away with us! We’re hiring.So begins Ash’s life as a Time Travel Agent, leading wealthy tourists on vacations to historical hotspots. She takes bachelorette parties to live out their cowboy-romance fantasies in the Old West and throws “'20s for your twenties” birthday bashes at speakeasies; she smiles politely as rich Wall Street guys give prospecting a shot in the Gold Rush. It's all thrilling, outrageous, and totally surreal. Bygone America is just a Retro Metro ride away. Despite Ash’s tendency toward cynicism, she finds herself swept up in her dazzling new job. Sure, Ash isn’t the actress she always dreamed she’d be. But isn’t this so much better? It’s like Ash’s life is a movie, complete with an impossible love triangle. How is she supposed to choose between her mysterious office crush and the handsome private eye pursuing her in 1937? For the first time in years, Ash’s life feels enviable—so she’d really rather not pay attention to the strange things happening to her memory and relationships outside Retro. But as her trips threaten to unravel her real life, she confronts an unsettling truth: “escaping” into the past was never really an escape at all.Jessica M. Goldstein is a journalist and humorist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Vulture, Marie Claire, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and more. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she was born and raised in New Jersey and currently lives in Washington, D.C. Retro is her first novel.Goldstein is in conversation with Alexandra Petri, a staff writer at The Atlantic. Before joining The Atlantic in 2025, she wrote a humor column for the Washington Post. She won the 2025 Thurber Prize for American Humor for her book AP’s US History: Important American Documents (I Made Up). She is the author of two other books, Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why: Essays, and A Field Guide to Awkward Silences. Her writing has also appeared in McSweeney’s, the New Yorker’s Daily Shouts and Murmurs, and elsewhere.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9798217091362?ic_referral=gIo2q7eg6rnloeW_hfozvl2XozOstHFg0ozKRfY2G1UwM4LUDodb2fmPtPujDBfLOlUCubM0w7-os-rnApazZXf7zHZR_lsrYOconQ0vD7u0B3KulcJ9ljZkC3NTJ7iBOATiWQk

The essential guide to establishing an effective opposition movement in the age of Trump, from the leading activist and organizer"I consider Marom] one of the most generous and important thinkers for the activist left, for anyone who cares about where we are and how to get to where we should be." --Rebecca SolnitThere is no way to stop the descent into authoritarianism, nor win a world in which all people can thrive, without massive numbers of people organizing for social, political, and economic change.Yet experienced movement leader Yotam Marom delivers a hard truth: progressive and left movements too often get in their own way. They can be ambivalent about power, choosing insularity and purity over winning. This amounts to what Marom calls the "politics of powerlessness," which has kept movements small, weak, and defeated.In For Louder Days: Reaching Beyond a Politics of Powerlessness, Marom offers a brilliant, lyrical clarion cry for a more honest, more strategic, more loving approach to progressive activism and movement building. Grounded in decades of experience in movements, from leading at Occupy Wall Street and other movement moments to supporting some of the most important climate, racial justice, and democracy movements of our time, Marom dives deep into the challenges that hold movements back, and offers stories, tools, and paths toward real power and enduring change.Published at the most perilous time in our modern political history, For Louder Days comes not a moment too soon. It is essential reading for committed activists as well as the wider public concerned about the state of our world and hoping to change it for the better.Yotam Marom has been in movements since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He has played leadership roles at Occupy Wall Street and other movements before and after, and co-founded IfNotNow and the Wildfire Project. Yotam has trained and facilitated many of the leading social justice organizations of these times, from Sunrise and the Dream Defenders to Uncommitted and Hands Off NYC, and more. He lives in Brooklyn, and this is his first book.Marom is in conversation with Keya Chatterjee, the Executive Director and cofounder of Free DC a renewed movement to protect Home Rule and win lasting dignity for the people of DC. Free DC is a five year campaign focused on seeding a culture of joyful defiance, training DC residents on noncooperation as jurors, workers, consumers, and more, and responding to dozens of attacks on DC-- from military occupation to the takeover of our public spaces and cultural centers. Keya is also a cofounder of Freedom Trainers, a loose network of trainers teaching about the powerful tools of collective noncompliance and mass noncooperation like boycotts and strikes. Keya started her career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco. She served as a Presidential Management Fellow at NASA, in the Science Mission Directorate for four years. After NASA, Keya worked at USAID and WWF as a Climate Change specialist. Keya also ran US Climate Action Network for almost a decade, a network of US Climate-focused organizations, where her tenure was bookended by the network’s efforts to secure the Paris Climate Agreement and pass the Inflation Reduction Act. Keya was elected and served two terms as a hyperlocal neighborhood commissioner, and currently serves on the boards of Sunrise Movement and Evergreen Action. She is the author of works of both fiction and nonfiction, including her October 2025 romance novel about taking down fascism, The Revolution Will Not Be Rated G.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9798893850857?ic_referral=hk7X368T1HbVgsLKhFefdTeYTDjgbMLn7oHVD8kVN0owMwpi2_Yt4mSkMpdl_PO8W_tOVxAl1e4TyTnoPxmJm_fbMNHQYMnrgb3iFMdU_c5xI7l78ZUwP5V6UTZ7QPS0ExgUREQ

From the "master of suburban scandal" (Samantha M. Bailey) comes a scandalous twisty thriller about obsession, betrayal, and the price of perfectionJust outside Washington, DC, sits Eastbrook, Bethesda—a leafy suburb with top schools, pristine landscapes, and perfect neighbors. It’s not the kind of place where nannies are shot during robberies gone wrong. And in this picture-perfect neighborhood, someone is desperate to plaster over the cracks in that façade.A year after the unsolved neighborhood murder, Caren, nearing fifty and staring down an empty nest, has one too many drinks at a graduation party and blacks out on her way home. At least, that’s what everyone says happened. Caren suspects she was drugged by someone. But who?When Caren teams up with a new neighbor who is desperate to figure out who murdered his best friend last year, they start to uncover what Eastbrook has tried to forget. But in a place where appearances are everything, their search for the truth means not only shattering carefully curated perfection — but putting themselves squarely in the crosshairs of a killer.Before turning to fiction, Aggie Blum Thompson covered real-life crime as a newspaper reporter for a number of papers, including The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. Aggie is a member of Mystery Writers of America. She lives with her husband and two children in the suburbs of Washington DC.Blum Thompson is in conversation with E.A. Aymar. Booklist wrote, of multiple Anthony Award-nominated E.A. Aymar’s most recent thriller, When She Left, “This would appeal to fans of Elmore Leonard…with high-stakes violence tempered by humor and disarmingly sympathetic antiheroes.” In 2025, When She Left was chosen by PEN/Faulkner as one of three books for their prestigious DC Reads program. His previous thriller, No Home for Killers, received praise from the New York Times, Kirkus, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and was an instant Amazon Bestseller. They’re Gone was published to rave reviews in Publishers Weekly, Kirkus (starred), and named one of the best books of 2020. A frequent contributor to the Washington Post, Aymar is a former member of the national board of the International Thriller Writers and an active member of Crime Writers of Color and Sisters in Crime. He was born in Panama and now lives and writes in the DC/MD/VA triangle.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9781250412553?ic_referral=a-hSuXJB0zvjpwupoMAeZHDjTvgMVnf3OWkfIDaGlMgwM8RyLPxWeWMeRtMAFEhDW1cJOsEcjEaTcO5IZ8gJbyTyKSNk2MGAx_atGs1CFx764L8jKUXaSGaui0Q9UAmMD2ecnkA