Michael Shnayerson – författare

The story of the notorious Jewish gangster who ascended from impoverished beginnings to the glittering Las Vegas strip"[A] brisk-reading chronicle of Siegel’s life and crimes."—Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal"Fast-paced and absorbing. . . . With a keen eye for the amusing, and humanizing detail, [Shnayerson] enlivens the traditional rise-and-fall narrative."—Jenna Weissman Joselit, New York Times Book ReviewIn a brief life that led to a violent end, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel (1906–1947) rose from desperate poverty to ill‑gotten riches, from an early‑twentieth‑century family of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side to a kingdom of his own making in Las Vegas. In this captivating portrait, author Michael Shnayerson sets out not to absolve Bugsy Siegel but rather to understand him in all his complexity. Through the 1920s, 1930s, and most of the 1940s, Bugsy Siegel and his longtime partner in crime Meyer Lansky engaged in innumerable acts of violence. As World War II came to an end, Siegel saw the potential for a huge, elegant casino resort in the sands of Las Vegas. Jewish gangsters built nearly all of the Vegas casinos that followed. Then, one by one, they disappeared. Siegel’s story laces through a larger, generational story of eastern European Jewish immigrants in the early‑ to mid‑twentieth century.

In June 1999, a 33-year-old woman walked into a San Francisco hospital complaining of acute pain in her legs. The day before, she had what she thought was a flu: fever, dizziness and abdominal pain. Within two hours of her admission to hospital, she was dead, and unrecognisable. The diagnosis: flesh-eating bacteria.Bacteria are one of the most basic life forms on earth, yet they pose a threat to mankind that not even the most sophisticated scientific techniques can contain. The book charts the competition between the drug companies to develop a new super-antibiotic, and the race to save lives and make millions. It also describes the surprising return of a technique that predates penicillin - the development of a phage or virus that kills the bacteria from within.

Written with Vanity Fair contributing editor Michael Schnayerson, My Song is an inspiring story of performance and protest, from a superstar singer and actor who was on the front lines of practically every progressive political battle in modern memory. Along the way, he befriended some of the most influential figures of the 20th century, from Tony Curtis, Marlon Brando and Sidney Poitier to Martin Luther King, the Kennedys, Eleanor Roosevelt, Fidel Castro, James Baldwin, Bob Dylan and Nelson Mandela. From his impoverished childhood in Harlem and Jamaica, through his meteoric rise as an international calypso star, provocative crossover into Hollywood where he broke down many racial barriers, passionate lifelong involvement in the civil rights movement and myriad other social causes, to his personal struggles and rich friendships, this is a remarkable, multifaceted and hugely inspirational story."A man whose story should be told for generations to come" (Robert Redford)