Robert Draper – författare

Honorable Mention, Carr P. Collins Award for Best Book of Nonfiction, 2006Grover Lewis was one of the defining voices of the New Journalism of the 1960s and 1970s. His wry, acutely observed, fluently written essays for Rolling Stone and the Village Voice set a standard for other writers of the time, including Hunter S. Thompson, Joe Eszterhas, Timothy Ferris, Chet Flippo, and Tim Cahill, who said of Lewis, "He was the best of us." Pioneering the "on location" reportage that has become a fixture of features about moviemaking and live music, Lewis cut through the celebrity hype and captured the real spirit of the counterculture, including its artificiality and surprising banality. Even today, his articles on Woody Guthrie, the Allman Brothers, the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont, directors Sam Peckinpah and John Huston, and the filming of The Last Picture Show and One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest remain some of the finest writing ever done on popular culture. To introduce Grover Lewis to a new generation of readers and collect his best work under one cover, this anthology contains articles he wrote for Rolling Stone, Village Voice, Playboy, Texas Monthly, and New West, as well as excerpts from his unfinished novel The Code of the West and his incomplete memoir Goodbye If You Call That Gone and poems from the volume I'll Be There in the Morning If I Live. Jan Reid and W. K. Stratton have selected and arranged the material around themes that preoccupied Lewis throughout his life-movies, music, and loss. The editors' biographical introduction, the foreword by Dave Hickey, and a remembrance by Robert Draper discuss how Lewis's early struggles to escape his working-class, anti-intellectual Texas roots for the world of ideas in books and movies made him a natural proponent of the counterculture that he chronicled so brilliantly. They also pay tribute to Lewis's groundbreaking talent as a stylist, whose unique voice deserves to be more widely known by today's readers.

“Essential . . . one for the ages . . . a must read for all who care about presidential power.” —The Washington Post“Authoritative . . . The most comprehensive account yet of that smoldering wreck of foreign policy, one that haunts us today.” —LA TimesOne of BookPage's Best Books of 2020To Start a War paints a vivid and indelible picture of a decision-making process that was fatally compromised by a combination of post-9/11 fear and paranoia, rank naïveté, craven groupthink, and a set of actors with idées fixes who gamed the process relentlessly. Everything was believed; nothing was true. Robert Draper’s fair-mindedness and deep understanding of the principal actors suffuse his account, as does a storytelling genius that is close to sorcery. There are no cheap shots here, which makes the ultimate conclusion all the more damning.In the spirit of Barbara W. Tuchman’s The Guns of August and Marc Bloch’s Strange Defeat, To Start A War will stand as the definitive account of a collective scurrying for evidence that would prove to be not just dubious but entirely false—evidence that was then used to justify a verdict that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and a flood tide of chaos in the Middle East that shows no signs of ebbing.

Dead Certain is a story told in six sections. Beginning with an immersion into Bush the nascent politician (entitled "Baptism"), we see in "Through Our Tears" a mandate-less new President evincing both collegiality and defensiveness as he pursues his conservative agenda. "Dark City On A Hill" describes the contentiousness that attends the roll-up to Iraq and the queasy slide from Mission Accomplished to the occupation of a broken nation.The final section, "A Laying On Of Hands," finds a once-swaggering presidency desperately moving from one gambit to another in an effort to right its sagging agenda, culminating in the 2006 midterm elections that decide the fate of a hobbled administration. Far from being a retelling of well-known events, Dead Certain plumbs both the natural drama and the behind-the-scenes granularity of George W. Bush's episodic presidency. It will be regarded as a classic, inside account of this troubled presidency.

In this ambitious work of political narrative, Robert Draper takes us inside the Bush White House and delivers an intimate portrait of a tumultuous decade and a beleaguered administration. Virtually every page of this book crackles with scenes, anecdotes, and dialogue that will surprise even long- time observers of George W. Bush. With unprecedented access to all the key figures of this administration -- from six one-on-one sessions with the president, to Laura Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Karl Rove, and perhaps 200 other players, some well-known, some not -- Draper has achieved what no other journalist or contemporary historian has done thus far: he has told the story of the Bush White House from the inside, with a special emphasis on how the very personality of this strong-willed president has affected the outcome of events. Bush loyalists and the growing number of Bush detractors will all find much to savor in this riveting political page-turner. We begin with a revealing lunch at the White House where a testy, hot dog-chomping president finally unburdens himself to the inquisitive reporter, a fellow Texan who well understands the manly argot that courses through this administration. We revisit the primaries of election-year 2000, in which the character of the candidate and indeed the future of the Republican Party were forged in the scalding South Carolina battle with Senator John McCain. We proceed forward to witness intimately the confusion and the eloquence that followed the September 11 attacks, then the feckless attempts to provide electricity to a darkened Baghdad, the high- and lowlights of the 2004 re-election bid, the startling and fruitless attempt to "spend capital" by overhauling the Social Security system, the inept response to Katrina, the downward spiraling and increasingly divisive war in Iraq. Though the headlines may be familiar, the details, the utterly inside account of how events transpired will come as fresh reportage to even the most devoted followers of mainstream media coverage. In this most press- wary of administrations, Robert Draper has accomplished a small miracle: He has knocked on all on the right doors, and thus become the first author to tell a personality-driven history of the Bush years. In so doing, he allows us to witness in complete granularity the personal force of a president determined to achieve big things, who remained an optimist in the face of a sometimes harsh unpopularity, who confronted the history of his time with what can surely be described as dead certainty.

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Dead Certain, the definitive book about the Bush Presidency, a revealing and riveting look at the new House of Representatives, elected in the history-making 2010 midterm elections.

When the Tea Party Came to Town demonstrates Robert Draper’s uncanny ability to ferret out news-making tidbits and provides us with the first look at this game-changing Congress—sure to be a classic work.In When the Tea Party Came to Town, Robert Draper delivers the definitive account of what may turn out to be the worst congressional term in United States history. As he did in writing about President George W. Bush in Dead Certain, Draper burrows deep inside his subject, gaining cooperation from the major players, and provides an insider’s book like no one else can—a colorful, unsparingly detailed, but evenhanded narrative of how the House of Representatives became a house of ill repute. Because of the bitterly divided political atmosphere in which we live, this literary window on the backstage machinations of the House of Representatives is both captivating and timely—revealing the House in full, from the process of how laws are made (and in this case, not made) to the most eye-popping cast of lawmakers Washington has ever seen.

As modern football legends, the Class of 92 need no introduction. Class of 92: Out of Their League, however, opens a dramatic new chapter in the story of former Manchester United greats Gary and Phil Neville, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Nicky Butt, as they take on a new role in each of their lives: owners of semi-professional club Salford City FC. An enthralling, in-depth account of Salford's first two years under new ownership, Class of 92: Out of Their League combines first-hand accounts from Gary, Phil, Paul, Ryan and Nicky as they try to turn round the club's fortunes, along with a wider story of tremendous athletic and human drama. Featuring colourful characters like managers Anthony Johnson and Bernard Morley, star players, club chairman Karen Baird, lifelong fans, and more, this is a story told with real authenticity and grit. Accompanying the second series of the hugely popular BBC series, Class of 92: Out of Their League is both a testament to the best of modern football and a brilliant reminder, in an era when fans are threatening walkouts over rising ticket prices, of what football is really all about.

As modern football legends, the Class of 92 need no introduction. Class of 92: Out of Their League, however, opens a dramatic new chapter in the story of former Manchester United greats Gary and Phil Neville, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Nicky Butt, as they take on a new role in each of their lives: owners of semi-professional club Salford City FC. An enthralling, in-depth account of Salford's first two years under new ownership, Class of 92: Out of Their League combines first-hand accounts from Gary, Phil, Paul, Ryan and Nicky as they try to turn round the club's fortunes, along with a wider story of tremendous athletic and human drama. Featuring colourful characters like managers Anthony Johnson and Bernard Morley, star players, club chairman Karen Baird, lifelong fans, and more, this is a story told with real authenticity and grit. Accompanying the second series of the hugely popular BBC series, Class of 92: Out of Their League is both a testament to the best of modern football and a brilliant reminder, in an era when fans are threatening walkouts over rising ticket prices, of what football is really all about.