Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster – serie

A lively and captivating journey through the world of the Transcendentalists, America’s first group of public intellectuals, whose visionary ideas reinvented our culture and politics and remain an inspiration today. “An impeccable and often dazzling behind-the-scenes look at the Concord iconoclasts clustered around Emerson who helped define what it means to be an American original.” —Douglas BrinkleyIn the 1840s, America was a land of utopian promise, and nowhere captured this spirit of possibility better than Concord, Massachusetts. At the heart of this intellectual and cultural revolution was Ralph Waldo Emerson, a national celebrity who brought together a circle of bold and creative free thinkers. In The Emerson Circle, Bruce Nichols delivers a fascinating narrative of this transformative era, breathing life into the friendships and philosophies that comprised the titanic intellectual energy of this American Renaissance. Concord wasn’t just a town; it was a crucible of innovation and reform. Luminaries such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, Louisa May Alcott, and Henry David Thoreau gathered there, united by ideas that would shape the nation. Nichols recreates this vibrant world, packed with brilliant conversations, emotional correspondences, and the essays, novels, speeches, and poetry that forever marked and changed American culture. Along the way, he shares intimate, surprising details—Thoreau’s frustration with Emerson, Hawthorne’s intense shyness masking deep love and hate—that make these iconic figures human. This book captures a forgotten utopian moment in our history. Anything seemed possible: abolishing property, money, and marriage, not just slavery; granting equal rights to women; eating vegan diets; banning alcohol and caffeine. These men and women turned away from the Bible in favor of the natural world and science, and they inspired our greatest early writers to create their most original and lasting works. With vivid storytelling and thought-provoking insights, Bruce Nichols invites us to reimagine the power of ideas to change the world—just as Emerson and his circle did nearly two centuries ago.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A life-changing path to the financial freedom we all deserve: How to Be a Rich Old Lady is filled with humor, heart, and real-world perspective.Amanda Holden spent years working in investment management, where she saw exactly who gets access to the power, ease, and opportunity money can bring—and it wasn’t people like her friends. She also saw how the financial system is designed to feel exclusive and confusing, and how it blames individuals for economic problems they didn’t create. So, Amanda left her finance job to launch Invested Development, a financial education company where she has taught more than twenty-five thousand students how to invest with radical clarity, accessibility, and joy. Here, all her expertise is packed into a guide that won’t feel like getting cornered by a crypto bro. Instead, it reads like a text from your smartest friend: “Let’s figure out money, so we can stop thinking about money.” Because this practice isn’t just about planning for your wild and glorious future—it’s about the relief of knowing you’re doing everything you can right now. In these pages, you will: Set up a fully automated investing strategy—so you can move on with your lifeUse hands-on tools and worksheets to guide you to financial independenceLearn about investing in a way that is truly memorableDemystify retirement accounts and tax rulesLearn who to trust in the finance world—and who to avoidMaster how to research, buy, and track the right investments for youExplore what it means to live a wild, beautiful life beyond Roth IRAs How to Be a Rich Old Lady is a step-by-step road map to financial freedom. It’s not just about numbers on a spreadsheet but building a life that feels secure enough to dream into. Maybe your Rich Old Lady is wearing belly chains at the beach, tanned and wrinkly and totally unbothered. Maybe she’s befriending the birds at her cozy forest cabin. Maybe she’s leaving $500 tips on her diner coffee. Whatever your vision, this approachable guide to investing and wealth-building will help you build a plan to greet her with confidence, security, and genuine hope for tomorrow.

With more than one million copies sold, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is a remarkable step-by-step, phonics-based program that teaches your child to read in just twenty minutes a day—with love, care, and joy a parent and child can share. Now fully revised and updated with a Practice Guide for parents and an extra section with supplementary material! “[A] magical book...I’ve seen this method work in my own home, having used it with both of my children and watched that light go on.” —John McWhorter, The New York Times “Countless parents have told me they used this book to teach their child how to read when their child wasn’t being taught in school.” —Emily Hanford, host and lead producer of the APM podcast, Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So WrongIs your four-year-old or even three-year-old child expressing interest in reading, constantly pretending to read, and asking questions while you are reading? Do you want to develop a young reader but are unsure of how to do it? Is your child halfway through kindergarten and unable to read simple words without memorizing or guessing? Do you want to teach your child to read using the most research-supported method with a long record of success? Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is an adaptation of the most successful beginning reading program written for schools. More than 100 formal studies using the highest-quality research methods have documented the superiority of the Direct Instruction approach to phonics and other essential beginning reading skills. Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is a complete, sensible, easy-to-follow, step-by-step program that shows simply and clearly how to teach children to read. In 100 lessons, color-coded for clarity and ease of delivery, you can give your child the basic and more advanced skills needed to be a good reader—at about a second-grade level. Twenty minutes a day is all your child needs to become an independent reader in 100 lessons. It’s an enjoyable way to help your child gain the vital skills of reading. Everything you need is here for you and your child to learn together. Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons will bring you and your child a sense of accomplishment and confidence while giving your child the reading skills needed now for a better chance at tomorrow. Training videos and additional supplementary material are available for free at StartReading.com.

An epic, decade-long reported history of National Public Radio that reveals the unlikely story of one of America’s most celebrated but least understood media empires.Founded in 1970, NPR is America’s most powerful broadcast news network. Despite being overshadowed by the larger and more glamorous PBS, public radio has long been home to shows such as All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and This American Life that captivate millions of listeners in homes, cars, and workplaces across the nation. NPR and its hosts are a cultural force and a trusted voice, and they have created a mode of journalism and storytelling that helps Americans understand the world in which we live. In On Air, a book fourteen years in the making, journalist Steve Oney tells the dramatic history of this institution, tracing the comings and goings of legendary on-air talents (Bob Edwards, Susan Stamberg, Ira Glass, Cokie Roberts, and many others) and the rise and fall and occasional rise again of brilliant and sometimes venal executives. It depicts how NPR created a medium for extraordinary journalism—in which reporters and producers use microphones as paintbrushes and the voices of people around the world as the soundtrack of stories both global and local. Featuring details on the controversial firing of Juan Williams, the sloppy dismissal of Bob Edwards, and a $230 million bequest by Joan B. Kroc, widow of the founder of McDonalds, On Air also chronicles NPR’s daring shift into the digital world and its early embrace of podcasting formats, establishing the network as a formidable media empire. Fascinating, revelatory, and irresistibly dishy, this is a riveting account of NPR’s unlikely launch, chaotic ascent, and ultimate triumph—a must-read for anyone interested in the history of public radio and its impact on American culture.

An “engrossing and entertaining…major work of media history” (The New York Times Book Review) that reveals the unlikely story of one of America’s most celebrated but least understood media empires.Founded in 1970, NPR is America’s most powerful broadcast news network. Despite being overshadowed by the larger and more glamorous PBS, public radio has long been home to shows such as All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and This American Life that captivate millions of listeners in homes, cars, and workplaces across the nation. NPR and its hosts are a cultural powerhouse and a trusted voice, and they have created a mode of journalism and storytelling that helps Americans understand the world in which we live. In On Air, a book fourteen years in the making, journalist Steve Oney tells the dramatic history of this institution, tracing the comings and goings of legendary on-air talents (Bob Edwards, Susan Stamberg, Ira Glass, Cokie Roberts, and many others) and the rise and fall and occasional rise again of brilliant and sometimes venal executives. It depicts how NPR created a medium for extraordinary journalism—in which reporters and producers use microphones as paintbrushes and the voices of people around the world as the soundtrack of stories both global and local. Featuring details on the controversial firing of Juan Williams, the sloppy dismissal of Bob Edwards, and a $235 million bequest by Joan B. Kroc, widow of the founder of McDonald’s, On Air also chronicles NPR’s daring shift into the digital world and its early embrace of podcasting formats, establishing the network as a formidable media empire. Fascinating, revelatory, and irresistibly dishy, this is a riveting account of NPR’s chaotic ascent, cultural triumph, and imperiled future.

Fifteen years after Bernie Madoff’s arrest, renowned investigative journalist Richard Behar delivers the definitive account of history’s largest—and longest-running—financial fraud.Some $68 billion evaporated during Bernie Madoff’s epic confidence game. Two people were driven to suicide in the wake of the Ponzi Scheme’s exposure. Others went to prison. But there has never been a satisfying accounting for how Bernie got away with so much, for so long. Until now.Richard Behar’s relationship with Madoff began in 2011 with a simple email request from the inmate. By the time Madoff died in 2021, he had sent Behar more than 300 emails and dozens of handwritten letters, participated in some fifty phone conversations, and sat for three in-person jailhouse interviews—a level of access provided to no other reporter. Behar also established relationships with hundreds of regulators, prosecutors, FBI agents, investors, Wall Street experts, ex-employees of Madoff’s, family members, school classmates, and others.The result is the final word on the criminal behind history’s most enduring fraud—and on those who believed him, covered for him, or locked him up. Behar illuminates not only the fraud’s origins—decades earlier than Madoff claimed in his confession—but also the complicity of investors, Wall Street insiders, family members, and some of the largest banks in the US and Europe.Shocking, infuriating, riveting (and at times absurdly funny), Madoff shows us how Bernie ensnared thousands of investors. As Behar’s dogged reporting over the last fifteen years makes clear, however, there aren’t many innocents left standing by the end of this tale. Just about everyone involved is guilty, at a minimum, of humanity’s most consistent weakness: greed.

New York Times bestselling author Eric Weiner follows in the footsteps of Benjamin Franklin, mining his life for inspiring and practical lessons in a book that’s part biography, part travelogue, part personal prescription.Ben Franklin lingers in our lives and in our imaginations. One of only two non-presidents to appear on US currency, Franklin was a founder, statesman, scientist, inventor, diplomat, publisher, humorist, and philosopher. He believed in the American experiment, but Ben Franklin’s greatest experiment was…Ben Franklin. In that spirit of betterment, Eric Weiner embarks on an ambitious quest to live the way Ben lived. Not a conventional biography, Ben & Me is a guide to living and thinking well, as Ben Franklin did. It is also about curiosity, diligence, and, most of all, the elusive goal of self-improvement. As Weiner follows Franklin from Philadelphia to Paris, Boston to London, he attempts to uncover Ben’s life lessons, large and small. We learn how to improve a relationship with someone by inducing them to do a favor for you—a psychological phenomenon now known as The Ben Franklin Effect. We learn about the printing press (the Internet of its day), early medicine, diplomatic intrigue and, of course, electricity. And we learn about ethics, persuasion, humor, regret, appetite, and so much more. At a time when history is either neglected or contested, Weiner argues we have much to learn from the past and that we’d all be better off if we acted and thought a bit more like Ben did, even if he didn’t always live up to his own high ideals. Engaging, smart, moving, quirky, Ben & Me distills the essence of Franklin’s ideas into grounded, practical wisdom for all of us.

From a longtime Vanity Fair writer and editor, a delightfully entertaining, intelligent, and illuminating history and tribute to teen movies—from Rebel Without a Cause to Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and on to John Hughes, Mean Girls,The Hunger Games, and more.What influence did Francis Ford Coppola have on George Lucas’s American Graffiti? And Lucas on John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood? How does teenage sexuality in Fast Times at Ridgemont High compare to Twilight? Which teen movies pass the Bechdel test? Why is Mean Girls actually the last great teen film of the 20th century?In the same way that Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls connects the films of the 1970s to the period’s cultural upheaval, and David Hadju’s Positively 4th Street tells the story of the sixties through the emergence of folk music, Bruce Handy’s Hollywood High situates iconic teen movies within their times and reveals the intriguing stories, artists, and passions behind their creation. These films aren’t merely beloved stories; they reflect teens’ growing economic and cultural influence, societal panics, and shifting perceptions of youth in America.Much more than a nostalgia trip, Hollywood High is a lively, provocative, and affectionate cultural history, spanning nearly one hundred years. Handy, an acclaimed journalist and critic who spent two decades at Vanity Fair, examines the defining films of each generation and builds connections between them. From the Andy Hardy classics (1937–1946) to the iconic Rebel Without a Cause (1955); Beach Party series (1963–1968); American Graffiti (1973); Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982); the John Hughes touchstones Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1984–1986); Boyz N the Hood (1991); Mean Girls (2004); the Twilight saga (2008–2012); and The Hunger Games series (2012–2015); this is a captivating deep dive into the world of teen movies that captures their sweeping history and influence. We’ll hear from icons James Dean, Annette Funicello, George Lucas, Amy Heckerling, John Hughes, Molly Ringwald, John Singleton, Tina Fey, and Kristen Stewart, and discover why the most timeless teen movies resonate across generations.

A revelatory work of reporting on the men and women wrestling to harness and preserve America’s most vital natural resource: our rivers.The Mississippi. The Missouri. The Ohio. America’s rivers are the very lifeblood of our country. We need them for nourishing crops, for cheap bulk transportation, for hydroelectric power, for fresh drinking water. Rivers are also part of our mythology, our collective soul; they are Mark Twain, Led Zeppelin, and the Delta Blues. But as infrastructure across the nation fails and climate change pushes rivers and seas to new heights, we’ve arrived at a critical moment in our battle to tame these often-destructive forces of nature. Tyler J. Kelley spent two years traveling the heartland, getting to know the men and women whose lives and livelihoods rely on these tenuously tamed streams. On the Illinois-Kentucky border, we encounter Luther Helland, master of the most important—and most decrepit—lock and dam in America. This old dam at the end of the Ohio River was scheduled to be replaced in 1998, but twenty years and $3 billion later, its replacement still isn’t finished. As the old dam crumbles and commerce grinds to a halt, Helland and his team must risk their lives, using steam-powered equipment and sheer brawn, to raise and lower the dam as often as ten times a year. In Southeast Missouri, we meet Twan Robinson, who lives in the historically Black village of Pinhook. As a super-flood rises on the Mississippi, she learns from her sister that the US Army Corps of Engineers is going to blow up the levee that stands between her home and the river. With barely enough notice to evacuate her elderly mother and pack up a few of her own belongings, Robinson escapes to safety only to begin a nightmarish years-long battle to rebuild her lost community. Atop a floodgate in central Louisiana, we’re beside Major General Richard Kaiser, the man responsible for keeping North America’s greatest river under control. Kaiser stands above the spot where the Mississippi River wants to change course, abandoning Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and following the Atchafalaya River to the sea. The daily flow of water from one river to the other is carefully regulated, but something else is happening that may be out of Kaiser and the Corps’ control. America’s infrastructure is old and underfunded. While our economy, society, and climate have changed, our levees, locks, and dams have not. Yet to fix what’s wrong will require more than money. It will require an act of imagination. “With meticulous research and insightful analysis” (Publishers Weekly), Holding Back the River brings us into the lives of the Americans who grapple with our mighty rivers and, through their stories, suggests solutions to some of the century’s greatest challenges.

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2025 • THE WASHINGTON POST’S 5 BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF 2025 • THE ATLANTIC’S 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2025 • THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY'S BEST BOOKS OF 2025 • TIME MAGAZINE’S BEST BOOKS OF 2025 • NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF 2025 “[An] astonishing story…Powerful…Harrowing…Absorbing and lucid…You would have to harden your heart to be unmoved by the Abuelas’ quest.” —Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times Book Review (front-cover review) “Inspiring…A triumphant saga of ordinary people doing extraordinary things in the face of pure malevolence.” —Hampton Sides • “Enthralling…Written with the nail-biting verve of a thriller.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) • “Extraordinary...A harrowing and timely reminder of what happens when democracy succumbs to despotism.” —Adam Higginbotham • “[A] cinematically detailed, deeply researched narrative.” —The Washington Post • “Piercing, emotional...Will resonate for generations.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) A remarkable new talent in narrative nonfiction delivers the epic true story of a group of courageous grandmothers who fought to find their grandchildren who were stolen.In the early hours of March 24, 1976, the streets of Buenos Aires rumble with tanks as soldiers seize the presidential palace and topple Argentina’s leader. The country is now under the control of a military junta, with army chief Jorge Rafael Videla at the helm. With quiet support from the United States and tacit approval from much of Argentina’s people, who are tired of constant bombings and gunfights, the junta swiftly launches the National Reorganization Process or El Proceso—a bland name masking their ruthless campaign to crush the political left and instill the country with “Western, Christian” values. The junta holds power until 1983 and decimates a generation. One of the military’s most diabolical acts is kidnapping hundreds of pregnant women. After giving birth in captivity, the women are “disappeared,” and their babies secretly given to other families—many of them headed by police or military officers. For mothers of pregnant daughters and daughters-in-law, the source of their grief is twofold—the disappearances of their children, and the theft of their grandchildren. A group of fierce grandmothers forms the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, dedicated to finding the stolen infants and seeking justice from a nation that betrayed them. At a time when speaking out could mean death, the Abuelas confront military officers and launch protests to reach international diplomats and journalists. They become detectives, adopting disguises to observe suspected grandchildren, and even work alongside a renowned American scientist to pioneer groundbreaking genetic tests. A Flower Traveled in My Blood is the rarest of nonfiction that reads like a novel and puts your heart in your throat. It is the product of years of extensive archival research and meticulous, original reporting. It marks the arrival of a blazing new talent in narrative journalism. In these pages, a regime tries to terrorize a country, but love prevails. The grandmothers’ stunning stories reveal new truths about memory, identity, and family.

One of the greatest and most beloved golf books ever written is triumphantly back in print, with a new introduction by Golf in the Kingdom author Michael Murphy, a new afterword, and never-before-seen photographs.Thirty years (and counting!) after publication, To the Linksland still enthralls readers who pick it up for the first time—or return to the book for the sheer pleasure of it. In 1991, Michael Bamberger, a newspaper sportswriter, gave up his apartment, took a leave of absence from his job and his life, and, joined by his newlywed wife, set off to explore the wide world of golf. Bamberger’s first step in this madcap golfing adventure was to become a caddie on the European golf tour, where he encountered the game’s most dynamic players up close and personal, including golf’s greatest artist, Seve Ballesteros. Crisscrossing the Continent with his bride, Bamberger caddied for a true original, Peter Teravainen, a Yale-educated golfer with a workingman’s spirit and a knack for making brilliant, on-the-spot observations about the game (“Good shots must come in groups of two”). Over the course of one unforgettable year, Bamberger caddied in the national championships of Portugal, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Ireland, and, finally, Scotland, golf’s ancestral home. Once there, Bamberger fell under the spell of one of golf’s great teachers and thinkers, John Stark. To the Linksland is the captivating memoir of Bamberger’s golfing pilgrimage/extended honeymoon. From an all-night caddie bus on the back roads of southern Europe to Stark’s secret six-hole course in the Scottish Highlands, Bamberger takes you on a journey into the heart of golf. This thirtieth-anniversary edition of Bamberger’s classic, lyrical tale of discovery is bookended with a new introduction by Michael Murphy and a new afterword by Bamberger, with a trove of new photographs in between. Gloriously back in print, To the Linksland is a “great book for your golfing soul” (Golf Monthly).

Globe-trotting golf writer Tom Coyne is ready to put down roots. For a fanatic like Coyne, that means living out every golfer’s dream—or nightmare?—and buying his very own golf course. It also involves Bill Murray and Jason Kelce, for some reason.Tom Coyne, the New York Times bestselling author of A Course Called America and numerous other contemporary classics of golf literature, has spent his career traveling the world and playing legendary courses from St. Andrews to Shinnecock. One day, at the urging of a course superintendent who is hoping to save his local nine-hole gem from shuttering just shy of its one hundredth anniversary, Coyne pays a visit to Sullivan County Golf & Country Club in upstate New York. When he arrives, the course is buried under ice and snow; what he can see of the clubhouse is falling apart. By the time he leaves, all he can see is his next adventure: discovering how owning a course is vastly different from playing one. A Course Called Home is Coyne’s most personal and profound book yet: a heartfelt and often humorous chronicle of restoration, resilience, and finding purpose in unexpected places. It’s a story about digging in—literally and figuratively—as Coyne trades tee times for mower hours, learning how to contour a fairway, water a green, and revive a course rich in history but fading from memory. The Sullivan golf community that Coyne joins is unlike the pristine, manicured version of the game you see on TV, played by millionaires in matching polos. The course is run by a tight-knit crew of groundskeepers who work long hours—not for prestige but for pride. It’s frequented by lifelong regulars who pay in cash and play in jeans, and it’s welcoming to visitors and first-timers who quickly become part of the fold. Sullivan’s crew becomes more like a family, united in their affection for this scrappy, enduring place. Yet decades of declining tourism and economic downturn have left the club struggling to survive, and fighting for its future will require an unprecedented team effort. Coyne rallies the golfing faithful to uplift this course that represents how the game can bring generations together. Players from around the world answer the call, purchasing memberships for a tiny Catskills course they may never visit. Companies offer steeply discounted mowers and carts. Friends swoop in to help dig bunkers, plant flowers, and cut holes. And, yes, some of those helpful friends have names like Bill Murray, Jason Kelce, and Mike Madden. In the tradition of his beloved golf travel trilogy, Coyne again taps into what makes the game timeless and transformative. But this round, he doesn’t have to travel far: just down the road from Woodstock, to a century-old nine-holer that embraces all comers. A Course Called Home is a love letter to golf, to community, and to the places that still matter.

In this candid and highly anticipated memoir by the GOAT of sports betting, Billy Walters tells the full, larger-than-life story of how he became “the greatest and most controversial sports gambler ever” (ESPN)—and shares the secrets to his fiercely protected betting system with recreational gamblers everywhere.Anybody can get lucky. Nobody controls the odds like Billy Walters. Widely regarded as “the Michael Jordan of sports betting,” Walters is a living legend in Las Vegas and among sports bettors worldwide. With an unmatched winning streak of thirty-six consecutive years, Walters has become fabulously wealthy by placing hundreds of millions of dollars a year in gross wagers, including one Super Bowl bet of $3.5 million alone. Competitors desperate to crack his betting techniques have tried hacking his phones, cloning his beepers, rifling through his trash, and bribing his employees. Now, after decades of avoiding the spotlight and fiercely protecting the keys to his success, Walters has reached the age where he wants to pass along his wisdom to future generations of sports wagerers.Gambler is more than a traditional autobiography. In addition to sharing his against-all-odds American dream story, Walters reveals in granular detail the secrets of his proprietary betting system, which will serve as a master class for anyone who wants to improve their odds at betting on sports. Walters also breaks his silence about his long and complicated relationship with Hall of Fame professional golfer Phil Mickelson.On a typical weekend gameday packed with college and pro sports, Walters will bet $10 million—a small sum for someone as wealthy as he is today, but an unbelievable fortune for the child who was raised by his grandmother in extreme poverty in rural Kentucky. By the age of nine, Walters became a shark at hustling pool and pitching pennies. As a young adult, he set records as a used-car salesman, hustled golf, and dabbled in bookmaking. He eventually moved to Las Vegas, where he revolutionized sports betting strategy and became a member of the famed Computer Group, the first syndicate to apply sophisticated algorithms and data analysis to sports gambling. He became extraordinarily wealthy while overcoming addictions and outmaneuvering organized crime figures made infamous by Martin Scorsese’s film Casino.In Gambler, Walters passes along everything he’s learned about sports betting. First, he shows bettors how to mine the information we have at our fingertips to develop a sophisticated betting strategy and handicapping system of our own. He explains how even avid bettors often do not grasp all of the variables that go into making an informed wager—factors such as home field advantage, individual player values, injuries or illness, weather forecasts, each team’s previous schedule (bye weeks, multiple away games in a row, etc.), travel distance/difficulty, stadium quirks, turf types, and more. Not every bettor has access to Walters’s team of expert analysts, but every bettor can follow his guidelines on how to measure the detailed information available online and look for unique situations that could affect a game’s outcome more than usual. Variable by variable, Walters breaks down the formulas, point systems, and principles that he’s developed over decades of improving his craft.A self-made man who’s repeatedly won it all, lost it all, and earned it all back again, Walters has lived a singular and wildly appealing American life, of the outlaw variety. Gambler is at once a gripping autobiography, a blistering tell-all, and an indispensable playbook for coming out on top.

For readers of Pachinko and Queenie, a funny, sexy, and heart-wrenching literary debut that explores exile, ambition, and hope across three generations of Palestinian American women. “Wonderfully brash and sparkling...This book fills in gaps in our understanding.” —Oprah DailyArabella gets an unexpected chance at love when she’s thrust into a conflict and history she’s tried to avoid all her life. Zoya is playing matchmaker for her last unmarried granddaughter and stirring up buried memories. Naya is keeping a secret from her children that will change all their lives. Thirty-five-year-old Arabella, a New York theatre director whose dating and career prospects are drying up, is offered an opportunity to direct a risqué cross-dressing interpretation of a Shakespeare classic—that might garner international attention—in the West Bank. Her mother, Naya, and grandmother, Zoya, hatch a plot to match her with Aziz, a Palestinian American doctor volunteering in Gaza. Arabella agrees to meet Aziz, since her growing feelings for Yoav, a celebrated Israeli American theatre designer, seem destined for disaster... With biting hilarity, Too Soon introduces us to a trio of bold and unforgettable voices. This dramatic saga follows one family’s epic journey fleeing war-torn Jaffa in 1948, chasing the American Dream in Detroit and San Francisco in the sixties and seventies, hustling in the New York theatre scene post-9/11, and daring to stage a show in Palestine in 2012. Upon learning one of them is living on borrowed time, the three women fight to live, make art, and love on their own terms. A funny, sexy, and heart-wrenching literary debut, Too Soon illuminates our shared history and asks, how can we set ourselves free?

“Fiercely funny, sexy, and culturally resonant.” —People, Best Books of the Month • “Shamieh balances her characters’ painful family history and their boisterously funny voices.” —The New Yorker A “wonderfully brash and sparkling” (Oprah Daily, Best Books of the Year) novel that explores exile, love, and freedom across three generations of women—“a Palestinian American Sex and the City” (The Atlantic).Arabella gets an unexpected chance at love when she’s thrust into a conflict and history she’s tried to avoid all her life. Zoya is playing matchmaker for her last unmarried granddaughter and stirring up buried memories. Naya is keeping a secret from her children that will change all their lives. Thirty-five-year-old Arabella, a New York theatre director whose dating and career prospects are drying up, is offered an opportunity to direct a risqué cross-dressing interpretation of a Shakespeare classic—that might garner international attention—in the West Bank. Her mother, Naya, and grandmother, Zoya, hatch a plot to match her with Aziz, a Palestinian American doctor volunteering in Gaza. Arabella agrees to meet Aziz, since her growing feelings for Yoav, a celebrated Israeli American theatre designer, seem destined for disaster... With biting hilarity, Too Soon introduces us to a trio of bold and unforgettable voices. This dramatic saga follows one family’s epic journey fleeing war-torn Jaffa in 1948, chasing the American Dream in Detroit and San Francisco in the sixties and seventies, hustling in the New York theatre scene post-9/11, and daring to stage a show in Palestine in 2012. Upon learning one of them is living on borrowed time, the three women fight to live, make art, and love on their own terms. A funny, sexy, and heart-wrenching literary debut, Too Soon illuminates our shared history and asks, how can we set ourselves free?

This newly updated edition of a classic bestseller is THE ultimate job-hunting guide for college grads and career-changers alike! Now you can utilize The Pathfinder’s proven and practical techniques and tools to discover exactly what career path is right for you and make it happen.Whether you are a seasoned professional in search of a career change or just starting out, The Pathfinder can guide you toward more engaging, fulfilling work. Based on breakthrough techniques developed by the author’s award-winning career coaching organization, Rockport Institute, The Pathfinder has already helped hundreds of thousands of people custom design a career that fits their interests and lifestyle perfectly. This completely revised and updated new edition offers more than fifty self-tests, diagnostic tools, and the widely lauded Rockport Career Design Method to help you choose an entirely new career, an entrepreneurial path, or a better-fitting job in your current field. Learn how to:* Design your new career step-by-step: identify a realistic, attainable career where you’ll use your talents to the fullest doing something you really care about, where you’ll be successful, respected, and engaged in tasks you do well and enjoy* Successfully deal with complacency and “what-ifs” that keep you going back to the same old uninspiring job, day after day* Land the perfect job in a new field using personal marketing and networking (even for those who hate to network) Comprehensive, insightful, and empowering, The Pathfinder proves that there really is a career that you were born to do, and gives you the most complete set of cutting-edge career coaching tools find it.

You are cordially invited to join Michael Bamberger on a year-long golfing adventure—playing alongside the pros of the PGA Tour, the LPGA Tour, LIV Golf, and more—as he seeks to unlock golf’s most stubborn secrets in various and surprising ways, all in the name of…improvement!Nearly fifty years after taking up the game, Michael Bamberger made a pair of startling discoveries: golf had never meant more to him, and he knew almost nothing about it. He decided to cover himself in green in a whole new way. He spent a year inside the ropes of professional golf—playing, caddying, competing, volunteering, and interviewing—looking for a door into the sport’s sanctum sanctorum. In The Playing Lesson: A Duffer’s Year Among the Pros, Bamberger goes on the ultimate golfing bender. You’ve read about St. Andrews before, but here you will experience the home of golf in a whole new way. You’ll join the author as he volunteers in one tournament, caddies in others, plays in men’s and women’s pro-ams, and conducts intimate interviews with elite figures in the game. You’ll mooch off the lessons Bamberger takes from instructors, famous and obscure, who teach golf in novel ways. You’ll learn how to buy a better golf game. Maybe you’ve had club fittings, but not like the one Bamberger experiences in various tour trailers. In a pro-am, Bamberger gets driving tips from one of the tour’s longest hitters, Jake Knapp. He receives a putting lesson from Brad Faxon. He learns how to hit hook wedges from Gary Player. He lives through the intense pain of Rory McIlroy’s misses and rejoices at Lydia Ko’s triumphs. He plays Pebble Beach and Royal Oak, a down-home nine-hole public course in Detroit with perfect greens. He receives an unexpected hug from Greg Norman at a LIV Golf event in Miami, along with the words, “Come on in here, you asshole.” He spends a lot of time at driving ranges, some of it productive. What Bamberger has done here, when you get right down to it, is create his own tour. The Playing Lesson is a report on a real-life golfing safari, with stops inside the heads of the game’s high priests, his own—and yours.

For readers of Leave the World Behind and Exit West, an astonishingly resonant novel that explores the precariousness of Jewish American life through one family after a black hole consumes the State of Israel and similar strange events occur in major cities around the world, ushering in a time of chaos as well as miracles.When a black hole suddenly consumes Israel and as similar anomalies spread across the globe, a conspiracy takes hold: will the holes swallow the Jews, or will they swallow the earth? Against a backdrop of antisemitic paranoia, restrictions on Jewish life, and spasms of violence, Ethan and Ella, Jewish citizens of a nameless American city, meet and fall in love. Ella, a photojournalist, documents the changes in daily life, particularly among the city’s Jewish residents. Some Jews, feeling inexplicably drawn to the unusual events, go underground to an abandoned subway system that seems to connect the entire world. Others leave for the south, forming militias and stockpiling weapons. But most, like Ethan, Ella, and her young son Michael, stay and try to make their way amid the hostility and small joys of the ever-changing landscape. But then thousands of commercial planes are sucked from the sky. Air travel stops. Borders close. Refugees pour into the capital. Eventually all Jews in the city are forced to relocate to the Pale, an area sandwiched between a park and a river. There, under the watchful eye of border guards, drones, and robotic dogs, they form a fragile new society. Suspenseful, thought-provoking, and brilliantly conceived, Next Stop is an enthralling novel that explores the fault lines between our collective, national, and individual memories and how our deepest bonds can be unexpectedly reshaped in moments of crisis.

Turn your wanderlust into reality with expert strategies from Brian Kelly, the founder of The Points Guy—the leading voice in travel and loyalty programs—with this ultimate resource for everything from leveraging airline and credit card points to planning your dream itinerary.In How to Win at Travel, Brian Kelly shares his greatest tips and strategies to experience the world in ways you never thought possible. This compre­hensive guide is a road map with all of the knowledge and tools you need to become an expert traveler. Get practical advice on a range of topics, including how to find the cheapest flights; effectively leverage airline, hotel, and credit card loyalty programs; conquer your fear of flying; beat jet lag; and score free flights and upgrades. Kelly also covers the ins and outs of travel insurance and getting the right credit cards to make your travel more affordable and enjoyable. He discusses the art of dealing with travel mishaps, speaks to the technology you need to manage modern travel, and shares ideas for pinpointing the best destination for you. Whether you’re a young adult traveling solo, a road warrior business traveler, a growing family looking for new experiences, or a retiree ready to explore the world, reach for this guide to plan an unforgettable trip. Easy to read, informative, and inspirational, How to Win at Travel is the definitive travel guide for your next adventure, no matter how big or small.

“A riveting tale about war, intrigue, love, and perseverance.” —John Grisham “Absorbing...Unfolds like a detective novel...The story barrels ahead urgently...Duty, anger, sorrow, conscience and even hope mix together to form the novel’s bracingly intimate ending.” —The Wall Street Journal “What if not two but three atomic bombs wound up in the Pacific theater?...Hawley’s impeccably detailed narrative offers an unnerving fictional answer...The novel’s tension mounts in highly cinematic fashion, despite our awareness of what the history books tell us.” —The New York Times A sweeping and suspenseful novel of love and war, set in Japan during the final days of World War II, with a shocking historical premise: three atomic bombs were actually delivered to the Pacific—not two—and when one of them falls into the hands of the Japanese, the fate of a couple that has been separated from one another becomes entangled with the fate of this terrifying new device.War has taken everything from physicist Keizo Kan. His young daughter was killed in the Great Tokyo Air Raid, and now his Japanese American wife, Noriko, has been imprisoned by the brutal Thought Police. An American bomber, downed over Japan on the first day of August 1945, offers the scientist a surprising chance at salvation. The Imperial Army dispatches him to examine an unusual device recovered from the plane’s wreckage—a bomb containing uranium—and tells him that if he can unlock its mysteries, his wife will be released. Working in secrecy under crushing pressure, Kan begins to disassemble the bomb and study its components. One of his assistants falls ill after mishandling the uranium, but his alarming deterioration, and Kan’s own symptoms, are ignored by the commanding officer demanding results. Desperate to stave off Japan’s surrender to the Allies, the army will stop at nothing to harness the weapon’s unimaginable power. They order Kan to prepare the bomb for manual detonation over a target—a suicide mission that will strike a devastating blow against the Americans. Kan is soon confronted with a series of agonizing decisions that will test his courage, his loyalty, and his very humanity. An extraordinary debut novel that is the result of twenty-seven years of work by its author, Daikon is a gripping and powerfully moving saga that calls to mind such classics as Cold Mountain. It is set amid the chaos and despair of the world’s third largest city lying in ruins, its population starving and its leadership under escalating assault from without and within. Here is a haunting epic of love, survival, and impossible choices that introduces a singular new voice on the literary landscape.

A heartfelt, one-of-a-kind memoir chronicling the hilarious, absurd, and thought-provoking experiences of an American pursuing comedy in China, learning first-hand how humor does and doesn’t translate—and whether laughter transcends borders. I marched onstage in a long robe beside my Shifu, under the curious eyes of a thousand Chinese comedy fans, armed only with a microphone and the goal to kill onstage or die trying. Over the speakers, the host shouted: “Welcome to the stage: Master Ding Guangquan and his American disciple, Ai Jie Xi!” When self-proclaimed American class clown Jesse Appell signed up to study Mandarin in high school, he never imagined that one day his name would be written into the traditional family tree of Chinese comedy. But when he first moves to Beijing to apprentice to the legendary Master Ding, a single show is all it takes for Jesse and his fellow comedy misfits to understand that book learning means bombing jokes. To truly get the big laughs, he realizes he needs to know everything, like how long the fuse is on a thirty-cent firework, what card games coal miners play over Chinese New Year, and why comedy writers in Shanghai sometimes sleep in heart-shaped beds. The result? Asking questions that might seem simple—if they weren’t being asked by an American caught in the breakneck whirlwind of a rising China. “What do people here find funny?” “How do you deal with hecklers?” And, of course, the biggest one of all: “Can I say that?” From Jesse’s first forays into the traditional teahouse performance scene to being the only American cast member and writer on a Chinese version of Saturday Night Live, This Was Funnier in China captures an American's wide-eyed, enthusiastic experiences trying to build a world where we can all laugh together.

A mesmerizing firsthand account of the warping of American reality over the past decade as Donald Trump has risen to dominance—from a participatory witness who got so far inside the distortion field that it swallowed her whole.Olivia Nuzzi spent a third of her life observing those in power. She became a reporter in 2014, when the political landscape began to recon­figure itself around a singular personality whom she was uniquely primed to understand. Over the next ten years, she used her access and eye for detail to chronicle his campaigns, trials, and government in blockbuster feature stories that drove the national conversation and propelled her to the heights of her profession. Then, in 2024, her personal life collided with the public interest in a scandal that cost Nuzzi her job and reputation. Amid a full-blown tabloid frenzy, Nuzzi went quiet, drove west, and spent the next year in self-imposed exile at the edge of the country, where she wrote this searing and astonishingly clear-eyed account of what she—and we—have experienced over the last decade. Nuzzi walked through hell and she took notes. The result is a brilliant and bracing reckoning with recent history from one of our sharpest political observers. Beginning in the present in California, and then turning her gaze back east and back in time, she crafts a dazzling mosaic of the Trump era: her many behind-the-scenes encounters with Trump himself, from their first meeting in Trump Tower to a wealth of revelatory conversations about his Hollywood aspirations, his dreams, his fears about being assassinated, and more; the life she led uneasily that skidded to a halt; the rise of digital surveillance and the decline of privacy; the normalization of political violence; and the collision of polarization with the democratization of information to sow doubt about every aspect of our reality. American Canto is also a powerful personal history. Nuzzi’s account of growing up in working-class New Jersey as the child of alcoholics in the shadow of New York City and 9/11 is raw and moving. Her mother was angry, beautiful, and unpredictable. Her father, a loving man who supported his family as a sanitation worker, removed debris from Ground Zero. They both died young. A version of Nuzzi did, too. She approached this “kind of death” with the critical distance of a reporter. When interrogating her own mistakes, Nuzzi confesses, “I had trained my whole life in the battlefield of crisis.” Despite her profession, Olivia Nuzzi has never been interested in breaking news. American Canto is not a memoir, nor a tell-all, nor a book about the president. Instead, it is something more artful and more interest­ing—a character study of a nation undergoing radical transformation in real time. It seeks to reframe our under­standing of the history we are living through from the perspective of someone who observed it from within the kaleidoscope and now sees it clearly from the other side.

The inspiring story of the Declaration of Independence—the first to take us from its drafting by Thomas Jefferson to today—charting the many lives of a document that captures the soul of America and has united generations around its defiant ideals, published for the 250th anniversary of America’s founding.Quiet and politically untested, Thomas Jefferson was not the obvious choice to draft a statement of principles explaining why the American colonies were breaking ties with the King of England. His soaring rhetoric would inspire generations of Americans to live up to the founders’ dreams. National Treasure is the gripping story of our most revered founding relic, as a physical object and a set of ideals that have made America what it is today. An award-winning historian, Michael Auslin take us from the boarding house in Philadelphia where Jefferson put quill to paper to the Declaration’s covert signing, dissemination in the doldrums of the revolutionary war, and long, harrowing, and ultimately hallowed afterlife. We follow the parchment as it is hauled out of a soon-to-be-burning Washington in 1814 and see it hidden in a dank cellar, posted in classrooms, recited on village greens, printed on handkerchiefs, and used to sell insurance and bundle coal. An inspiration to both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis in the Civil War, it has grown more important for each new generation. While FDR and Churchill celebrated its commitment to freedom from tyranny, the document itself was lowered into a bunker at Fort Knox. After the war, its precious ink fading, it was painstakingly preserved and enshrined. Through it all, Jefferson’s words have inspired implausibly varied causes, from suffragists and civil rights leaders to groups waging war on the US government. As Jefferson had hoped, the principles enshrined in the Declaration became a beacon to the world. But what lessons should we take from it today? Can this statement of ideals in whose name the signers pledged their lives and sacred honor bring a disparate nation together? As we gather to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founders’ bold experiment in democracy, Auslin reminds us that this enduring document was not just a call for freedom and equality but an eloquent statement of the principles that bind us together.

Gloriously available again, forty years after it was first published—now with a new introduction by Brad Faxon, a new afterword by the author, and a batch of newly discovered time-capsule photos—The Green Road Home is the classic account of a young caddie on the PGA Tour, and the book that launched Michael Bamberger as a bestselling author.In 1985, Michael Bamberger was a twenty-something college grad and golf nut with a daunting dream: to become a caddie on the PGA Tour. His hope was to travel widely and deeply, to see the game up close and personal, and to be accepted into the vagabond guild of professional caddies. When the great golf writer Dan Jenkins heard about Bamberger’s gig, he said, “Finally, an Ivy Leaguer carrying the bags of other people.” Bamberger had his own take. He was looking for adventure. As William Least Heat-Moon had his blue highways, Bamberger had green ones. The Green Road Home, first published in 1986, takes you inside the ropes, and inside the heads of the players Bamberger caddied for. You’ll hang with the author in New York and New Orleans and Las Vegas. You’ll get to know a wide range of golfers, legends like Al Geiberger (the first player on Tour to shoot 59) and George Archer (winner of the 1969 Masters), as well as Steve Elkington (future winner of the PGA Championship) and Bill Britton (future golf coach at Monmouth University). The author gets road and life advice from a colleague named Killer. He caddies in the US and British Opens and in the vicinity of Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson. He plays in the Tour’s annual Caddie Classic golf tournament and the caddie-player softball game. The Green Road Home is a funny and heartfelt account of what it takes to make it as a touring pro—and as a touring caddie. This book is about the 1985 season on Tour. Turns out, it was a pivotal one. We now know what we didn’t then, that Bamberger was witnessing the end of the line for the Tour as a mom-and-pop operation. (In ’85, the annual tournament in Pebble Beach was still named for Bing Crosby. A year later, it became the AT&T.) Whether you’ve been following the game all your life or are new to it, The Green Road Home is a window into a magical time in the pro game. In this charming book, a young writer finds his own voice, and a young man finds his own way.

In this “entertaining mix of social science, memoir, and humor, as if a Daniel Goleman book were filtered through the lens of Will Ferrell” (The New York Times Book Review) a middle-aged man embarks on an entertaining and relatable quest to reprioritize his ties with his buddies and forge new friendships, all while balancing work, marriage, and kids.At the age of forty, having settled into his busy career and active family life, Billy Baker discovers that he’s lost something crucial along the way: his friends. Other priorities always seemed to come first, until all his close friendships became distant memories. When he takes an assignment to write an article about the modern loneliness epidemic, he realizes just how common it is to be a middle-aged loner: almost fifty million Americans over the age of forty-five, especially men, suffer from chronic loneliness, which the surgeon general has declared one of the nation’s “greatest pathologies,” worse than smoking, obesity, or heart disease in increasing a person’s risk for premature death. Determined to defy these odds, Baker vows to salvage his lost friendships and blaze a path for men (and women) everywhere to improve their relationships old and new. From leading a buried treasure hunt with his old college crew to organizing an impromptu “ditch day” for dozens of his former high school classmates to essentially starting a frat house for middle-aged guys in his neighborhood, Baker experiments with ways to keep in touch with his friends no matter how hectic their lives are—with surprising and deeply satisfying results. Along the way, he talks to experts in sociology and psychology to investigate how such naturally social creatures as humans could become so profoundly isolated today. And he turns to real-life experts in lasting friendship, bravely joining a cruise packed entirely with crowds of female BFFs and learning the secrets of male bonding from a group of older dudes who faithfully meet up on the same night every week. “A refreshing and entertaining personal perspective on why men need male friends” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), We Need to Hang Out is a celebration of companionship that is bursting with humor, candor, and charm.

*ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF FALL: Esquire, Time, LitHub, The Every Girl, BookPage* “Lively and thorough, Butts is the best kind of nonfiction—the kind that forces you to see something ordinary through completely new eyes.” —Esquire, Best Books of 2022 So Far “One of the year’s most ingenious and eye-opening cultural studies.” —Publishers Weekly, Best Books of 2022Whether we love them or hate them, think they’re sexy, think they’re strange, consider them too big, too small, or anywhere in between, humans have a complicated relationship with butts. It is a body part unique to humans, critical to our evolution and survival, and yet it has come to signify so much more: sex, desire, comedy, shame. A woman’s butt, in particular, is forever being assessed, criticized, and objectified, from anxious self-examinations trying on jeans in department store dressing rooms to enduring crass remarks while walking down a street or high school hallways. But why? In Butts: A Backstory, reporter, essayist, and RadioLab contributing editor Heather Radke is determined to find out. Spanning nearly two centuries, this “whip-smart” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) cultural history takes us from the performance halls of 19th-century London to the aerobics studios of the 1980s, the music video set of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” and the mountains of Arizona, where every year humans and horses race in a feat of gluteal endurance. Along the way, she meets evolutionary biologists who study how butts first developed; models whose measurements have defined jean sizing for millions of women; and the fitness gurus who created fads like “Buns of Steel.” She also examines the central importance of race through figures like Sarah Bartmann, once known as the “Venus Hottentot,” Josephine Baker, Jennifer Lopez, and other women of color whose butts have been idolized, envied, and despised. Part deep dive reportage, part personal journey, part cabinet of curiosities, Butts is an entertaining, illuminating, and thoughtful examination of why certain silhouettes come in and out of fashion—and how larger ideas about race, control, liberation, and power affect our most private feelings about ourselves and others.

“Extraordinary...Tomlinson’s book is a gem.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune * “Delightful.” —Town & Country * “This book wants to lick your face. Let it.” —Kirkus Reviews From Pulitzer Prize finalist Tommy Tomlinson comes an inside account of the Westminster Dog Show that follows one dog on his quest to become a champion—and explores the bond between dogs and their people.Tommy Tomlinson was watching a dog show on television a few years ago when he had a sudden thought: Are those dogs happy? How about pet dogs—are they happy? Those questions sparked a quest to venture inside the dog-show world, in search of a deeper understanding of the relationship between dogs and humans that has endured for thousands of years. Dogland shares his surprising, entertaining, and moving adventures. Tomlinson spends three years on the road and goes behind the scenes at more than one hundred competitions across the country, from Midwestern fairgrounds to Madison Square Garden. Along the way he is licked, sniffed, and rubbed up against by dogs of nearly every size, shape, and breed. Like a real-life version of the classic mockumentary Best in Show, Dogland follows one champion show dog—a Samoyed named Striker—as well as his handler, Laura King, and his devoted entourage of breeders and owners as he competes in the 2022 Westminster Dog Show. Striker’s whole career has been leading up to this moment. As Tomlinson writes, picking a top show dog is like drafting an NFL quarterback when they’re still in elementary school. Now Striker has made it to the Super Bowl. Tomlinson takes readers on the long road to glory, bringing the dog-show circuit to life as he witnesses teams scrambling from town to town in search of championship points and large, colorful ribbons. (Striker and his crew travel in a custom-built RV named after Betty White.) Tomlinson’s limitless curiosity about people and dogs reaches far beyond the show tents and into the ordinary lives of dogs. We hear from experts who have discovered new insights into how dogs and humans formed their bond—and how that bond has changed over the centuries. We discover the fascinating origins of different dog breeds, learn about the elaborate breed standards that determine an ideal show dog, and consider the health issues that can arise in purebred dogs. We also meet dog lovers who applaud every dog, regardless of breed, simply for being themselves, such as WeRateDogs, the social media phenomenon with millions of followers, all for posts celebrating the day-to-day goofiness in most dog owners’ lives. Engaging, charming, and insightful, Dogland is an irresistibly appealing read that invites us on a rollicking backstage tour through the rituals, tricks, and wonders of the dog-show world—and reveals what matters most for the happiness of dogs and dog lovers everywhere.