Hardcover Nonfiction

by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard · Holt

A riveting historical narrative of the shocking events surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the follow-up to mega-bestselling author Bill O'Reilly's Killing Lincoln. The basis for the 2013 television movie of the same name starring Rob Lowe as JFK. More than a million readers have thrilled to Bill O'Reilly's Killing Lincoln, the page-turning work of nonfiction about the shocking assassination that changed the course of American history. Now the iconic anchor of The O'Reilly Factor recounts in gripping detail the brutal murder of John Fitzgerald Kennedy—and how a sequence of gunshots on a Dallas afternoon not only killed a beloved president but also sent the nation into the cataclysmic division of the Vietnam War and its culture-changing aftermath. In January 1961, as the Cold War escalates, John F. Kennedy struggles to contain the growth of Communism while he learns the hardships, solitude, and temptations of what it means to be president of the United States. Along the way he acquires a number of formidable enemies, among them Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and Allen Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In addition, powerful elements of organized crime have begun to talk about targeting the president and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy. In the midst of a 1963 campaign trip to Texas, Kennedy is gunned down by an erratic young drifter named Lee Harvey Oswald. The former Marine Corps sharpshooter escapes the scene, only to be caught and shot dead while in police custody. The events leading up to the most notorious crime of the twentieth century are almost as shocking as the assassination itself. Killing Kennedy chronicles both the heroism and deceit of Camelot, bringing history to life in ways that will profoundly move the reader.

by Jon Meacham · Random House

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Jon Meacham, “a big, grand, absorbing exploration of not just Jefferson and his role in history but also Jefferson the man, humanized as never before” (Entertainment Weekly) “Probably the best single-volume biography of Jefferson ever written.”—Gordon S. Wood A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, The Seattle Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, BookPage This magnificent biography brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times, giving us Thomas Jefferson the man, the politician, and the president. A Founder whose understanding of power and of human nature enabled him to move men and marshal ideas, to learn from his mistakes and to prevail, Jefferson was passionate about many things—women, his family, science, architecture, gardening, Monticello, Paris, and more. He strove, despite fierce opposition, to realize his vision: the creation, survival, and success of popular government in America. Drawing on archives in the United States, England, and France, as well as unpublished transcripts of Jefferson presidential papers, Jon Meacham shows us the personal Jefferson, a man of appetite, sensuality, and passion. He also presents Jefferson as the most successful political leader of the early republic, and perhaps in all American history, a leader who found the means to endure and to win. His story resonates today not least because he led his nation through ferocious partisanship amid economic change and external threats. Jefferson also embodies an eternal drama, the struggle of the leadership of a nation to achieve greatness in a difficult and confounding world.

by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard · Holt

A riveting historical narrative of the heart-stopping events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and the first work of history from mega-bestselling author Bill O'Reilly The iconic anchor of The O'Reilly Factor recounts one of the most dramatic stories in American history—how one gunshot changed the country forever. In the spring of 1865, the bloody saga of America's Civil War finally comes to an end after a series of increasingly harrowing battles. President Abraham Lincoln's generous terms for Robert E. Lee's surrender are devised to fulfill Lincoln's dream of healing a divided nation, with the former Confederates allowed to reintegrate into American society. But one man and his band of murderous accomplices, perhaps reaching into the highest ranks of the U.S. government, are not appeased. In the midst of the patriotic celebrations in Washington D.C., John Wilkes Booth—charismatic ladies' man and impenitent racist—murders Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre. A furious manhunt ensues and Booth immediately becomes the country's most wanted fugitive. Lafayette C. Baker, a smart but shifty New York detective and former Union spy, unravels the string of clues leading to Booth, while federal forces track his accomplices. The thrilling chase ends in a fiery shootout and a series of court-ordered executions—including that of the first woman ever executed by the U.S. government, Mary Surratt. Featuring some of history's most remarkable figures, vivid detail, and page-turning action, Killing Lincoln is history that reads like a thriller.

by Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer · Dutton

The #1 New York Times bestselling first-person account of the planning and execution of the Bin Laden raid from a Navy SEAL who confronted the terrorist mastermind and witnessed his final moments. From the streets of Iraq to the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips in the Indian Ocean, and from the mountaintops of Afghanistan to the third floor of Osama Bin Laden’s compound, operator Mark Owen of the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group—known as SEAL Team Six—has been a part of some of the most memorable special operations in history, as well as countless missions that never made headlines. No Easy Day puts readers alongside Owen and his fellow SEAL team members as they train for the biggest mission of their lives. The blow-by-blow narrative of the assault, beginning with the helicopter crash that could have ended Owen’s life straight through to the radio call confirming Bin Laden’s death, is an essential piece of modern history. In No Easy Day, Owen also takes readers into the War on Terror and details the formation of the most elite units in the military. Owen’s story draws on his youth in Alaska and describes the SEALs’ quest to challenge themselves at the highest levels of physical and mental endurance. With boots-on-the-ground detail, Owen describes several missions that illustrate the life and work of a SEAL and the evolution of the team after the events of September 11. In telling the true story of the SEALs whose talents, skills, experiences, and exceptional sacrifices led to one of the greatest victories in the War on Terror, Mark Owen honors the men who risk everything for our country, and he leaves readers with a deep understanding of the warriors who keep America safe.

by Ray Kurzweil · Viking Press

First published in 1958, John von Neumann's classic work "The Computer and the Brain" explored the analogies between computing machines and the living human brain. Von Neumann showed that the brain operates both digitally and analogically, but also has its own unique statistical language. And more than fifty years after its inception the "von Neumann architecture"--An organizational framework for computer design - still lies at the heart of today's machines. In his foreword to this new edition, Ray Kurzweil, a futurist famous for his own musings on the relationship between technology and consciousness, places von Neumann's work in a historical context and shows how it remains relevant today.

by Nate Silver · Penguin Press

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The groundbreaking exploration of probability and uncertainty that explains how to make better predictions in a world drowning in data, from the nation’s foremost political forecaster—updated with insights into the pandemic, journalism today, and polling One of The Wall Street Journal’s Ten Best Works of Nonfiction of the Year “Could turn out to be one of the more momentous books of the decade.”—The New York Times Book Review Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. But overconfidence is often the reason for failure. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. This is the “prediction paradox”: The more humility we have about our ability to make predictions, the more successful we can be in planning for the future. Drawing on his own groundbreaking work in sports and politics, Nate Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how to seek truth from data. In The Signal and the Noise, Silver visits innovative forecasters in a range of areas, from hurricanes to baseball to global pandemics, from the poker table to the stock market, from Capitol Hill to the NBA. He discovers that what the most accurate ones have in common is a superior command of probability—as well as a healthy dose of humility. With everything from the global economy to the fight against disease hanging on the quality of our predictions, Nate Silver’s insights are an essential read.

by Greg Gutfeld · Crown Forum

From the irreverent star of Fox News’s Red Eye and The Five, hilarious observations on the manufactured outrage of an oversensitive, wussified culture. Greg Gutfeld hates artificial tolerance. At the root of every single major political conflict is the annoying coddling Americans must endure of these harebrained liberal hypocrisies. In fact, most of the time liberals uses the mantle of tolerance as a guise for their pathetic intolerance. And what we really need is smart intolerance, or as Gutfeld reminds us, what we used to call common sense. The Joy of Hate tackles this conundrum head on--replacing the idiocy of open-mindness with a shrewd judgmentalism that rejects stupid ideas, notions, and people. With countless examples grabbed from the headlines, Gutfeld provides readers with the enormous tally of what pisses us all off. For example: - The double standard: You can make fun of Christians, but God forbid Muslims. It's okay to call a woman any name imaginable, as long as she's a Republican. And no problem if you're a bigot, as long as you're politically correct about it. - The demonizing of the Tea Party and romanticizing of the Occupy Wall Streeters. - The media who are always offended (see MSNBC lineup) - How critics of Obamacare or illegal immigration are somehow immediately labeled racists. - The endless debate over the Ground Zero Mosque (which Gutfeld planned to open a Muslim gay bar next to). - As well as pretentious music criticism, slow-moving ceiling fans, and snotty restaurant hostesses. Funny and sarcastic to the point of being mean (but in a nice way), The Joy of Hate points out the true jerks in this society and tells them all off.

by William Manchester and Paul Reid · Little, Brown

The long-awaited final volume of William Manchester's legendary biography of Winston Churchill. Spanning the years of 1940-1965, THE LAST LION picks up shortly after Winston Churchill became Prime Minister-when his tiny island nation stood alone against the overwhelming might of Nazi Germany. The Churchill conjured up by William Manchester and Paul Reid is a man of indomitable courage, lightning fast intellect, and an irresistible will to action. THE LAST LION brilliantly recounts how Churchill organized his nation's military response and defense; compelled FDR into supporting America's beleaguered cousins, and personified the "never surrender" ethos that helped the Allies win the war, while at the same time adapting himself and his country to the inevitable shift of world power from the British Empire to the United States. More than twenty years in the making, THE LAST LION presents a revelatory and unparalleled portrait of this brilliant, flawed, and dynamic leader. This is popular history at its most stirring.

by Andrew Solomon · Scribner

From the winner of the National Book Award and the National Books Critics' Circle Award--and one of the most original thinkers of our time--a riveting collection of essays about places in dramatic transition. "Far and Away" collects Andrew Solomon's writings about places undergoing seismic shifts--political, cultural, and spiritual. Chronicling his stint on the barricades in Moscow in 1991, when he joined artists in resisting the coup whose failure ended the Soviet Union, his 2002 account of the rebirth of culture in Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban, his insightful appraisal of a Myanmar seeped in contradictions as it slowly, fitfully pushes toward freedom, and many other stories of profound upheaval, this book provides a unique window onto the very idea of social change. With his signature brilliance and compassion, Solomon demonstrates both how history is altered by individuals, and how personal identities are altered when governments alter. A journalist and essayist of remarkable perception and prescience, Solomon captures the essence of these cultures. Ranging across seven continents and twenty-five years, "Far and Away "takes a magnificent journey into the heart of extraordinarily diverse experiences, yet Solomon finds a common humanity wherever he travels. Illuminating the development of his own genius, his stories are always intimate and often both funny and deeply moving.

by Jake Tapper · Little, Brown

The basis of the film starring Orlando Bloom and Scott Eastwood, The Outpost is the heartbreaking and inspiring story of one of America's deadliest battles during the war in Afghanistan, acclaimed by critics everywhere as a classic. At 5:58 AM on October 3rd, 2009, Combat Outpost Keating, located in frighteningly vulnerable terrain in Afghanistan just 14 miles from the Pakistani border, was viciously attacked. Though the 53 Americans there prevailed against nearly 400 Taliban fighters, their casualties made it the deadliest fight of the war for the U.S. that year. Four months after the battle, a Pentagon review revealed that there was no reason for the troops at Keating to have been there in the first place. In The Outpost, Jake Tapper gives us the powerful saga of COP Keating, from its establishment to eventual destruction, introducing us to an unforgettable cast of soldiers and their families, and to a place and war that has remained profoundly distant to most Americans. A runaway bestseller, it makes a savage war real, and American courage manifest. "The Outpost is a mind-boggling, all-too-true story of heroism, hubris, failed strategy, and heartbreaking sacrifice. If you want to understand how the war in Afghanistan went off the rails, you need to read this book." -- Jon Krakauer

by Peter A. Carlin · Touchstone

" ... A stunning biography of Bruce Springsteen describing his life and work in vivid intimate detail"--

by Stephen Colbert, Richard Dahm, Paul Dinello, Barry Julien, Tom Purcell et al. · Grand Central

The host of the popular Colbert Report show celebrates the lighter side of the modern world's most relevant issues, providing straightforward discussions of such topics as faith, politics, and how the author believes the country can reacquire its nerve. 500,000 first printing.

by Laura Hillenbrand · Random House

by Willie Nelson · Morrow/HarperCollins

A road journal from the iconic country singer shares the wisdom he has acquired over his lifetime, musings on his greatest influences, and insights from family, friends, and colleagues.

by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick · Gallery

This companion to the documentary will unearth the truth behind historical events, using recently-discovered archives and newly declassified material.

by Oliver Sacks · Alfred A. Knopf

Have you ever seen something that wasn't really there? Heard someone call your name in an empty house? Sensed someone following you and turned around to find nothing? Hallucinations don't belong wholly to the insane. Much more commonly, they are linked to sensory deprivation, intoxication, illness, or injury. In some conditions, hallucinations can lead to religious epiphanies or even the feeling of leaving one's own body. Humans have always sought such life-changing visions, and for thousands of years have used hallucinogenic compounds to achieve them. In Hallucinations, with his usual elegance, curiosity, and compassion, Dr Oliver Sacks weaves together stories of his patients and of his own mind-altering experiences to illuminate what hallucinations tell us about the organization and structure of our brains, how they have influenced every culture's folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all, a vital part of the human condition.