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Week of November 17, 2019

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NEW
THE BEAUTIFUL ONES
Prince. Edited by Dan Piepenbring
Cover of THE BEAUTIFUL ONES

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES

by Prince. Edited by Dan Piepenbring · Spiegel & Grau

1 wks at #1 · 1 on list

The Beautiful Ones no es solo el tributo a un icono, también es una obra literaria poderosa y original por derecho propio, donde bullen las ideas de Prince, su manera de ver el mundo, su voz y su efigie, su imperecedera ofrenda al mundo. Esta es la historia de superación y ascenso al estrellato de un artista irrepetible. Escrita de su puño y letra, y acompañada de fotos inéditas, dietarios y apuntes íntimos, incluye también el conmovedor testimonio autobiográfico que Prince comenzó a elaborar poco antes de su inesperada muerte. Prince era un genio de la música, uno de los creadores más queridos, versátiles y respetados de nuestro tiempo. Fue un visionario tremendamente original, con una imaginación capaz de recrear universos enteros, desde el paraíso prometido a ritmo de funk de «Uptown» hasta los paisajes míticos de Purple Rain, pasando por la psicodelia de «Paisley Park». Sin embargo, su creación más ambiciosa fue convertir a Prince Rogers Nelson, nacido en Minnesota, en Prince, una de las mayores estrellas del pop de cualquier época. The Beautiful Ones nos cuenta cómo Prince se transformó en Prince: su relato en primera persona nos muestra a un ávido joven que decide empaparse primero del mundo que le rodea para luego moldear un personaje, una visión artística y finalmente una manera de vivir, mucho antes de que sus primeros éxitos y la fama lo constriñan y pretendan redefinirle. El libro está dividido en cuatro partes. La primera es el testimonio autobiográfico que Prince escribía antes de su repentina y trágica muerte; son páginas que nos llevan al mundo de su infancia a través de una prosa lírica y personal. La segunda presenta, a través de diarios y libretas de recortes, los años formativos de Prince como músico, previos a la publicación de su primer disco. La tercera nos muestra, en sinceras imágenes, la evolución de Prince hasta llegar a la cúspide, a su logro artístico más grande, que descubriremos en la cuarta parte del libro: el tratamiento original y manuscrito de Purple Rain, sin duda la conclusión del proceso de crearse a sí mismo emprendido por el artista, que en esta pieza da a las tres secciones previas forma de viaje heroico . El editor del libro, Dan Piepenbring, completa el retrato con una introducción fascinante y conmovedora sobre cómo fue colaborar con Prince en sus últimos meses de vida, en un momento en que el artista meditó profundamente sobre cómo podía revelar al mundo más detalles de sí mismo y de su manera de pensar sin perder el misterio y la mística que tan cuidadosamente había tejido a su alrededor. También son de Piepenbring las notas que dotan de contexto a las imágenes del libro.

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ME
Elton John
Cover of ME

ME

by Elton John · Holt

3 wks on list

In his first and only official autobiography, music icon Elton John reveals the truth about his extraordinary life. Me is the joyously funny, honest and moving story of the most enduringly successful singer/songwriter of all time. The Sunday Times bestseller with a new chapter bringing the story up to date. 'The rock memoir of the decade' – Daily Mail 'The rock star's gloriously entertaining and candid memoir is a gift to the reader' – Sunday Times ______________ Christened Reginald Dwight was a shy boy with Buddy Holly glasses who grew up in the London suburb of Pinner and dreamed of becoming a pop star. By the age of twenty-three, he was performing his first gig in America, facing an astonished audience in his bright yellow dungarees, a star-spangled T-shirt and boots with wings. Elton John had arrived and the music world would never be the same again. His life has been full of drama, from the early rejection of his work with songwriting partner Bernie Taupin to spinning out of control as a chart-topping superstar; from half-heartedly trying to drown himself in his LA swimming pool to disco-dancing with the Queen; from friendships with John Lennon, Freddie Mercury and George Michael to setting up his AIDS Foundation. All the while, Elton was hiding a drug addiction that would grip him for over a decade. In Me Elton also writes powerfully about getting clean and changing his life, about finding love with David Furnish and becoming a father. In a voice that is warm, humble and open, this is Elton on his music and his relationships, his passions and his mistakes. This is a story that will stay with you, by a living legend. ______________ 'Self-deprecating, funny . . . You cannot help but enjoy his company throughout, temper tantrums and all' – The Times 'Racy, pacy and crammed with scurrilous anecdotes - what more could you ask from the rocket man' – Guardian (Book of the Week) 'Chatty, gossipy, amusing and at times brutally candid' – Telegraph

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BLOWOUT
Rachel Maddow
Cover of BLOWOUT

BLOWOUT

by Rachel Maddow · Crown

5 wks on list

**THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** A ground-breaking investigation into the oil and gas industry, international corruption and world politics. Oil. Corrupt? Yes. Unimaginably lucrative? Of course. But, the enemy of democracy? Blowout is the oil and gas industry as we've never seen it before, as told by America's most incisive political journalist, Rachel Maddow. A blackly comic journey from Washington to Siberia, to deep within the earth's crust and the icy Arctic seas, it reveals not just the greed and incompetence of Big Oil and Gas but why the Russian government hacked the 2016 U.S. election. This is our final wake-up call: to stop subsidizing oil and gas, to fight for transparency, and to check the influence of the world's most destructive industry before it destroys our democracy 'Each page in Blowout is a revelation into the depth of corruption and greed that is infused into the international economy' David Lammy, MP

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DUMPTY
John Lithgow
Cover of DUMPTY

DUMPTY

by John Lithgow · Chronicle Prism

2 wks on list

New York Times Bestseller! Dumpty: The Age of Trump in Verse is Volume 1 of a satirical poetry collection from award-winning actor and bestselling author John Lithgow. Chronicling the last few raucous years in American politics, Lithgow takes readers verse by verse through the history of Donald Trump's presidency. • Lampoons the likes of Betsy DeVos, William Barr, Rudy Giuliani, and dozens more. • Illustrated from cover to cover with Lithgow's never-before-seen line drawings. • Draws inspiration from A. A. Milne, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, and even Mother Goose. • Great for fans of A Very Stable Genius by Mike Luckovich, Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter by Scott Adams, and The Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library by The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. The poems collected in Dumpty draw inspiration from A. A. Milne, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Mother Goose, and many more. A feat of laugh-out-loud lyrical storytelling, this timely volume is bound to bring joy to poetry lovers, political junkies, and Lithgow fans alike. Audio edition read by the author.

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CATCH AND KILL
Ronan Farrow
Cover of CATCH AND KILL

CATCH AND KILL

by Ronan Farrow · Little, Brown

3 wks on list

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'Riveting and often shocking' Sunday Times 'Dripping with jaw-dropping revelations' Telegraph 'Absorbing' New York Times In a dramatic account of violence and espionage, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ronan Farrow exposes serial abusers and a cabal of powerful interests hell-bent on covering up the truth, at any cost. In 2017, a routine network television investigation led Ronan Farrow to a story only whispered about: one of Hollywood's most powerful producers was a predator, protected by fear, wealth and a conspiracy of silence. As Farrow drew closer to the truth, shadowy operatives, from high-priced lawyers to elite war-hardened spies, mounted a secret campaign of intimidation, threatening his career, following his every move and weaponizing an account of abuse in his own family. All the while, Farrow and his producer faced a degree of resistance that could not be explained - until now. And a trail of clues revealed corruption and cover-ups from Hollywood, to Washington and beyond. This is the untold story of the tactics of surveillance and intimidation deployed by wealthy and connected men to threaten journalists, evade accountability and silence victims of abuse - and it's the story of the women who risked everything to expose the truth and spark a global movement. 'Darkly funny and poignant . . . a breathtakingly dogged piece of reporting' Guardian 'Reads like a thriller' The Cut 'Meticulous and devastating' Associated Press

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TALKING TO STRANGERS
Malcolm Gladwell
Cover of TALKING TO STRANGERS

TALKING TO STRANGERS

by Malcolm Gladwell · Little, Brown

8 wks on list

Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Outliers, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers and why they often go wrong—now with a new afterword by the author. A Best Book of the Year: The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Chicago Tribune, and Detroit Free Press How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to one another that isn’t true? Talking to Strangers is a classically Gladwellian intellectual adventure, a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news. He revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University, and the death of Sandra Bland—throwing our understanding of these and other stories into doubt. Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know. And because we don’t know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world. In his first book since his #1 bestseller David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell has written a gripping guidebook for troubled times.

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THE PLOT AGAINST THE PRESIDENT
Lee Smith
Cover of THE PLOT AGAINST THE PRESIDENT

THE PLOT AGAINST THE PRESIDENT

by Lee Smith · Center Street

1 wks on list

Investigative journalist Lee Smith uses his unprecedented access to Congressman Devin Nunes, former head of the House Intelligence Committee, to expose the deep state operation against the president -- and the American people. Investigative journalist Lee Smith's The Plot Against the Presidenttells the story of how Congressman Devin Nunes uncovered the operation to bring down the commander-in-chief. While popular opinion holds that Russia subverted democratic processes during the 2016 elections, the real damage was done not by Moscow or any other foreign actor. Rather, this was a slow-moving coup engineered by a coterie of the American elite, the "deep state," targeting not only the president, but also the rest of the country. The plot officially began July 31, 2016 with the counterintelligence investigation that the FBI opened to probe Russian infiltration of Donald Trump's presidential campaign. But the bureau never followed any Russians. In fact, it was an operation to sabotage Trump, the candidate, then president-elect, and finally the presidency. The conspirators included political operatives, law enforcement and intelligence officials, and the press. The plot was uncovered by Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and his investigative team. They understood that the target of the operation wasn't just Trump, but rather the institutions that sustain our republic. A country where operatives use the intelligence and security services to protect their privileges by spying on Americans, coordinating with the press, and using extra-constitutional means to undermine an election then undo a presidency is more like the third world than the republic envisioned by the founding fathers. Without Nunes and his team, the plot against the president -- and against the country -- never would have been revealed. Told from the perspective of Nunes and his crack investigators -- men and women who banded together to do the right thing at a crucial moment for our democracy -- the story of the biggest political scandal in a generation reads like a great detective novel, feels like a classic cowboy movie. The congressman from the cattle capital of California really did fight corruption in Washington. Devin Nunes took on the "deep state."

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THREE DAYS AT THE BRINK
Bret Baier with Catherine Whitney
Cover of THREE DAYS AT THE BRINK

THREE DAYS AT THE BRINK

by Bret Baier with Catherine Whitney · Morrow

2 wks on list

The Instant New York Times Bestseller "I could not put this extraordinary book down. Three Days at the Brink is a masterpiece: elegantly written, brilliantly conceived, and impeccably researched. This book not only sparkles but is destined to be a classic!” —Jay Winik, bestselling author From the #1 bestselling author and award-winning anchor of Special Report with Bret Baier, comes the gripping lost history of the Tehran Conference, where FDR, Churchill, and Stalin plotted D-Day and the Second World War’s endgame. With the fate of World War II in doubt and rumors of a Nazi assassination plot swirling, Franklin Roosevelt risked everything at a clandestine meeting that would change the course of history. November 1943: The Nazis and their Axis allies controlled nearly the entire European continent. Japan dominated the Pacific. Allied successes at Sicily and Guadalcanal had gained them modest ground but at an extraordinary cost. On the Eastern Front, the Soviet Red Army had been bled white. The path of history walked a knife’s edge. That same month a daring gambit was hatched that would alter everything. The "Big Three"—Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin—secretly met for the first time to chart a strategy for defeating Adolf Hitler. Over three days in Tehran, Iran, this trio—strange bedfellows united by their mutual responsibility as heads of the Allied powers—made essential decisions that would direct the final years of the war and its aftermath. Meanwhile, looming over the covert meeting was the possible threat of a Nazi assassination plot, code-named Operation Long Jump. Before they left Tehran, the three leaders agreed to open a second front in the West, spearheaded by Operation Overload and the D-Day invasion of France at Normandy the following June. They also discussed what might come after the war, including dividing Germany and establishing the United Nations—plans that laid the groundwork for the postwar world order and the Cold War. Bestselling author and Fox News Channel anchor Bret Baier’s new epic history, Three Days at the Brink, centers on these crucial days in Tehran, the medieval Persian city on the edge of the desert. Baier makes clear the importance of Roosevelt, who stood apart as the sole leader of a democracy, recognizing him as the lead strategist for the globe’s future—the one man who could ultimately allow or deny the others their place in history. With new details discovered in rarely seen transcripts, oral histories, and declassified State Department and presidential documents from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Baier illuminates the complex character of Roosevelt, revealing a man who grew into his role and accepted the greatest challenge any American president since Lincoln had faced.

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EDUCATED
Tara Westover
Cover of EDUCATED

EDUCATED

by Tara Westover · Random House

89 wks on list

#1 NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER • One of the most acclaimed books of our time: an unforgettable memoir about a young woman who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University “Extraordinary . . . an act of courage and self-invention.”—The New York Times NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE CENTURY • FINALIST: National Book Critics Circle’s Award In Autobiography and John Leonard Prize For Best First Book • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award • Los Angeles Times Book Prize Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home. “Beautiful and propulsive . . . Despite the singularity of [Westover’s] childhood, the questions her book poses are universal: How much of ourselves should we give to those we love? And how much must we betray them to grow up?”—Vogue ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, O: The Oprah Magazine, Time, NPR, Good Morning America, San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian, The Economist, Financial Times, Newsday, New York Post, theSkimm, Refinery29, Bloomberg, Self, Real Simple, Town & Country, Bustle, Paste, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, LibraryReads, Book Riot, Pamela Paul, KQED, New York Public Library

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PERMANENT RECORD
Edward Snowden
Cover of PERMANENT RECORD

PERMANENT RECORD

by Edward Snowden · Metropolitan/Holt

5 wks on list

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Edward Snowden, the man who risked everything to expose the US government’s system of mass surveillance, reveals for the first time the story of his life, including how he helped to build that system and what motivated him to try to bring it down. In 2013, twenty-nine-year-old Edward Snowden shocked the world when he broke with the American intelligence establishment and revealed that the United States government was secretly pursuing the means to collect every single phone call, text message, and email. The result would be an unprecedented system of mass surveillance with the ability to pry into the private lives of every person on earth. Six years later, Snowden reveals for the very first time how he helped to build this system and why he was moved to expose it. Spanning the bucolic Beltway suburbs of his childhood and the clandestine CIA and NSA postings of his adulthood, Permanent Record is the extraordinary account of a bright young man who grew up online—a man who became a spy, a whistleblower, and, in exile, the Internet’s conscience. Written with wit, grace, passion, and an unflinching candor, Permanent Record is a crucial memoir of our digital age and destined to be a classic.

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THE BOOK OF GUTSY WOMEN
Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton
Cover of THE BOOK OF GUTSY WOMEN

THE BOOK OF GUTSY WOMEN

by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton · Simon & Schuster

5 wks on list

Now an eight-part docuseries on Apple TV+ Hillary Rodham Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, share the stories of the gutsy women who have inspired them—women with the courage to stand up to the status quo, ask hard questions, and get the job done. She couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old. “Go ahead, ask your question,” her father urged, nudging her forward. She smiled shyly and said, “You’re my hero. Who’s yours?” Many people—especially girls—have asked us that same question over the years. It’s one of our favorite topics. HILLARY: Growing up, I knew hardly any women who worked outside the home. So I looked to my mother, my teachers, and the pages of Life magazine for inspiration. After learning that Amelia Earhart kept a scrapbook with newspaper articles about successful women in male-dominated jobs, I started a scrapbook of my own. Long after I stopped clipping articles, I continued to seek out stories of women who seemed to be redefining what was possible. CHELSEA: This book is the continuation of a conversation the two of us have been having since I was little. For me, too, my mom was a hero; so were my grandmothers. My early teachers were also women. But I grew up in a world very different from theirs. My pediatrician was a woman, and so was the first mayor of Little Rock who I remember from my childhood. Most of my close friends’ moms worked outside the home as nurses, doctors, teachers, professors, and in business. And women were going into space and breaking records here on Earth. Ensuring the rights and opportunities of women and girls remains a big piece of the unfinished business of the twenty-first century. While there’s a lot of work to do, we know that throughout history and around the globe women have overcome the toughest resistance imaginable to win victories that have made progress possible for all of us. That is the achievement of each of the women in this book. So how did they do it? The answers are as unique as the women themselves. Civil rights activist Dorothy Height, LGBTQ trailblazer Edie Windsor, and swimmer Diana Nyad kept pushing forward, no matter what. Writers like Rachel Carson and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie named something no one had dared talk about before. Historian Mary Beard used wit to open doors that were once closed, and Wangari Maathai, who sparked a movement to plant trees, understood the power of role modeling. Harriet Tubman and Malala Yousafzai looked fear in the face and persevered. Nearly every single one of these women was fiercely optimistic—they had faith that their actions could make a difference. And they were right. To us, they are all gutsy women—leaders with the courage to stand up to the status quo, ask hard questions, and get the job done. So in the moments when the long haul seems awfully long, we hope you will draw strength from these stories. We do. Because if history shows one thing, it’s that the world needs gutsy women.

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GUILTY BY REASON OF INSANITY
David Limbaugh
Cover of GUILTY BY REASON OF INSANITY

GUILTY BY REASON OF INSANITY

by David Limbaugh · Regnery

1 wks on list

"Today’s Democrats are pushing policies that are simply insane, and David Limbaugh proves it in his terriffic, and tremendously important, new book, Guilty by Reason of Insanity." — MARK LEVIN "Few pundits can match David Limbaugh for research, depth of knowledge, and political insight, and in this book, perhaps his best political book, he shows how the Democrat Party has completely lost its mind." — SEAN HANNITY The left has truly lost its mind. The party out of power used to be “the loyal opposition.” No longer. Now it’s “the Resistance.” The left, abandoning any pretense of fairness and decency, has declared political war on President Trump. Waged by a stunningly broad array of militants—the Democratic Party, countless left-wing interest groups, radical academics, the liberal mainstream media, Antifa shock troops, Hollywood, and the tech oligarchs—this political war is aimed not only at conservative ideas but also at Trump supporters, even teenagers wearing MAGA hats. In his shocking new book, Guilty by Reason of Insanity, national #1 bestselling author David Limbaugh explains how the left lost its mind—and the threat it now poses to us all. No book you read this year could be more important.

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THE UNITED STATES OF TRUMP
Bill O'Reilly
Cover of THE UNITED STATES OF TRUMP

THE UNITED STATES OF TRUMP

by Bill O'Reilly · Holt

6 wks on list

A rare, insider’s look at the life of Donald Trump from Bill O'Reilly, the bestselling author of the Killing series, based on exclusive interview material and deep research Readers around the world have been enthralled by journalist and New York Times bestselling author Bill O’Reilly’s Killing series—riveting works of nonfiction that explore the most famous events in history. Now, O’Reilly turns his razor-sharp observations to his most compelling subject thus far—President Donald J. Trump. In this thrilling narrative, O’Reilly blends primary, never-before-released interview material with a history that recounts Trump’s childhood and family and the factors from his life and career that forged the worldview that the president of the United States has taken to the White House. Not a partisan pro-Trump or anti-Trump book, this is an up-to-the-minute, intimate view of the man and his sphere of influence—of “how Donald Trump’s view of America was formed, and how it has changed since becoming the most powerful person in the world”— from a writer who has known the president for thirty years. This is an unprecedented, gripping account of the life of a sitting president as he makes history. As the author will tell you, “If you want some insight into the most unlikely political phenomenon of our lifetimes, you’ll get it here.”

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EDISON
Edmund Morris
Cover of EDISON

EDISON

by Edmund Morris · Random House

1 wks on list

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edmund Morris comes a revelatory new biography of Thomas Alva Edison, the most prolific genius in American history. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews Although Thomas Alva Edison was the most famous American of his time, and remains an international name today, he is mostly remembered only for the gift of universal electric light. His invention of the first practical incandescent lamp 140 years ago so dazzled the world—already reeling from his invention of the phonograph and dozens of other revolutionary devices—that it cast a shadow over his later achievements. In all, this near-deaf genius (“I haven’t heard a bird sing since I was twelve years old”) patented 1,093 inventions, not including others, such as the X-ray fluoroscope, that he left unlicensed for the benefit of medicine. One of the achievements of this staggering new biography, the first major life of Edison in more than twenty years, is that it portrays the unknown Edison—the philosopher, the futurist, the chemist, the botanist, the wartime defense adviser, the founder of nearly 250 companies—as fully as it deconstructs the Edison of mythological memory. Edmund Morris, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, brings to the task all the interpretive acuity and literary elegance that distinguished his previous biographies of Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and Ludwig van Beethoven. A trained musician, Morris is especially well equipped to recount Edison’s fifty-year obsession with recording technology and his pioneering advances in the synchronization of movies and sound. Morris sweeps aside conspiratorial theories positing an enmity between Edison and Nikola Tesla and presents proof of their mutually admiring, if wary, relationship. Enlightened by seven years of research among the five million pages of original documents preserved in Edison’s huge laboratory at West Orange, New Jersey, and privileged access to family papers still held in trust, Morris is also able to bring his subject to life on the page—the adored yet autocratic and often neglectful husband of two wives and father of six children. If the great man who emerges from it is less a sentimental hero than an overwhelming force of nature, driven onward by compulsive creativity, then Edison is at last getting his biographical due.

Historical bestseller data sourced from the New York Times Book Review, archived by Hawes Publications.