Hardcover Nonfiction

by Bob Woodward · Simon & Schuster

Chosen by WATERSTONES as one of their BEST POLITICS BOOKS of 2024 Two-time Pulitzer prize winner Bob Woodward tells the revelatory, behind-the-scenes story of three wars – Ukraine, the Middle East and the struggle for the American presidency. War is an intimate and sweeping account of one of the most tumultuous periods in presidential politics and American history. We see President Joe Biden and his top advisers in tense conversations with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. We also see Donald Trump, conducting a shadow presidency and seeking to regain political power. With unrivalled, inside-the-room reporting, Woodward shows President Biden’s approach to managing the war in Ukraine, the most significant land war in Europe since World War II, and his tortured path to contain the bloody Middle East conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas. Woodward reveals the extraordinary complexity and consequence of wartime back-channel diplomacy and decision-making to deter the use of nuclear weapons and a rapid slide into World War III. The raw cage-fight of politics accelerates as Americans prepare to vote in 2024, starting between President Biden and Trump, and ending with the unexpected elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for president. War provides an unvarnished examination of the vice president as she tries to embrace the Biden legacy and policies while beginning to chart a path of her own as a presidential candidate. Woodward’s reporting once again sets the standard for journalism at its most authoritative and illuminating.

by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey · Doubleday

In his first work of nonfiction since The Innocent Man, #1 bestselling author John Grisham and Centurion Ministries Founder Jim McCloskey share ten harrowing true stories of wrongful convictions. Impeccably researched and grippingly told, Framed offers an inside look at the injustice faced by the victims of the United States criminal justice system. A fundamental principle of our legal system is a presumption of innocence, but once someone has been found guilty there is very little room to prove doubt. Framed shares ten true stories of men who were innocent but found guilty and forced to sacrifice friends, families, wives, and decades of their lives to prison while the guilty parties remained free. In each of the stories, John Grisham and Jim McCloskey recount the dramatic hard-fought battles for exoneration. They take a close look at what leads to wrongful convictions in the first place, and the racism, misconduct, flawed testimony, and the corrupt court system that can make them so hard to reverse. Told with page-turning suspense as only John Grisham can deliver, Framed is the story of overcoming adversity when the battle already seems lost, and the deck is stacked against you.

by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough · Random House

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • Born to an American myth and raised in the wilds of Graceland, Lisa Marie Presley tells her whole story for the first time in this raw, riveting, one-of-a-kind memoir faithfully completed by her daughter, Riley Keough. A PEOPLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR In 2022, Lisa Marie Presley asked her daughter to help finally finish her long-gestating memoir. A month later, Lisa Marie was dead, and the world would never know her story in her own words, never know the passionate, joyful, caring, and complicated woman that Riley loved and now grieved. Riley got the tapes that her mother had recorded for the book, lay in her bed, and listened as Lisa Marie told story after story about smashing golf carts together in the yards of Graceland, about the unconditional love she felt from her father, about being upstairs, just the two of them. About getting dragged screaming out of the bathroom as she ran toward his body on the floor. About living in Los Angeles with her mother, getting sent to school after school, always kicked out, always in trouble. About her singular, lifelong relationship with Danny Keough, about being married to Michael Jackson, what they had in common. About motherhood. About deep addiction. About ever-present grief. Riley knew she had to fulfill her mother’s wish to reveal these memories, incandescent and painful, to the world. To make her mother known. This extraordinary book is written in both Lisa Marie’s and Riley’s voices, a mother and daughter communicating—from this world to the one beyond—as they try to heal each other. Profoundly moving and deeply revealing, From Here to the Great Unknown is a book like no other—the last words of the only child of an American icon.

by Ta-Nehisi Coates · One World

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The renowned author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell—and the ones we don’t—shape our realities. “Ta-Nehisi Coates always writes with a purpose. . . . These pilgrimages, for him, help ground his powerful writing about race.”—Associated Press “Coates exhorts readers, including students, parents, educators, and journalists, to challenge conventional narratives that can be used to justify ethnic cleansing or camouflage racist policing. Brilliant and timely.”—Booklist (starred review) Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set out to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell’s classic “Politics and the English Language,” but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories—our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking—expose and distort our realities. In the first of the book’s three intertwining essays, Coates, on his first trip to Africa, finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythic kingdom in his mind. Then he takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on his own book’s banning, but also explores the larger backlash to the nation’s recent reckoning with history and the deeply rooted American mythology so visible in that city—a capital of the Confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares. Finally, in the book’s longest section, Coates travels to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground. Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.

by Melania Trump · Skyhorse

Melania is a compelling and inspirational memoir that offers a glimpse into the life of a remarkable woman who has navigated challenges with grace and determination. In her memoir, Melania reflects on her Slovenian childhood, the pivotal moments that led her to the world of high fashion in Europe and New York, and the serendipitous meeting with Donald Trump, a chance encounter that forever changed the course of her life. Melania opens up about their courtship, life in the spotlight, and experiencing the joy of motherhood. She shares behind-the-scenes stories from her time in the White House, shedding light on her advocacy work and the causes close to her heart. Melania offers an unprecedented look into her time as a First Lady who was born outside the United States -- a role she embraced with honor and dedication. It brings readers into her world and presents an in-depth account of a woman who has led a remarkable life on her own terms. Melania Trump's story is one of resilience and independence, showcasing her strength and unwavering commitment to her true self.

by Ina Garten · Crown

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In her long-awaited memoir, Ina Garten—aka the Barefoot Contessa, author of thirteen bestselling cookbooks, beloved Food Network personality, Instagram sensation, and cultural icon—shares her personal story with readers hungry for a seat at her table. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Time, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Town & Country Here, for the first time, Ina Garten presents an intimate, entertaining, and inspiring account of her remarkable journey. Ina’s gift is to make everything look easy, yet all her accomplishments have been the result of hard work, audacious choices, and exquisite attention to detail. In her unmistakable voice (no one tells a story like Ina), she brings her past and her process to life in a high-spirited and no-holds-barred memoir that chronicles decades of personal challenges, adventures (and misadventures) and unexpected career twists, all delivered with her signature combination of playfulness and purpose. From a difficult childhood to meeting the love of her life, Jeffrey, and marrying him while still in college, from a boring bureaucratic job in Washington, D.C., to answering an ad for a specialty food store in the Hamptons, from the owner of one Barefoot Contessa shop to author of bestselling cookbooks and celebrated television host, Ina has blazed her own trail and, in the meantime, taught millions of people how to cook and entertain. Now, she invites them to come closer to experience her story in vivid detail and to share the important life lessons she learned along the way: do what you love because if you love it you’ll be really good at it, swing for the fences, and always Be Ready When the Luck Happens.

by Malcolm Gladwell · Little, Brown

Twenty-five years after the publication of his groundbreaking first book, Malcolm Gladwell returns with a brand new volume that reframes the lessons of The Tipping Point in a startling and revealing light 'Addictive... fascinating and provocative' Guardian 'Malcolm Gladwell explores the watershed moments that define this new age of societal upheaval... with curiosity and humor' TIME Magazine 'Gladwell is a great storyteller with a contagious sense of curiosity' The Economist 'The match that so elegantly graced the cover of The Tipping Point is now on fire' Wall Street Journal Why in the late 1980s and early '90s did Los Angeles become the bank robbery capital of the world? What is the magic third and what does it have to do with racial equity? What do big cats and clusters of teen suicide have in common? These are just some of the questions Malcolm Gladwell addresses in this new work, which revisits the phenomenon of epidemics and examines the ways in which we have learned to tinker with and manipulate the spread of ideas, viruses, and trends-sometimes with great success, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Gladwell shows that - whether in neighbourhoods, schools, zoos, or conference rooms-today's epidemics are no longer singular occurrences, but turbocharged versions of their earlier counterparts. Tipping points, he explains, play a much bigger role in our lives now than ever before. With this provocative and fascinating new book, we can meet them in novel and innovative ways.

by Stanley Tucci · Gallery

From an award-winning actor and New York times bestselling author comes a memoir that chronicles a year's worth of meals.

by Jonathan Haidt · Penguin Press

THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A Wall Street Journal Top 10 Book of 2024 • A New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book • One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2024 • A TIME 100 Must-Read Book of 2024 • Named a Best Book of 2024 by the Economist, the New York Post, and Town & Country • The Goodreads Choice Award Nonfiction Book of the Year • Finalist for the PEN Literary Awards A must-read for all parents: the generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood. “With tenacity and candor, Haidt lays out the consequences that have come with allowing kids to drift further into the virtual world . . . While also offering suggestions and solutions that could help protect a new generation of kids.” —Shannon Carlin, TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2024 After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why? In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt (pronounced "height") lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies. Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems” that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood. Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.

by Al Pacino · Penguin Press

The Instant New York Times Bestseller • One of People Magazine's Top 10 Books of the Year "The rare celebrity memoir that's also a literary read. As funny as it is reflective, it shares stories behind Pacino's hardscrabble upbringing, classic films and journey to icon status." —People Magazine From one of the most iconic actors in the history of film, an astonishingly revelatory account of a creative life in full To the wider world, Al Pacino exploded onto the scene like a supernova. He landed his first leading role, in The Panic in Needle Park, in 1971, and by 1975, he had starred in four movies—The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon—that were not just successes but landmarks in the history of film. Those performances became legendary and changed his life forever. Not since Marlon Brando and James Dean in the late 1950s had an actor landed in the culture with such force. But Pacino was in his midthirties by then, and had already lived several lives. A fixture of avant-garde theater in New York, he had led a bohemian existence, working odd jobs to support his craft. He was raised by a fiercely loving but mentally unwell mother and her parents after his father left them when he was young, but in a real sense he was raised by the streets of the South Bronx, and by the troop of buccaneering young friends he ran with, whose spirits never left him. After a teacher recognized his acting promise and pushed him toward New York’s fabled High School of Performing Arts, the die was cast. In good times and bad, in poverty and in wealth and in poverty again, through pain and joy, acting was his lifeline, its community his tribe. Sonny Boy is the memoir of a man who has nothing left to fear and nothing left to hide. All the great roles, the essential collaborations, and the important relationships are given their full due, as is the vexed marriage between creativity and commerce at the highest levels. The book’s golden thread, however, is the spirit of love and purpose. Love can fail you, and you can be defeated in your ambitions—the same lights that shine bright can also dim. But Al Pacino was lucky enough to fall deeply in love with a craft before he had the foggiest idea of any of its earthly rewards, and he never fell out of love. That has made all the difference.

by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard · St. Martin's

Instant #1 New York Times and USA Today nonfiction bestseller! Every American president, from Washington to Biden: Their lives, policies, foibles, and legacies, assessed with clear-eyed authority and wit. Authors of the acclaimed Killing books, the #1 bestselling narrative history series in the world, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard begin a new direction with Confronting the Presidents. From Washington to Jefferson, Lincoln to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Kennedy to Nixon, Reagan to Obama and Biden, the 45 United States presidents have left lasting impacts on our nation. Some of their legacies continue today, some are justly forgotten, and some have changed as America has changed. Whether famous, infamous, or obscure, all the presidents shaped our nation in unexpected ways. The authors' extensive research has uncovered never before seen historical facts based on private correspondence and newly discovered documentation, such as George Washington's troubled relationship with his mother. In Confronting the Presidents, O’Reilly and Dugard present 45 wonderfully entertaining and insightful portraits of each president, with no-spin commentary on their achievements—or lack thereof. Who best served America, and who undermined the founding ideals? Who were the first ladies, and what were their surprising roles in making history? Which presidents were the best, which the worst, and which didn’t have much impact? How do decisions made in one era, under the pressure of particular circumstances, still resonate today? And what do presidents like to eat, drink, and do when they aren’t working—or even sometimes when they are? These and many more questions are answered in each fascinating chapter of Confronting the Presidents. Written with O’Reilly and Dugard’s signature style, authority, and eye for telling detail, Confronting the Presidents will delight all readers of history, politics, and current affairs, especially during the 2024 election season.

by Hannah Shaw and and Andrew Marttila · Plume

*An Instant New York Times Bestseller* Hannah “Kitten Lady” Shaw and professional cat photographer Andrew Marttila journey to thirty countries to bring you hundreds of photos and stories of cats from every corner of the world. Wife and husband team Hannah Shaw and Andrew Marttila have made cats their lives' work: they rescue and rehabilitate neonatal kittens, educate the public on cat and kitten care, and capture our feline friends' unique personalities through writing and photography. Now, in the project of their dreams, they've taken their passion for cats global. In Cats of the World, Shaw and Marttila travel across thirty countries to explore feline welfare and cat culture around the globe, documenting their travels with stunning photos and stories from each location. Journey to England's charming pubs and candle-lit cathedrals, Chile’s vibrant produce markets and colorful hillsides, Türkiye’s spice bazaars and ancient ruins, South Africa's bustling streets and lush mountains, and so many places in between with Shaw and Marttila as they learn from cats—and the people who love them most—that compassion is truly a universal language.

by Marty Makary · Bloomsbury

by Allie Beth Stuckey · Sentinel

A sharp Christian voice makes a bold argument: when politics are driven by empathy rather than truth, innocent people pay the price. We are told that empathy is the highest virtue—the key to being a good person. Is that true? Or has “empathy,” like so many other words of our day—“tolerance,” “justice,” “acceptance”—been hijacked by bad actors who exploit compassion for their own political ends? In Toxic Empathy, Allie Beth Stuckey argues that empathy has become a tool of manipulation by left-wing activists who bully people into believing that they must adopt progressive positions to be loving. She explores the five most heated issues through which toxic empathy is deployed: abortion, gender, sexuality, immigration, and social justice. Progressives use catchy mantras to present their perspective as empathetic, like “abortion is healthcare,” “love is love,” or “no human being is illegal,” but in each case, they ignore the other side of the moral equation. For example, abortion is presented as compassionate for the woman, but what about the human life the procedure kills? This book isn’t about killing empathy; it’s about submitting our empathy to God’s definitions of love, goodness, and justice. Stuckey exposes the logical pitfalls and moral consequences of toxic empathy, equipping Christians with research-backed, Biblical truths to dismantle the progressive lies that have permeated our culture—and our church.

by Cecilia Blomdahl · DK