Hardcover Nonfiction

by Salena Zito · Center Street

"Salena Zito…. She understands you people and me better than we do.” -- President Donald J. Trump From the acclaimed journalist standing only a few feet away from the stage when the gunshots began is this gripping first-hand account of the near assassination of Donald Trump – and the inside story of Trump’s heartland-fueled victory. That day in Butler, had the wind gusted less, had Trump’s head turned in a slightly different direction, or had the adrenaline-fueled heart of the shooter beat slower, America would have been plunged into chaos, possibly even civil war. As a local reporter with deep ties to the area, Salena Zito had been invited by the president to interview him at the Butler Farm Show Grounds. She was standing only four feet away from the presidential podium when the bullets started to fly. A campaign staffer tackled her to the ground. Throughout it all, Salena never stopped reporting. She spoke by phone to Trump several times in the immediate aftermath and was granted access to community members, rally participants, family members and local law enforcement officials. “I rarely look away from the crowd,” Trump told her in one of several of those conversations. “Had I not done that in that moment, well, we would not be talking today, would we?” Known for her on-the-ground reporting on populism and rural America, Salena zooms out to tell the fascinating story of the battle for America’s heartland and the issues that actually motivate voters. To understand how and why Trump won the 2024 election, you have to understand places like Butler. Big cities like Los Angeles, New York and D.C. don’t decide who wins election cycles, but people in places like Butler, Pennsylvania sure do. President Trump gave the author extraordinary access for this book, including to his top aides, to his running mate JD Vance, to billionaire supporter Elon Musk, and even his security detail. There are moments that define America. The late afternoon hours of July 13, 2024 was one of them. This book is a narrative of that fateful day, the people of the heartland and the untold story of how the president found his way back into the heart of the electorate.

by Christine Brennan · Scribner

New York Times Bestseller! An electrifying portrait of sports phenomenon Caitlin Clark, whose record-breaking rise from NCAA women’s basketball to the WNBA has captivated the nation—by award-winning journalist Christine Brennan, one of the most respected voices in women’s sports. America has never seen an athlete like Caitlin Clark. With her famous logo threes, viral highlights, and massive fan following, she has redefined women’s basketball and inspired a generation of fans. In On Her Game, Brennan delivers an intimate and deeply reported Caitlin Clark biography, drawn from dozens of interviews and behind-the-scenes access. Tracing her journey from the University of Iowa to the Indiana Fever, Brennan explores Clark’s formative years, her record-setting college career—where she scored more points than any woman or man in major college basketball history—and her controversial Olympic snub by USA Basketball. Along the way, Brennan covers key moments shaping the landscape: charter flights for WNBA players amid security concerns, national media pressure, and the tensions Clark’s success stirred in a league still reckoning with issues of race, equity, and visibility. The 2024 WNBA season was a turning point. One of the league’s most talented rookies, Clark packed arenas coast to coast, signing autographs for girls, speaking with poise under pressure, and igniting a new era of attention for women athletes. Her arrival has drawn comparisons to sports legends like Serena Williams, Sue Bird, and Diana Taurasi—but Clark is writing her own chapter. Coming just over fifty years after Title IX, On Her Game is more than a sports biography. It’s a celebration of female athlete role models, a look at the GOAT debate in women’s basketball, and an inspiring story about how one woman changed the game—and how a country fell in love with her.

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 Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf · Penguin Press

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'A well-paced, thorough and often (darkly) humorous account of the two-year campaign season that began when Donald Trump announced he was running for president again . . . Thrilling.' New York Times The most definitive, deeply researched and authoritative account of the most tumultuous election in US history. In 2024, Donald Trump made a political comeback on a scale that stunned the world. How did the first US president to become a convicted felon regain control of the White House? And at what cost? Here, three award-winning reporters bring us the definitive and explosive account of how Trump and his advisers overcame a dozen primary challengers, four indictments, two assassination attempts, and his own past mistakes to defeat the Democrats. It is a damning and revelatory inside account of an election that tested American democracy – and which has already transformed the future of the free world. ‘The most well-sourced and judiciously written reporting from the campaign that you will find . . . 2024 is the best book of its kind I have read.’ Philip Collins, Observer ‘Charts the delusions of the main players and the disastrous debate that reset the campaign . . . 2024 is a book for these times: aptly named deeply sourced.’ Lloyd Green, Guardian ‘By speaking to insiders on all sides of the debate, it lifts the lid on the near misses, fatal errors and lucky saves that led to the situation today.’ Katy Balls, The Times

by Johnny Joey Jones · Fox News

A #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER First responders run toward things the rest of us run away from. What makes a person want to become a first responder? As in his bestselling book Unbroken Bonds of Battle, retired Marine Johnny Joey Jones didn’t have to look further than his closest family and friends to find frontline defenders—some he’s known since childhood, some he served with, and others have become friends and mentors. In this book, you will meet: A game warden whose “miracle K-9” helped him save 22 lives in search and rescue missions A firefighter who chose the job over a lucrative family career A police officer who died placing his squad car between civilians and a drunk driver going the wrong way on the highway—and his sister, who responded by becoming a deputy A border patrol medic working to save lives in the desert heat A SWAT sniper describing how to handle a high-speed chase One thing all these people have in common: none of them wants to be called a hero. Their inspiring and unique stories are almost always overlooked when it comes to patriotic recognition of service and sacrifice. With vivid storytelling, Jones brings to life dramatic rescues, heart-wrenching losses, and awe-inspiring acts of courage. He delves deep into what drives these brave men and women, offering an intimate look at their personal and professional lives. Behind the Badge will leave you moved, inspired, and reminded of the true meaning of heroism—because these first responders are hometown heroes at heart.

by Ron Chernow · Penguin Press

The #1 New York Times Bestseller • One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2025• A Washington Post and New York Times Notable Book • Named a Best Book of 2025 by TIME, The Guardian, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, and Kirkus Reviews “Comprehensive, enthralling . . . Mark Twain flows like the Mississippi River, its prose propelled by Mark Twain’s own exuberance.” —The Boston Globe “Chernow writes with such ease and clarity . . . For all its length and detail, [Mark Twain] is deeply absorbing throughout.” — The Washington Post Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow illuminates the full, fascinating, and complex life of the writer long celebrated as the father of American literature, Mark Twain Before he was Mark Twain, he was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Born in 1835, the man who would become America’s first, and most influential, literary celebrity spent his childhood dreaming of piloting steamboats on the Mississippi. But when the Civil War interrupted his career on the river, the young Twain went west to the Nevada Territory and accepted a job at a local newspaper, writing dispatches that attracted attention for their brashness and humor. It wasn’t long before the former steamboat pilot from Missouri was recognized across the country for his literary brilliance, writing under a pen name that he would immortalize. In this richly nuanced portrait of Mark Twain, acclaimed biographer Ron Chernow brings his considerable powers to bear on a man who shamelessly sought fame and fortune, and crafted his persona with meticulous care. After establishing himself as a journalist, satirist, and lecturer, he eventually settled in Hartford with his wife and three daughters, where he went on to write The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He threw himself into the hurly-burly of American culture, and emerged as the nation’s most notable political pundit. At the same time, his madcap business ventures eventually bankrupted him; to economize, Twain and his family spent nine eventful years in exile in Europe. He suffered the death of his wife and two daughters, and the last stage of his life was marked by heartache, political crusades, and eccentric behavior that sometimes obscured darker forces at play. Drawing on Twain’s bountiful archives, including thousands of letters and hundreds of unpublished manuscripts, Chernow masterfully captures the man whose career reflected the country’s westward expansion, industrialization, and foreign wars, and who was the most important white author of his generation to grapple so fully with the legacy of slavery. Today, more than one hundred years after his death, Twain’s writing continues to be read, debated, and quoted. In this brilliant work of scholarship, a moving tribute to the writer’s talent and humanity, Chernow reveals the magnificent and often maddening life of one of the most original characters in American history.

by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson · Avid Reader

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND SCHRODERS BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2025** THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND OBAMA BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A must-read for progressives' BARACK OBAMA 'Downing Street's current hot read' ANDREW MARR 'Forceful, quick-moving, important' FINANCIAL TIMES The threat to liberal democracy isn't just autocrats - it's a lack of effective action by so-called progressives. We have the means to build an equitable world without hunger, fuelled by clean energy. Instead, we have a politics driven by scarcity, lives defined by unaffordability and public institutions that no longer deliver on big ideas. It's time for change. Bestselling authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson have spent decades analysing the political, economic and cultural forces that have led us here. In this once-in-a-generation intervention, they unpick the barriers to progress and show how we can, and must, shift the political agenda to one that not only protects and preserves, but also builds. From healthcare to housing, infrastructure to innovation, they lay out a path to a future defined not by fear, but by abundance.

by Peter Attia with Bill Gifford · Harmony

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OVER TWO MILLION COPIES SOLD • A groundbreaking manifesto on living better and longer that challenges the conventional medical thinking on aging and reveals a new approach to preventing chronic disease and extending long-term health, from a visionary physician and leading longevity expert “One of the most important books you’ll ever read.”—Steven D. Levitt, New York Times bestselling author of Freakonomics AN ECONOMIST AND BLOOMBERG BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Wouldn’t you like to live longer? And better? In this operating manual for longevity, Dr. Peter Attia draws on the latest science to deliver innovative nutritional interventions, techniques for optimizing exercise and sleep, and tools for addressing emotional and mental health. For all its successes, mainstream medicine has failed to make much progress against the diseases of aging that kill most people: heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and type 2 diabetes. Too often, it intervenes with treatments too late to help, prolonging lifespan at the expense of healthspan, or quality of life. Dr. Attia believes we must replace this outdated framework with a personalized, proactive strategy for longevity, one where we take action now, rather than waiting. This is not “biohacking,” it’s science: a well-founded strategic and tactical approach to extending lifespan while also improving our physical, cognitive, and emotional health. Dr. Attia’s aim is less to tell you what to do and more to help you learn how to think about long-term health, in order to create the best plan for you as an individual. In Outlive, readers will discover: • Why the cholesterol test at your annual physical doesn’t tell you enough about your actual risk of dying from a heart attack. • That you may already suffer from an extremely common yet underdiagnosed liver condition that could be a precursor to the chronic diseases of aging. • Why exercise is the most potent pro-longevity “drug”—and how to begin training for the “Centenarian Decathlon.” • Why you should forget about diets, and focus instead on nutritional biochemistry, using technology and data to personalize your eating pattern. • Why striving for physical health and longevity, but ignoring emotional health, could be the ultimate curse of all. Aging and longevity are far more malleable than we think; our fate is not set in stone. With the right roadmap, you can plot a different path for your life, one that lets you outlive your genes to make each decade better than the one before.

by Sophie Elmhirst · Riverhead

THE RUNAWAY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER & ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2025 A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2025 ALSO NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2025 BY NPR, VOGUE, TIME MAGAZINE, THE NEW YORKER, AND MORE “This is nonfiction that reads like fiction – the best kind. Elmhirst’s retelling is a triumph, second only to the seemingly impossible feat of Maurice and Maralyn themselves. You won’t be able to put it down.” – USA Today “Remarkable… I found myself, alternately, holding my breath as I read at top speed, wandering rooms in search of someone to read aloud to, and placing the book facedown, arrested by quiet statements that left me reeling with their depth.” – The New York Times “Such an emotionally vivid portrait of a couple in isolation that I was shocked it wasn’t fiction. How could a writer get so deeply into the minds of two real people in such extraordinary circumstances? … So brilliantly depicted.” – Elle “A beautiful meditation on endurance, codependence, and the power of love. A dazzling book.” – Patrick Radden Keefe “An enthralling, engrossing story of survival and the resilience of the human spirit.” —Bill Bryson An instant New York Times bestseller, this is the electrifying true story of a young couple shipwrecked at sea: a mind-blowing tale of obsession, survival, and partnership stretched to its limits. Maurice and Maralyn make an odd couple. He’s a loner, awkward and obsessive; she’s charismatic and ambitious. But they share a horror of wasting their lives. And they dream – as we all dream – of running away from it all. What if they quit their jobs, sold their house, bought a boat, and sailed away? Most of us begin and end with the daydream. But in June 1972, Maurice and Maralyn set sail. For nearly a year all went well, until deep in the Pacific, a breaching whale knocked a hole in their boat and it sank beneath the waves. What ensues is a jaw-dropping fight to survive in the wild ocean, with little hope of rescue. Alone together for months in a tiny rubber raft, starving and exhausted, Maurice and Maralyn have to find not only ways to stay alive but ways to get along, as their inner demons emerge and their marriage is put to the greatest of tests. Although they could run away from the world, they can’t run away from themselves. Taut, propulsive, and dazzling, A Marriage at Sea pairs an adrenaline-fueled high seas adventure with a gutting love story that asks why we love difficult people, and who we become under the most extreme conditions imaginable.

by Michael Harriot · Dey Street

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINEE * AMAZON'S TOP 20 HISTORY BOOKS OF 2023 * B&N BEST OF EDUCATIONAL HISTORY * THE ROOT'S BEST BOOKS OF 2023 * CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023 From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael Harriot, a searingly smart and bitingly hilarious retelling of American history that corrects the record and showcases the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans. America’s backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our collective memory. It is the story of the pilgrims on the Mayflower building a new nation. It is George Washington’s cherry tree and Abraham Lincoln’s log cabin. It is the fantastic tale of slaves that spontaneously teleported themselves here with nothing but strong backs and negro spirituals. It is a sugarcoated legend based on an almost true story. It should come as no surprise that the dominant narrative of American history is blighted with errors and oversights—after all, history books were written by white men with their perspectives at the forefront. It could even be said that the devaluation and erasure of the Black experience is as American as apple pie. In Black AF History, Michael Harriot presents a more accurate version of American history. Combining unapologetically provocative storytelling with meticulous research based on primary sources as well as the work of pioneering Black historians, scholars, and journalists, Harriot removes the white sugarcoating from the American story, placing Black people squarely at the center. With incisive wit, Harriot speaks hilarious truth to oppressive power, subverting conventional historical narratives with little-known stories about the experiences of Black Americans. From the African Americans who arrived before 1619 to the unenslavable bandit who inspired America’s first police force, this long overdue corrective provides a revealing look into our past that is as urgent as it is necessary. For too long, we have refused to acknowledge that American history is white history. Not this one. This history is Black AF.

by John Green · Crash Course

Instant #1 New York Times bestseller! • #1 Washington Post bestseller! • #1 Indie Bestseller! • USA Today Bestseller! John Green, acclaimed author and passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest infectious disease. “The real magic of Green’s writing is the deeply considerate, human touch that goes into every word.” –The Associated Press ″Told with the intelligence, wit, and tragedy that have become hallmarks of the author’s work.... This is the story of us.” –Slate “Earnest and empathetic.” –The New York Times Tuberculosis has been entwined with hu­manity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is seen as a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it. In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. John be­came fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequi­ties that allow this curable, preventable infec­tious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million people every year. In Everything Is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world—and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.

by Erik Larson · Crown

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War in this “riveting reexamination of a nation in tumult” (Los Angeles Times). “A feast of historical insight and narrative verve . . . This is Erik Larson at his best, enlivening even a thrice-told tale into an irresistible thriller.”—The Wall Street Journal A PARADE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter. Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.” At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between them. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous secretary of state, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans. Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.

by Yuval Noah Harari · Random House

‘If you read only one non-fiction book this year, consider this one’ TOM HANKS ‘If there’s one book that I would urge everyone to read – it is Nexus’ STEPHEN FRY The mind-blowing story of how information networks – from the stone age to AI - have shaped our world from the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of Sapiens Stories brought us together. Books spread our ideas – and our mythologies. The internet promised infinite knowledge. The algorithm learned our secrets – and then turned us against each other. What will AI do? Nexus is the thrilling account of how we arrived at this moment, and the urgent choices we must now make to survive – and to thrive. **NOW FEATURING EXCLUSIVE NEW MATERIAL FOR PAPERBACK AND EBOOK** 'One of the most remarkable intellects of our generation' RORY STEWART 'A wake-up call in the gentlest, most urgent way' YOTAM OTTOLENGHI 'This deeply important book comes at a critical time as we all think through the implications of AI’ MUSTAFA SULEYMAN 'A super narrative writer' GUARDIAN ‘[Harari] sticks the world together in a gleaming shape that inspires and excites' TELEGRAPH

by Paul Kalanithi · Random House

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question, What makes a life worth living? “Unmissable . . . Finishing this book and then forgetting about it is simply not an option.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, People, NPR, The Washington Post, Slate, Harper’s Bazaar, Time Out New York, Publishers Weekly, BookPage At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality. What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir. Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both. Finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Books for a Better Life Award in Inspirational Memoir

by Nate Bargatze · Grand Central

AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A #1 TORONTO STAR BESTSELLER AN INSTANT USA TODAY AND INDIE BESTSELLER A GLOBE AND MAIL BESTSELLER From one of the hottest stand-up comedians, Nate Bargatze brings his everyman comedy to the page in this hilarious collection of personal stories, opinions, and confessions. Nate Bargatze used to be a genius. That is, until the summer after seventh grade when he slipped, fell off a cliff, hit his head on a rock, and “my skull got, like, dented or something.” Before this accident, he dreamed of being “an electric engineer, or a doctor that does brain stuff, or a math teacher who teaches the hardest math on earth.” Afterwards, all he could do was stand-up comedy.* But the “brain stuff” industry’s loss is everyone else’s gain because Nate went on to become one of today’s top-grossing comedians, breaking both attendance and streaming records. In his highly anticipated first book, Nate talks about life as a non-genius. From stories about his first car (named Old Blue, a clunky Mazda with a tennis ball stick shift) and his travels as a Southerner (Northerners like to ask if he believes in dinosaurs), to tales of his first apartment where he was almost devoured by rats and his many debates with his wife over his chores, his diet, and even his definition of “shopping.” He also reflects on such heady topics as his irrational passion for Vandy football and the mysterious origins of sushi (how can a California roll come from old-time Japan?). BIG DUMB EYES is full of heart. It will make readers laugh out loud and nod in recognition, but it probably won’t make them think too much. *Nate’s family disputes this entire story.