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Hardcover Nonfiction

Week of October 16, 2011

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KILLING LINCOLN
Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard
Cover of KILLING LINCOLN

KILLING LINCOLN

by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard · Holt

4 wks at #1 · 1 on list

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.

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JACQUELINE KENNEDY: HISTORIC CONVERSATIONS ON LIFE WITH JOHN F. KENNEDY
Cover of JACQUELINE KENNEDY: HISTORIC CONVERSATIONS ON LIFE WITH JOHN F. KENNEDY

JACQUELINE KENNEDY: HISTORIC CONVERSATIONS ON LIFE WITH JOHN F. KENNEDY

by · Hyperion

Poco después del asesinato de John F. Kennedy, con la nación entera de luto y en un ambiente de fuerte conmoción internacional, Jacqueline Kennedy encontró la fortaleza necesaria para dejar de lado su dolor y contribuir a mantener vivo el legado de su marido. En enero de 1964 ella y su cuñado, Robert F. Kennedy, aprobaron un proyecto de historia oral que recogiera los acontecimientos más reseñables de la presidencia de Kennedy como ejemplo para las futuras generaciones. A principios de marzo la que fuera primera dama de Norteamérica se sentó junto al historiador y premio Pulitzer, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., para hablar de las aspiraciones políticas de Kennedy, los primeros años de casados, su carácter, los hábitos de lectura de JFK, sus héroes de infancia, la vida en la Casa Blanca, la revolución cubana o Bahía Cochinos, entre otros muchos temas. Aquellas cintas fueron grabadas y la información que contenía nunca se publicó. Hoy, 50 años después, y gracias al impulso de su hija Caroline salen a la luz. Jacqueline Kennedy. Conversaciones históricas sobre mi vida con John F. Kennedy es una obra de historia oral -trufada de fotografías personales e inéditas- que da voz a uno de los testigos cruciales de aquel tiempo, una mujer que por desgracia ha estado ausente en todos los libros que se han escrito sobre John F. Kennedy hasta el momento. Ahora le toca hablar a ella, a Jacqueline Kennedy. La mañana de su muerte, el 19 de mayo de 1994, The New York Times destacaba el silencio que siempre guardó sobre su pasado, es más sus años junto a Kennedy y su matrimonio fueron siempre un misterio. Estas conversaciones son un documento magistral, una lección de historia y una confesión íntima que supone el final del silencio. "Grabadas menos de cuatro meses después de la muerte de su marido, estas conversaciones suponen un regalo para la posteridad y una muestra de amor. Mis hijos y yo hemos decidido publicarlas ahora con motivo del 50 aniversario de la presidencia de mi padre. Espero que las generaciones futuras encuentren en estos recuerdos inspiración". CAROLINE KENNEDY

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CONFIDENCE MEN
Ron Suskind
Cover of CONFIDENCE MEN

CONFIDENCE MEN

by Ron Suskind · Harper/HarperCollins

2 wks on list

AcclaimedPulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind, authorof the New York Times bestselling The Way of the World, The OnePercent Doctrine, and The Price of Loyalty, gives anexplosive inside account of an Obama White House overwhelmed by the globalfinancial crisis—and the political and economic consequences still being felttoday. Readers of Michael Lewis’s The Big Short, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s GameChange, and Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Too Big toFail will be riveted by Suskind’s illuminating,in-depth investigation of the financial meltdown. Rooted in hundreds of hoursof interviews with key members of the Obama administration, including thePresident himself, Suskind’s exposé offers aneyewitness account of the most momentous events in the history of globalfinance.

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DESTINY OF THE REPUBLIC
Candice Millard
Cover of DESTINY OF THE REPUBLIC

DESTINY OF THE REPUBLIC

by Candice Millard · Doubleday

2 wks on list

The inspiration for the Netflix series Death by Lightning – now streaming! • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The extraordinary account of James Garfield's rise from poverty to the American presidency, and the dramatic history of his assassination and legacy, from the bestselling author of The River of Doubt. "Crisp, concise and revealing history.... A fresh narrative that plumbs some of the most dramatic days in U.S. presidential history." —The Washington Post James Abram Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, a renowned congressman, and a reluctant presidential candidate who took on the nation's corrupt political establishment. But four months after Garfield's inauguration in 1881, he was shot in the back by a deranged office-seeker named Charles Guiteau. Garfield survived the attack, but became the object of bitter, behind-the-scenes struggles for power—over his administration, over the nation's future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the Republic brings alive a forgotten chapter of U.S. history. Look for Candice Millard’s latest book, River of the Gods.

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THAT USED TO BE US
Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum
Cover of THAT USED TO BE US

THAT USED TO BE US

by Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum · Farrar, Straus & Giroux

4 wks on list

America is in trouble. We face four major challenges on which our future depends, and we are failing to meet them—and if we delay any longer, soon it will be too late for us to pass along the American dream to future generations. In That Used to Be Us, Thomas L. Friedman, one of our most influential columnists, and Michael Mandelbaum, one of our leading foreign policy thinkers, offer both a wake-up call and a call to collective action. They analyze the four challenges we face—globalization, the revolution in information technology, the nation's chronic deficits, and our pattern of excessive energy consumption—and spell out what we need to do now to sustain the American dream and preserve American power in the world. They explain how the end of the Cold War blinded the nation to the need to address these issues seriously, and how China's educational successes, industrial might, and technological prowess remind us of the ways in which "that used to be us." They explain how the paralysis of our political system and the erosion of key American values have made it impossible for us to carry out the policies the country urgently needs. And yet Friedman and Mandelbaum believe that the recovery of American greatness is within reach. They show how America's history, when properly understood, offers a five-part formula for prosperity that will enable us to cope successfully with the challenges we face. They offer vivid profiles of individuals who have not lost sight of the American habits of bold thought and dramatic action. They propose a clear way out of the trap into which the country has fallen, a way that includes the rediscovery of some of our most vital traditions and the creation of a new thirdparty movement to galvanize the country. That Used to Be Us is both a searching exploration of the American condition today and a rousing manifesto for American renewal.

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A STOLEN LIFE
Jaycee Dugard
Cover of A STOLEN LIFE

A STOLEN LIFE

by Jaycee Dugard · Simon & Schuster

12 wks on list

A revelatory memoir about a young woman whose life was stolen when she was kidnapped in 1991 and remained an object of captivity for 18 years.

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IN MY TIME
Dick Cheney with Liz Cheney
Cover of IN MY TIME

IN MY TIME

by Dick Cheney with Liz Cheney · Threshold Editions

5 wks on list

In this eagerly anticipated memoir, former Vice President Dick Cheney delivers an unyielding portrait of American politics over nearly forty years and shares personal reflections on his role as one of the most steadfast and influential statesmen in the history of our country. The public perception of Dick Cheney has long been something of a contradiction. He has been viewed as one of the most powerful vice presidents—secretive, even mysterious, and at the same time opinionated and unflinchingly outspoken. He has been both praised and attacked by his peers, the press, and the public. Through it all, courting only the ideals that define him, he has remained true to himself, his principles, his family, and his country. Now in an enlightening and provocative memoir, a stately page-turner with flashes of surprising humor and remarkable candor, Dick Cheney takes readers through his experiences as family man, policymaker, businessman, and politician during years that shaped our collective history. Born into a family of New Deal Democrats in Lincoln, Nebraska, Cheney was the son of a father at war and a high-spirited and resilient mother. He came of age in Casper, Wyoming, playing baseball and football and, as senior class president, courting homecoming queen Lynne Vincent, whom he later married. This all-American story took an abrupt turn when he flunked out of Yale University, signed on to build power line in the West, and started living as hard as he worked. Cheney tells the story of how he got himself back on track and began an extraordinary ascent to the heights of American public life, where he would remain for nearly four decades: * He was the youngest White House Chief of Staff, working for President Gerald Ford—the first of four chief executives he would come to know well. * He became Congressman from Wyoming and was soon a member of the congressional leadership working closely with President Ronald Reagan. * He became secretary of defense in the George H. W. Bush administration, overseeing America’s military during Operation Desert Storm and in the historic transition at the end of the Cold War. * He was CEO of Halliburton, a Fortune 500 company with projects and personnel around the globe. * He became the first vice president of the United States to serve out his term of office in the twenty-first century. Working with George W. Bush from the beginning of the global war on terror, he was—and remains—an outspoken defender of taking every step necessary to defend the nation. Eyewitness to history at the highest levels, Cheney brings to life scenes from past and present. He describes driving through the White House gates on August 9, 1974, just hours after Richard Nixon resigned, to begin work on the Ford transition; and he portrays a time of national crisis a quarter century later when, on September 11, 2001, he was in the White House bunker and conveyed orders to shoot down a hijacked airliner if it would not divert. With its unique perspective on a remarkable span of American history, In My Time will enlighten. As an intimate and personal chronicle, it will surprise, move, and inspire. Dick Cheney’s is an enduring political vision to be reckoned with and admired for its honesty, its wisdom, and its resonance. In My Time is truly the last word about an incredible political era, by a man who lived it and helped define it—with courage and without compromise.

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THE QUEST
Daniel Yergin
Cover of THE QUEST

THE QUEST

by Daniel Yergin · Penguin Press

2 wks on list

“A sprawling story richly textured with original material, quirky details and amusing anecdotes . . .” —Wall Street Journal “It is a cause for celebration that Yergin has returned with his perspective on a very different landscape . . . [I]t is impossible to think of a better introduction to the essentials of energy in the 21st century. The Quest is . . . the definitive guide to how we got here.” —The Financial Times This long-awaited successor to Daniel Yergin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Prize provides an essential, overarching narrative of global energy, the principal engine of geopolitical and economic change A master storyteller as well as a leading energy expert, Daniel Yergin continues the riveting story begun in his Pulitzer Prize–winning book, The Prize. In The Quest, Yergin shows us how energy is an engine of global political and economic change and conflict, in a story that spans the energies on which our civilization has been built and the new energies that are competing to replace them. The Quest tells the inside stories, tackles the tough questions, and reveals surprising insights about coal, electricity, and natural gas. He explains how climate change became a great issue and leads readers through the rebirth of renewable energies, energy independence, and the return of the electric car. Epic in scope and never more timely, The Quest vividly reveals the decisions, technologies, and individuals that are shaping our future.

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IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS
Erik Larson
Cover of IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS

IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS

by Erik Larson · Crown

21 wks on list

The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the 'New Germany,' she has one affair after another, including with the suprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance - and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler's true character and ruthless ambition.

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RIN TIN TIN
Susan Orlean
Cover of RIN TIN TIN

RIN TIN TIN

by Susan Orlean · Simon & Schuster

1 wks on list

Featuring more than seventy-five photographs and almost a dozen rarely seen videos from Rin Tin Tin’s legendary career, this Enhanced eBook edition of Susan Orlean’s Rin Tin Tin vividly illustrates the life and legacy of the canine hero. He believed the dog was immortal. So begins Susan Orlean’s sweeping, powerfully moving account of Rin Tin Tin’s journey from orphaned puppy to movie star and international icon. Orlean, a staff writer at The New Yorker who has been hailed as “a national treasure” by The Washington Post, spent nearly ten years researching and reporting her most captivating book to date: the story of a dog who was born in 1918 and never died. It begins on a battlefield in France during World War I, when a young American soldier, Lee Duncan, discovered a newborn German shepherd in the ruins of a bombed-out dog kennel. To Duncan, who came of age in an orphanage, the dog’s survival was a miracle. He saw something in Rin Tin Tin that he felt compelled to share with the world. Duncan brought Rinty home to California, where the dog’s athleticism and acting ability drew the attention of Warner Bros. Over the next ten years, Rinty starred in twenty-three blockbuster silent films that saved the studio from bankruptcy and made him the most famous dog in the world. At the height of his popularity, Rin Tin Tin was Hollywood’s number one box office star. During the decades that followed, Rinty and his descendants rose and fell with the times, making a tumultuous journey from silent films to talkies, from black-and-white to color, from radio programs to one of the most popular television shows of the baby boom era, The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin. The canine hero’s legacy was cemented by Duncan and a small group of others—including Bert Leonard, the producer of the TV series, and Daphne Hereford, the owner of the current Rin Tin Tin—who have dedicated their lives to making sure the dog’s legend will never die. At its core, Rin Tin Tin is a poignant exploration of the enduring bond between humans and animals. It is also a richly textured history of twentieth-century entertainment and entrepreneurship. It spans ninety years and explores everything from the shift in status of dogs from working farmhands to beloved family members, from the birth of obedience training to the evolution of dog breeding, from the rise of Hollywood to the past and present of dogs in war. Filled with humor and heart and moments that will move you to tears, Susan Orlean’s first original book since The Orchid Thief is an irresistible blend of history, human interest, and masterful storytelling—a dazzling celebration of a great American dog by one of our most gifted writers.

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THE SWERVE
Stephen Greenblatt
Cover of THE SWERVE

THE SWERVE

by Stephen Greenblatt · Norton

2 wks on list

A riveting, exemplary tale of the great cultural "swerve" known as the Renaissance. WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2012 Almost six hundred years ago, a short, genial man took a very old manuscript off a library shelf. With excitement, he saw what he had discovered and ordered it copied. The book was a miraculously surviving copy of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things by Lucretius and it changed the course of history. He found a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas – that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion. These ideas fuelled the Renaissance, inspiring Botticelli, shaping the thoughts of Montaigne, Darwin, and Einstein. An innovative work of history by one of the world’s most celebrated scholars and a thrilling story of discovery, The Swerve details how one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, made possible the world as we know it. ‘Superbly readable... An exciting story, and Greenblatt tells it with his customary clarity and verve’ Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Daily Telegraph

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HERE COMES TROUBLE
Michael Moore
Cover of HERE COMES TROUBLE

HERE COMES TROUBLE

by Michael Moore · Grand Central

3 wks on list

Here Comes Trouble is Michael Moore's anti-memoir. Breaking the autobiographical mould, he hilariously presents 20 far-ranging, irreverent vignettes from his own life. Moore is his own meta-Forrest Gump, as one moment he's an 11-year old boy stuck on a Senate elevator with Bobby Kennedy, and the next moment he's inside the Bitburg cemetery with a dazed and confused Ronald Reagan. Changing planes in Vienna, he escapes death at the hands of the terrorist Abu Nidal (others weren't so lucky). He founded his first underground newspaper in fourth grade. He refused to be on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite at 16 ("There's not enough Clearasil in the world for that to happen"). And he became the youngest elected official in the country at age 18 by enlisting an "army of local stoners" who had no idea what they were doing as his campaign staff. Before Michael Moore became the Oscar-winning filmmaker and all-round rabble rouser and thorn-in-the-side of corporate and right-wing America, there was the guy who had an uncanny knack of just showing up where history was being made. This book is a wild, revealing, take-no-prisoners ride through his early life. Alternately funny, eye-opening, and moving, this is a book Michael Moore has been writing -- and living -- for a very long time.

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HEMINGWAY'S BOAT
Paul Hendrickson
Cover of HEMINGWAY'S BOAT

HEMINGWAY'S BOAT

by Paul Hendrickson · Knopf

1 wks on list

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'She'd been intimately his, and he hers, for twenty-seven years - which were his final twenty-seven years. She'd lasted through three wives, the Nobel Prize, and all his ruin. He'd owned her, fished her, worked her and rode her, from the waters of Key West to the Bahamas to the Dry Tortugas to the north coast and archipelagos of Cuba.' Even in his most accomplished period, Hemingway carried within him the seeds of his tragic decline and throughout this period he had one constant - his beloved boat, Pilar. The boat represented and witnessed everything he loved in life - virility, deep-sea fishing, access to his beloved ocean, freedom, women and booze and the formative years of his children. Paul Hendrickson focuses on the period from 1934 to 1961, from the pinnacle of Hemingway's fame to his suicide. He has delved into the life of Hemingway and done the seemingly impossible: present him to us in a whole new light.

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LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD
Olivia Harrison
Cover of LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD

LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD

by Olivia Harrison · Abrams

1 wks on list

A companion release to Martin Scorsese's documentary by the same name presents an illustrated tribute to the late Beatle that draws on his personal records to trace his guitar-obsessed youth through his years as an independent musician.

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THE ROGUE
Joe McGinniss
Cover of THE ROGUE

THE ROGUE

by Joe McGinniss · Crown

2 wks on list

rogue (r¯og), n: An elephant that has separated from a herd and roams about alone,in which state it is very savage.—Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary After three years of research, bestselling journalist Joe McGinniss presents his already controversial and much anticipated investigative chronicle of Sarah Palin as an individual, politician, and cultural phenomenon. In his critically acclaimed book about Alaska, Going to Extremes, the fledgling state itself was Joe McGinniss’s subject. Although he didn’t hesitate to reveal the many flaws and contradictions behind its “last frontier” image, McGinniss fell in love with the land and its people. More than three decades later, he returned to Alaska in search of its most famous resident, Sarah Palin. On Election Day 2008, McGinniss began his on-the-ground reporting that culminated, famously, in his moving next door to Sarah Palin in spring 2010. THE ROGUE is the eagerly awaited result of his research and writing: a startling study of the illusion and reality of Sarah Palin—and a probing look at the Alaska and the America that produced her. Sometimes funny, sometimes frightening, always provocative and illuminating, THE ROGUE answers the questions “Who is she, really?,” “How did she happen?,” and “Will she ever go away?” In all of his books, McGinniss has scrutinized the mysterious space between image and reality—how that space is created, negotiated, and/or manipulated. Now, with The Rogue, McGinniss combines his deep appreciation of the place Sarah Palin comes from with his uncanny ability to penetrate the façades of people in public life. The result is an extraordinary double narrative that alternately traces Palin’s curious rise to political prominence and worldwide celebrity status and recounts the author’s day-to-day experiences as he uncovers the messy reality beneath the glossy Palin myth. Readers will find THE ROGUE at once bitingly insightful, hilarious, and profoundly ominous in what it reveals—not just about the dark underpinnings of a potential presidential nominee but also in regard to the huge numbers of Americans who passionately support her.

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