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Week of April 14, 2024

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THE ANXIOUS GENERATION
Jonathan Haidt
Cover of THE ANXIOUS GENERATION

THE ANXIOUS GENERATION

by Jonathan Haidt · Penguin Press

12 wks at #1 · 1 on list

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.

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AGE OF REVOLUTIONS
Fareed Zakaria
Cover of AGE OF REVOLUTIONS

AGE OF REVOLUTIONS

by Fareed Zakaria · Norton

1 wks on list

A New York Times Bestseller The international best-selling author explores the revolutions, past and present, that define the chaotic, polarized and unstable age in which we live. Fareed Zakaria first warned of the threat of “illiberal democracy” two decades ago. Now comes Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present. A decade in the making, the book is based on deep research and conversations with world leaders from Emmanuel Macron to Lee Kuan Yew. In it Zakaria sets our era of populist chaos into the sweep of history. Age of Revolutions tells the story of progress and backlash, of the rise of classical liberalism and of the many periods of rage and counter-revolution that followed seismic change. It begins with the upstart Dutch Republic, the first modern republic and techno-superpower where refugees and rebels flocked for individual liberty. That haven for liberalism was almost snuffed out by force – until Dutch ideas leapt across the English Channel in the so-called “Glorious Revolution.” Not all revolutions were so glorious, however. The French Revolution shows us the dangers of radical change that is imposed top-down. Lasting change comes bottom-up, like the Industrial Revolution in Britain and the United States, which fueled the rise of the world’s modern superpowers and gave birth to the political divides we know today. Even as Britain and America boomed, technology unsettled society and caused backlash from machine-smashing Luddites and others who felt threatened by this new world. In the second half of the book, Zakaria details the revolutions that have convulsed our times: globalization in overdrive, digital transformation, the rise of identity politics, and the return of great power politics with a vengeful Russia and an ascendant China. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jingping see a world upended by liberalism – and want to turn back the clock on democracy, women’s rights, and open societies. Even more dangerous than aggression abroad is democratic decay at home. This populist and cultural backlash that has infected the West threatens the very foundations of the world that the Enlightenment built – and that we all take too easily for granted. The book warns us that liberalism’s great strength has been freeing people from arbitrary constraints—but its great weakness has been leaving individuals isolated, to figure out for themselves what makes for a good life. This void – the hole in the heart – can all too easily be filled by tribalism, populism, and identity politics. Today’s revolutions in technology and culture can even leave people so adrift that they turn against modernity itself.

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GET IT TOGETHER
Jesse Watters
Cover of GET IT TOGETHER

GET IT TOGETHER

by Jesse Watters · Broadside

2 wks on list

DISCLAIMER This book does not in any capacity mean to replace the original book but to serve as a vast summary of the original book. Summary of Get It Together by Jesse Watters:Troubling Tales from the Liberal Fringe IN THIS SUMMARIZED BOOK, YOU WILL GET: Chapter provides an astute outline of the main contents. Fast & simple understanding of the content analysis. Exceptionally summarized content that you may skip in the original book Jesse Watters' Get It Together explores the personal motivations behind radical activists' political positions. Through personal interviews, Watters reveals that these activists may be overlooking the most important change they need to make within themselves. Watters uncovers common threads such as childhood traumas, broken relationships, and a lack of introspection. He questions whether the people obsessed with the end of the world are hurting from how the world has treated them, rather than ideological disagreements. Get It Together is sure to spark important conversations and inspire us to see one another as real and broken human beings.

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BECKY LYNCH: THE MAN
Rebecca Quin
Cover of BECKY LYNCH: THE MAN

BECKY LYNCH: THE MAN

by Rebecca Quin · Gallery

1 wks on list

This “infectious and contagious” (“Stone Cold” Steve Austin) New York Times bestselling memoir from WWE superstar Rebecca Quin—a.k.a. The Man, a.k.a. Becky Lynch—delves into her earliest wrestling days, her scrappy beginnings, and her meteoric rise to fame. Raised in Dublin, Ireland, in a devoutly Catholic family, Rebecca Quin constantly invented new ways to make her mother worry—roughhousing with the neighborhood kids, hosting secret parties while her parents were away, enrolling in a warehouse wrestling school, nearly breaking her neck and almost kneecapping a WWE star before her own wrestling career even began—and she was always in search of a thrilling escape from the ordinary. Rebecca’s childhood love of wrestling set her on an unlikely path. With few female wrestlers to look to for guidance, Rebecca pursued a wrestling career hoping to change the culture and move it away from the antiquated disrespect so often directed at the elite female athletes who grace the ring. Even as a teenager, she knew that she would stop at nothing to earn a space among the greatest wrestlers of our time and to pave a new path for female fighters. Culled from decades of journal entries, this “endearing debut memoir” (Publishers Weekly) offers a candid depiction of the complex woman behind the character Rebecca Quin plays on TV.

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READING THE CONSTITUTION
Stephen Breyer
Cover of READING THE CONSTITUTION

READING THE CONSTITUTION

by Stephen Breyer · Simon & Schuster

1 wks on list

New York Times Bestseller In a provocative and brilliant analysis, retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer deconstructs the textualist philosophy of the current Supreme Court’s supermajority and makes the case for a more pragmatic approach of the Constitution. “You will not read a more important legal work this election year.” —Bob Woodward, Washington Post reporter and author of fifteen #1 New York Times bestselling books “A dissent for the ages.” —The Washington Post “Breyer’s candor about the state of the court is refreshing and much needed.” —The Boston Globe The relatively new judicial philosophy of textualism dominates the Supreme Court. Textualists claim that the right way to interpret the Constitution and statutes is to read the text carefully and examine the language as it was understood at the time the documents were written. This, however, is not Justice Breyer’s philosophy nor has it been the traditional way to interpret the Constitution since the time of Chief Justice John Marshall. Justice Breyer recalls Marshall’s exhortation that the Constitution must be a workable set of principles to be interpreted by subsequent generations. Most important in interpreting law, says Breyer, is to understand the statutes as well as the consequences of deciding a case one way or another. He illustrates these principles by examining some of the most important cases in the nation’s history, among them the Dobbs and Bruen decisions from 2022 that he argues were wrongly decided and have led to harmful results.

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I'M GLAD MY MOM DIED
Jennette McCurdy
Cover of I'M GLAD MY MOM DIED

I'M GLAD MY MOM DIED

by Jennette McCurdy · Simon & Schuster

77 wks on list

"A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor--including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother--and how she retook control of her life"--]cProvided by publisher.

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THERE'S ALWAYS THIS YEAR
Hanif Abdurraqib
Cover of THERE'S ALWAYS THIS YEAR

THERE'S ALWAYS THIS YEAR

by Hanif Abdurraqib · Random House

1 wks on list

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | A NEW YORK TIMES, TIME, GUARDIAN, WASHINGTON POST, NPR, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, KIRKUS and BOOKRIOT BOOK OF THE YEAR LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTION It might do all of us some good to reconsider what 'making it' even means. Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, in the 1990s, Hanif Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron James were forged -- and countless others weren’t. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tension between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role models, all of which he expertly weaves together with intimate, personal storytelling. There’s Always This Year is a triumph from one of America’s most celebrated and insightful writers. It brims with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. No matter the subject, Abdurraqib’s exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, and ourselves.

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THE WAGER
David Grann
Cover of THE WAGER

THE WAGER

by David Grann · Doubleday

49 wks on list

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Wager, a thrilling and powerful true story of adventure and obsession in the Antarctic, lavishly illustrated with color photographs. "[Grann is] one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."—New York Magazine Henry Worsley was a devoted husband and father and a decorated British special forces officer who believed in honor and sacrifice. He was also a man obsessed. He spent his life idolizing Ernest Shackleton, the nineteenth-century polar explorer, who tried to become the first person to reach the South Pole, and later sought to cross Antarctica on foot. Shackleton never completed his journeys, but he repeatedly rescued his men from certain death, and emerged as one of the greatest leaders in history. Worsley felt an overpowering connection to those expeditions. He was related to one of Shackleton's men, Frank Worsley, and spent a fortune collecting artifacts from their epic treks across the continent. He modeled his military command on Shackleton's legendary skills and was determined to measure his own powers of endurance against them. He would succeed where Shackleton had failed, in the most brutal landscape in the world. In 2008, Worsley set out across Antarctica with two other descendants of Shackleton's crew, battling the freezing, desolate landscape, life-threatening physical exhaustion, and hidden crevasses. Yet when he returned home he felt compelled to go back. On November 13, 2015, at age 55, Worsley bid farewell to his family and embarked on his most perilous quest: to walk across Antarctica alone. David Grann tells Worsley's remarkable story with the intensity and power that have led him to be called "simply the best narrative nonfiction writer working today." Illustrated with more than fifty stunning photographs from Worsley's and Shackleton's journeys, The White Darkness is both a gorgeous keepsake volume and a spellbinding story of courage, love, and a man pushing himself to the extremes of human capacity. Look for David Grann’s latest bestselling book, The Wager!

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OUTLIVE
Peter Attia with Bill Gifford
Cover of OUTLIVE

OUTLIVE

by Peter Attia with Bill Gifford · Harmony

53 wks on list

#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.

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NUCLEAR W AR
Annie Jacobsen
Cover of NUCLEAR W AR

NUCLEAR W AR

by Annie Jacobsen · Dutton

1 wks on list

The Sunday Times bestselling edge-of-your-seat exploration of what would happen in the event of nuclear war, perfect for readers of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Nuclear war begins with a blip on a radar screen. This is a minute-by-minute account of what comes next. It has to be read to be believed. 'A stomach-clenching, multi-perspective, ticking-clock, geopolitical thriller' Forbes 'Dangerously plausible – and it reads like a thriller' Sunday Times 'These are scenes straight out of Dr Strangelove' Telegraph There is only one scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end the world as we know it in a matter of hours: nuclear war. Until now, no one outside official circles has known exactly what would happen if a rogue state launched a nuclear missile at the Pentagon. Second by second and minute by minute, these are the real-life protocols that choreograph the end of civilization. Decisions that affect hundreds of millions of lives need to be made within six minutes, based on partial information, in the knowledge that once launched, nothing is capable of halting the destruction. Based on dozens of new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, been privy to the response plans, and taken responsibility for crucial decisions, this is the only account of what a nuclear exchange would look like. Nuclear War is at once a compulsive non-fiction thriller and a powerful argument that we must rid ourselves of these world-ending weapons for ever. 'This terrifying book is a must-read for every world leader' Mother Jones 'At once methodical and vivid' The Economist 'Tells a terrifying story in a devastatingly straightforward way' Guardian * A New York Times bestseller (March 2024) and a Sunday Times bestseller (April 2024). Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2024, the UK's premier annual prize for non-fiction books.

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BLOOD MONEY
Peter Schweizer
Cover of BLOOD MONEY

BLOOD MONEY

by Peter Schweizer · Harper

5 wks on list

AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER It’s often said that China is in a cold war with America. The reality is far worse: the war is hot, and the body count is one-sided. China is killing Americans and working aggressively to maximize the carnage while our leaders remain passive and, in some cases, compliant. Why? If anyone could crack the code, it’s the renowned nonpartisan investigator Peter Schweizer. Schweizer’s previous three number one New York Times bestsellers sent shock waves through official Washington, sparking FBI investigations and congressional probes that continue to this day. For Blood Money, Schweizer and his team of forensic investigators spent more than two years scouring a trove of restricted Chinese military documents, data-mining a mountain of American financial records, and tracking US political leaders’ investments and family businesses. Schweizer unloads bombshell after bombshell, exposing the Chinese Communist Party’s covert operations in the American drug trade, social justice movement, and medical establishment to sow chaos and decadence in the United States. A towering achievement of investigative journalism, Blood Money is one of those rare books that makes you clearly see the world anew.

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BARBIE: THE WORLD TOUR
Margot Robbie and Andrew Mukamal
Cover of BARBIE: THE WORLD TOUR

BARBIE: THE WORLD TOUR

by Margot Robbie and Andrew Mukamal · Rizzoli

2 wks on list

For the press tour following the record-breaking release of Greta Gerwig’s award-winning, acclaimed Barbie movie, producer and star Margot Robbie and her stylist Andrew Mukamal immersed themselves in some of Barbie’s most iconic outfits and curated vintage pieces, then approached designers, from Giorgio Armani to Donatella Versace, to create looks inspired by the doll-size originals. Many of these looks were not seen as the official Barbie press tour was cut short—so Margot and Andrew worked with renowned fashion photographer Craig McDean to shoot her in the looks exactly as they were curated: Schiaparelli in Los Angeles, Vivienne Westwood in London, vintage Chanel with matching Steamline luggage at the airport, and beyond. Accompanying McDean’s sumptuous photography are original Barbie dolls from the period, a treasure trove of rare materials from Mattel’s Barbie fashion archives, and the designers’ sketches and Polaroids from fittings, layered into evocative collages by Fabien Baron, who conceived and produced the shoots and art-directed the book. With text by Margot Robbie and Andrew Mukamal, as well as handwritten contributions from the designers behind the looks (from Olivier Rousteing and Michelle Ochs to Manolo Blahnik and Jeremy Scott), this unique book blends the serious chic of high fashion with the serious fun of Barbie world—the dolls, the history, and the style that have captured imaginations for 65 years. BARBIE™ and associated trademarks and trade dress are owned by, and used under license from, Mattel. ©2024 Mattel.

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BURN BOOK
Kara Swisher
Cover of BURN BOOK

BURN BOOK

by Kara Swisher · Simon & Schuster

5 wks on list

From award-winning journalist Kara Swisher comes a witty, scathing, but fair accounting of the tech industry and its founders who wanted to change the world but broke it instead. While tech titans bragged they would 'move fast and break things', Kara Swisher was moving faster and breaking news. Covering the explosion of the digital sector in the early 1990s, she developed a long track record of digging up and reporting the truth of this new world order. Her consistent scoops drove one CEO to accuse her of "listening in the heating ducts" and for Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg to once say: 'It is a constant joke in the Valley when people write memos for them to say, "I hope Kara never sees this."' Burn Book is part memoir, part history and, most of all, a necessary recounting of tech's most powerful players. This is the inside story we've all been waiting for of modern Silicon Valley and the biggest boom in wealth creation in the history of the world. While still in college, Swisher got her start at The Washington Post, where she became one of the few people in journalism interested in the emerging field of tech. She was among the first to recognize the potential of the internet, accurately predicting that 'everything that could be digitized, would be digitized.' She went on to work for The Wall Story Journal, joining with Walt Mossberg to start the groundbreaking AllThingsD conference, as well as pioneering online tech sites. It's only a slight exaggeration to say Swisher has interviewed everyone. Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Bob Iger, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Meg Whitman, Peter Thiel, and Mark Zuckerberg are just a few who Swisher made sweat-figuratively and, in one famous case, literally. Despite the damage she chronicles, Swisher remains optimistic about tech's potential to help solve problems and not just create them. She calls upon the industry to make better, more thoughtful choices, even as a new set of powerful AI tools are poised to change the world yet again. At its heart, this book is a love story to, for, and about tech from someone who knows it better than anyone. Burn Book includes soaring tales of innovation and brilliant entrepreneurs, as well as Silicon Valley's much more complex history of striving, success, and failure. The book details how the commercial internet came into being and how, for all it has given the world, it now sits at the center of global power, creating a clear and present danger to humanity.

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THE HOUSE OF HIDDEN MEANINGS
RuPaul
Cover of THE HOUSE OF HIDDEN MEANINGS

THE HOUSE OF HIDDEN MEANINGS

by RuPaul · Dey Street

4 wks on list

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER From international drag superstar and pop culture icon RuPaul, comes his most revealing to date—a brutally honest and deeply intimate memoir of growing up Black, poor, and queer in a broken home to discovering the power of performance and self-acceptance.

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CHARLIE HUSTLE
Keith O'Brien
Cover of CHARLIE HUSTLE

CHARLIE HUSTLE

by Keith O'Brien · Pantheon

1 wks on list

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography A captivating chronicle of the incredible story of one of America’s most iconic, charismatic, and still polarizing figures—baseball immortal Pete Rose—and an exquisite cultural history of baseball and America in the second half of the twentieth century • "Comprehensive, compulsively readable and wholly terrific."—The Wall Street Journal "Long before the inquiry into Ohtani's ties to betting, there was Pete Rose....Charlie Hustle chronicles one of the most polarizing figures in sports."—NPR, All Things Considered “Baseball biography at its best. With Charlie Hustle, Pete Rose finally gets the book he deserves, and baseball fans get the book we’ve been craving, a hard-hitting, beautifully-written tale that will stand for years to come as the definitive account of one of the most fascinating figures in American sports history.”—Jonathan Eig, New York Times bestselling author of King: A Life Pete Rose is a legend. A baseball god. He compiled more hits than anyone in the history of baseball, a record he set decades ago that still stands today. He was a working-class white guy from Cincinnati who made it; less talented than tough, and rough around the edges. He was everything that America wanted and needed him to be, the American dream personified, until he wasn’t. In the 1980s, Pete Rose came to be at the center of one of the biggest scandals in baseball history. He kept secrets, ran with bookies, took on massive gambling debts, and he was magnificently, publicly cast out for betting on baseball and lying about it. The revelations that followed ruined him, changed life in Cincinnati, and forever altered the game. Charlie Hustle tells the full story of one of America’s most epic tragedies—the rise and fall of Pete Rose. Drawing on firsthand interviews with Rose himself and with his associates, as well as on investigators' reports, FBI and court records, archives, a mountain of press coverage, Keith O’Brien chronicles how Rose fell so far from being America’s “great white hope.” It is Pete Rose as we've never seen him before. This is no ordinary sport biography, but cultural history at its finest. What O’Brien shows is that while Pete Rose didn’t change, America and baseball did. This is the story of that change.

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