TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Nonfiction

Week of May 3, 2026

FictionNonfiction
WeekMonth
Jump to
1
NEW
FAMESICK
Lena Dunham
Cover of FAMESICK

FAMESICK

by Lena Dunham · Random House

1 wks at #1 · 1 on list

In this rowdy, frank reflection on illness, fame, sex, and everything in between, the remarkable mind behind the hit series Girls and the bestselling author of Not That Kind of Girl asks whether fulfilling her creative ambitions has been worth the pain. For the last decade, as she’s spent countless hours in doctor’s waiting rooms searching for diagnoses, treatments, and relief, being the owner and operator of Lena Dunham’s body has felt, as she puts it, “like towing a wrecked car across town at midnight.” It’s not easy dragging a wrecked car anywhere, much less to the Met Gala while sewn into a gold lamé corset. Or to the set of the hit show that you—as a twenty-five-year-old—are writing, directing, producing, and starring in. Or to the White House, the Golden Globes, or your publicist’s office to discuss the latest internet disaster. But Dunham does it—even if it means interminable hospital stays, vomiting in the bathroom when she’s meant to be meeting Oprah, or terrifying those closest to her—because she can no longer tell the difference between fighting to do what she loves and being a servant to her own ambition. All the while, she is holding out for a love that can withstand her personal and public challenges and, more than anything, yearning to feel like herself again—if only she could remember who that self was. As Dunham takes us through her journey, tracking her rise to fame—from selling the pilot of Girls to the present—in three acts, it becomes clear that the spotlight casts long shadows, distorting the relationships she once held dear and isolating everyone in its glare. When an endless supply of drugs can’t protect you from pain—and begins to control your every move—being famous doesn’t stand a chance against the darker corners of the human experience. In Famesick, Dunham asks herself what the cost of fulfilling her dreams has really been, and whether it was worth it. What she finds is deeper than physical relief, and more lasting, as she learns to live with what she can’t change and turn her regrets into wisdom that can carry her forward, as she reconnects to what, and who, she loves.

2
STRANGERS
Belle Burden
Cover of STRANGERS

STRANGERS

by Belle Burden · Dial Press

13 wks on list

A gorgeous memoir about the sudden end to a seemingly happy marriage—an aching, love-filled, and transcendent account of surviving betrayal and discovering joy "Riveting...examines the very nature of intimacy."—Joyce Carol Oates It was a great love story, one for the ages. The speed of our beginning and the speed of our ending felt like matching bookends. They both came out of nowhere. He wanted it, he wanted me. And then he didn’t. In March 2020, Belle Burden was safe and secure with her family at their house on Martha's Vineyard, navigating the early days of the pandemic together—building fires in the late afternoons, drinking whisky sours, making roast chicken. Then, with no warning or explanation, her husband of twenty years announced that he was leaving her. Overnight, her caring, steady partner became a man she hardly recognized. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume. In Strangers, Belle revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal. Through all of it, she is transformed. The discreet, compliant woman she once was—someone whose nickname was “Belle the Good”—gives way to someone braver, someone determined to use her voice. With unflinching honesty and profound grace, Burden charts a path through heartbreak to show the power of a woman who refuses to give up on love and rediscovers trust in herself. Strangers is a stunning, deeply moving, compulsively readable memoir heralding the arrival of a thrilling new literary talent.

3
NEW
POISONED IVIES
Elise Stefanik
Cover of POISONED IVIES

POISONED IVIES

by Elise Stefanik · Threshold Editions

1 wks on list

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik reveals how America’s elite universities, once proud symbols of academic excellence, have become centers of far-left indoctrination, division, and moral rot in this riveting, behind-the-scenes inside account. Drawing on her experience as the highest-ranking woman in Congress and the chief questioner of Ivy League university presidents in the hearing heard around the world, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik exposes the failures of American higher education and the reckoning facing universities. For decades, conservatives have warned about the decline of higher education. Now, for the first time in modern history, Americans are taking action. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a Harvard alumna herself, lit the fuse when she posed basic questions to the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania, such as: Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your university’s rules on bullying and harassment? Their inability to answer with moral clarity sparked a national reckoning causing multiple Ivy League presidents to resign. It was the most-watched Congressional hearing of all time. But that was just the beginning. Poisoned Ivies delivers an unflinching account of what has gone wrong on America’s college campuses. Stefanik exposes how the nation’s most prestigious institutions abandoned their founding ideals of freedom of thought, open debate, and academic excellence, and instead embraced a culture of censorship, radical leftist groupthink, antisemitism, and moral cowardice that has spread far beyond campus walls to every corner of American life. Both a damning exposé and a blueprint for reform, Poisoned Ivies is a timely story of courage and conviction and the power of one voice to challenge the status quo in American higher education and delivers a long-overdue reckoning. A must-read for anyone concerned with the fight for our nation’s soul.

4
3
LONDON FALLING
Patrick Radden Keefe
Cover of LONDON FALLING

LONDON FALLING

by Patrick Radden Keefe · Doubleday

2 wks on list

From the bestselling, prize-winning author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain, a spellbinding account of a family devastated by the sudden death of their nineteen-year-old son, only to discover that he had created a secret life which drew him into the dangerous criminal underworld that lies beneath London’s glittering surface. In the early morning of November 29th, 2019, surveillance cameras at the headquarters of MI6, Britain’s spy agency, captured video of a young man pacing back and forth on a high balcony of Riverwalk, a luxury tower on the bank of the river Thames. At 2:24 a.m., he jumped into the river. In a quiet London neighbourhood several miles away, Rachelle Brettler was worried about her son. Zac had told her that he had gone to stay with a friend, but then he did not come home. Days later, a police car pulled up and two officers relayed the dreadful news: Her son was dead. In their unbearable grief, Rachelle and her husband, Matthew, struggled to understand what had happened to Zac. He had his troubles, but in no way seemed suicidal. As they would soon discover, however, there was a lot they did not know about their son. Only after his death did they learn that he had adopted a fictitious alter-ego: Zac Ismailov, son of a Russian oligarch and heir to a great fortune. Under this guise, Zac had become entangled with a slippery London businessman named Akbar Shamji, and a murderous gangster known as “Indian Dave.” As the Brettlers set about investigating their son’s death, they were pulled into a different and more dangerous London than the one they’d always known, and came to believe that something much more nefarious than a suicide had claimed Zac’s life. But to their immense frustration, Scotland Yard seemed unable—or unwilling—to bring the perpetrators to justice. In a bravura feat of reporting and writing, Patrick Radden Keefe chronicles the Brettlers’ quest, peeling back layers of mystery and exposing the seedy truths behind the glamorous London of posh mansions and private night clubs, a city in which everything is for sale, and aspirational fantasies are underwritten by dirty money and corruption. London Falling is a mesmerizing investigation of an inexplicable death and a powerful narrative driven by suspense and staggering revelations. But it is also an intimate and deeply poignant inquiry into the nature of parental love and the challenges of being a parent today, a portrait of a family trying to solve the riddle not just of how their son died, but of who he really was in life.

5
NEW
LAST BRANCH STANDING
Sarah Isgur
Cover of LAST BRANCH STANDING

LAST BRANCH STANDING

by Sarah Isgur · Crown

1 wks on list

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A myth-busting glimpse into the inner workings of the Supreme Court, revealing what we get wrong about the Roberts Court, what the justices' clerks gossip about, and how to fix a court in crisis—from the popular ABC news pundit and top legal podcaster "Isgur has all your answers in these smart, snappy, clear-eyed pages.” —Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams Most people get the Supreme Court all wrong. A smattering of high-profile decisions have popularized a simplistic idea of the Court and its justices. Yes, six of them were appointed by Republicans, and only three by Democrats. So, how does that 6-3 conservative majority explain why in the 2024-25 term, conservative Brett Kavanaugh was more likely to agree with liberal Elena Kagan than conservative Neil Gorsuch? Or why the court threw shade at Florida’s attempt to ban drag shows? To truly understand the Court, argues Sarah Isgur, you have to look beyond partisan politics—the “X-Axis.” The wisest court watchers apply another measuring stick, the “Y-Axis," where the nine justices span from order-loving institutionalists to true chaos agents. Once you appreciate these overlapping and even competing impulses, the Court begins to look a lot more like a 3-3-3 split than 6-3. The ultimate insider, Isgur takes readers on a deep dive inside the Supreme Court: how cases land at the Court’s doorstep, which justices attend clerk happy hours (and which ones even bother showing up to the office), why conservatives already have buyer’s remorse about Amy Coney Barrett, and how the whole judicial system is kind of a constitutional anomaly. She’ll even help you decide whether you should throw your hat in the ring and go to law school! Blending irreverent humor and incisive commentary, Isgur goes underneath the robes—and shows us what we need to do to preserve the rule of law amid dicey times in this little self-governing experiment we’ve been running for the last 250 years.

6
NEW
THE FUTURE IS PEACE
Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon
Cover of THE FUTURE IS PEACE

THE FUTURE IS PEACE

by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon · Crown

1 wks on list

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Two lifelong peace activists and guides to Israel/Palestine, both of whom have lost family in the conflict, take readers on a revealing life-changing journey across this holy, bloodstained land and discover the mythic, political, and personal history that divides but also binds them and their peoples. “[A] short but immensely poignant account of a shared journey across Israel and the West Bank . . . raw with pain and rage and yet bravely insistent on the imperative of hope.”—The New York Times “We do not see ourselves as Palestinians and Israelis, or as Jews and Arabs, but as human beings who believe in fostering a culture of dialogue, a culture of forgiveness, and a culture of peace. To those who see only division lines, we say: If you must divide us, let it be as those who believe in peace and equality and those who don’t ... yet.” Palestinian Aziz Abu Sarah and Israeli Maoz Inon forged a bond of brotherhood when the world expected them to be enemies. Both have lost family to the conflict. Both have known the bitterness of righteous anger. Yet, they chose a different path. In The Future Is Peace, Sarah and Inon take readers on a transformative weeklong journey across a sacred and bloodstained land. Facing competing narratives, they explore how compassion and unity can pull humanity back from the precipice of blind hatred. Throughout their travels, they have been constantly asked: In the face of so much loss, how can we ever find hope? Their answer is always the same. One cannot find hope. We must create it. This book is a rebuttal to a broken world and a bold challenge to the belief that more violence can ever bring security. Told with unflinching honesty, their story is proof that peace is not a naive dream, but a courageous choice—for reconciliation to heal the wounds of revenge, for partnerships to change a destiny of war, and for empathy to save us from drowning in sorrow. Pairing unapologetic candor and inspirational prose, Sarah and Inon are sending an urgent message that the people have the power to make change. Peace is inevitable. For Palestinians, for Israelis, and for the world that awaits their example, it is not just possible—it is the future.

7
1
A WORLD APPEARS
Michael Pollan
Cover of A WORLD APPEARS

A WORLD APPEARS

by Michael Pollan · Penguin Press

8 wks on list

The Instant New York Times Bestseller "Pollan’s real genius—the word is not too strong—remains intact. That is his uncanny ability to scent the direction in which the culture is headed. He did it with food and psychedelics, and now, though A World Appears focuses on AI only intermittently, he has done it again." —Charles Finch, The Atlantic From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind, a panoptic exploration of consciousness—what it is, who has it, and why—and a meditation on the essence of our humanity When it comes to the phenomenon that is consciousness, there is one point on which scientists, philosophers, and artists all agree: it feels like something to be us. Yet the fact that we have subjective experience of the world remains one of nature’s greatest mysteries. How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by feelings, thoughts, and a sense of self? What would a scientific investigation of our inner life look like, when we have as little distance and perspective on it as fish do of the sea? In A World Appears, Michael Pollan traces the unmapped continent that is consciousness, bringing radically different perspectives—scientific, philosophical, literary, spiritual and psychedelic—to see what each can teach us about this central fact of life. When neuroscientists began studying consciousness in the early 1990s, they sought to explain how and why three pounds of spongy gray matter could generate a subjective point of view—assuming that the brain is the source of our perceived reality. Pollan takes us to the cutting edge of the field, where scientists are entertaining more radical (and less materialist) theories of consciousness. He introduces us to “plant neurobiologists” searching for the first flicker of consciousness in plants, scientists striving to engineer feelings into AI, and psychologists and novelists seeking to capture the felt experience of our slippery stream of consciousness. In Pollan’s dazzling exploration of consciousness, he discovers a world far deeper and stranger than our everyday reality. Eye-opening and mind-expanding, A World Appears takes us into the laboratories of our own minds, ultimately showing us how we might make better use of the gift of awareness to more meaningfully connect with the world and our deepest selves.

8
NEW
GHOSTS OF SICILY
Mark Harmon and Leon Carroll Jr
Cover of GHOSTS OF SICILY

GHOSTS OF SICILY

by Mark Harmon and Leon Carroll Jr · Harper Select

1 wks on list

From the New York Times bestselling authors of Ghosts of Honolulu comes their most harrowing true story yet. It's 1942, and New York City is at war. German U-boats are sinking ships just miles offshore, and Washington, DC, is convinced that waterfront spies are providing intelligence targeting the ships. To thwart the threat, the Office of Naval Intelligence reaches out to those with the most sway along the waterfronts of Brooklyn and Manhattan - the mob. The result will be a triumph for the ONI and one of the most successful and controversial operations in the long history of what we now know as NCIS. The Navy's alliance with Charles "Lucky" Luciano and his organization will send New Yorker Tony Marsloe and his fellow ONI officers on an international odyssey that includes holding secret meetings with legendary criminals, hunting clandestine spy rings operating on U.S. soil, and conducting daring undercover missions behind the bloody frontlines of the invasion of Italy. In addition to towering historic figures like Meyer Lansky and General George Patton, readers will encounter a kaleidoscope of agents and gangsters who not only shaped the war in Italy but the future of international crime itself. .

9
NEW
THE STORY OF US
Olivia Levin
Cover of THE STORY OF US

THE STORY OF US

by Olivia Levin · Simon & Schuster

1 wks on list

NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER We've had the time of our lives as Swifties, and now that story—full of boundless joy, unexpected friendships, cherished memories, and wild theories—lives in this celebration of our fandom and the reason were all here: Taylor Swift. We all know how it started: A teenage girl from Pennsylvania moved to Nashville and rose to the top of the country music charts. In 2006, Taylor Swift’s story began—and with it, so did ours as Swifties. The Story of Us is a heartfelt journey through Swiftie history, capturing the evolution of a fandom that has stood the test of time. Told through the lens of personal experiences, this book chronicles the rise of a fandom that has remained fiercely loyal through every era. From calling radio stations to request “Tim McGraw,” to those unforgettable moments on Tumblr when Taylor and fans felt like friends, to surviving the Ticketmaster war—we’ve been there. We’ve learned life lessons, traded friendship bracelets, mastered time zone math to tune in to livestreams, and created a language only another Swiftie—or Taylor herself—could understand. But beyond all of these shared moments, what truly binds us is how Taylor’s lyrics feel like they were written just for us—like reflections of our own stories. This passionate and unique fandom has won awards and been intensely studied, but for the first time, fans can reminisce and celebrate what it means to be part of this life-changing community. A love letter written by a Swiftie for Swifties, The Story of Us ensures that our story will never be forgotten.

10
5
STRIPPED DOWN
Bunnie Xo
Cover of STRIPPED DOWN

STRIPPED DOWN

by Bunnie Xo · Dey Street

9 wks on list

From the trailer parks of Vegas to the mansions of Nashville, Bunnie Xo has lived a lot of lives and seen the darkest sides of humanity. Her memoir, Stripped Down: Unfiltered and Unapologetic, is cold, clear evidence that no one is irredeemable. With a heavy dose of humor and a refreshing sense of self-awareness, Bunnie pulls no punches as she shares her journey of redemption while offering some homespun wisdom to those who need a little saving themselves. Alisa DeFord, known to her millions of fans as Bunnie Xo, started at the bottom and spent the first part of her life falling even deeper. Now, Bunnie Xo is one of today's most successful podcasters and has paved her way through the entertainment industry as the owner of Dumb Blonde Productions, building an empire with heart and personality at the forefront. Stripped Down is the story of how Bunnie Xo rose to the top, how she used her own wiles to reach her goals, how she knew redemption was up to her--and that no one could hand it to her--and a message to anyone who needs advice on breaking their own cycles. Hilarious, earnest, thought-provoking, and occasionally downright shocking, Stripped Down is a modern-day rag-to-riches story and a message of hope to anyone struggling to redeem themselves.

11
NEW
INTO THE WOOD CHIPPER
Nicholas Enrich
Cover of INTO THE WOOD CHIPPER

INTO THE WOOD CHIPPER

by Nicholas Enrich · Summit

1 wks on list

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Propulsive….When the full history of this moment is ready to be written, Into the Wood Chipper will be a vivid source.” —The New York Times “A gripping page-turner that doubles as both a warning and an inspiration.” —Samantha Power, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Problem from Hell A civil servant discovers his breaking point when the Trump administration’s cruelty and indifference threaten to violate the oath he swore to uphold. Nicholas Enrich had finally achieved his lifelong dream: becoming USAID’s lead official for global health. But that dream turned out to be a nightmare in the tumultuous time after President Trump’s second inauguration. In the months that followed, USAID became the first target of Elon Musk’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The mission to which Enrich had dedicated his career was being dismantled before his eyes—even the name of the agency was removed from the building’s facade. Enrich witnessed firsthand the Trump administration’s lies, how it systematically prevented USAID from providing lifesaving foreign aid, and the death and suffering around the world that resulted from careless decisions. Finally determining he could no longer keep quiet, and risking the career that he loved deeply, Enrich released a set of whistleblowing memos exposing the administration’s illegal and destructive actions. Enrich was put on administrative leave, yet his memos went viral and had a sustained impact. In the days following their release, hundreds of canceled aid projects were revived, and the documents were cited in a Supreme Court case on the legality of USAID’s dissolution. While his memos were too late to save USAID, Enrich was one of the first government officials to publicly blow the whistle on DOGE’s reckless destruction, sounding an early alarm bell for other federal agencies that would soon find themselves in the crosshairs. Urgent and profoundly human, Enrich’s story offers an astonishing behind-the-scenes look at a federal agency under siege, from the early days when Enrich and his team were unaware of what was to come to the shockingly ignorant, callous, and bigoted conversations they witnessed. Enrich reveals in this detailed, no-holds-barred account what was truly at stake when DOGE set out to dismantle one of America’s most effective humanitarian institutions, and how millions of lives hung in the balance.

12
3
THE ANXIOUS GENERATION
Jonathan Haidt
Cover of THE ANXIOUS GENERATION

THE ANXIOUS GENERATION

by Jonathan Haidt · Penguin Press

25 wks 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.

13
NEW
1929
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Cover of 1929

1929

by Andrew Ross Sorkin · Viking Press

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “It is one of the best narrative histories I’ve read.” —The Wall Street Journal A New York Times Notable Book of 2025 • One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2025 • Named a BEST BOOK OF 2025 by The Washington Post, TIME, The Economist, Air Mail, Bloomberg, Fast Company, Katie Couric Media, and History From the bestselling author of Too Big to Fail, “the definitive history of the 2008 banking crisis,” (The Atlantic) comes a riveting narrative of the most infamous stock market crash in history—one with ripple effects that still shape our society today. In 1929, the world watched in shock as the unstoppable Wall Street bull market went into a freefall, wiping out fortunes and igniting a depression that would reshape a generation. But behind the flashing ticker tapes and panicked traders, another drama unfolded—one of visionaries and fraudsters, titans and dreamers, euphoria and ruin. With unparalleled access to historical records and newly uncovered documents, New York Times bestselling author Andrew Ross Sorkin takes readers inside the chaos of the crash, behind the scenes of a raging battle between Wall Street and Washington and the larger-than-life characters whose ambition and naïveté in an endless boom led to disaster. The dizzying highs and brutal lows of this era eerily mirror today’s world—where markets soar, political tensions mount, and the fight over financial influence plays out once again. This is not just a story about money. 1929 is a tale of power, psychology, and the seductive illusion that this time is different. It’s about disregarded alarm bells, financiers who fell from grace, and skeptics who saw the crash coming—only to be dismissed until it was too late. Hailed as a landmark book, Too Big to Fail reimagined how financial crises are told. Now, with 1929, Sorkin delivers an immersive, electrifying account of the most pivotal market collapse of all time—with lessons that remain as urgent as ever. More than just a history, 1929 is a crucial blueprint for understanding the cycles of speculation, the forces that drive financial upheaval, and the warning signs we ignore at our peril.

14
NEW
YOU WITH THE SAD EYES
Christina Applegate
Cover of YOU WITH THE SAD EYES

YOU WITH THE SAD EYES

by Christina Applegate · Little, Brown

6 wks on list

Christina Applegate came of age on sets and stages, expected to be on time, with lines learned, ready for lights-camera-action. Performing began as a financial necessity and became an emotional escape from a tumultuous home life in the infamous Laurel Canyon scene of the 1970s and 80s. She first gained stardom as an audience favourite playing Kelly Bundy in the sitcom Married...with Children and went on to captivate a vast fandom during her five-decade long career. In You with the Sad Eyes, Applegate will unveil the full story of her years in the public eye, and the painful moments the public didn't see. She writes about gravitating to the grunge that defined the 90s and finding belonging in the legendary scene at The Viper Room; sparkling on set with fellow comedy icons in the soon to be canonized franchise Anchorman; sharing her love of dance on stage in the Broadway revival of Sweet Charity; and returning to the Emmy stage to a standing ovation in 2024 after her diagnosis of MS. She'll dive into the darker moments underpinning her outward success: her relationship with her mother who fought addiction and won, even in the wake of her father's abandonment; the self-doubt and body dysmorphia that have dogged her from a young age; and the abuse and depression that eroded her health. Her path is ever lit though, by lifelong friends, chosen family, and her experience as a mother. By working through her legacy on the page, Applegate invites readers to take her hand and hear a story not even those closest to her know fully. You with the Sad Eyes boldly presents a formidable and iconoclastic woman who has had to let go of her acting career, of her ability to dance, of her sense of physical power, but has always fought to find a new and even more fulfilling way of being. The pain will be matched by the joy, the losses mitigated by the extraordinary, the weight of life lifted by Applegate's signature comedic genius. In her own words, "I truly believe that books can make people feel less alone. That's why I'm doing this. You with the Sad Eyes won't be some big violin scratching for my life. But it will be real. It will be filled with the ups and downs, the humour and grief of life. So here I am. Real me. Lots to say."

15
9
RORY
Alan Shipnuck
Cover of RORY

RORY

by Alan Shipnuck · Avid Reader

2 wks on list

The definitive biography of the most important, popular, and confounding golfer of the post-Tiger era, masterfully chronicled by Alan Shipnuck, the bestselling author of Phil and LIV and Let Die. “Shipnuck produces a rich, nuanced picture.” —The Wall Street Journal Rory McIlroy contains multitudes. He can overwhelm a golf course with his transcendent talent and then, at the next tournament, look utterly lost. McIlroy is golf ’s most eloquent ambassador and a trash-talking troll, sometimes in the same press conference. The child of a working-class family from a small town in a war-torn homeland now commutes to work in his own private jet and counts billionaires as confidants. A dozen years ago, McIlroy asked Alan Shipnuck a question about the player he had modeled himself after, Tiger Woods: “What’s he really like?” As McIlroy enters the last act of his highly eventful career, this book is a chance to redirect that old question and try to understand a man of deep complexity and contradictions. McIlroy’s victory at the 2025 Masters packed such an emotional punch because he is golf’s most vulnerable superstar. Across two decades as a pro he has been the anti-Tiger, letting fans into his heart and into his world. When McIlroy collapsed onto the final green at Augusta National, having at last completed the career Grand Slam, golf fans cried along with him because so many saw themselves in his struggles. But there is much that the public does not know about McIlroy. With reporting chops honed across thirty years on the golf beat, Shipnuck traces McIlroy’s evolution from a young phenom in Northern Ireland to a game-changing force on and off the golf course. Shipnuck has shadowed McIlroy throughout his career, and he brings to life all the heartbreaks and triumphs with thrilling immediacy and unparalleled access. Tabloid romance, bitter business disputes, divisive politicking—it is all part of this portrait of a man in full. Shipnuck has long been known as the most fearless writer on the golf beat, and he goes deep into McIlroy’s personal history at a time when the spotlight on Rory has never been brighter. This book is squarely in the tradition of extraordinary golf biographies like Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian’s Tiger Woods and Shipnuck’s own Phil.

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