Compiled by Jamie H. Vaught
Updated August 14, 2024
--The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading by James Patterson and Matt Eversmann (Little, Brown, and Company, $28) is a collection of entertaining stories written by the booksellers and librarians as they discussed their lives. The 335-page hardover covers the smart and talented people who live between the pages—and who can’t wait to help you find your next favorite book. Patterson, as you know, is the most popular storyteller of our time.
--The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson (Crown, $35) offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War during the 1860s. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his deceptive 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, the author, who has written six New York Times bestsellers, 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 revolution coming until it’s too late.
--The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington's Most Private First Lady by Heath Hardage Lee (St. Martin's Press, $32) is a fascinating look into the brilliant life of Pat Nixon. She was voted “Most Admired Woman in the World” in 1972 and made Gallup Poll’s Top 10 list of most admired women 14 times. She survived the turmoil of President Nixon's Watergate scandal with her popularity and dignity intact. Mrs. Nixon was a highly travelled First Lady, visiting over 80 countries during her tenure. After a devastating earthquake in Peru in 1970, she personally flew in medical supplies and food to hard-hit areas, meeting one-on-one with victims of the tragedy. The First Lady’s 1972 trips with her husband to China and to Russia were critical to the detente that resulted. The 405-page hardcover presents readers with the essential nature of this First Lady, an empathetic, adventurous, self-made woman who wanted no power or influence, but who connected warmly with both ordinary Americans and people from different cultures she encountered worldwide.
--Mr. Flagler's St. Augustine by Thomas Graham (University Press of Florida, $28) is an authoritative look at an intriguing man and a captivating time in American history. During the late 1800s, Henry Morrison Flagler walked away from Standard Oil, leaving the enormously successful company in the hands of John D. Rockefeller while he headed to Florida to pursue other interests. Flagler’s new venture would lead him to completely restructure the sleepy town of St. Augustine and transform Florida’s entire east coast. This biography tells the story of how one of the wealthiest men in America spared no expense to turn the country’s "Oldest City" into a highly desirable vacation destination for the rich. Upon arrival, Flagler found accommodations in St. Augustine to be inferior, so he set out to build the opulent Ponce de Leon Hotel, and thus began his endeavor to attract wealthy travelers to the small southern city. In addition, he had the vision to stretch his new railroad southward, establishing hotels and accommodations along the way. The author is professor emeritus of history at Flagler College.
--Behind Closed Doors: In the Room with Reagan & Nixon by Ken Khachigian (Post Hill Press, $35) takes you inside the Oval Office, Air Force One, Camp David and the Western White House. The author, who served as trusted advisor and speechwriter to Presidents Reagan and Nixon, opens his diaries, secret memos, and contemporaneous notes to share untold history. The 496-page hardcover brings readers behind the scenes as the presidents navigated crises, confronted opponents, and staked their legacies. It's a thrilling journey for political junkies.
--Character Matters: And Other Life Lessons from George H. W. Bush by Jean Becker (Grand Central Publishing, $30) is written by the former Chief of Staff to President Bush who shares touching and pivotal life lessons from a leader who left a mark on people's hearts and souls. As the U.S. heads into what promises to be a tumultuous 2024 presidential election year, the book will be a good reminder of the importance of character when defining true leadership. Colleagues, friends, and family share their very personal stories of what they learned from watching and listening to President Bush.
--Lead Like a Girl: The New Leadership Playbook for Women and Men by Dalia Feldheim (Rowman & Littlefield Publisher, $19.95) is a fresh look at leadership for women and men that helps us all learn to connect to our more feminine leadership traits and lead like a girl. It is about turning the workplace into a place where empathy, intuition, passion, and resilience take their rightful place, where women can lead like women and men can tap into their more feminine leadership traits and dare to lead (more) like a girl. The 312-page paperback offers a holistic look at how to achieve purpose and joy at work.
--What This Comedian Said Will Shock You by Bill Maher (Simon & Schuster, $30) is an entertaining work of commentary about American life, politics, and culture in the tradition of Mark Twain, Will Rogers, and H.L. Mencken. Some of the smartest commentary about what’s happening in our country is coming from this well-known and controversial comedian. The 379-page hardcover was inspired by the editorials Bill delivered at the end of each episode of Real Time. These editorials are direct-to-camera sermons about culture, politics, and what’s happening in the world. To put this book together, Maher reviewed more than a decade of his editorials, rewriting, reimagining, and updating them, and adding new material to speak exactly to the moment we’re in. Before hosting Real Time on HBO for the last 21 years, the author created and hosted Politically Incorrect on ABC.
--An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Simon & Schuster, $35) is a biography, memoir, and history, all-in-one, while taking the readers along on the emotional journey she and her husband embarked upon in the last years of his life. The well-known author has written several remarkable books and it was her work for President Lyndon Johnson that inspired her career as a presidential historian. This 469-page hardcover is the author's most personal and profound work of history.
--Unstressable: A Practical Guide to Stress-Free Living by Mo Gawdat and Alice Law (St. Martin's Essentials, $30) offers a pragmatic approach to handling life's challenges through both science-based and heart-centered solutions. The 359-page hardcover breaks down stress firstly through a mathematical and scientific lens by showing how stressors can be predicted with certainty and subsequently prevented. The authors guide you to understand that stress isn't what happens to you; it's how you handle what happens to you.
--The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis by George Stephanopoulos with Lisa Dickey (Grand Central Publishing, $35) reveals the history-making crises from the place -- the White House Situation Room -- where 12 presidents made their highest-pressure decisions. Created under President Kennedy, the Situation Room has been the epicenter of crisis management for presidents for more than 60 years. The book will take readers through dramatic turning points in a dozen presidential administrations, including a first-ever account of January 6th attack from the staff inside the Situation Room.
--24/7 Politics: Cable Television & the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News by Kathryn Cramer Brownell (Princeton University Press, $35) reveals how cable TV created new possibilities for anti-establishment voices and opened a pathway to political prominence for unlikely figures like Donald Trump by playing to narrow audiences and cultivating division instead of common ground. As television began to overtake the political landscape during the 1960s, network broadcast companies dominated screens across the nation. Over the next three decades, however, the expansion of a different technology, cable, changed all of this.
--Richard Nixon: California's Native Son by Paul Carter (Potomac Books, $36.95) is the story of President Nixon's Southern California journey from his birth in Yorba Linda to his final resting place just a few yards from the home in which he was born. Modern biographies of Nixon have been consumed with Watergate. All have missed arguably the most important perspective on Nixon as California's native son, the only U.S. president born and raised in California. Overall, this one is a different type of Nixon biography.
--Life: My Story Through History by Pope Francis (HarperOne, $29.99) tells an extraordinary and personal story of his life as he looks back on the momentous world events that have changed history -- from his earliest years during the outbreak of World War II in 1939 to the turmoil of today. Pope Francis, who grew up in Argentina, recalls his life through memories and observations of the most significant occurrences of the past eight decades. He graduated from secondary school as a chemical technician but felt a call to the priesthood as a Jesuit, joining the novitiate in 1958 at the age of 22. Pope Francis is now 87.
--JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography by Rosemarie Terenzio and Liz McNeil along with editor Kim Hubbard (Gallery Books, $30.99) is an intimate, comprehensive look at the real man behind the myth. Sharing never-before-told stories and insights, his closest friends, confidantes, lovers, classmates, teachers, and colleagues paint a vivid portrait of one of the most beloved figures of the 20th century. Born into the spotlight as the son of a president, John F. Kennedy Jr. lived a short but remarkable life filled with expectation, ambition, family pressures, love, and tragedy.
--The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment by editor Julian E. Zelizer (Princeton University Press, $29.95) brings together many of today’s top scholars to provide original assessments of the major issues that shaped the Trump presidency. When Trump took office in 2017, he quickly carved out a loyal base within an increasingly radicalized Republican Party, dominated the news cycle with an endless stream of controversies, and presided over one of the most contentious one-term presidencies in American history. These essays cover the crucial aspects of Trump’s time in office, including his administration’s close relationship with conservative media, his war on feminism, the solidification of a conservative women’s movement, his response to COVID-19, the border wall, growing tensions with China and NATO allies, white nationalism in an era of Black Lives Matter, and how the high-tech sector flourished.
--The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters by Susan Page (Simon & Schuster, $30.99) is the definitive biography of the most successful female broadcaster of all time. Walters was someone whose personal demons fueled an ambition that broke all the rules and finally gave women a permanent place on the air. She was a force from the time TV was exploding on the American scene in the 1960s to its waning dominance in a new world of competition from streaming services and social media half a century later. The bestselling author conducted 150 interviews and extensive archival research to discover that Walters was driven to keep herself and her family afloat after her unstable and famous father attempted suicide.
Jamie H. Vaught, a longtime sports columnist in Kentucky, is the author of six books about UK basketball, including recently-published "Forever Crazy About the Cats: An Improbable Journey of a Kentucky Sportswriter Overcoming Adversity." Now a retired college professor who taught at Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College in Middlesboro, he is the editor and founder of KySportsStyle.com Magazine.. You can follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @KySportsStyle or reach him via email at KySportsStyle@gmail.com.
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