In this eloquent, persuasive book, Neil Postman alerts us to the real and present dangers of this state of affairs, and offers compelling suggestions as to how to withstand the media onslaught. Before we hand over politics, education, religion, and journalism to the show business demands of the television age, we must recognize the ways in which the media shape our lives and the ways we can, in turn, shape them to serve out highest goals.

    Moses built an empire and lived like an emperor. He personally conceived and completed public works costing 27 billion dollars--the greatest builder America (and probably the world) has ever known. Without ever having been elected to office, he dominated the men who were--even his most bitter enemy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, could not control him--until he finally encountered, in Nelson Rockefeller, the only man whose power (and ruthlessness in wielding it) equalled his own.

    She was a trailblazing columnist who achieved national syndication and reported from the front lines of American politics for five decades. From her first assignment reporting on the Army–McCarthy hearings to her Pulitzer-winning coverage of Watergate and controversial observations of President Bush after September 11, McGrory humanized the players on the great national stage while establishing herself as a uniquely influential voice. Behind the scenes she flirted, drank, cajoled, and jousted with the most important figures in American life, breaking all the rules in the journalism textbook. Her writing was admired and feared by such notables as Lyndon Johnson (who also tried to seduce her) and her friend Bobby Kennedy who observed, “Mary is so gentle—until she gets behind a typewriter.” Her soirees, filled with Supreme Court justices, senators, interns, and copy boys alike, were legendary.As the red-hot center of the Beltway in a time when the newsrooms were dominated by men, McGrory makes for a powerfully engrossing subject. Laced with juicy gossip and McGrory’s own acerbic wit, John Norris’s colorful biography reads like an insider’s view of latter-day American history—and one of its most enduring characters.

    Acclaimed for his recent Civil War biography, American Scoundrel, Keneally delves with relish-and a keen, fresh eye-into Lincoln's complicated persona. Abraham Lincoln depicts all the amazing man's triumphs, insecurities, and crushing defeats with uncanny insight: his early poverty and the ambition that propelled him out of it; the shaping of the man and his political philosophy by youthful exposure to Christianity, slavery, and business; his tempestuous marriage and his fatherly love. We see him, elected to the presidency by a twist of fate, unswerving in the grim day-to-day conduct of the war as his vision and acumen led the country forward. Abraham Lincoln is an incisive study of a turning point in our history and a revealing portrait of its pivotal figure, his greatness etched even more clearly in this very touching human story.

    There is no middle ground. It is the Church and kingdom of God or it is nothing."--LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley, April Conference, 2003. Many Mormons assume that this and other similar proclamations by Mormon Leaders are rhetorical statements. But what if the LDS leaders meant something else? It is estimated that more than 1-1.5 million Mormons have resigned from the LDS Church since 1995. This book exposes why there is such a recent, formal abandonment of Mormonism by, in many cases, previously devout members of the Church. Admittedly, the LDS Church "stands or falls," on the divinity of "The Book of Mormon." However, it has been proven that "The Book of Mormon" is not a translation of ancient American history engraved in "reformed Egyptian," on golden plates buried by an early American prophet. Instead, it has been shown to be a 19th-century work of fiction authored by Joseph Smith and perhaps others. Until the advent of widespread internet access, most members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons, rarely read outside the strictly proscribed canonized scriptures, books and magazines approved by Church leaders. But over the past 10-15 years, Mormons have begun to discover facts about LDS history that had only previously been known to very few, mainly scholarly historians of Mormonism. Through the discovery of these primary historical sources, now available on numerous internet sites, most intelligent and curious Mormons have reached a critical point and are furious. If they read, they have become disaffected and disoriented. Many are experiencing existential crises. Those who refuse to look outside Mormon Society for Truth have become increasingly self-righteous and insular. The first third of "An American Fraud: One Lawyer's Case against Mormonism," chronicles the Author's journey out of the Religion. The second two-thirds of the Book, the last six chapters, are an exposé including an analysis under the law. The Author, an experienced civil trial attorney, places the activities of Mormon Leaders over almost two centuries in their proper legal framework, analyzing not only the misrepresentations, but the resulting damages: political, environmental and especially psycho-social. Ms. Burningham writes that a determination of whether Mormon Leaders have historically misrepresented the origins of LDS theology does not involve a judicial evaluation of the truth of religious beliefs and is therefore not beyond the reach of the American legal system--it is not constitutionally barred. The issue is not whether Jesus Christ is the Son of God, or the efficacy of prayer. These things could never be determined by a secular court of law. Instead, the fraud committed by generations of Mormon Leaders is that they have misrepresented the facts surrounding the source of their scriptures, presenting that source as divine, when they have known otherwise. Neither the golden plates, nor the writings by the Old Testament prophet, Abraham, claimed to have been inscribed on Egyptian papyri, ever existed. Furthermore, the claimed visitations by biblical apostles to restore lost priesthoods to Smith and his colleagues never occurred.  Yet for decades LDS leaders have at least ignored, if not suppressed and grossly misrepresented, the true facts surrounding Mormonism's origins, reworking and re-packaging the founding facts and the theology as necessary. Those who joined the Church or continued on in the Religion reasonably relied on LDS leaders' misrepresentations to their significant detriment. Given what has been proven about its sources, the Author claims that the Mormon Religion cannot continue to be defended under any guise as a religious organization for the good of its members.

    This is “the work that brought down a presidency— perhaps the most influential piece of journalism in history” (Time, All-Time 100 Best Nonfiction Books).This is the book that changed America. Published just two months before President Nixon’s resignation, All the President’s Men revealed the full scope of the Watergate scandal and introduced for the first time the mysterious “Deep Throat.” Beginning with the story of a simple burglary at Democratic headquarters and then continuing through headline after headline, Bernstein and Woodward deliver the stunning revelations and pieces in the Watergate puzzle that brought about Nixon’s shocking downfall. Their explosive reports won a Pulitzer Prize for The Washington Post, toppled the president, and have since inspired generations of reporters.All the President’s Men is a riveting detective story, capturing the exhilarating rush of the biggest presidential scandal in U.S. history as it unfolded in real time. It is, as former New York Times managing editor Gene Roberts has called it, “maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time.”

    His life and this book remind us that America remains the land of the brave and generous.” — Tom Brokaw Like many young idealists, Eric Greitens wanted to make a difference, so he traveled to the world’s trouble spots to work in refugee camps and serve the sick and the poor. Yet when innocent civilians were threatened with harm, there was nothing he could do but step in afterward and try to ease the suffering. In studying humanitarianism, he realized a fundamental truth: when an army invades, the weak need protection. So he joined the Navy SEALs and became one of the world’s elite warriors. Greitens led his men through the unforgettable soul-testing of SEAL training and went on to deployments in Kenya, Afghanistan, and Iraq, where he faced harrowing encounters and brutal attacks. Yet even in the deadliest combat situations, the lessons of his humanitarian work bore fruit. At the heart of this powerful story lies a paradox: sometimes you have to be strong to do good, but you also have to do good to be strong. The heart and the fist together are more powerful than either one alone. “If you're restless or itching for some calling you can't name, read this book. Give it to your son and daughter. The Heart and the Fist epitomizes — as does Mr. Greitens's life, present and future — all that is best in this country, and what we need desperately right now.” — Steven Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire “Vivid and compelling . . . a great read.” — Washington Times A Hudson Booksellers Top Ten Nonfiction Book of the Year A USA Today and Publishers Weekly Bestseller WITH A NEW AFTERWORD

    This hilarious peek into the early years of the hair-band era reveals the hierarchy of fishnets, bustiers, and chicks with the Holy Grail—a backstage pass. A taste for other people’s prescriptions and too much beer edges her freelance journalism work right off her schedule. She struggles with not being thin enough, pretty enough, or cool enough when, in the midst of the L.A. riots, Soffee is offered a coveted slot in Virginia Commonwealth University's MFA writing program. Determined to pull herself out of current habits, Soffee starts turning her life around, making a stop at rehab before she heads off to graduate school. Her quarter-life crisis is packed with offbeat characters that prove that fact is often funnier than fiction.

    Allen Ginsberg. William S. Burroughs. LeRoi Jones. Theirs are the names primarily associated with the Beat Generation. But what about Joyce Johnson (nee Glassman), Edie Parker, Elise Cowen, Diane Di Prima, and dozens of others? These female friends and lovers of the famous iconoclasts are now beginning to be recognized for their own roles in forging the Beat movement and for their daring attempts to live as freely as did the men in their circle a decade before Women's Liberation.Twenty-one-year-old Joyce Johnson, an aspiring novelist and a secretary at a New York literary agency, fell in love with Jack Kerouac on a blind date arranged by Allen Ginsberg nine months before the publication of On the Road made Kerouac an instant celebrity. While Kerouac traveled to Tangiers, San Francisco, and Mexico City, Johnson roamed the streets of the East Village, where she found herself in the midst of the cultural revolution the Beats had created. Minor Characters portrays the turbulent years of her relationship with Kerouac with extraordinary wit and love and a cool, critical eye, introducing the reader to a lesser known but purely original American voice: her own.

    For the next decade she was shuttled through the brothels that make up the sprawling sex trade of Southeast Asia. Trapped in this dangerous and desperate world, she suffered the brutality and horrors of human trafficking—rape, torture, deprivation—until she managed to escape with the help of a French aid worker. Emboldened by her newfound freedom, education, and security, Somaly blossomed but remained haunted by the girls in the brothels she left behind.Written in exquisite, spare, unflinching prose, The Road of Lost Innocence recounts the experiences of her early life and tells the story of her awakening as an activist and her harrowing and brave fight against the powerful and corrupt forces that steal the lives of these girls. She has orchestrated raids on brothels and rescued sex workers, some as young as five and six; she has built shelters, started schools, and founded an organization that has so far saved more than four thousand women and children in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. Her memoir will leave you awestruck by her tenacity and courage and will renew your faith in the power of an individual to bring about change.

    Now, in Eunice, Pulitzer Prize winner Eileen McNamara finally brings Eunice Kennedy Shriver out from her brothers’ shadow to show an officious, cigar-smoking, indefatigable woman of unladylike determination and deep compassion born of rage: at the medical establishment that had no answers for her sister Rosemary; at the revered but dismissive father whose vision for his family did not extend beyond his sons; and at the government that failed to deliver on America’s promise of equality. Granted access to never-before-seen private papers—from the scrapbooks Eunice kept as a schoolgirl in prewar London to her thoughts on motherhood and feminism—McNamara paints a vivid portrait of a woman both ahead of her time and out of step with it: the visionary founder of the Special Olympics, a devout Catholic in a secular age, and a formidable woman whose impact on American society was longer lasting than that of any of the Kennedy men.

    In August 1966, while on parole for burglary, he raped, tortured, and murdered three teenagers in an abandoned field far from his hometown of Rosebud, a peaceful Central Texas hamlet. He was tried, convicted, and condemned to death. Had his sentence not been commuted to life, that would have been the end of Kenneth Allen McDuff. But in 1989, only weeks after the twenty-third anniversary of his crimes, the bad boy from Rosebud walked out of prison a free man.McDuff took pleasure in outwitting the system, and his bloodlust was an impulse he had no intention of controlling. After decomposed corpses of more and more women were discovered, the worst nightmares of the authorities came true. But times were different. It took 32 years to bring his brutal and heartless crime spree to a fitting end. Texas had never seen such incredible brutality--and has never been the same since.

    The author's lucid and witty prose offers some unforgettable personal experiences and a host of cultural, political and professional insights as he reflects on the growing unease he came to feel in his role as psychiatrist in a society "destroying itself by violence masquerading as love."

    Until he didn't anymore. Blindsided by the loss of his mother and his marriage in the same month, Millburn started questioning every aspect of the life he had built for himself. Then, he accidentally discovered a lifestyle known as minimalism...and everything started to change. That was four years ago. Since, Millburn, now 32, has embraced simplicity. In the pursuit of looking for something more substantial than compulsory consumption and the broken American Dream, he jettisoned most of his material possessions, paid off loads of crippling debt, and walked away from his six-figure career. So, when everything was gone, what was left? Not a how-to book but a why-to book, Everything That Remains is the touching, surprising story of what happened when one young man decided to let go of everything and begin living more deliberately. Heartrending, uplifting, and deeply personal, this engrossing memoir is peppered with insightful (and often hilarious) interruptions by Ryan Nicodemus, Millburn's best friend of twenty years.

    Until now, however, it is a story that has never been fully told, as the Bin Ladens have successfully fended off attempts to understand the family circles from which Osama sprang. In this the family has been abetted by the kingdom it calls home, Saudi Arabia, one of the most closed societies on earth.Steve Coll’s The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century is the groundbreaking history of a family and its fortune. It chronicles a young illiterate Yemeni bricklayer, Mohamed Bin Laden, who went to the new, oil-rich country of Saudi Arabia and quickly became a vital figure in its development, building great mosques and highways and making himself and many of his children millionaires. It is also a story of the Saudi royal family, whom the Bin Ladens served loyally and without whose capricious favor they would have been nothing. And it is a story of tensions and contradictions in a country founded on extreme religious purity, which then became awash in oil money and dazzled by the temptations of the West. In only two generations the Bin Ladens moved from a famine-stricken desert canyon to luxury jets, yachts, and private compounds around the world, even going into business with Hollywood celebrities. These religious and cultural gyrations resulted in everything from enthusiasm for America—exemplified by Osama’s free-living pilot brother Salem—to an overwhelming determination to destroy it.The Bin Ladens is a meticulously researched, colorful, shocking, entertaining, and disturbing narrative of global integration and its limitations. It encapsulates the unsettling contradictions of globalization in the story of a single family who has used money, mobility, and technology to dramatically varied ends.