Recommendations based on "Citizen"

“Punchy and well-reported….Sommer is the perfect person to tell this story." —New York Times"A story so bizarre, only Will Sommer could report it.” —Molly Jong-FastThe definitive book on QAnon from the reporter knows them best; Will Sommer explains what it is, how it has gained a mainstream following among Republican lawmakers and ordinary citizens, the threat it poses to democracy, and how we can reach those who have embraced the conspiracy and are disseminating its lies.The Storm is Coming. Trust the Plan. WWG1WGA. You’ve seen the letter Q on TV and in the news – it’s been everywhere from Trump rallies to the January 6th insurrection. “QAnon” used to sound vaguely familiar, somewhat ominous, but not quite mainstream. But what was once a fringe conspiracy theory has now become a household name and its symbols recognizable around the world. How did this happen, who is actually involved, what do they believe, and what do they want?Daily Beast reporter Will Sommer has been on the ground with Q’s followers since day one, and in Trust the Plan Sommer has written the definitive book on the movement—who started it and who grew it, what they really believe is going on, and what they want to see “the Storm” accomplish on the day of its reckoning. At once a character study and a journalistic exposé, Sommer lets his cast of characters do the talking as he visits them around the world, from their makeshift compounds to the rallies they are still holding.The great tragedy of this story is ultimately the legitimization of this ideology by mainstream politicians eager to gain access to a large and growing cohort of voters. Though 2020 brought the end of Trump’s presidency, his following within the QAnon community has simply pivoted and grown stronger. Trust the Plan shows us in granular detail who we’ll be up against for years to come, in the US and abroad. Understanding why and how something like Q happens is an indispensable exercise, and in showing us how we got here we can chart a path out.

#1 New York Times BestsellerA personal and urgent examination of Fascism in the twentieth century and how its legacy shapes today’s world, written by one of the most admired public servants in American history, the first woman to serve as U.S. secretary of stateA Fascist, observed Madeleine Albright, “is someone who claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is utterly unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use violence and whatever other means are necessary to achieve the goals he or she might have.”The twentieth century was defined by the clash between democracy and Fascism, a struggle that created uncertainty about the survival of human freedom and left millions dead. Given the horrors of that experience, one might expect the world to reject the spiritual successors to Hitler and Mussolini should they arise in our era. Fascism: A Warning is drawn from Madeleine Albright's experiences as a child in war-torn Europe and her distinguished career as a diplomat to question that assumption.Fascism, as she shows, not only endured through the twentieth century but now presents a more virulent threat to peace and justice than at any time since the end of World War II. The momentum toward democracy that swept the world when the Berlin Wall fell has gone into reverse. The United States, which historically championed the free world, is led by a president who exacerbates division and heaps scorn on democratic institutions. In many countries, economic, technological, and cultural factors are weakening the political center and empowering the extremes of right and left. Contemporary leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un are employing many of the tactics used by Fascists in the 1920s and 30s.Fascism: A Warning is a book for our times that is relevant to all times. Written by someone who not only studied history but helped to shape it, this call to arms teaches us the lessons we must understand and the questions we must answer if we are to save ourselves from repeating the tragic errors of the past.

A NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND USA TODAY BESTSELLERAn intimate, powerful, and galvanizing memoir by Pulitzer Prize winner, human rights advocate, and former US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power. Named one of the best books of the year:The New York Times • National Public Radio • Time • The Economist • The Washington Post • Vanity Fair • Christian Science Monitor • Publishers Weekly • Audible“Her highly personal and reflective memoir . . . is a must-read for anyone who cares about our role in a changing world.”—President Barack ObamaIncludes an updated afterwordTracing her distinctly American journey from immigrant to war correspondent to presidential Cabinet official, Samantha Power’s acclaimed memoir is a unique blend of suspenseful storytelling, vivid character portraits, and shrewd political insight. After her critiques of US foreign policy caught the eye of Senator Barack Obama, he invited her to work with him on Capitol Hill and then on his presidential campaign. When Obama won the presidency, Power went from being an activist outsider to serving as his human rights adviser and, in 2013, becoming the youngest-ever US Ambassador to the United Nations. Power transports us from her childhood in Dublin to the streets of war-torn Bosnia to the White House Situation Room and the world of high-stakes diplomacy, offering a compelling and deeply honest look at navigating the halls of power while trying to put one’s ideals into practice. Along the way, she lays bare the searing battles and defining moments of her life, shows how she juggled the demands of a 24/7 national security job with raising two young children, and makes the case for how we each can advance the cause of human dignity. This is an unforgettable account of the power of idealism—and of one person’s fierce determination to make a difference.“This is a wonderful book. […] The interweaving of Power’s personal story, family story, diplomatic history and moral arguments is executed seamlessly and with unblinking honesty.”—THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, The New York Times Book Review“Truly engrossing…A pleasure to read.”—RACHEL MADDOW“A beautiful memoir about the times we’re living in and the questions we must ask ourselves…I honestly couldn’t put it down.” —CHERYL STRAYED, author of Wild“Power’s compelling memoir provides critically important insights we should all understand as we face some of the most vexing issues of our time.” —BRYAN STEVENSON, author of Just Mercy

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From a preeminent presidential historian comes a “superb and important” (The New York Times Book Review) saga of America’s wartime chief executives“Fascinating and heartbreaking . . . timely . . . Beschloss’s broad scope lets you draw important crosscutting lessons about presidential leadership.”—Bill GatesWidely acclaimed and ten years in the making, Michael Beschloss’s Presidents of War is an intimate and irresistibly readable chronicle of the Chief Executives who took the United States into conflict and mobilized it for victory. From the War of 1812 to Vietnam, we see these leaders considering the difficult decision to send hundreds of thousands of Americans to their deaths; struggling with Congress, the courts, the press, and antiwar protesters; seeking comfort from their spouses and friends; and dropping to their knees in prayer. Through Beschloss’s interviews with surviving participants and findings in original letters and once-classified national security documents, we come to understand how these Presidents were able to withstand the pressures of war—or were broken by them.Presidents of War combines this sense of immediacy with the overarching context of two centuries of American history, traveling from the time of our Founders, who tried to constrain presidential power, to our modern day, when a single leader has the potential to launch nuclear weapons that can destroy much of the human race.Praise for Presidents of War"A marvelous narrative. . . . As Beschloss explains, the greatest wartime presidents successfully leaven military action with moral concerns. . . . Beschloss’s writing is clean and concise, and he admirably draws upon new documents. Some of the more titillating tidbits in the book are in the footnotes. . . . There are fascinating nuggets on virtually every page of Presidents of War. It is a superb and important book, superbly rendered.”—Jay Winik, The New York Times Book Review"Sparkle and bite. . . . Valuable and engrossing study of how our chief executives have discharged the most significant of all their duties. . . . Excellent. . . . A fluent narrative that covers two centuries of national conflict.” —Richard Snow, The Wall Street Journal

NATIONAL BESTSELLEROpen borders, record inflation, and skyrocketing crime—Joe Biden’s first term is one of the most craptastic in American history. But on Planet Brandon, it’s all going according to plan . . .He received 81 million votes. His party controlled the House and the Senate. He took office with a nearly 60 percent approval rating. His first month saw the economy recovering nicely and the new COVID-19 vaccines being distributed around the country. And, in his words, he had the awesome power to mobilize “truinernashabada pressure.”And yet, with all that and more, Joe Biden’s first term has been a spectacular failure. COVID roared back. The withdrawal from Afghanistan left thirteen U.S. service members dead and hundreds of Americans stranded as Afghans fell from airplanes. Sixteen American cities set homicide records. More than 2.3 million illegal immigrants entered the country. Inflation reached forty-year highs. And Russia invaded Ukraine. Even the Democrats are so embarrassed, they won’t invite Biden to join them on the campaign trail for the midterms. Gah.But is this hot mess, dumpster fire of a record only because Biden lost whatever fastball he had and is perpetually incompetent? In Come On, Man!, Joe Concha reminds us what’s really going on in the White House. Though Biden may seem like a doddering idiot, stumbling from one mistake to the next, his blunders always hew closely to progressive dreams for American policy. Dreams like saving the planet by attacking Elon Musk and strengthening the middle class by making gas prices higher than Hunter Biden in a motel room. Come On, Man! shows the real reason why we’re here—no malarkey, guaranteed!

One of the most distinctive and funny politicians, Senator John Kennedy (the one from Louisiana)--hailed by Politico as "America's most quotable Senator"--offers his perceptive (and hilarious) takes on the ridiculousness of political life in this scathingly witty takedown of Washington and its elite denizens. How to Test Negative for Stupid offers the Senator's tongue-in-cheek guidebook through Washington, punctuated by his thoughts on various issues and humorous stories about life from Louisiana politics and inside the Senate. From the mind--and mouth--of "America's Most Quotable Senator": "Always be yourself . . . unless you suck." "I say this gently: This is why the aliens won't talk to us." "If you trust government, you obviously failed history class." "I believe that our country was founded by geniuses, but it's being run by idiots." "Always follow your heart . . . but take your brain with you." "I'm not going to Bubble Wrap it: The water in Washington, D.C., won't clear up until you get the pigs out of the creek." "I have the right to remain silent but not the ability." "Common sense is illegal in Washington, D.C., I know. I've seen it firsthand." "I believe that we are going to have to get some new conspiracy theories. All the old ones turned out to be true."

A NEXT BIG IDEA CLUB 'MUST-READ' #1 ON COSMOPOLITAN'S 11 BEST NEW NON-FICTION BOOKS TO ADD TO YOUR TBR PILE IN 2023 CNN senior legal analyst and nationally bestselling author Elie Honig explores America’s two-tier justice system, explaining how the rich, the famous, and the powerful— including, most notoriously, Donald Trump—manipulate the legal system to escape justice and get away with vast misdeeds. How does he get away with it? That question, more than any other, vexes observers of and participants in the American criminal justice process. How do powerful people weaponize their wealth, political power, and fame to beat the system? And how can prosecutors fight back? In Untouchable, Elie Honig exposes how the rich and powerful use the system to their own benefit, revealing how notorious figures like Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein, and Bill Cosby successfully eluded justice for decades. He demonstrates how the Trump children dodged a fraud indictment. He makes clear how countless CEOs and titans of Wall Street have been let off the hook, receiving financial penalties without suffering criminal consequences. This doesn’t happen by accident. Over the four years of his administration, Donald Trump’s corruption seemed plain for all to see. The former president obstructed justice, flouted his responsibility to the Constitution, lied to the American people, and set the United States on a dark path to disunity and violence. Yet he has never been held accountable for any of his misdeeds. Why not? Untouchable holds the answer. Honig shows how Trump and others use seemingly fair institutions and practices to build empires of corruption and get away with misdeeds for which ordinary people would be sentenced to years behind bars. It’s not just that money talks, Honig makes clear, but how it can corrupt otherwise reliable institutions and blind people to the real power dynamics behind the scenes. In this vital, incisive book, Honig explains how the system allows the powerful to become untouchable, takes us inside their heads, and offers solutions for making the system more honest and fairer, ensuring true justice for all—holding everyone, no matter their status, accountable for their criminal misdeeds.

NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • “One of the truly great biographies of our time.”—Sean Wilentz, New York Times bestselling author of Bob Dylan in America and The Rise of American Democracy   “A landmark study of Washington power politics in the twentieth century in the Robert Caro tradition.”—Douglas Brinkley, New York Times bestselling author of American Moonshot The epic, definitive biography of Ted Kennedy—an immersive journey through the life of a complicated man and a sweeping history of the fall of liberalism and the collapse of political morality. Catching the Wind is the first volume of Neal Gabler’s magisterial two-volume biography of Edward Kennedy. It is at once a human drama, a history of American politics in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and a study of political morality and the role it played in the tortuous course of liberalism.  Though he is often portrayed as a reckless hedonist who rode his father’s fortune and his brothers’ coattails to a Senate seat at the age of thirty, the Ted Kennedy in Catching the Wind is one the public seldom saw—a man both racked by and driven by insecurity, a man so doubtful of himself that he sinned in order to be redeemed. The last and by most contemporary accounts the least of the Kennedys, a lightweight. He lived an agonizing childhood, being shuffled from school to school at his mother’s whim, suffering numerous humiliations—including self-inflicted ones—and being pressed to rise to his brothers’ level. He entered the Senate with his colleagues’ lowest expectations, a show horse, not a workhorse, but he used his “ninth-child’s talent” of deference to and comity with his Senate elders to become a promising legislator. And with the deaths of his brothers John and Robert, he was compelled to become something more: the custodian of their political mission. In Catching the Wind, Kennedy, using his late brothers’ moral authority, becomes a moving force in the great “liberal hour,” which sees the passage of the anti-poverty program and the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. Then, with the election of Richard Nixon, he becomes the leading voice of liberalism itself at a time when its power is waning: a “shadow president,” challenging Nixon to keep the American promise to the marginalized, while Nixon lives in terror of a Kennedy restoration. Catching the Wind also shows how Kennedy’s moral authority is eroded by the fatal auto accident on Chappaquiddick Island in 1969, dealing a blow not just to Kennedy but to liberalism. In this sweeping biography, Gabler tells a story that is Shakespearean in its dimensions: the story of a star-crossed figure who rises above his seeming limitations and the tragedy that envelopes him to change the face of America.

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Meticulously sourced, merciless and revelatory. It is a closely observed study of power, and how it is gained, used and lost' FINANCIAL TIMES The unmissable next instalment of Tim Shipman’s #1 bestselling Brexit quartet. To follow his bestselling books All Out War and Fall Out, this book launches off from 2017 to offer an unflinching, unfiltered account of some of the most turbulent years of British politics. In the company of all the key players and with countless never-before-revealed insights, No Way Out traces the unprecedented disasters and triumphs of Theresa May’s tenure. Spun with characteristic wit and wisdom, Shipman tells the story of May’s three great negotiations – first, with her cabinet, then with the EU and finally with parliament – and chronicles her fall in thrilling detail. This is the ultimate insider narrative to three of the most turbulent and impactful years of government, revealing the strategies, gambles, mistakes, mindsets and scandals that have shaped and shaken Britain. As always, political insider and chief political commentator for the Sunday Times Tim Shipman unleashes a slew of insight – and gossip – to reveal the democratic drama as it really happened. 'The quantity of work required to tell a complicated, many-sided story in such detail is astonishing. What do we learn? Well, many things of genuine interest to political followers and historians. Is his book worth it? In the end, undoubtedly yes... in an age of short-attention-span social media caricature, this is proper work, the real stuff of understanding. Historians will lean on it heavily. Would-be political leaders of the future will learn from it. It will set the narrative about how Brexit was handled, in a way other journalists can only envy' ANDREW MARR, NEW STATESMAN

The hotly anticipated final book of bestselling author Tim Shipman’s Brexit quartet. The Johnson Years to Rishi Sunak 'Magnificent... Pacy and packed with delicious details... Shipman puts you in the room... His analysis is sharp and full of insight... For those seeking a moment-by-moment insider history it will not be topped' FT How did Boris Johnson supersede Theresa May to become Britain's Prime Minister? How did he pursue his promise to Get Brexit Done amidst multiple Brexit secretaries, repeated coup attempts and reshuffles, and an extraordinarily terse relationship with Brussels? What really happened in Downing Street – from the political choices to the party place settings – as the pandemic took the world in its grip? Out follows from May's resignation through to the tussles over the final Brexit deal, the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and our shortest serving PM ever. If pre-Theresa May Westminster was largely obsessed with the clever idealism of The West Wing, marinated in the farce of The Thick of It, the parable of these years became Game of Thrones, the pseudo-medieval swords and shagging epic pitching warring factions against each other in the quest for the iron throne. At the centre of the action was Tim Shipman, chief political commentator for the Sunday Times, taking notes on the guts and gore and tears. Out is a riveting, rambunctious account of the most dramatic years in modern British politics.