Michael Lewis

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Pennsylvania

Undoing Democracy

New York Times Bestseller

What are the consequences if the people given control over our government have no idea how it works?


"The election happened," remembers Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, then deputy secretary of the Department of Energy. "And then there was radio silence." Across all departments, similar stories were playing out: Trump appointees were few and far between; those that did show up were shockingly uninformed about the functions of their new workplace. Some even threw away the briefing books that had been prepared for them.

Michael Lewis's brilliant narrative takes us into the engine rooms of a government under attack by its own leaders. In Agriculture the funding of vital programs like food stamps and school lunches is being slashed. The Commerce Department may not have enough staff to conduct the 2020 Census properly. Over at Energy, where international nuclear risk is managed, it's not clear there will be enough inspectors to track and locate black market uranium before terrorists do.

Willful ignorance plays a role in these looming disasters. If your ambition is to maximize short-term gains without regard to the long-term cost, you are better off not knowing those costs. If you want to preserve your personal immunity to the hard problems, it's better never to really understand those problems. There is upside to ignorance, and downside to knowledge. Knowledge makes life messier. It makes it a bit more difficult for a person who wishes to shrink the world to a worldview.

If there are dangerous fools in this book, there are also heroes, unsung, of course. They are the linchpins of the system--those public servants whose knowledge, dedication, and proactivity keep the machinery running. Michael Lewis finds them, and he asks them what keeps them up at night.

The Fifth Risk

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#hardcover #politics #government #voting #votersrights #america #USA

New York

Insights from Four Years of Listening to American Voters

"For four years, Diane Hessan has been in weekly conversation with voters across the United States. What she has learned will surprise you, enlighten you, give you hope, and change the way you think about your fellow Americans.Our inability to hear each other, our suspicion, and our impatience is stressing us out and tearing us apart. It's a sickness that permeates the American culture, erodes our collective mental health, and makes us hate each other.To gain insight into how we can move forward, Hessan undertook a massive listening project, conducting an ongoing series of weekly interviews with 500 voters from every state, of every age and ethnicity, and along different points of the political spectrum. The topics ranged from race to guns, from character to party politics, from masks to rallies, from the Supreme Court to the pandemic to immigration and climate change. After more than a million individual communications, two things became clear:We have more common ground than we realize.And we are, sadly, failing at understanding each other.On issue after issue, our "divided" nation isn't nearly as polarized as we imagine. An overwhelming majority of voters believe in commonsense gun licensing and regulation. They are pro-immigration. They believe climate change is real and the coronavirus is deadly. They care deeply about their families and are willing to work hard to make ends meet. And, they believe that Washington is slow, bureaucratic, and not working in their best interests.In dozens of columns on these topics published in The Boston Globe, Hessan has upended common political wisdom. Presented together for the first time as part of this book, they reveal a unique perspective on how Americans actually think, what they value, and how we can move forward.The path to healing our divided nation is both simple and profound. We must turn down the heat. We must begin to listen, to stop presuming, to try to understand, to treat each other with dignity, and to know that most Americans are not crazy radicals. We truly share common ground.

Our Common Ground

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California

What Your Government Doesn't Want You to Know

Not Free America is a call to all Americans to take back our constitutional freedoms and break free of "our abusive relationship with our government." Mike Donovan's groundbreaking work on behalf of personal liberties has made him an object of fascination on both the Right and the Left.

In this groundbreaking book, Mike Donovan, the CEO of Nexus Services, calls out the elites who wield power in our country--not only the elites at the federal level, but the elites who exert control over us in our states and counties, our cities and towns. Not Free America is a passionate call to all freedom-loving Americans to take back our constitutional freedoms and break free of what he calls "our abusive relationship with our government."

Donovan details how the "wholesale shredding of the Bill of Rights" started long before the concurrent crises of Covid-19 and the protests and violence that followed the murder of George Floyd. Not Free America shows us how those events were used by forces in our local, state, and federal governments that had systematically been abridging our rights for decades. These rights, Mike reminds us, are God-given rights guaranteed to us by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment.

As the pastor of the First Christian Church Universalist in Harrisonburg, Virginia, Mike Donovan is far from your quiet country clergyman. A fierce warrior with the spirit of God and the tough skin of a lawyer, he has dedicated his life to protecting liberty and preserving individual rights, serving the underserved, and ministering to those who are overlooked in our broken society. Indeed, there are aspects to his past and present that make him an easy target for judgment from all directions. But Mike Donovan hides from nothing: He openly embraces the faults of his past and dedicates his present to creating a future that helps others move past their own unfortunate pasts.

Born to a poor family in Page County, Virginia, he found himself at a young age convicted of writing bad checks, resulting in multiple felonies for which he served seven months in the county jail. But the time he served didn't break him; it helped make him the man he is today: a man of the law and a man of God who believes with all his heart and soul in the possibility of redemption and the power of moving beyond past mistakes. He also came out of that experience knowing he needed to make a difference for others who found themselves in the same place he'd just been. Not content to talk the talk, Mike Donovan walks the walk in the footsteps of the Jesus who said "I was in prison and you came to visit me . . . Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me."

Not Free America shows us how to do all that for America and for our children. The book ends with "The Liberty Pledge": an agreement readers will make stating that they will vote only for lawmakers who agree to uphold the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment.

Not Free America

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Dreams and Nightmares of the American Small Town

Broadway, the main street that runs through Robert Pinsky’s home town of Long Branch, New Jersey, was once like thousands of other main streets in small towns across the country. But for Pinsky, one of America’s most admired poets and its former Poet Laureate, this Broadway is the point of departure for a lively journey through the small towns of the American imagination. Thousands of Broadways explores the dreams and nightmares of such small towns—their welcoming yet suffocating, warm yet prejudicial character during their heyday, from the early nineteenth century through World War II. The citizens of quintessential small towns know one another extensively and even intimately, but fail to recognize the geniuses and criminal minds in their midst. Bringing the works of such figures as Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Alfred Hitchcock, Thornton Wilder, Willa Cather, and Preston Sturges to bear on this paradox, as well as reflections on his own time growing up in a small town, Pinsky explores how such imperfect knowledge shields communities from the anonymity and alienation of modern life. Along the way, he also considers how small towns can be small minded—in some cases viciously judgmental and oppressively provincial. Ultimately, Pinsky examines the uneasy regard that creative talents like him often have toward the small towns that either nurtured or thwarted their artistic impulses. Of living in a small town, Sherwood Anderson once wrote that "the sensation is one never to be forgotten. On all sides are ghosts, not of the dead, but of living people." Passionate, lyrical, and intensely moving, Thousands of Broadways is a rich exploration of this crucial theme in American literature by one of its most distinguished figures.

Thousands of Broadways

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Tennessee

Why We Hate Each Other--And How to Heal

* AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing American Adult, an intimate and urgent assessment of the existential crisis facing our nation.

Something is wrong. We all know it.

American life expectancy is declining for a third straight year. Birth rates are dropping. Nearly half of us think the other political party isn't just wrong; they're evil. We're the richest country in history, but we've never been more pessimistic.

What's causing the despair?

In Them, bestselling author and U.S. senator Ben Sasse argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, our crisis isn't really about politics. It's that we're so lonely we can't see straight--and it bubbles out as anger.

Local communities are collapsing. Across the nation, little leagues are disappearing, Rotary clubs are dwindling, and in all likelihood, we don't know the neighbor two doors down. Work isn't what we'd hoped: less certainty, few lifelong coworkers, shallow purpose. Stable families and enduring friendships--life's fundamental pillars--are in statistical freefall.

As traditional tribes of place evaporate, we rally against common enemies so we can feel part of a team. No institutions command widespread public trust, enabling foreign intelligence agencies to use technology to pick the scabs on our toxic divisions. We're in danger of half of us believing different facts than the other half, and the digital revolution throws gas on the fire.

There's a path forward--but reversing our decline requires something radical: a rediscovery of real places and human-to-human relationships. Even as technology nudges us to become rootless, Sasse shows how only a recovery of rootedness can heal our lonely souls.

America wants you to be happy, but more urgently, America needs you to love your neighbor and connect with your community. Fixing what's wrong with the country depends on it.

Them

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Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

The Revolutionary War 

#hardcover #ya #historical #bookclub #botm #pioneer #fiction #youngadult #love #america


Washington

A Novel

Spanning several decades in seventeenth century Great Britain and America, this “impressive piece of work, rich in historical detail and human insight” (The Sunday Times) is an unforgettable love story exploring the power of nature versus man and man versus woman. I am an engineer and a measured man of the world. I prefer to weigh everything in the balance, to calculate and to plan. Yet my own heart is going faster than I can now count. In 1649, Jan Brunt arrives in Great Britain from the Netherlands to work on draining and developing an expanse of marshy wetlands known as the Great Level. It is here in this wild country that he meets Eliza, a local woman whose love overturns his ordered vision. Determined to help her strive beyond her situation, Jan is heedless of her devotion to her home and way of life. When she uses the education Jan has given her to sabotage his work, Eliza is brutally punished, and Jan flees to the New World. In the American colonies, profiteers on Manatus Eyland are hungry for viable land to develop, and Jan’s skills as an engineer are highly prized. His prosperous new life is rattled, however, on a spring morning when a boy delivers a note that prompts him to remember the Great Level, and confront all that was lost there. Eliza has made it to the New World and is once again using the education Jan gave her to bend the landscape—this time to find her own place of freedom. A “story of passion, possession, and a painful education in love” (Sarah Dunant, author of In the Name of the Family), Call Upon the Water is an adventure, an unusual and intelligent love story, and a powerful comment on the relationship between humans and the environment. “Richly involving…rousing and heroic” (The Guardian), this unforgettable historical novel is perfect for fans of Hilary Mantel, Geraldine Brooks, and Philippa Gregory. *Note: This book was published in the UK under the title The Great Level.

Call upon the Water

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Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

An Incomplete Hostory Of World War 11

Reader's Digest Editors

The personal side of American history is revealed in a collection of more than 450 true stories, featuring the designer of Lincoln Logs, the Real McCoy, explanations of bizarre customs, and a bonus guide to historic sites.

Texas

Customs, Legends, History and Lore of Our Great Nation

The personal side of American history is revealed in a collection of anecdotes featuring the designer of Lincoln Logs, the Real McCoy, explanations of unusual customs, and a bonus guide to historic sites

Discovering America's Past

c5d4d0d4-18b8-42a5-a96e-54505cf476fd-1

#religion #hardcover #The10Offensive #Politics #PatRobertson #700Club #Christianity, #AlabamaSupremeCourt #America #patriotism box 62

Reclaim the Blessings of the 10 Commandments

The Ten Commandments are a gift from God, intended to protect and bless His people. Yet there is so much confusion and misunderstanding regarding these ten timeless truths. How could something so good be so offensive? In this book, Pat Robertson takes a fresh, penetrating look at the benefits of honoring the Ten Commandments--both personally and as a nation.

The Ten Offenses

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#hardcover #political #america #americanhistory #government #history #nonfiction #politicalscience 

Florida

How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism

A gripping investigation into the nation's most notorious far-right group, revealing how they created a new blueprint for extremism and turned American politics into a blood sport



After the 2016 election, Americans witnessed a frightening trend: the sudden rise of a host of new extremist groups across the country. Emboldened by a new president, they flooded political rallies and built fervent online presences, expanding rapidly until they were a regular sight at everyday demonstrations. Amid the chaos, one group emerged as a leader among the others, with matching outfits, bizarre rituals, and a reputation for violence: the Proud Boys.



From leading extremism reporter Andy Campbell, We Are Proud Boys is the definitive narrative exploration of this notorious street gang and all the far-right movements they're connected to. Through groundbreaking new reporting, Campbell delivers the untold story of a gang of blundering, punch-happy goons who grew to become the centerpiece of American extremism and positioned themselves as the unofficial enforcement arm of the GOP. Beginning with their founding by Gavin McInnes, the media personality best known for co-founding VICE, Campbell takes us deep into the Proud Boys, laying bare their origins and their rise to prominence. As he exposes the group's noxious culture and strange rituals, he reveals how the ultimate project of the Proud Boys-to desensitize Americans to political violence-has succeeded entirely, culminating with Republicans calling the January 6 insurrection "legitimate political discourse." The bizarre, frightening story of the Proud Boys reveals the playbook they have created for domestic extremism, giving us the necessary insight to push back against radicalism in America before it swallows our democracy whole.

 

We Are Proud Boys - ARC 

9929bb55-d7f9-46cc-9ac8-220f198db3c9-1

Candace Owens

Larry Elder

Was a gift. Definitely not my cup of tea 

How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER It’s time for a black exit. Political activist and social media star Candace Owens addresses the many ways that Democrat Party policies hurt, rather than help, the African American community, and why she and many others are turning right. Black Americans have long been shackled to the Democrats. Seeing no viable alternative, they have watched liberal politicians take the black vote for granted without pledging anything in return. In Blackout, Owens argues that this automatic allegiance is both illogical and unearned. She contends that the Democrat Party has a long history of racism and exposes the ideals that hinder the black community’s ability to rise above poverty, live independent and successful lives, and be an active part of the American Dream. Instead, Owens offers up a different ideology by issuing a challenge: It’s time for a major black exodus. From dependency, from victimhood, from miseducation—and the Democrat Party, which perpetuates all three. Owens explains that government assistance is a double-edged sword, that the Left dismisses the faith so important to the black community, that Democrat permissiveness toward abortion disproportionately affects black babies, that the #MeToo movement hurts black men, and much more. Weaving in her personal story, which ushered her from a roach-infested low-income apartment to1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, she demonstrates how she overcame her setbacks and challenges despite the cultural expectation that she should embrace a victim mentality. Well-researched and intelligently argued, Blackout lays bare the myth that all black people should vote Democrat—and shows why turning to the right will leave them happier, more successful, and more self-sufficient.

Blackout

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Oregon

The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty

Presents a portrait of the Bush political dynasty and their influence on twentieth- and twenty-first century America, from Connecticut senator Prescott Bush, through his grandson, George W., the forty-third president of the United States.

The Family

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Maryland

Imagine a World Without Her

#1 New York Times Bestseller Is America a source of pride, as Americans have long held, or shame, as Progressives allege? Beneath an innocent exterior, are our lives complicit in a national project of theft, expropriation, oppression, and murder, or is America still the hope of the world? Dinesh D'Souza says these questions are no mere academic exercise. It is the Progressive view that is taught in our schools, that is preached by Hollywood, and that shapes the policies of the Obama administration. If America is a force for inequality and injustice in the world, its power deserves to be diminished; if traditional America is based on oppression and theft, then traditional America must be reformed—and the federal government can do the reforming. In America: Imagine a World without Her D'Souza offers a passionate and sharply reasoned defense of America, knocking down every important accusation made by Progressives against our country. Provocative in its analysis, stunning in its conclusions, Dinesh D'Souza's America will be the most talked about book of the year.

America

97ffed1a-adda-4238-b4fa-eace32b7bdbb-1

Montana

Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations

In this candid new political memoir from Senator John McCain, an American hero reflects on his life—and what matters most. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here. Maybe I’ll have another five years. Maybe, with the advances in oncology, they’ll find new treatments for my cancer that will extend my life. Maybe I’ll be gone before you read this. My predicament is, well, rather unpredictable. But I’m prepared for either contingency, or at least I’m getting prepared. I have some things I’d like to take care of first, some work that needs finishing, and some people I need to see. And I want to talk to my fellow Americans a little more if I may.” So writes John McCain in this inspiring, moving, frank, and deeply personal memoir. Written while confronting a mortal illness, McCain looks back with appreciation on his years in the Senate, his historic 2008 campaign for the presidency against Barack Obama, and his crusades on behalf of democracy and human rights in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Always the fighter, McCain attacks the “spurious nationalism” and political polarization afflicting American policy. He makes an impassioned case for democratic internationalism and bi-partisanship. He tells stories of his most satisfying moments of public service, including his work with another giant of the Senate, Edward M. Kennedy. Senator McCain recalls his disagreements with several presidents, and minces no words in his objections to some of President Trump’s statements and policies. At the same time, he offers a positive vision of America that looks beyond the Trump presidency. The Restless Wave is John McCain at his best.

The Restless Wave

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Dean Snow

An Elizabethan Sailor in Native North America

"David Ingram was an ordinary seaman of the Elizabethan age. He served on a slave ship captained by John Hawkins, the Queen's slaver. After sailing first to Africa and then taking enslaved people to sell in the Caribbean, the little fleet was nearly destroyed in a furious battle with the Spanish. Ingram and two other marooned men then walked over 3600 miles from Mexico to New Brunswick in eleven months before being rescued. A dozen years later Ingram was brought in for interrogation by the Queen's spymaster, Francis Walsingham, as investors tried to learn more about America in anticipation of colonization. The contemporary historian Richard Hakluyt soon used the records of the interrogation to publish his version of Ingram's testimony. However, when editing it Hakluyt mistakenly assumed that everything Ingram described about Africa, the Caribbean, and North America applied only to Ingram's long walk through America. For over four centuries, Hakluyt's scrambled publication of 1589 has been ridiculed as the fantastic ramblings of a liar. Examination of the original documents surviving from the interrogation has revealed that Hakluyt was a poor editor, and that Ingram had told the truth about his extraordinary journey. Ingram's story can now be told as he related it, revealing things about Africa and the Americas in the age of European discovery that would otherwise be unknown to history"--

The Extraordinary Journey of David Ingram

bfd54ff2-3a0e-49cc-8574-8ed6db33edd7-1

And the Tyranny of Progressivism

From #1 New York Times bestselling author and radio host Mark R. Levin comes a searing plea for a return to America's most sacred values.

In Rediscovering Americanism, Mark R. Levin revisits the founders' warnings about the perils of overreach by the federal government and concludes that the men who created our country would be outraged and disappointed to see where we've ended up.

Levin returns to the impassioned question he's explored in each of his bestselling books: How do we save our exceptional country? Because our values are in such a precarious state, he argues that a restoration to the essential truths on which our country was founded has never been more urgent. Understanding these principles, in Levin's words, can "serve as the antidote to tyrannical regimes and governments." Rediscovering Americanism is not an exercise in nostalgia, but an appeal to his fellow citizens to reverse course.

This essential book brings Levin's celebrated, sophisticated analysis to the troubling question of America's future, and reminds us what we must restore for the sake of our children and our children's children.

Rediscovering Americanism

7cfd0ff0-c3f5-4b3d-a83b-6833a97c5530-1

#hardcover #thomasjefferson #politicalscience #history #freedom #democracy #america #foundingfathers

South Carolina

Wisdom, Advice, and Hints on Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way

Jefferson on Freedom

New book; may have remainder mark. #fiction #hardcover #shortstories #collection #new #spain #america #shortfiction #adult #contemporary

Kansas

From the acclaimed, prize-winning Catalonian author of the novel Lost Luggage, a collection of nine masterful short stories about adulthood, heartbreak, and outsiders in search of their place in the world. As one of Catalonia’s most acclaimed literary talents, Jordi Puntí’s writing is “full of invention and consistently gripping” (The Times Literary Supplement). Now, he returns to his American audience with this breathtaking short story collection. Sharing the title of the David Bowie song, it travels from Spain to America and back, showing the differences between the two places. A man recalls a past love as he strolls through the lonely streets of Barcelona. A hitchhiker on the outskirts of the city of Vic carries his secrets in a briefcase. In northern Catalonia, a villager receives letters from a long-estranged brother and grapples with how to respond. Then there’s the man who wants to surprise his wife with a trip to Paris, only to swap it for a solitary cruise. Showcasing “the author’s vivid imagination” (Kirkus Reviews), the stories in This Is Not America are effortless evocations of the strangeness of everyday life and the universal search for love and belonging.

This Is Not America

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Iain C. Martin

Delaware

The American Civil War was the most devastating event in our history-a country divided against itself, brother fighting brother in bloody conflict. From this torment emerged some of the greatest American leaders ever: Abraham Lincoln, U.S. Grant, Robert E. Lee. J.E.B Stuart. They and others emerge in this powerful and emotional collection that brings the Civil War to life.

The Quotable American Civil War

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Outlet Book Company Staff

A Picture Book to Remember Her By

Captioned color photographs portray the various scenes, places of interest, and people of Texas.

61ecc1bc-6b42-42cd-a068-3c21fb30ef56-0

J. D. Vance

A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

Hillbilly Elegy

987b31e1-c6e7-4c61-9189-b310865f7e9c-1

Houston: A Picture Book to Remember Her By

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Carol Berkin

Massachusetts

Inventing the American Constitution

In 1787, a group of lawyers and politicians, some famous and others just ordinary men, journeyed to Philadelphia, determined to create a more stable framework of government, hoping that it would last long enough to bring an end to the crisis.".

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Michael Lewis

The Fifth Risk

Diane Hessan

Our Common Ground

Mike Donovan

Not Free America

Robert Pinsky

Thousands of Broadways

Ben Sasse

Them

Bart McDowell

The Revolutionary War

Stella Tillyard

Call upon the Water

Edwin Kiester Jr.

An Incomplete Hostory Of World War 11

Reader's Digest Editors

Discovering America's Past

Pat Robertson

The Ten Offenses

Andy Campbell

We Are Proud Boys - ARC

Candace Owens; Larry Elder

Blackout

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The Family

Dinesh D'Souza