THIS IS HOW THEY TELL ME THE WORLD ENDS
by Nicole Perlroth
“Part John le Carré and more parts Michael Crichton . . . spellbinding.” –The New Yorker
From The New York Times cybersecurity reporter Nicole Perlroth, the untold story of the cyberweapons market―the most secretive, invisible, government-backed market on earth―and a terrifying first look at a new kind of global warfare.
Zero day: a software bug that allows a hacker to break into your devices and move around undetected. One of the most coveted tools in a spy’s arsenal, a zero day has the power to silently spy on your iPhone, dismantle the safety controls at a chemical plant, alter an election, and shut down the electric grid (just ask Ukraine).
For decades, under cover of classification levels and non-disclosure agreements, the United States government became the world’s dominant hoarder of zero days. U.S. government agents paid top dollar―first thousands, and later millions of dollars― to hackers willing to sell their lock-picking code and their silence.
Then the United States lost control of its hoard and the market.
Now those zero days are in the hands of hostile nations and mercenaries who do not care if your vote goes missing, your clean water is contaminated, or our nuclear plants melt down.
Filled with spies, hackers, arms dealers, and a few unsung heroes, written like a thriller and a reference, This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends is an astonishing feat of journalism. Based on years of reporting and hundreds of interviews, The New York Times reporter Nicole Perlroth lifts the curtain on a market in shadow, revealing the urgent threat faced by us all if we cannot bring the global cyber arms race to heel.
BETWEEN TWO KINGDOMS
by Suleika Jaouad
A searing, deeply moving memoir of illness and recovery that traces one young woman’s journey from diagnosis to remission and, ultimately, a road trip of healing and self-discovery.
“A work of breathtaking creativity.”—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love
“Elegant and heartbreaking.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies
“Mended parts I thought were forever disintegrated.”—Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy
“A propulsive, soulful story of mourning and gratitude.”—Tara Westover, author of Educated
In the summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing, as they say in commencement speeches, to enter “the real world.” She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone.
It started with an itch—first on her feet, then up her legs, like a thousand invisible mosquito bites. Next came the exhaustion, and the six-hour naps that only deepened her fatigue. Then a trip to the doctor and, a few weeks shy of her twenty-third birthday, a diagnosis: leukemia, with a 35 percent chance of survival. Just like that, the life she had imagined for herself had gone up in flames. By the time Jaouad flew home to New York, she had lost her job, her apartment, and her independence. She would spend much of the next four years in a hospital bed, fighting for her life and chronicling the saga in a column for The New York Times.
When Jaouad finally walked out of the cancer ward—after three and a half years of chemo, a clinical trial, and a bone marrow transplant—she was, according to the doctors, cured. But as she would soon learn, a cure is not where the work of healing ends; it’s where it begins. She had spent the past 1,500 days in desperate pursuit of one goal—to survive. And now that she’d done so, she realized that she had no idea how to live.
How would she reenter the world and live again? How could she reclaim what had been lost? Jaouad embarked—with her new best friend, Oscar, a scruffy terrier mutt—on a 100-day, 15,000-mile road trip across the country. She set out to meet some of the strangers who had written to her during her years in the hospital: a teenage girl in Florida also recovering from cancer; a teacher in California grieving the death of her son; a death-row inmate in Texas who’d spent his own years confined to a room. What she learned on this trip is that the divide between sick and well is porous, that the vast majority of us will travel back and forth between these realms throughout our lives. Between Two Kingdoms is a profound chronicle of survivorship and a fierce, tender, and inspiring exploration of what it means to begin again.
THE PRINCESS SPY
by Larry Loftis
What to Read in 2021 —The Washington Post
The international bestselling author of the “exciting, suspenseful, inspirational” (Brad Thor, #1 New York Times bestselling author) Code Name: Lise weaves another exceptional and thrilling hidden history of an ordinary American girl who became one of the OSS’s most daring spies in World War II before marrying into European nobility. Perfect for fans of A Woman of No Importance and Code Girls.
When Aline Griffith was born in a quiet suburban New York hamlet, no one had any idea that she would go on to live “a life of glamour and danger that Ingrid Bergman only played at in Notorious” (Time). As the US enters the Second World War, the young college graduate is desperate to aid in the war effort, but no one is interested in a bright-eyed young woman whose only career experience is modeling clothes.
Aline’s life changes when, at a dinner party, she meets a man named Frank Ryan and reveals how desperately she wants to do her part for her country. Within a few weeks, he helps her join the Office of Strategic Services—forerunner of the CIA. With a code name and expert training under her belt, she is sent to Spain to be a coder, but is soon given the additional assignment of infiltrating the upper echelons of society, mingling with high-ranking officials, diplomats, and titled Europeans, any of whom could be an enemy agent. Against this glamorous backdrop of galas and dinner parties, she recruits sub-agents and engages in deep-cover espionage to counter Nazi tactics in Madrid.
Even after marrying the Count of Romanones, one of the wealthiest men in Spain, Aline secretly continues her covert activities, being given special assignments when abroad that would benefit from her impeccable pedigree and social connections.
Filled with twists, romance, and plenty of white-knuckled adventures fit for a James Bond film, The Princess Spy brings to vivid life the dazzling adventures of a remarkable American woman who risked everything to serve her country.
THE NEW NORMAL
by Jennifer Ashton, M.D. M.S.
From Dr. Jennifer Ashton—the Chief Medical Correspondent at ABC News covering breaking medical news for Good Morning America and GMA3: What You Need to Know—comes a doctor’s guide to finding resilience in the time of COVID, while staying safe and sane in a rapidly changing world.
In March 2020, “normal” life changed, perhaps forever. In its place we were confronted with life and routines that were unusual and different: the new normal. As we’ve all learned since then, the new normal isn’t just about wearing masks and standing six feet apart—it’s about recognizing how to stay safe and sane in a world that is suddenly unfamiliar. And no one understands this evolving landscape better than Dr. Jennifer Ashton. As ABC’s Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Ashton has been reporting on the novel coronavirus daily, helping Americans comprehend the urgent medical updates that have shaped the nation’s continued response to this public health crisis.
Now in The New Normal, Dr. Ashton offers the essential toolkit for life in this unfamiliar reality. Rooted in her reporting on COVID-19 and the understanding that the virus isn’t going anywhere overnight, The New Normal is built on a simple foundation: thriving in this evolving world demands accepting the new normal for what it is, not what we want it to be. No longer is wellness a buzzword, but an imperative for surviving this unprecedented time. Using her trademark practical, easy-to-follow advice, Dr. Ashton gives you all the necessary information to reclaim control of your life and live safely—from exercise, to diet, to general health—showing how to prepare your body and mind for challenges such as:
– Taking proper medical precautions to protect yourself and your loved ones
– Exercising during the pandemic, even if you no longer feel safe at the gym
– Finding emotional balance through these uncertain times
– Deciphering complicated medical news to learn what to trust and what to ignore
With these straightforward and accessible strategies and many more, Dr. Ashton helps empower you to make the unexpectedly hard decisions about socializing, food-shopping, seeing doctors, and most of all, finding normalcy. At once reassuring and urgent, The New Normal is a holistic roadmap through the ongoing struggles of the pandemic, providing the guidance you need to navigate this unsettling time and take charge of your future wellbeing.
CROSSING THE LINE
by Kareem Rosser
“A marvelous addition to the literature of inspirational sports stories.” – Booklist (Starred Review)
“This remarkable and inspiring story shines.” – Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
An inspiring memoir of defying the odds from Kareem Rosser, captain of the first all-black squad to win the National Interscholastic Polo championship. “Crossing the Line will not just leave you with hope, but also ideas on how to make that hope transferable” (New York Times bestselling author Wes Moore).
Born and raised in West Philadelphia, Kareem thought he and his siblings would always be stuck in “The Bottom”, a community and neighborhood devastated by poverty and violence. Riding their bicycles through Philly’s Fairmount Park, Kareem’s brothers discover a barn full of horses. Noticing the brothers’ fascination with her misfit animals, Lezlie Hiner, founder of The Work to Ride stables, offers them their escape: an after school job in exchange for riding lessons.
What starts as an accidental discovery turns into a love for horseback riding that leads the Rossers to discovering their passion for polo. Pursuing the sport with determination and discipline, Kareem earns his place among the typically exclusive players in college, becoming part of the first all-Black national interscholastic polo championship team―all while struggling to keep his family together.
Crossing the Line: A Fearless Team of Brothers and the Sport That Changed Their Lives Forever is the story of bonds of brotherhood, family loyalty, the transformative connection between man and horse, and forging a better future that comes from overcoming impossible odds.
Still Hot in Non-Fiction & Biography
JUST AS I AM
by Cicely Tyson
“In her long and extraordinary career, Cicely Tyson has not only succeeded as an actor, she has shaped the course of history.” –President Barack Obama, 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony
“Just As I Am is my truth. It is me, plain and unvarnished, with the glitter and garland set aside. In these pages, I am indeed Cicely, the actress who has been blessed to grace the stage and screen for six decades. Yet I am also the church girl who once rarely spoke a word. I am the teenager who sought solace in the verses of the old hymn for which this book is named. I am a daughter and mother, a sister, and a friend. I am an observer of human nature and the dreamer of audacious dreams. I am a woman who has hurt as immeasurably as I have loved, a child of God divinely guided by His hand. And here in my ninth decade, I am a woman who, at long last, has something meaningful to say.” –Cicely Tyson
LET ME TELL YOU WHAT I MEAN
by Joan Didion
*A New York Times Best Seller*
From one of our most iconic and influential writers: a timeless collection of mostly early pieces that reveal what would become Joan Didion’s subjects, including the press, politics, California robber barons, women, and her own self-doubt.
A Most Anticipated Book of 2021 from Vogue, TIME, Bustle, The New York Times and many more.
These twelve pieces from 1968 to 2000, never before gathered together, offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary figure. They showcase Joan Didion’s incisive reporting, her empathetic gaze, and her role as “an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time” (The New York Times Book Review).
Here, Didion touches on topics ranging from newspapers (“the problem is not so much whether one trusts the news as to whether one finds it”), to the fantasy of San Simeon, to not getting into Stanford. In “Why I Write,” Didion ponders the act of writing: “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.” From her admiration for Hemingway’s sentences to her acknowledgment that Martha Stewart’s story is one “that has historically encouraged women in this country, even as it has threatened men,” these essays are acutely and brilliantly observed. Each piece is classic Didion: incisive, bemused, and stunningly prescient.
THE DEVIL YOU KNOW
by Charles M. Blow
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK: San Francisco Chronicle, O, the Oprah Magazine, Time Out, Town and Country, Lithub
From journalist and New York Times bestselling author Charles Blow comes a powerful manifesto and call to action for Black Americans to amass political power and fight white supremacy.
Race, as we have come to understand it, is a fiction; but, racism, as we have come to live it, is a fact. The point here is not to impose a new racial hierarchy, but to remove an existing one. After centuries of waiting for white majorities to overturn white supremacy, it seems to me that it has fallen to Black people to do it themselves.
Acclaimed columnist and author Charles Blow never wanted to write a “race book.” But as violence against Black people—both physical and psychological—seemed only to increase in recent years, culminating in the historic pandemic and protests of the summer of 2020, he felt compelled to write a new story for Black Americans. He envisioned a succinct, counterintuitive, and impassioned corrective to the myths that have for too long governed our thinking about race and geography in America. Drawing on both political observations and personal experience as a Black son of the South, Charles set out to offer a call to action by which Black people can finally achieve equality, on their own terms.
So what will it take to make lasting change when small steps have so frequently failed? It’s going to take an unprecedented shift in power. The Devil You Know is a groundbreaking manifesto, proposing nothing short of the most audacious power play by Black people in the history of this country. This book is a grand exhortation to generations of a people, offering a road map to true and lasting freedom.