As November approaches, foreign interference in our election process weighs heavily on our public conscience. Novelist David Pepper—who in 2015 was unanimously elected Chairman of the Democratic Party of Ohio—lends his singular political expertise and sharp storytelling powers to a twisty, cautionary thriller—THE VOTER FILE —that sounds the alarm about election meddling and the loss of American freedoms. No one is better suited than Pepper—who President Bill Clinton named as one of his favorite authors in the New York Times Book Review—to craft the disturbingly plausible scenario that unravels with heart-racing pace.  

About the Author David Pepper is the author of The People’s House and The Wingman, both of which feature Jack Sharpe. He earned his B.A. from Yale University and his J.D. from Yale Law School. He has clerked for a judge on the United States Court of Appeals; served in local elected office in Ohio; worked for major law firms; and taught election and voting rights law. Prior to law school, Pepper worked in St. Petersburg, Russia, for the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. In 2015, he was unanimously elected Chairman of the Democratic Party of Ohio.  

In the   summer of 1932, at the beginning of the turbulent decade that would remake   America, baseball fans were treated to one of the most thrilling seasons in   the history of the sport. As the nation drifted deeper into the Great   Depression and reeled from social unrest, baseball was a diversion for a   troubled country—and yet the world of baseball was marked by the same   edginess that pervaded the national scene. On‑the‑field fights were as   common as double plays. Amid the National League pennant race, Cubs’   shortstop Billy Jurges was shot by showgirl Violet Popovich in a Chicago   hotel room. When the regular season ended, the Cubs and Yankees clashed in   what would be Babe Ruth’s last appearance in the fall classic. After the Cubs   lost the first two games in New York, the series resumed in Chicago at   Wrigley Field, with Democratic presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt   cheering for the visiting Yankees from the box seats behind the Yankees’   dugout. In the top of the fifth inning the game took a historic   turn. As Ruth was jeered mercilessly by Cubs players and fans, he gestured   toward the outfield and then blasted a long home run. After Ruth circled the   bases, Roosevelt exclaimed, “Unbelievable!” Ruth’s homer set off one of   baseball’s longest‑running and most intense debates: did Ruth, in fact, call   his famous home run? Rich with historical context and detail, The Called Shot dramatizes the   excitement of a baseball season during one of America’s most chaotic summers.

Thomas Wolf has written numerous articles on   baseball history and is the coauthor of Midnight   Assassin: A Murder in America’s Heartland.

A leading expert reexamines history to offer a stunningly original portrait of Hitler as a competent military commander and strategist

Stephen G. Fritz is professor at East Tennessee State University. His books include Frontsoldaten: The German Soldier in World War II and Ostkrieg: Hitler’s War of Extermination in the East. He lives in Johnson City, TN.

Also of Interest

Based on exclusive, fresh reporting, HUNTING WHITEY is the thrilling, definitive inside story of the pursuit, capture, and killing of legendary South Boston mob boss, James “Whitey” Bulger, detailing as never before his years on the run, how he evaded arrest, and his brutal murder in prison.

Sherman and Wedge draw on exclusive interviews and exhaustive investigative reportage to tell the complete story of Whitey Bulger, one of the most notorious crime bosses in American history and a longtime FBI informant. The leader of Boston’s Winter Hill Gang and #1 on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, Bulger was indicted for nineteen counts of murder, racketeering, narcotics distribution, and extortion. But it was his sixteen-year flight from justice on the eve of his arrest that made him a legend and exposed deep corruption within the FBI.

Interweaving the perspectives of Bulger, his family and cohorts, and law enforcement—including former FBI Director Andrew McCabe, HUNTING WHITEY explains how this dangerous criminal evaded capture for nearly two decades and shines a spotlight on the dedicated detectives, federal agents, and prosecutors involved in bringing him to justice. It is also a fascinating, detailed portrait of both Bulger’s trial and his time in prison—including shocking new details about his 2018 death at Hazelton Prison less than twenty-four hours after his arrival.

Unlike other books chronicling Bulger’s life and crimes, HUNTING WHITEY offers unprecedented access to inside sources in this case and chronicles the story of his life on the run, his capture, and his eventual murder.  This is the definitive book on Whitey Bulger.

Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge are one of the premier non-fiction writing teams telling stories out of Boston. Together, they co-wrote the definitive story of the Boston Marathon bombings in Boston Strong: A City’s Triumph Over Tragedy, which was adapted for the Mark Wahlberg film Patriots Day. They also wrote Ice Bucket Challenge: Pete Frates and the Fight against ALS, which is in development as a Netflix feature film, and the New York Times bestselling 12: The Inside Story of Tom Brady’s Fight for Redemption.  They live in Boston.

With IN DEEP: The FBI, the CIA, and the Truth about America’s “Deep State” [W. W. Norton & Company], two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist David Rohde investigates whether an American “deep state” exists. Today, three-quarters of Americans polled believe that a group of unelected government and military officials are secretly manipulating national policy. To conservatives, the “deep state” is an ever-growing government bureaucracy, an “administrative state” that relentlessly encroaches on the individual rights of Americans. Liberals fear the “military-industrial complex”—a cabal of generals and defense contractors who they believe routinely push the country into endless wars. Americans increasingly distrust the politicians, lobbyists, and journalists who they believe unilaterally set the country’s political agenda. American democracy faces its biggest crisis of legitimacy in a half century.

About the Author:

David Rohde, two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, is an executive editor of The New Yorker website, an MSNBC contributor, and a former New York Times, Reuters, and Christian Science Monitor reporter. He lives in New York City with his family.

Willie Mays has long been recognized as baseball’s greatest all-around player. In the history of the sport, few have been as inspiring as Mr. Mays, who uplifted many generations since he first captivated the baseball world with his unparalleled combination of skills, flair and joyful exuberance.  This tremendous, heartfelt new book, co-authored with John Shea, and told in Mr. Mays’s voice, 24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid, (St. Martin’s Publishing Group), is full of poignant and timeless stories and reflections from Mr. Mays, as well as tales from many others who played major roles in his career and life.

About the Authors: Willie Mays, forever the youthful Say Hey Kid, was a major league center fielder for 22 seasons with the New York Giants, San Francisco Giants, and New York Mets, and played for the Birmingham Black Barons in the Negro Leagues. A Hall of Famer who is considered the greatest all-around talent in the game’s history, he continues to be actively involved with the San Francisco Giants and his Say Hey Foundation, which is dedicated to underprivileged youth positive opportunities and safer communities.

John Shea is the author of four baseball books, including Rickey Henderson’s autobiography, Off Base: Confessions of a Thief. He is an award-winning national baseball writer at the San Francisco Chronicle and appears on the MLB Network.

At the tender age of twenty-four, Lou Gehrig decided to tell the remarkable story of his life and career. He was one of the most famous athletes in the country, in the midst of a record-breaking season with the legendary 1927 World Series-winning Yankees. In an effort to grow Lou’s star, pioneering sports agent Christy Walsh arranged for Lou’s tale of baseball greatness to syndicate in newspapers across the country. Until now, those columns were largely forgotten and lost to history.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alan D. Gaff is an independent scholar and the author of many books, including Lou Gehrig: The Lost Memoir, Bayonets in the Wilderness, Blood in the Argonne, and On Many a Bloody Field, hailed as “a masterpiece of Civil War scholarship” (The Bookwatch). He lives in Indiana.

Set among the steep streets and stunning vistas of San Francisco, The Laundress: A Novel (May 19, 2020; She Writes Press; paperback original) by Barbara Sapienza is a coming-of-age story for anyone who’s ever sought to understand where they came from in order to figure out who they’re meant to become.

About the Author

Barbara Sapienza, PhD, is a retired clinical psychologist and an alumna of San Francisco State University’s creative writing master’s program. She writes and paints, nourished by her spiritual practices of meditation, tai chi, and dance. Her family, friends, and grandchildren are her teachers. Her first novel, Anchor Out (She Writes Press, 2017) received an IPPY bronze medal for Best Regional Fiction, West Coast. Sapienza lives in Sausalito, CA, with her husband.

LINCOLN ON THE VERGE: Thirteen Days to Washington ( Simon & Schuster) by Ted Widmer is a deep history of thirteen days in the life of Abraham Lincoln as he boarded a train in Springfield, IL and journeyed to Washington, DC to take the oath of office and be sworn in as the sixteenth president of the United States. Widmer, a Distinguished Lecturer at Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York and former speechwriter in the Clinton White House, offers “a colorful, richly detailed overture to Lincoln's odyssey” (Kirkus Reviews) and “a riveting piece of history and a first-rate read” (Pulitzer Prize-winner Ron Chernow).

The country had never been more divided when Lincoln assumed office in 1861, and his journey to Washington was fraught with danger. The government was on the verge of collapse, and Southerners had vowed to prevent Lincoln’s inauguration by any means necessary. Stopping in numerous cities throughout Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and finally Washington, Lincoln’s safe delivery was, as Widmer writes, “A powerful symbol for the survival of democracy in America.”

Ted Widmer is a Distinguished Lecturer at Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York. He writes actively about American history inThe Washington Post, The New Yorker, and The New York Times, where he helped create the Disunion feature about the Civil War. From 1997 to 2001, he worked in the White House as a foreign policy speech writer.

My Kind of People (Atria), Lisa Duffy’s third breathtaking and sensitive novel, will restore your hope in the world. For fans of Celeste Ng and Mary Beth Keane comes a profound story about the power of community as a members of a small New England island town rally around a recently orphaned ten-year-old girl.

My Kind of People is Big Little Lies meets an Elin Hilderbrand novel, delving into themes of love, heartbreak, deceit, scandal, and mental health. Emotionally complex, deeply moving, and ultimately uplifting, you’ll be immersed in this small town on Ichabod Island, full of the messiness of life and human resilience. This is a story about starting over, the strength of community, and what unites us all in the face of tragedy.