In remembrance of the 25th anniversary, this definitive account of Columbine examines the aftermath and significance of the massacre: "a staggering work of journalism" (Washington Post).

So begins a new preface, illustrating how Columbine became the template for nearly two decades of "spectacle murders." It is a false script, seized upon by a generation of new killers. In the wake of Newtown, Aurora, and Virginia Tech, the imperative to understand the crime that sparked this plague grows more urgent every year.

Dave Cullen was one of the first reporters on the scene, and he spent ten years on this book, the definitive account. With a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen, he draws on mountains of evidence, insight from the world's leading forensic psychologists, and the killers' own words and drawings—several reproduced in a new appendix. Cullen paints raw portraits of two polar opposite killers. They contrast starkly with the flashes of resilience and redemption among the survivors.

"Excellent…amazing how much still comes as a surprise." —New York Times Book Review

"Like Capote's In Cold Blood, this tour de force gets below the who and the what of a horrifying incident to lay bare the devastating why." —People

"A staggering work of journalism." Washington Post

This enlightening book reframes the history of hip-hop—and this time, women are given credit for all their trailblazing achievements that have left an undeniable impact on music.

FIRST THINGS FIRST, hip-hop is not just the music, and women have played a big role in shaping the way it looks today. FIRST THINGS FIRST takes readers on a journey through some notable firsts by women in hip-hop history and their importance. Factual firsts like Queen Latifah becoming the first rapper to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Lauryn Hill making history as the first rapper to win the coveted Album of the Year Award at the GRAMMYs, April Walker being the first woman to dominate in the hip-hop fashion game, and Da Brat being the first solo woman rapper to have an album go platinum, and metaphorical firsts like Missy Elliott being the first woman rapper to go to the future. (Trust me, she really did.)

There are chapters on music legends like Nicki Minaj, Lil’ Kim and Mary J. Blige, tv and radio hosts like Big Lez and Angie Martinez, and so many more ladies I would name but I don’t want to spoil the book! There are games, charts and some fire images, too.

Altogether, FIRST THINGS FIRST is a celebration of the achievements of women in hip-hop who broke down barriers and broke the mold. So the next time someone doesn’t have their facts straight on the ladies in hip-hop, you can hit them with “first things first”…

With a new "10 years later" epilogue for every chapter, comes an eye-opening assessment of American power and deglobalization in the bestselling tradition of The World is Flat and The Next 100 Years.

Near the end of the Second World War, the United States made a bold strategic gambit that rewired the international system. Empires were abolished and replaced by a global arrangement enforced by the U.S. Navy. With all the world's oceans safe for the first time in history, markets and resources were made available for everyone. Enemies became partners.

We think of this system as normal - it is not. We live in an artificial world on borrowed time.

In The Accidental Superpower, international strategist Peter Zeihan examines how the hard rules of geography are eroding the American commitment to free trade; how much of the planet is aging into a mass retirement that will enervate markets and capital supplies; and how, against all odds, it is the ever-ravenous American economy that - alone among the developed nations - is rapidly approaching energy independence. Combined, these factors are doing nothing less than overturning the global system and ushering in a new (dis)order.

For most, that is a disaster-in-waiting, but not for the Americans. The shale revolution allows Americans to sidestep an increasingly dangerous energy market. Only the United States boasts a youth population large enough to escape the sucking maw of global aging. Most important, geography will matter more than ever in a de-globalizing world, and America's geography is simply sublime.

“An extended spa treatment that stretches tired brains and unkinks the usual habitual responses where Hitchens is concerned.” —James Wolcott in his introduction

An outstanding new collection, A HITCH IN TIME is a must have for Hitchens completists and the perfect starting point for understanding one of the most brilliant essayists of all time.

Anthologized here for the first time, A HITCH IN TIME is a choice selection of Christopher Hitchens’s finest reviews, diary entries and essays – along with a smattering of ferocious letters. Familiar bêtes noires—Kennedy, Nixon, Kissinger, Clinton—rub shoulders with lesser-known preoccupations: P.G. Wodehouse, Princess Margaret and, magisterially, Isaiah Berlin. A HITCH IN TIME is a banquet of entertaining stories ranging from his thoughts on Salman Rushdie to being spanked by Margaret Thatcher in The House of Lords and the night he took his son to the Oscars. The broad scope and high caliber of Hitchens’ essays allows his work to transcend the occasion for which it was written and continues to be essential reading.

Along with an introduction by James Wolcott, A HITCH IN TIME recaptures the brilliance of Hitchens – barnstorming, cauterizing, and ultimately uncontainable.

A companion to the #1 music podcast on Spotify, this book takes readers through the greatest hits that define a weirdly undefinable decade.

The 1990s were a chaotic and gritty and utterly magical time for music, a confounding barrage of genres and lifestyles and superstars, from grunge to hip-hop, from sumptuous R&B to rambunctious ska-punk, from Axl to Kurt to Missy to Santana to Tupac to Britney. In 60 SONGS THAT EXPLAIN THE '90s, Ringer music critic Rob Harvilla reimagines all the earwormy, iconic hits Gen Xers pine for with vivid historical storytelling, sharp critical analysis, rampant loopiness, and wryly personal ruminations on the most bizarre, joyous, and inescapable songs from a decade we both regret entirely and miss desperately.

“This is the first must-read of the 2024 election cycle if you want to understand the stakes.” –Nicole Wallace

A former chief Republican strategist and bestselling author of It Was All a Lie offers an ominous warning that the G.O.P. is dragging our country towards autocracy, and if we don’t wake up to the crisis in our system, 2024 may well be our last free and fair election.Today’s Republican party is not a “normal” political party in the American tradition. It has become an autocratic movement masquerading as a political party. As Stuart Stevens argues in The Conspiracy to End America, if we look away from that truth, we greatly increase the likelihood that the America we love will slip away, never to return.

Whenever a democracy slides into autocracy, there are five critical elements at work: financers, propagandists, party support, legal theories to legitimize, and shock troops. The Conspiracy to End America examines each of these driving forces on the Right and makes clear how they are working in concert to end our democracy as we know it.

In the tradition of It Can’t Happen Here and On Tyranny, The Conspiracy to End America is a blinking red distress call about the dark intentions lurking within Stevens’ old party and a rallying cry to beat back this perilous threat and save the Republic.

A news-driven biography of Vladimir Putin’s nemesis Alexey Navalny— lawyer, blogger, anti-corruption crusader, protest organizer, political opposition leader, mayoral and presidential candidate, campaign strategist, provocateur, poisoning victim, dissident, and now, prisoner of conscience and anti-war crusader.THE DISSIDENT is the story of how one fearless man, offended by the dishonesty and criminality of the Russian political system, mounted a relentless opposition movement and became President Vladimir Putin’s most formidable rival—so despised that the Russian leader makes a point of never uttering Navalny’s name.

There’s an old saying that Russia without corruption isn’t Russia. Alexey Navalny refuses to accept this proposition. His stubborn insistence that Russians can defy the stereotype and create an entirely different country made him such a threat to Putin that the Kremlin wanted him exiled—or dead—and now seems intent on keeping him locked in a prison colony for decades.

International correspondent David M. Herszenhorn, weaves together the threads of Navalny’s remarkable life and work:

The assassination attempt with a military- grade nerve agent by an FSB hit squad in Siberia, his recovery, and the vigilante-style investigation with news outlet Bellingcat to identify and confront his own would-be killers;

Navalny’s personal biography as part of the generation that straddled the end of the Soviet Union and birth of the Russian Federation, including childhood summers with his Ukrainian grandparents near Chernobyl, and his fellowship at Yale University, which spurred conspiracy theories about his ties to the U.S.;

His anti-corruption investigations that exposed billions in graft at Russia’s biggest state-owned companies and vast bribe-taking by top Russian officials, including his blockbuster revelations about Putin’s Black Sea Palace;

His political activism, including huge street protests, his bid for Moscow mayor in 2013, renegade run for president in 2017, his controversial views on nationalism, gun rights and Crimea, his transformation into a prisoner of conscience bravely denouncing Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine, and more.

Riveting and complex, THE DISSIDENT introduces readers to modern Russia’s greatest agitator, a man willing to sacrifice his freedom—and even his own life—to build the decent, democratic country he wants to live in and hopes to pass on to his children.

Through her life story, rising Republican star Senator Katie Britt shares some candid advice for how to overcome personal challenges, appreciate blessed moments, make our lives more fulfilling, and keep an unshakeable faith in God, family and our country.

With grit and grace, Katie Britt has tackled a lot that life’s thrown at her. From working in her parent’s hardware store, to finding her path at the University of Alabama and marrying the captain of the football team, to an extremely close call with a tornado that destroyed her house while she held her baby in her arms, to her upstart campaign for Senate, Britt has overcome setbacks, defied expectations and shocked the political establishment.

So how did Britt become the youngest woman in the U.S. Senate? GOD CALLS US TO DO HARD THINGS offers the hard-earned lessons and common-sense advice that Britt gained from her experience – and it’s the kind of stuff many young folks need to hear. Topics and themes include:

Focusing us on what you can control

Being unafraid to fail – while also taking criticism and tough love

Breaking past the limits we place on ourselves

Being a change agent – and not a title holder

Sweating the small stuff of details and process

Warm, humble and often lighthearted, GOD CALLS US TO DO HARD THINGS is about how a determined young woman decided to enter the arena and make her mark. At a moment when politics feel so toxic and broken, Katie Britt proves that there’s still a way to listen to your heart, serve and inspire.

From the former editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal, a must-read account of how America suffers from a “trust deficit” that has weakened its cornerstone institutions and divided our society.

AMERICAN BREAKDOWN dissects how, in the space of a generation, the pillars that sustained the once-dominant superpower have been dangerously eroded. From government to business, from media to medicine—the strength and security of the American experiment have been weakened by a widening gap between the elites who control these institutions and the public.

At the root of this breakdown is a precipitous fall in Americans’ trust in their political, business and cultural leaders. As Baker writes, “This pathology of distrust across American society is eating the country away from the inside.” Millions of Americans say they have little faith in their country's future, and no longer seem to have trust in their leaders, in their important social and civil institutions, even in their common values and ideals, or ultimately in each other.

America in fact hasn’t failed. Americans have been failed—misled by inept and deceitful political leaders, deserted by predatory and cynical corporate chiefs, and, above all, betrayed by a cultural elite that has exploited the very freedom this country provided in order to destroy it.

AMERICAN BREAKDOWN is a deep analysis and thought-provoking account that explores the ways in which Americans have been let down and offers solutions for how we rebuild trust and reclaim purpose for a better future.

Available September 12, 2023 from Hachette Audio as a digital download, and in Print and Ebook from Twelve.

From ESPN’s authentic, popular, and intrepid correspondent Marty Smith—SIDELINE CEO details key leadership principles Marty has learned from championship coaches he’s interviewed over the past two decades.

SIDELINE CEO delves into the unique psychology and daily preparation and gameplan execution of some of America’s most respected leaders—the coaches who have led hugely successful programs to win it all. Included among the legends whom Marty interviewed for SIDELINE CEO are: Nick Saban, Mack Brown, Kim Mulkey, Doc Rivers, John Calipari, Tim Corbin, Roy Williams, Tom Izzo, Patty Gasso, Dabo Swinney, Frank Beamer, and many others.

 

In talking to these sideline CEOs, Marty develops a set of leadership pillars that include:

Building vital TRUST within the organization.

Creating open lines of COMMUNICATION.

DELEGATING responsibility—and thereby empowerment—to your coaches and players.

Establishing and sustaining the RIGHT CULTURE in your program.

MANAGING CRISES and adversity.

EVOLVING with the game, the players and society, and always challenging your team.

Packed with insight, candor and keen storytelling from some of the greatest coaches of all time, SIDELINE CEO offers valuable takeaways that go beyond the game and apply to the boardroom, the classroom, and can help set intentions for winning in our daily lives.

Marty Smith has produced in-depth interviews, vulnerable storytelling, and breaking news reporting across every ESPN platform for nearly 20 years and in almost every sport, including college football and basketball, the NFL, NBA, NASCAR and IndyCar, Formula 1, the horse racing Triple Crown, The Masters and the PGA Tour. Marty’s 2019 memoir, Never Settle, Sports, Family, and the American Soul, is a New York Times bestseller.

Available 09/26/2023 from Hachette Audio as a digital download, and in Print and Ebook from Twelve.