Radical

A Portrait of Saul Alinsky

By Nicholas von Hoffman

"[Von Hoffman] cautions that some of the quoted material represents his best memory of 'things said a very long time ago." The result is literature, a charmingly picaresque, if over-indulgent, tale of a man whose job description was first, last and always Disturber of the Peace. The book's chief delights are its sense of place—Chicago from the 1930s through the 1960s—and the cast of characters who share the stage with the main player as he struts and frets so colorfully."
—The Wall Street Journal

Mohamed's Ghosts

An American Story of Love and Fear in the Homeland

By Stephan Salisbury

Mohamed Ghorab had no hint one late spring morning that when he dropped his daughter off at school, his life would change forever. Federal agents and police surrounded him, eventually deporting him. This was a fearful time in the life of America following 9/11; exploring these events, Salisbury was constantly reminded of similar incidents in his own past—the paranoia and police activity that surrounded his political involvement in the 1960s and the surveillance and informing that dogged his father, a well-known New York Times reporter and editor, for half a century. Salisbury weaves these strands together into a personal portrait of an America fracturing under the intense pressure of the war on terror—the homeland in the time of Osama.

Listen to Salisbury discuss his book on July 29, 2010 at NYPL's Mid-Manhattan location at 6.30 p.m.

Republican Gomorrah (Paperback)

Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party

By Max Blumenthal

An explosive bestseller, Max Blumenthal's Republican Gomorrah is a bestiary of dysfunction, scandal, and crime from the movement that runs the Republican Party. A hard-hitting look at the people and beliefs behind the fringe wing of the Right in America, Republican Gomorrah finds that a culture of personal crisis and trauma has united conservatives—many of whom will stop at nothing to delegitimize the Obama presidency and radicalize the nation. With a new introduction and original reporting on the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, and the midterm elections.

"An irresistible combination of anthropology and psychopathology that exerts the queasy fascination of (let's face it) something very like pornography."
—Hendrik Hertzberg, senior editor, The New Yorker

The Battle for Gotham

New York in the Shadow of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs

By Roberta Brandes Gratz

The week of May 10, Roberta Brandes Gratz answered questions from readers about Robert Moses, Jane Jacobs, their legacies, and what the future holds for urban planning in New York City. Read her answers on The New York Times' City Room blog here.

Soccer Against the Enemy (updated)

How the World's Most Popular Sport Starts and Fuels Revolutions and Keeps Dictators in Power

By Simon Kuper

Winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, voted the best book on soccer by Four Four Two magazine, and as one of the top 25 books on sport by the London Observer, an updated Soccer Against the Enemy has been re-issued, with a new preface on the rise of the global fan. In it, Simon Kuper travels to 22 countries to discover the sometimes bizarre effect soccer can have on politics and culture. At the same time, he tries to discover what makes different countries play such a simple game differently.

"The best [book] from the last few years."
—Nick Hornby, author of Fever Pitch and About A Boy

Working In The Shadows

A Year of Doing the Jobs Americans Won't Do

By Gabriel Thompson

What is it like to do the back-breaking work of immigrants? To find out, Gabriel Thompson spent a year working alongside Latino immigrants who initially thought he was either crazy or an undercover immigration agent. Combining personal narrative with investigative reporting, Thompson shines a bright light on the underside of the American economy, exposing harsh working conditions, union busting and lax government enforcement—while telling the stories of workers, undocumented immigrants and desperate U.S. citizens alike, forced to live with chronic back pain in the pursuit of $8 an hour.

Watch Thompson on C-SPAN's Book TV on March 20-21.

El Monstruo

Dread and Redemption in Mexico City

By John Ross

"Monstrously entertaining and tenderhearted."
"...a brave, stirring love letter, cautionary tale and travelogue."
—Kirkus Reviews (STARRED REVIEW)

The Death and Life of American Journalism

The Media Revolution That Will Begin the World Again

By Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols

Journalism, the counterbalance to corporate and political power, the lifeblood of American democracy, is in meltdown. In The Death and Life of American Journalism, Robert W. McChesney, an academic, and John Nichols, a journalist, who together founded the nation's leading media reform network, Free Press, investigate the crisis. They propose a bold strategy for saving journalism that looks back to how the Founding Fathers ensured free press protection with the First Amendment and provided subsidies to the burgeoning print press of the young nation.

"John Nichols and Bob McChesney are the Thomas Paine and Paul Revere of our time. We ignore them at democracy's peril." —Bill Moyers

Watch McChesney and Nichols on C-SPAN's Book TV on March 14-15.

Soccernomics

Why England Loses, Why Germany And Brazil Win, And Why The U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey—And Even Iraq—Are Destined To Become The Kings Of The World's Most Popular Sport

By Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski

"A brainteaser of a book for any beach-bound soccer fan."
—Bloomberg News' 50 Favorite Business Books

Soccernomics was featured in a major article in The New York Times about England's prospects in the World Cup.

Empire of Illusion

The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

By Chris Hedges

Listen to the podcast of Hedges' October 7 talk here.

Blackwater (paperback)

The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army

By Jeremy Scahill

On September 16, 2007, Blackwater Worldwide mercenaries opened fire in Baghdad's Nisour Square, killing 17 Iraqi civilians, among them women and children. In this fully revised and updated paperback, award-winning investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill reveals the explosive story of the company that has become the new face of the U.S. war machine.

Jeremy Scahill recently won the prestigious 2007 George Polk Book Award.

Beware of Small States

Lebanon, Battleground of the Middle East

By David Hirst

In this magisterial history of Lebanon, from the end of the Ottoman rule to the Hizbullah and Hamas wars of today, David Hirst, the acclaimed and fiercely independent Middle East journalist and historian, charts with extraordinary skill and lucidity the intricate interplay between Lebanon and its geopolitical environment. This is also a history of the whole Middle East and above all, of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"A brilliant analytical mind."
—Robert Fisk

Newsweek reviewed Hirst's book in the "We Read it so You Don't Have to" section of their magazine.