Renowned investigative journalist Richard Behar delivers the definitive account of history’s largest—and longest-running—financial fraud, “the scale of the deception…beggars belief” ( New York Post ). Some $68 billion evaporated during Bernie Madoff’s epic confidence game. Two people were driven to suicide in the wake of the Ponzi Scheme’s exposure. Others went to prison. But there has never been a satisfying accounting for how Bernie got away with so much, for so long. Until now. Richard Behar’s relationship with Madoff began in 2011 with a simple email request from the conman. By the time Madoff died in 2021, he had sent Behar more than 300 emails and dozens of handwritten letters, participated in some fifty phone conversations, and sat for three in-person jailhouse interviews—a level of access provided to no other reporter. Behar also established relationships with hundreds of regulators, prosecutors, FBI agents, investors, Wall Street experts, ex-employees of Madoff’s, family members, school classmates, and others. The result is the final word on the criminal behind history’s most enduring fraud—and on those who believed him, covered for him, or locked him up. Behar illuminates not only the fraud’s origins—decades earlier than Madoff claimed in his confession—but also the complicity of investors, Wall Street insiders, family members, and some of the largest banks in the US and Europe. Shocking, infuriating, riveting (and at times absurdly funny), Madoff shows us how Bernie ensnared thousands of investors. As Behar’s dogged reporting over the last fifteen years makes clear, however, there aren’t many innocents left standing by the end of this tale. Just about everyone involved is guilty, at a minimum, of humanity’s most consistent weakness: greed.

The surprising story of Iran's transformation from America's ally in the Middle East into one of its staunchest adversaries. Offering a new view of one of America's most important, infamously strained, and widely misunderstood relationships of the postwar era, this book tells the history of America and Iran from the time the last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was placed on the throne in 1941 to the 1979 revolution that brought the present Islamist government to power. This revolution was not, as many believe, the popular overthrow of a powerful and ruthless puppet of the United States; rather, it followed decades of corrosion of Iran's political establishment by an autocratic ruler who demanded fealty but lacked the personal strength to make hard decisions and, ultimately, lost the support of every sector of Iranian society. Esteemed Middle East scholar Ray Takeyh provides new interpretations of many key events-including the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq and the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini-significantly revising our understanding of America and Iran's complex and difficult history.

“A humane and sensible guide to and for the many kinds of Americans leading secular lives in what remains one of the most religious nations in the developed world.” —The New York Times Book Review Over the last twenty-five years, “no religion” has become the fastest-growing religious preference in the United States. Around the world, hundreds of millions of people have turned away from the traditional faiths of the past and embraced a moral yet nonreligious—or secular—life, generating societies vastly less religious than at any other time in human history. Revealing the inspiring beliefs that empower secular culture—alongside real stories of nonreligious men and women based on extensive in-depth interviews from across the country—Living the Secular Life will be indispensable for millions of secular Americans. Drawing on innovative sociological research, Living the Secular Life illuminates this demographic shift with the moral convictions that govern secular individuals, offering crucial information for the religious and nonreligious alike. Living the Secular Life reveals that, despite opinions to the contrary, nonreligious Americans possess a unique moral code that allows them to effectively navigate the complexities of modern life. Spiritual self-reliance, clear-eyed pragmatism, and an abiding faith in the Golden Rule to adjudicate moral decisions: these common principles are shared across secular society. Living the Secular Life demonstrates these principles in action and points to their usage throughout daily life. Phil Zuckerman is a sociology professor at Pitzer College, where he studied the lives of the nonreligious for years before founding a Department of Secular Studies, the first academic program in the nation dedicated to exclusively studying secular culture and the sociological consequences of America’s fastest-growing “faith.” Zuckerman discovered that despite the entrenched negative beliefs about nonreligious people, American secular culture is grounded in deep morality and proactive citizenship—indeed, some of the very best that the country has to offer. Living the Secular Life journeys through some of the most essential components of human existence—child rearing and morality, death and ritual, community and beauty—and offers secular readers inspiration for leading their own lives. Zuckerman shares eye-opening research that reveals the enduring moral strength of children raised without religion, as well as the hardships experienced by secular mothers in the rural South, where church attendance defines the public space. Despite the real sorrows of mortality, Zuckerman conveys the deep psychological health of secular individuals in their attitudes toward illness, death, and dying. Tracking the efforts of nonreligious groups to construct their own communities, Zuckerman shows how Americans are building institutions and cultivating relationships without religious influence. Most of all, Living the Secular Life infuses the sociological data and groundbreaking research with the moral convictions that govern secular individuals and demonstrates how readers can integrate these beliefs into their own lives. A manifesto for a booming social movement—and a revelatory survey of this overlooked community—Living the Secular Life offers essential and long-awaited information for anyone building a life based on his or her own principles.

An authoritative study of contemporary American couples--married, living together, and homosexual--addresses diverse issues involved in their work, money, and sexual and emotional relationships

The Starchild takes us behind the scenes, revealing what he's learned from a lifetime as the driving force of KISS, and how he brings his unique sensibility not only to his music career but to every area of his life. Stanley shares his fitness routine, philosophy, business principles, and how he maintains his inspiration, passion, and joy after nearly 50 years of mega success. He also divulges true stories of his relationships, hardships, and pivotal moments.

“It gives me a secret pleasure to observe the fair character our family has in the place by Jews & Christians,“Abigail Levy Franks wrote to her son from New York City in 1733. Abigail was part of a tiny community of Jews living in the new world. In the centuries that followed, as that community swelled to several millions, women came to occupy diverse and changing roles. American Jewish Women’s History , an anthology covering colonial times to the present, illuminates that historical diversity. It shows women shaping Judaism and their American Jewish communities as they engaged in volunteer activities and political crusades, battled stereotypes, and constructed relationships with their Christian neighbors. It ranges from Rebecca Gratz’s development of the Jewish Sunday School in Philadelphia in 1838 to protest the rising prices of kosher meat at the turn of the century, to the shaping of southern Jewish women's cultural identity through food. There is currently no other reader conveying the breadth of the historical experiences of American Jewish women available. The reader is divided into four sections complete with detailed introductions. The contributors include: Joyce Antler, Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Alice Kessler-Harris, Paula E. Hyman, Riv-Ellen Prell, and Jonathan D. Sarna.

The author of The Group , the groundbreaking bestseller and 1964 National Book Award finalist that shaped a generation of women, brings reminiscences of her girlhood to this intimate and illuminating memoir How I Grew is Mary McCarthy's intensely personal autobiography of her life from age thirteen to twenty-one. Orphaned at six, McCarthy was raised by her maternal grandparents in Seattle, Washington. Although her official birthdate is in 1912, it wasn't until she turned thirteen that, in McCarthy's own words, she was "born as a mind." With detail driven by an almost astonishing memory recall, McCarthy gives us a masterful account of these formative years. From her wild adolescence--including losing her virginity at fourteen--through her eventual escape to Vassar, the bestselling novelist, essayist, and critic chronicles her relationships with family, friends, lovers, and the teachers who would influence her writing career. Filled with McCarthy's penetrating insights and trenchant wit, this is an unblinkingly honest and fearless self-portrait of a young woman coming of age--and the perfect companion to McCarthy's Memories of a Catholic Girlhood .

A Boston Globe Best Book of the Year Winner of the 2017 Casey Award for the Best Baseball Book of the Year “The ultimate biography.” —The New York Times As a player, Charles Dillon “Casey” Stengel's contemporaries included Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, and Christy Mathewson. As a legendary manager, he formed indelible, complicated relationships with Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Billy Martin. For more than five glorious decades, Stengel was the undisputed, quirky, hilarious, and beloved face of baseball—and along the way he revolutionized the role of manager. But for a man who spent so much of his life in the limelight Stengel remains an enigma. Acclaimed New York Yankees' historian and bestselling author Marty Appel digs into Casey Stengel's quirks and foibles, unearthing a tremendous trove of baseball stories, perspective, and history. Weaving in never-before-published family documents, Appel creates a matchless and intimate portrait of a private man. Casey Stengel is a biography that will be treasured by fans of our national pastime for years to come.

From activist, spiritual leader, New York Times- bestselling author, and 2020 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson comes a prayer for healing America Prayer is practical, Williamson tells us. “To look to God is to look to the realm of consciousness that can deliver us from the pain of living.” Illuminata delivers prayer into our daily lives with prayers on topics from releasing anger to finding forgiveness, from finding great love to achieving intimacy. There are prayers for couples, for parents, and for children, prayers to mend broken relationships and prayers to overcome obsessive and compulsive love. There are prayers to heal the soul, prayers to heal the body, and prayers for work and creativity. Williamson also gives us prayers for the healing of America, including a prayer of amends on behalf of European Americans to African Americans and one to Native Americans. How, Williamson asks, can we expect anyone to forgive when we have made no formal apology? “Read my prayers or someone else’s,” Williamson says. “By all means, create your own.” Illuminata brings prayer into practical use, creating a sweeter, more abundant life. “No conventional therapy,” she says, “can release us from a deep and abiding psychic pain. Through prayer we find what we cannot find elsewhere: a peace that is not of this world.”

Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold traces the evolution of the lesbian community in Buffalo, New York from the mid-1930s up to the early 1960s. Drawing upon the oral histories of 45 women, it is the first comprehensive history of a working-class lesbian community. These poignant and complex stories show how black and white working-class lesbians, although living under oppressive circumstances, nevertheless became powerful agents of historical change. Based on 13 years of research, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold ranges over such topics as sex, relationships, coming out, butch-fem roles, motherhood, aging, racism, work, oppression and pride. Kennedy and Davis provide a unique insider's perspective on butch-fem culture and argue that the roots of gay and lesbian liberation are found specifically in the determined resistance of working-class lesbians.

Leonard Norman Cohen (September 21, 1934 - November 7, 2016) was a Canadian singer, songwriter, musician, poet, novelist, and painter. His work mostly explored religion, politics, isolation, sexuality, and personal relationships. Cohen was inducted into both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame as well as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honor. In 2011, Cohen received one of the Prince of Asturias Awards for literature and the ninth Glenn Gould Prize.Cohen pursued a career as a poet and novelist during the 1950s and early 1960s, and did not launch a music career until 1967, at the age of 33. His first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), was followed by three more albums of folk music: Songs from a Room (1969), Songs of Love and Hate (1971) and New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974).

A deft and unflinching coming-of-age story about an angry teenage girl and her discovery of the nature of the biggest game of all, and what it really means to be a team player, a sister, a daughter, and a born survivor--from the acclaimed author of Triburbia and Boy Alone . "It's a dark and thrilling exploration of changing relationships and rivalries and times the desires of your heart don't necessarily line up with the expectations of real life." -- Marie Claire True has a singular path: to be the greatest soccer player of her generation. But to realize her dream, she'll need to make the Under-17 National Team, then the Residency Program, and the ultimate: the US Women's National Team. Otherwise she can say goodbye to the Women's World Cup. And True will do whatever it takes to be the top girl on the field. True has to stay focused because her family is crumbling. With the loss of her mother, True is forced to take care of her autistic younger sister while her grieving father wastes his time gambling. And high school isn't much better. While True's teammates are getting taller and growing up, she's hardening around the edges, at a loss for what it means to be a typical teen girl. But when she's in the game, the anxieties of family and fitting in just fade away. True--with her soft feet and deft first touch--can knock anyone off the ball. And more importantly, she can throw an elbow harder than anybody else. On the pitch, she's a soccer player first, a sister second. On the pitch, she's free.

In her remarkable national bestseller, Necessary Losses, Judith Viorst explored how we are shaped by the various losses we experience throughout our lives. Now, in her wise and perceptive new book, Imperfect Control, she shows us how our sense of self and all our important relationships are colored by our struggles over control: over wanting it and taking it, loving it and fearing it, and figuring out when the time has come to surrender it. Writing with compassion, acute psychological insight, and a touch of her trademark humor, Viorst invites us to contemplate the limits and possibilities of our control. She shows us how our lives can be shaped by our actions and our choices. She reminds us, too, that we sometimes should choose to let go. And she encourages us to find our own best balance between power and surrender.

"As one of a handful of journalists allowed in the courtroom, for 23 days Jonathan Alter sat just feet away from the most dangerous threat to democracy in American history, watching the spectacle of the century: the felony trial of Donald Trump. Highly publicized but untelevised and thus largely hidden from public view, this landmark trial offered hope of real justice amid a grueling eight-year national ordeal and foreshadowed the drama of the 2024 presidential election. Alter shares everything he witnessed--from eviscerating takes on the colorful characters to the chilling legal ups and downs--to offer a barbed account of the trial and its aftermath, including fresh reporting about the historic events of the summer of 2024. A Zelig of journalism experiencing a crisis of faith in the good sense of the American people, Alter chronicles the shaping of his political consciousness and his bracing, unpredictable relationships with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain, and Joe Biden, whose decision to stand down in favor of former prosecutor Kamala Harris put the criminal trial front and center as Americans render their own verdict at the polls."--

What made Henry Kissinger the kind of diplomat he was? What experiences and influences shaped his worldview and provided the framework for his approach to international relations? Jeremi Suri offers a thought-provoking, interpretive study of one of the most influential and controversial political figures of the twentieth century. Drawing on research in more than six countries in addition to extensive interviews with Kissinger and others, Suri analyzes the sources of Kissinger's ideas and power and explains why he pursued the policies he did. Kissinger's German-Jewish background, fears of democratic weakness, belief in the primacy of the relationship between the United States and Europe, and faith in the indispensable role America plays in the world shaped his career and his foreign policy. Suri shows how Kissinger's early years in Weimar and Nazi Germany, his experiences in the U.S. Army and at Harvard University, and his relationships with powerful patrons--including Nelson Rockefeller and Richard Nixon--shed new light on the policymaker. Kissinger's career was a product of the global changes that made the American Century. He remains influential because his ideas are rooted so deeply in dominant assumptions about the world. In treating Kissinger fairly and critically as a historical figure, without polemical judgments, Suri provides critical context for this important figure. He illuminates the legacies of Kissinger's policies for the United States in the twenty-first century.

Number one best-seller Jane Green - author of The Beach House and Spellbound - explores changes in relationships when a family member is struck with illness in her heartbreaking novel The Love Verb . Love means being there - through everything. Everyone in Callie's family is busy; her sister is a free-spirited Manhattan chef, her best friend Lila is coping with the vitriol of her new man's ex-wife, and her parents, Walter and Honor, have rich though separate lives. But when Callie discovers the breast cancer she thought she'd beaten has returned, they all find that their lives shift to focus on caring for Callie. 'A beautifully written and intensely sad lesson in what it really means to love someone you know you're going to lose' Daily Telegraph 'Stylish, wickedly insightful . . . family, friends and love is truly, heartwrenchingly tested' Mirror 'A moving account of a family faced with a heartbreaking situation. I defy anyone to get through to the end without crying' Sunday Express Jane Green's internationally best-selling novels, including The Other Woman , Jemima J. , Babyville , The Patchwork Marriage (published as Another Piece of My Heart in the USA) Girl Friday ( Dune Road ), Life Swap ( Swapping Lives ), Second Chance , Straight Talking , Mr. Maybe , and Bookends , are moving and true to life. The Love Verb is published as Promises to Keep in the USA.

A smart, urgently needed book that helps parents and their kids navigate today’s online landscape—from the founder and CEO of the nation’s leading authority on kids and the media. Now, more than ever , parents need help in navigating their kids’ online, media-saturated lives. Jim Steyer, founder and CEO of Common Sense Media, the nation’s leading kidsand- media organization, and the father of four children, knows that many parents and teachers—unlike their technology-savvy kids—may be tourists in the online world. In this essential book, Steyer—a frequent commentator on national TV and radio— offers an engaging blend of straightforward advice and anecdotes that address what he calls RAP, the major pitfalls relating to kids’ use of media and technology: relationship issues, attention/addiction problems, and the lack of privacy. Instead of shielding children completely from online images and messages, Steyer’s practical approach gives parents essential tools to help filter content, preserve good relationships with their children, and make common sense, value-driven judgments for kids of all ages. Not just about Facebook, this comprehensive, no-nonsense guide to the online world, media, and mobile devices belongs in the hands of all parents and educators raising kids in today’s digital age.

"Over the past three years James Altucher and Claudia Azula Altucher have answered tens of thousands of questions in their writings, retreats, talks, and online seminars. The questions cover the entire spectrum of life, from how to deal with bad relationships, to how to access your innate special uniqueness, to how to pay the rent when you're crying on the floor, broken and depressed,. Invariably, they look to one little word as the solution: No. No is not only a solution; it is a path for people to heal and bring abundance and happiness into their lives. Every time you say yes to something you don't want to do you can experience a spate of negative outcomes: resenting people, doing poor quality work, having less energy for the things you actually love, making less money, and so on. But the worst part is that yet another small percentage of your life is used up by something you don't want. We need the power of no so we can set proper boundaries around the things that hurt us directly. We need it to curb the relationships that drain us of our energy, creativity, and expression, to protect us from those people who put us down, hurt us emotionally, and leave us barren and depressed. And in the larger picture, we need the power of no to understand what we truly believe in, rather than the stories we take at face value because we've been conditioned to think them as the truth. With the power of no we can refocus our energies toward living an abundant, healthy, and wealthy life. We can realize that there is nothing to prove, there is nobody to impress, there is no cage around us. Such is the power of saying no to our misconceptions. As a species, this is where we find ourselves now and many of us are trying very hard to use the power of no at this higher level. To clearly see what intelligent compassion is. To open our hearts and bring healing to the world. The power of no is a force that allows us to truly surrender to a higher power and be the unique people we were meant to be. And in The Power of No, James and Claudia will help guide you to this place by relating the stories they've heard and the things they've experienced. Their goal is to bring this little word out into the world to shine its power and its light on all of us. "--

"Hannah Arendt was born in Germany in 1906 and lived in America from 1941 until her death in 1975. Thus her life spanned the tumultuous years of the twentieth century, as did her thought. She did not consider herself a philosopher, though she studied and maintained close relationships with two great philosophersKarl Jaspers and Martin Heideggerthroughout their lives. She was a thinker, in search not of metaphysical truth but of the meaning of appearances and events. She was a questioner rather than an answerer, and she wrote what she thought, principally to encourage others to think for themselves. Fearless of the consequences of thinking, Arendt found courage woven in each and every strand of human freedom"--Jacket

An invaluable guidebook, which contends that the most vexing problems facing women today isn't that doors of opportunity aren't open but that not enough women are walking through them Feminist icon Gloria Feldt pulls no punches in this new book, which argues that the most confounding problem facing women today isn't that doors of opportunity aren't open, but that not enough women are walking through them. From the boardroom to the bedroom, public office to personal relationships, she asserts that nobody is keeping women from parity-except themselves. Feldt puts women's power into an historical context, showing the ways in which women have made huge leaps forward in the past, only to pull back right when they were at the threshold. Feldt argues that there's no excuse-whether it's the way women are socialized, or pressure to conform, or work/life balance issues-for women today not to own their power. Women are still facing unequal pay, being passed over for promotions, entering public office at a much lesser rate than men, and oftentimes still struggling with traditional power dynamics in their interpersonal relationships. Feldt's solution to all these places where women face inequality is the same: we need to shift the way we think to achieve true parity with our male counterparts. No Excuses is divided into nine chapters that organized around how women can change the way they think, and therefore the way they act. These include: Know Your History and You Can Create the Future of Your Choice; Define the Terms-First; Embrace Controversy; Employ Every Medium; and other helpful ideas for using the tools and resources women already have to create the changes they want to see. No Excuses is a timely and invaluable book to help women equalize gender power in politics, work, and love.