Trump books headline this season’s offerings, as do studies of conspiracy thinking and cybercrime, first draft histories of the pandemic, critiques of U.S. imperialism, and reckonings with racism, misogyny, and environmental destruction.
Top 10
By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners
Margaret A. Burnham. Norton, Sept. 27 ($30, ISBN 978-0-393-86785-5)
This “searing study” of the legacy of racially motivated killings in the Jim Crow South is “an essential reckoning with America’s history of racial violence,” according to PW’s starred review.
Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America
Maggie Haberman. Penguin Press, Oct. 4 ($32, ISBN 978-0-593-29734-6)
Pulitzer winner Haberman chronicles Donald Trump’s political rise, scandal-plagued administration, and postpresidency.
The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House
Chris Whipple. Scribner, Jan. 17 ($30, ISBN 978-1-982106-43-0)
The Biden administration’s legislative battles and responses to rising inflation, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and other crises are documented in this report from the author of The Gatekeepers.
How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future
Maria Ressa. Harper, Nov. 29 ($29.99, ISBN 978-0-06-325751-1)
The Nobel Prize winner recounts her battle against lies and corruption in the Philippines.
Masters of the Lost Land: The Untold Story of the Amazon and the Violent Fight for the World’s Last Frontier
Heriberto Araújo. Mariner, Jan. 17 ($28.99, ISBN 978-0-06-302426-7)
This investigation examines the destruction of the Amazon rainforest through the lens of a murder allegedly ordered by one of Brazil’s most notorious land barons.
The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy
Anand Giridharadas. Knopf, Oct. 18 ($30, ISBN 978-0-593-31899-7)
The art of persuasion takes center stage in this survey from Giridharadas, whose subjects include white adoptees of children of color, a QAnon deprogrammer, and Bernie Sanders.
Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis
Beth Macy. Little, Brown, Aug. 16 ($30, ISBN 978-0-316-43022-7)
The author of Dopesick returns with a look at efforts to combat the opioid crisis through harm reduction, lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies, and other innovative strategies.
Raising Them Right: The Untold Story of America’s Ultraconservative Youth Movement and Its Plot for Power
Kyle Spencer. Ecco, Oct. 18 ($29.99, ISBN 978-0-06-304136-3)
Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens, and Cliff Maloney are the focus of this behind-the-scenes account of the conservative campaign to win the hearts and minds of young people.
The Ransomware Hunting Team: A Band of Misfits’ Improbable Crusade to Save the World from Cybercrime
Renee Dudley and Daniel Golden. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Oct. 25 ($30, ISBN 978-0-374-60330-4)
A team of motley self-taught cybersecurity experts works to thwart ransomware attacks and other cybercrimes in this chronicle by a pair of ProPublica reporters.
The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide
Steven W. Thrasher. Celadon, Aug. 2 ($29.99, ISBN 978-1-250-79663-9)
PW’s starred review says this “powerful” study of how AIDS, Covid-19, and other diseases expose and exploit structural inequities in American society is “a must-read.”
Politics & Current Events
Algonquin
The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America by Saket Soni (Jan. 24, $28, ISBN 978-1-64375-008-8) recounts how 500 foreign workers from India were lured to Mississippi and Texas under false pretenses, and their campaign to call attention to their plight.
Basic
Barred: Why the Innocent Can’t Get Out of Prison by Daniel S. Medwed (Sept. 20, $30, ISBN 978-1-5416-7591-9) examines how bias and rigidity within the justice system work to prevent wrongfully convicted people from proving their innocence.
Benbella
White Fear: How the Browning of America Is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds by Roland S. Martin and Leah Lakins (Sept. 13, $23.95, ISBN 978-1-63774-028-6) traces the origins of the Tea Party, restrictive voting laws, and Donald Trump’s political rise to white Americans’ fear that they will soon be in the minority.
Bloomsbury
Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America by Joan Donovan, Emily Dreyfuss, and Brian Friedberg (Sept. 20, $30, ISBN 978-1-63557-863-8) investigates how Alex Jones, Nick Fuentes, and other far-right figures use memes to spread extremist ideas. 150,000-copy announced first printing.
Bold Type
Chaotic Neutral: How the Democrats Lost Their Soul in the Center by Ed Burmila (Sept. 20, $29, ISBN 978-1-64503-002-7) alleges that the Democratic Party abandoned its principles in the 1980s and outlines a plan for recapturing the vision that made the New Deal and other progressive legislation possible.
Celadon
Black Skinhead: Reflections on Blackness and Our Political Future by Brandi Collins-Dexter (Sept. 20, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-250-82407-3). According to PW’s starred review, this “immersive and insightful look at the Black community’s fraying relationship with the Democratic Party... strike[s] an essential note of warning for Democrats.”
Center Street
Broken News: Why the Media Rage Machine Divides America and How to Fight Back by Chris Stirewalt (Aug. 23, $29, ISBN 978-1-5460-0263-5). The author, a former Fox News election forecaster, details how media companies stoke political polarization to increase their profits.
Counterpoint
I Dream with Open Eyes: A Memoir by George Prochnik (Sept. 27, $26, ISBN 978-1-64009-547-2) compares the author’s decision to leave New York for England after the 2016 election with the journey made by his mother’s ancestors, who were among the earliest English settlers of the New World.
Crown
The Mamas: What I Learned about Kids, Class, and Race from Moms Not Like Me by Helena Andrews-Dyer (Aug. 23, $27, ISBN 978-0-593-24031-1) reflects on the author’s experience of being one of the only Black moms in her gentrifying Washington, D.C., neighborhood.
Dey Street
Electable: Why America Hasn’t Put a Woman in the White House... Yet by Ali Vitali (Aug. 23, $28.99, ISBN 978-0-06-305863-7) recounts the 2020 presidential campaign with a focus on the double standards female politicians, including Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, and Geraldine Ferraro, have been held to.
Diversion
The Big Truth: Upholding Democracy in the Age of “The Big Lie” by Major Garrett and David Becker (Sept. 20, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-63576-784-1) spotlights election officials who resisted pressure to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and documents the ongoing campaign to undermine faith in the voting process.
Doubleday
The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017–2021 by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser (Sept. 20, $32, ISBN 978-0-385-54653-9) chronicles the Trump presidency and the dilemmas faced by staffers and advisers who came to believe that he was unfit for office.
Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency by Andy Greenberg (Nov. 15, $32.50, ISBN 978-0-385-54809-0). Sandworm author Greenberg looks at how cryptocurrency fuels money laundering, human trafficking, and drug dealing, and the investigators working to bust these digital black markets.
Dutton
The Forever Witness: How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder by Edward Humes (Nov. 29, $28, ISBN 978-1-5247-4627-8) explains how the 1987 murder of a young couple in Washington State was solved with genetic genealogy in 2018 and examines the issues of privacy and consent involved.
Experiment
In Search of Common Ground: Inspiring True Stories of Overcoming Hate in a Divided World by Bastian Berbner (Oct. 11, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-61519-894-8) profiles unlikely friendships formed across stark divides, including a neo-Nazi and his Black parole officer and a German couple and their Roma neighbors.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia by David Graeber (Jan. 24, $27, ISBN 978-0-374-61019-7) draws on the author’s doctoral thesis to explain how the descendants of pirates who
settled on Madagascar in the early 18th century helped shape the Enlightenment. 200,000-copy announced first printing.
Flatiron
They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent by Sarah Kendzior (Sept. 13, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-250-21072-2) argues that the U.S. government’s failure to hold powerful corporations and individuals to account has fueled the rise in conspiracy thinking.
We’ve Got to Try: How the Fight for Voting Rights Makes Everything Else Possible by Beto O’Rourke (Aug. 23, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-250-85245-8). Former congressman O’Rourke shares stories of Texans who have fought against voter suppression, and people he met during his 2018 tour of the state’s 254 counties.
Hachette
Benghazi! A New History of the Fiasco That Pushed America and Its World to the Brink by Ethan Chorin (Sept. 6, $30, ISBN 978-0-306-82972-7) surveys the causes and consequences of the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed ambassador Christopher Stevens.
We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism by Andy Campbell (Oct. 4, $29, ISBN 978-0-306-82746-4) tracks the evolution of the far-right group from its creation by Vice magazine cofounder Gavin McInnes to the January 6 Capitol riot.
Hanover Square
Black on Black: On Our Resilience and Brilliance in America by Daniel Black (Jan. 31, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-335-44938-2) delves into police brutality, the AIDS crisis, LGBTQ representation in the Black church, and other topics affecting Black Americans.
Holt
The Gospel of Wellness: Gyms, Gurus, Goop, and the False Promise of Self-Care by Rina Raphael (Sept. 20, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-250-79300-3) investigates the links between the booming health and wellness industry and the high levels of stress women feel at home and in the workplace.
The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama by Gabriel Debenedetti (Sept. 13, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-250-82997-9) details the ups and downs of Biden’s relationship with Obama and how their partnership has helped shape American politics over the past two decades.
Knopf
Cheap Land Colorado: Off-Gridders at America’s Edge by Ted Conover (Nov. 1, $30, ISBN 978-0-525-52148-8). The author of Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing documents his experiences living off the grid in Colorado’s San Luis Valley. 40,000-copy announced first printing.
Little, Brown
The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World by Max Fisher (Sept. 6, $29, ISBN 978-0-316-70332-1). According to PW’s review, this “scathing account” of the dark side of social media is “a well-researched, damning picture of just what happens online.”
Mariner
Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice by David Enrich (Sept. 13, $32.50, ISBN 978-0-06-314217-6) spotlights the law firm Jones Day and its ties to Donald Trump, big tobacco, Purdue pharma, Russian oligarchs, and Fox News.
MCD
My Glorious Defeats: Hacktivist, Narcissist, Anonymous: A Memoir by Barrett Brown (Jan. 10, $29, ISBN 978-0-374-21701-3) recounts how the author, a journalist and member of the hacktivist collective Anonymous, went to prison for leaking intelligence documents and reflects on the successes and failures of the transparency movement.
Morrow
Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump by Rachael Bade and Karoun Demirjian (Oct. 18, $35, ISBN 978-0-06-304079-3) examines how and why the two impeachments of Donald Trump fell short.
New Press
The Scheme: How the Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court by Sheldon Whitehouse and Jennifer Mueller (Oct. 18, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-62097-738-5) reveals how right-wing super PACs, the Federalist Society, and Republican politicians plotted a conservative takeover of the federal judiciary.
New York Univ.
The Plea of Innocence: Restoring Truth to the American Justice System by Tim Bakken (Oct. 4, $30, ISBN 978-1-4798-1712-2) alleges that America’s adversarial justice system sends innocent people to prison at an alarming rate and calls for the government to bear some of the burden of searching for exonerating facts.
Norton
The Other Side of Prospect: A Story of Violence, Injustice, and the American City by Nicholas Dawidoff (Oct. 18, $32.50, ISBN 978-1-324-00202-4) probes the causes and aftermath of a Black teenager’s wrongful conviction for murdering a retired grandfather in New Haven, Conn.
Oxford Univ.
The Problem of Democracy: America, the Middle East, and the Rise and Fall of an Idea by Shadi Hamid (Oct. 15, $27.95, ISBN 978-0-19-757946-6) contends that the U.S. has failed to live up to its democratic ideals in the Middle East and calls for a new approach to promoting democracy at home and abroad.
Penguin Books
Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet by George Monbiot (Aug. 2, $18 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-14-313596-8) explains how advances in soil ecology and other innovations could help save the planet by growing more food with less farming.
Princeton Univ.
Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want by Ruha Benjamin (Oct. 11, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-691-22288-2) draws on the author’s family history with the toxic effects of racism, mass incarceration, and healthcare inequities to show how small, individual actions can spread virally and help transform society.
PublicAffairs
The Stolen Year: How Covid Changed Children’s Lives, and Where We Go Now by Anya Kamenetz (Aug. 23, $29, ISBN 978-1-5417-0098-7). This “compassionate study of how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted schoolchildren and their families... is an astute and vital first draft of history,” according to the PW review.
Random House
On Critical Race Theory: Why It Matters & Why You Should Care by Victor Ray (Aug. 2, $26, ISBN 978-0-593-44644-7) explains the tenets of critical race theory and traces its roots to the abolition and civil rights movements.
Rowman & Littlefield
Hope over Fate: Fazle Hasan Abed and the Science of Ending Global Poverty by Scott MacMillan (Aug. 1, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-5381-6492-1) profiles the founder of the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee, by some accounts the most effective antipoverty program in world history.
Scribner
Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology by Chris Miller (Oct. 4, $30, ISBN 978-1-982172-00-8) details how microchip technology became such a vital resource and the race between the U.S. and China to design and build the world’s most powerful chips.
Simon & Schuster
Bully Market: My Story of Money and Misogyny at Goldman Sachs by Jamie Fiore Higgins (Oct. 4, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-66800-102-8) is an insider’s account of sexual harassment and discrimination at one of America’s top financial firms.
Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility by Martha C. Nussbaum (Dec. 6, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-982102-50-0) calls for a new approach to animal rights, ethics, and law that ends their exploitation and abuse by humans.
St. Martin’s
Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed by Andrew Koppelman (Oct. 4, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-250-28013-8) tracks the evolution of libertarianism from Friedrich Hayek’s promarket theories to the Koch brothers’ antigovernment agenda and
climate change denialism.
Surveillance State: Inside China’s Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control by Josh Chin and Liza Lin (Sept. 6, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-250-24929-6) explores how the Chinese Communist Party is using surveillance technology to create a new kind of society, and the implications their model holds for the rest of the world.
Univ. of California
On the Scale of the World: The Formation of Black Anticolonial Thought by Musab Younis (Nov. 1, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-520-38916-8) revisits theories of colonialism and racism developed by Black intellectuals in Africa, Europe, and the U.S. between the 1920s and 1940s, and draws lessons for today’s liberation movements.
Univ. of Chicago
My Three Dads: Patriarchy on the Great Plains by Jessa Crispin (Sept. 9, $19 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-226-82010-1). According to PW’s starred review, this “scorching blend of memoir and social critique” by the founder of Bookslut eviscerates the patriarchal values of the American Midwest with “erudite analysis and biting wit.”
Verso
Gentrification Is Inevitable and Other Lies by Leslie Kern (Sept. 6, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-83976-754-8) contends that gentrification is not a natural process but a continuation of the settler colonial project that must be redressed by reparations for those who have been displaced.
Viking
The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America by Philip Bump (Jan. 17, $30, ISBN 978-0-593-48969-7) takes a data-driven approach to understanding how the end of the baby boom will alter the U.S. economy and political landscape.
The Fishermen and the Dragon: Fear, Greed, and a Fight for Justice on the Gulf Coast by Kirk Wallace Johnson (Aug. 2, $28, ISBN 978-1-984880-12-3). Racial tensions and toxic pollution upend a Texas fishing community in this “fascinating study of the forces roiling the Texas Gulf Coast and other parts of America,” according to PW’s review.
Workman
How Sex Changed the Internet and the Internet Changed Sex: A History by Samantha Cole (Nov. 15, $30, ISBN 978-1-5235-1384-0) documents the links between human sexuality and the internet, from the Playboy centerfold used to develop the JPG format to the proliferation and acceptance of nonheteronormative communities online.
