In a work of history that will make headlines, New York Times reporter Philip Shenon investigates the investigation of 9/11 and tells the inside story of most important federal commission since the the Warren Commission. Shenon uncovers startling new information about the inner workings of the 9/11 commission and its relationship with the Bush White House. The Commission will change our understanding of the 9/11 investigation — and of the attacks themselves.
The questions have haunted our nation for half a century: Was the President killed by a single gunman? Was Lee Harvey Oswald part of a conspiracy? Did the Warren Commission discover the whole truth of what happened on November 22, 1963?
Philip Shenon, a veteran investigative journalist who spent most of his career at The New York Times, finally provides many of the answers. Though A Cruel and Shocking Act began as Shenon’s attempt to write the first insider’s history of the Warren Commission, it quickly became something much larger and more important when he discovered startling information that was withheld from the Warren Commission by the CIA, FBI and others in power in Washington. Shenon shows how the commission’s ten-month investigation was doomed to fail because the man leading it – Chief Justice Earl Warren – was more committed to protecting the Kennedy family than getting to the full truth about what happened on that tragic day. A taut, page-turning narrative, Shenon’s book features some of the most compelling figures of the twentieth century—Bobby Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, Chief Justice Warren, CIA spymasters Allen Dulles and Richard Helms, as well as the CIA’s treacherous “molehunter,” James Jesus Angleton.
Based on hundreds of interviews and unprecedented access to the surviving commission staffers and many other key players, Philip Shenon’s authoritative, scrupulously researched book will forever change the way we think about the Kennedy assassination and about the deeply flawed investigation that followed.
In January of 1987 Jeffrey Toobin is fresh out of Harvard Law School, and appointed the youngest lawyer on Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh’s team to investigate and try the leading figure in the Iran-Contra affair—Oliver North. For twenty-eight thrilling months, Toobin served on Walsh’s staff and came of age into his profession.
Toobin’s first book and immersive account of that period is the story of a young man’s awakening to the realities of law and a policial, legal and moral drama on a grand stage. Through this defining case of the 1980s—which featured obstruction of justice, diversion of funds, and personal corruption—Opening Arguments shows the judicial process at work. The Congressional Iran-Contra committees granted the key figures of the trial immunity, so Toobin and his colleagues had to work in the dark, without access to newspapers or television for weeks at a time. The Reagan Justice Department provided difficulties too. On page after page, Toobin illuminates these battles against long odds, portraying the climactic North trial itself with the eye of a novelist.
Former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration David A. Kessler, M.D., argues forcefully that our brain chemistry is being hijacked by the food we eat: that by consuming stimulating combinations of sugar, fat, and salt, we’re conditioning our bodies to crave more sugar, fat, and salt―and consigning ourselves to a vicious cycle of overeating. Adapted from the adult trade bestseller The End of Overeating, Your Food Is Fooling You is concise and direct and delivers the same message, many of the fascinating case studies, and the same advice for breaking bad eating habits in a voice and format that’s accessible, positive, and affirming for teenagers. Young people are at most risk of forming bad eating habits―but they’re also highly aware of body image and highly responsive to positive messages about health and diet. Your Food Is Fooling You is a readable, authoritative, and entertaining call to action by one of our nation’s leading public health figures.
Unprecedented numbers of us suffer from obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other debilitating illnesses. The root cause is a once-revolutionary idea that seemed to offer so much promise, but instead has become the cause of a global health crisis: processed foods. Over the past seventy-five years, a number of factors aligned to create a reality in which processed carbohydrates became our main food source. In Fast Carbs, Slow Carbs, bestselling author and former FDA Commissioner David A. Kessler explains how the quest to feed a nation resulted in a population that is increasingly suffering from obesity and chronic disease and offers a solution for changing course.
For decades, no one questioned the effects of these processed carbohydrates. The focus was on fertile grassland, ideal for growing vast amounts of wheat and corn; an industrial infrastructure perfect for refining those grains into starch; a food production behemoth that turns refined grains into affordable, appealing, and ever-present food items, from pizza to burritos to bagels; and an efficient distribution network that ensures consumption by Americans nationwide.
But during those same decades, our bodies quietly contended with the metabolic chaos caused by consuming rapidly absorbable starch. Slowly but surely, these effects accumulated and became disastrous, leading to the public health crisis in which we find ourselves today.
In Fast Carbs, Slow Carbs, Kessler explains how eating refined grains such as wheat, corn, and rice leads to a cascade of hormonal and metabolic issues that make it very easy to gain weight and nearly impossible to lose it. Worse still is how excess weight creates a very real link to diabetes, heart disease, cognitive decline, and a host of cancers.
We can no longer afford to dismiss the consequences of eating food that is designed to be rapidly absorbed as sugar in our bodies. Informed by cutting-edge research as well as Dr. Kessler’s own personal quest to manage his weight, Fast Carbs, Slow Carbs reveals in illuminating detail how we got to this critical turning point in our health as a nation—and outlines a plan for eliminating heart disease, allowing us to, finally, regain control of our health.
Most of us know what it feels like to fall under the spell of food, but it’s harder to understand why we can’t seem to stop eating—even when we want to. So why do we continue to reach for food?
Dr. David A. Kessler, the dynamic and controversial former FDA commissioner known for his crusade against the tobacco industry, is taking on another business that’s making America sick: the food industry. Nearly 75 percent of American adults are clinically overweight or obese, triple the amount from only sixty years ago. But why? In The End of Overeating, Dr. Kessler shows us how our brain chemistry has been hijacked by the foods we most love to eat: those containing stimulating combinations of fat, sugar, and salt. Food manufacturers create products by manipulating these ingredients to stimulate our appetites, setting in motion a cycle of desire and consumption that ends with a nation of overeaters.
Drawing from the latest brain science as well as interviews with top physicians and food industry insiders, The End of Overeating exposes the food industry’s aggressive marketing tactics and reveals shocking facts about how we lost control over food—and what we can do to get it back.
Enemies is the first definitive history of the FBI’s secret intelligence operations, from an author whose work on the Pentagon and the CIA won him the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
We think of the FBI as America’s police force. But secret intelligence is the Bureau’s first and foremost mission. Enemies is the story of how presidents have used the FBI as the most formidable intelligence force in American history.
Here is the hidden history of America’s hundred-year war on terror. The FBI has fought against terrorists, spies, anyone it deemed subversive—and sometimes American presidents. The FBI’s secret intelligence and surveillance techniques have created a tug-of-war between protecting national security and infringing upon civil liberties. It is a tension that strains the very fabric of a free republic.
Analyzing an array of insights from psychology, medicine, neuroscience, literature, philosophy, and theology, Dr. Kessler deconstructs centuries of thinking, examining the central role of capture in mental illness and questioning traditional labels that have obscured our understanding of it. Looking to the emotionally resonant lives of figures such as David Foster Wallace, Virginia Woolf, William James, Tennessee Williams, John Belushi, Sylvia Plath, and Robert Lowell, among others, he explains how this concept is at play in their lives and—by extension—our own.
Ultimately, Capture offers insight into how we form thoughts and emotions, manage trauma, and heal. For the first time, we can begin to understand the underpinnings not only of mental illness but also of our everyday worries and anxieties. Capture is an intimate and critical exploration of the most enduring human mystery of all: the mind.
A former New York Times restaurant critic, editor in chief of Gourmet, and the author of three bestselling memoirs, Ruth Reichl is a beloved cultural figure in the food world and beyond. For You, Mom. Finally. is her openhearted investigation of the life of a woman she realizes she never really knew—her mother. Through letters and diaries—and a new afterword relating the wisdom she’s gained after sharing her story—Reichl confronts the transition her mother made from a hopeful young woman to an increasingly unhappy older one and recognizes the huge sacrifices made to ensure that her daughter’s life would not be as disappointing as her own.
Billie Breslin has traveled far from her home in California to take a job at Delicious!, New York’s most iconic food magazine. At first, Billie feels like a fish out of water—until she is welcomed by the magazine’s colorful staff and seduced by the vibrant downtown food scene. Then an unexpected turn of events leads Billie to a miraculous discovery. In a hidden room in the magazine’s library, she finds a cache of letters written during World War II by Lulu Swan, a plucky twelve-year-old, to the legendary chef James Beard. Lulu’s letters provide Billie with a richer understanding of history and inspire Billie to come to terms with her fears and her ability to open her heart to love.
Through her bestselling memoirs, including Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me with Apples, Ruth Reichl has achieved a special place in readers’ hearts. Now, with this magical novel, she has created a sumptuous world that will enchant you.