From the Corner of the Oval

From the Corner of the Oval
Author: Beck Dorey-Stein
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2018-07-10
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0525509135

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • What if you lived out the drama of your twenties on Air Force One? “[This] breezy page turner is essentially Bridget Jones goes to the White House.”—The New York Times RECOMMENDED READING theSkimm • Today • Entertainment Weekly • Refinery29 • Bustle • PopSugar • Vanity Fair • The New York Times Editors’ Choice • Paste In 2012, Beck Dorey-Stein is working five part-time jobs and just scraping by when a posting on Craigslist lands her, improbably, in the Oval Office as one of Barack Obama’s stenographers. The ultimate D.C. outsider, she joins the elite team who accompany the president wherever he goes, recorder and mic in hand. On whirlwind trips across time zones, Beck forges friendships with a dynamic group of fellow travelers—young men and women who, like her, leave their real lives behind to hop aboard Air Force One in service of the president. As she learns to navigate White House protocols and more than once runs afoul of the hierarchy, Beck becomes romantically entangled with a consummate D.C. insider, and suddenly the political becomes all too personal. Against a backdrop of glamour, drama, and intrigue, this is the story of a young woman learning what truly matters, and, in the process, discovering her voice. Praise for From the Corner of the Oval “Who knew the West Wing could be so sexy? Beck Dorey-Stein’s unparalleled access is obvious on every page, along with her knife-sharp humor. I tore through the entire book on a four-hour flight and loved reading all about the brilliant yet hard-partying people who once surrounded the leader of the free world. Lots of books claim to give real insider glimpses, but this one actually delivers.”—Lauren Weisberger, author of The Devil Wears Prada “Dorey-Stein . . . writes with wit and self-deprecating humor.”—The Wall Street Journal “Addictively readable . . . Dorey-Stein’s spunk and her sparkling, crackling prose had me cheering for her through each adventure. . . . She never loses her starry-eyed optimism, her pinch-me wonderment, her Working Girl pluck.”—Paul Begala, The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

Rock the Boat

Rock the Boat
Author: Beck Dorey-Stein
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2021-06-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 052550916X

“[A] witty, heartfelt debut novel about a belated coming-of-age.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) Old friends discover how much has changed (and how much has stayed the same) when they reunite in their seaside hometown for one unforgettable summer—from the New York Times bestselling author of From the Corner of the Oval When Kate Campbell’s life in Manhattan suddenly implodes, she is forced to return to Sea Point, the small town full of quirky locals, quaint bungalows, and beautiful beaches where she grew up. She knows she won’t be home for long; she’s got every intention (and a three-point plan) to win back everything she thinks she’s lost. Meanwhile, Miles Hoffman—aka “The Prince of Sea Point”—has also returned home to prove to his mother that he’s capable of taking over the family business, and he’s promised to help his childhood best friend, Ziggy Miller, with his own financial struggles at the same time. Kate, Miles, and Ziggy converge in Sea Point as the town faces an identity crisis when a local developer tries to cash in on its potential. The summer swells, and white lies and long-buried secrets prove as corrosive as the salt air, threatening to forever erode not only the bonds between the three friends but also the landscape of the beachside community they call home. Full of heart and humor—and laced with biting wit—Rock the Boat proves that even when you know all the back roads, there aren’t any shortcuts to growing up.

Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?

Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?
Author: Alyssa Mastromonaco
Publisher: Twelve
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2017-03-21
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1455588210

If your funny older sister were the former deputy chief of staff to President Barack Obama, her behind-the-scenes political memoir would look something like this . . . Alyssa Mastromonaco worked for Barack Obama for almost a decade, and long before his run for president. From the then-senator's early days in Congress to his years in the Oval Office, she made Hope and Change happen through blood, sweat, tears, and lots of briefing binders. But for every historic occasion -- meeting the queen at Buckingham Palace, bursting in on secret climate talks, or nailing a campaign speech in a hailstorm -- there were dozens of less-than-perfect moments when it was up to Alyssa to save the day. Like the time she learned the hard way that there aren't nearly enough bathrooms at the Vatican. Full of hilarious, never-before-told stories, Who Thought This Was a Good Idea? is an intimate portrait of a president, a book about how to get stuff done, and the story of how one woman challenged, again and again, what a "White House official" is supposed to look like. Here Alyssa shares the strategies that made her successful in politics and beyond, including the importance of confidence, the value of not being a jerk, and why ultimately everything comes down to hard work (and always carrying a spare tampon). Told in a smart, original voice and topped off with a couple of really good cat stories, Who Thought This Was a Good Idea? is a promising debut from a savvy political star.

The Last Equation of Isaac Severy

The Last Equation of Isaac Severy
Author: Nova Jacobs
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2018-03-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1501175149

*Wall Street Journal’s “Mysteries: Best of 2018” *Book of the Month Club Selection *Edgar Award Nominee: Best First Novel by an American Author A “hugely entertaining” (Wall Street Journal) mystery starring “a Royal Tenenbaums-esque clan of geniuses” (Martha Stewart Living)—perfect for fans of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. In this “riveting…brilliant” (Booklist) debut, Hazel Severy, the owner of a struggling Seattle bookstore, receives a letter from her adoptive grandfather—mathematician Isaac Severy—days after he dies in a suspected suicide. In his puzzling letter, Isaac alludes to a secretive organization that is after his final bombshell equation, and he charges Hazel with safely delivering it to a trusted colleague. But first, she must find where the equation is hidden. While in Los Angeles for Isaac’s funeral, Hazel realizes she’s not the only one searching for his life’s work, and that the equation’s implications have potentially disastrous consequences for the extended Severy family, a group of dysfunctional geniuses unmoored by the sudden death of their patriarch. As agents of an enigmatic company shadow Isaac’s favorite son—a theoretical physicist—and a long-lost cousin mysteriously reappears in Los Angeles, the equation slips further from Hazel’s grasp. She must unravel a series of confounding clues hidden inside one of her favorite novels, drawing her ever closer to his mathematical treasure. But when her efforts fall short, she is forced to enlist the help of those with questionable motives. “A novel that is anything but clueless, filled with consideration and compassion” (The Washington Post), The Last Equation of Isaac Severy proves that, like Hazel, you don’t have to love math to fall under the Severy spell.

The Children of Red Peak

The Children of Red Peak
Author: Craig DiLouie
Publisher: Redhook
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2020-11-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0316428116

The most intense novel yet from an unmissable voice in horror fiction, Bram Stoker award-nominated author Craig DiLouie. "Horror readers will be hooked." (Publishers Weekly) "A heart-wrenching, thought-provoking, terrifying tale about the meaning of life . . . A great choice for fans of Stephen Graham Jones' The Only Good Indians (2020), Paul Tremblay's Disappearance at Devil's Rock (2016), or Alma Katsu's The Hunger (2018)."​ - Booklist They escaped the cult, but are they free? David Young, Deacon Price, and Beth Harris live with a dark secret. They grew up in an isolated religious community in the shadow of the mountain Red Peak, and they are among the few who survived its horrific last days. Years later, the trauma of what they experienced never feels far behind. And when a fellow survivor commits suicide, they reunite to confront their past and share their memories of that final night. But discovering the terrifying truth might put them on a path back to Red Peak, and escaping a second time could be almost impossible.... "A subtle character story and a chilling tale of horror. It goes deep into the heart of people caught up in terrifying events." - Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author. For more from Craig DiLouie, check out: Our War One of Us

What She Ate

What She Ate
Author: Laura Shapiro
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2017-07-25
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 0698178947

A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2017 One of NPR Fresh Air's "Books to Close Out a Chaotic 2017" NPR's Book Concierge Guide To 2017’s Great Reads “How lucky for us readers that Shapiro has been listening so perceptively for decades to the language of food.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR Fresh Air Six “mouthwatering” (Eater.com) short takes on six famous women through the lens of food and cooking, probing how their attitudes toward food can offer surprising new insights into their lives, and our own. Everyone eats, and food touches on every aspect of our lives—social and cultural, personal and political. Yet most biographers pay little attention to people’s attitudes toward food, as if the great and notable never bothered to think about what was on the plate in front of them. Once we ask how somebody relates to food, we find a whole world of different and provocative ways to understand her. Food stories can be as intimate and revealing as stories of love, work, or coming-of-age. Each of the six women in this entertaining group portrait was famous in her time, and most are still famous in ours; but until now, nobody has told their lives from the point of view of the kitchen and the table. What She Ate is a lively and unpredictable array of women; what they have in common with one another (and us) is a powerful relationship with food. They include Dorothy Wordsworth, whose food story transforms our picture of the life she shared with her famous poet brother; Rosa Lewis, the Edwardian-era Cockney caterer who cooked her way up the social ladder; Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady and rigorous protector of the worst cook in White House history; Eva Braun, Hitler’s mistress, who challenges our warm associations of food, family, and table; Barbara Pym, whose witty books upend a host of stereotypes about postwar British cuisine; and Helen Gurley Brown, the editor of Cosmopolitan, whose commitment to “having it all” meant having almost nothing on the plate except a supersized portion of diet gelatin.

I've Been Meaning to Tell You

I've Been Meaning to Tell You
Author: David Chariandy
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 97
Release: 2019-03-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 152660289X

'There is, as you pick it up, nothing to prepare you for its power' OBSERVER 'Quite simply, one of the most beautiful books I have ever read' AMINATTA FORNA How do we navigate our complex histories for our children? What is our duty to share and what must we leave for them to discover? Writing to his daughter, David Chariandy asks difficult, unsettling, perhaps impossible questions – questions made all the more poignant by our current political landscape. With tender, spare and luminous prose, Chariandy looks both into his heart and mind and out to the world and humanity. In the tradition of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, this is a book about race; this is a book about family.

The Thousand Names

The Thousand Names
Author: Django Wexler
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 541
Release: 2013-07-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101609516

Set in an alternate nineteenth century, muskets and magic are weapons to be feared in the first “spectacular epic” (Fantasy Book Critic) in Django Wexler’s Shadow Campaigns series. Captain Marcus d’Ivoire, commander of one of the Vordanai empire’s colonial garrisons, was serving out his days in a sleepy, remote outpost—until a rebellion left him in charge of a demoralized force clinging to a small fortress at the edge of the desert. To flee from her past, Winter Ihernglass masqueraded as a man and enlisted as a ranker in the Vordanai Colonials, hoping only to avoid notice. But when chance sees her promoted to command, she must lead her men into battle against impossible odds. Their fate depends on Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich. Under his command, Marcus and Winter feel the tide turning and their allegiance being tested. For Janus’s ambitions extend beyond the battlefield and into the realm of the supernatural—a realm with the power to reshape the known world and change the lives of everyone in its path.

Desperate Characters

Desperate Characters
Author: Paula Fox
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 180
Release: 1999
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780393318944

First published in 1970 to great acclaim, this novel stands as one of the most dazzling and rigorous examples of the storyteller's craft in postwar American literature--a novel that, according to Irving Howe, ranks with "Billy Budd" and "The Great Gatsby".

Racing to the Finish

Racing to the Finish
Author: Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2018-10-16
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0785221964

Racecar driver Earnhardt was at the top of his game—until a minor crash resulted in a concussion that would eventually end his 18-year career. In his only authorized book, Dale shares the inside track on his life and work, reflects on NASCAR, the loss of his dad, and his future as a broadcaster, businessperson, and family man. It was a seemingly minor crash at Michigan International Speedway in June 2016 that ended the day early for NASCAR star Dale Earnhardt Jr. What he didn’t know was that it would also end his driving for the year. He’d dealt with concussions before, but no two are the same. Recovery can be brutal, and lengthy. When Dale retired from professional stock car racing in 2017, he walked away from his career as a healthy man. But for years, he had worried that the worsening effects of multiple racing-related concussions would end not only his time on the track but his ability to live a full and happy life. Torn between a race-at-all-costs culture and the fear that something was terribly wrong, Earnhardt tried to pretend that everything was fine, but the private notes about his escalating symptoms that he kept on his phone reveal a vicious cycle: suffering injuries on Sunday, struggling through the week, then recovering in time to race again the following weekend. In this candid reflection, Earnhardt opens up for the first time about: The physical and emotional struggles he faced as he fought to close out his career on his own terms His frustration with the slow recovery from multiple racing-related concussions His admiration for the woman who stood by him through it all His determination to share his own experience so that others don’t have to suffer in silence Steering his way to the final checkered flag of his storied career proved to be the most challenging race and most rewarding finish of his life.