**An Apple Best Book of the MonthFrom award-winning journalist and coauthor of The 15:17 to Paris, an affecting human history of the first self-steering bomb**Paveway, the first "smart" bomb, was created to be a more precise and ostensibly humane weapon, reducing civilian casualties. The true impact of the bomb, however, is ever more complex and unpredictable.In The Warhead, Jeffrey Stern tells the story of Paveway through the lives of seven interc...

**This award-winning, heartfelt coming-of-age novel in verse tells the powerful story of a seventh-grade Syrian American boy and his struggles, big and small, as he navigates middle school."The exact type of book I would've loved, and needed, as a kid." —Jasmine Warga, New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Honor recipient for Other Words for Home**Seventh grade begins, and Kareem’s already fumbled it.His best friend moved away, he ...

It began with plutonium, the first element ever manufactured in quantity by humans. Fearing that the Germans would be the first to weaponize the atom, the United States marshaled brilliant minds and seemingly inexhaustible bodies to find a way to create a nuclear chain reaction of inconceivable explosive power. In a matter of months, the Hanford nuclear facility was built to produce and weaponize the enigmatic and deadly new material that would fuel atomic bombs. In the desert of eastern W...

Bloomsbury presents After Tamerlane by John Darwin, read by Michael Hajiatonis.Tamerlane, the Ottomans, the Mughals, the Manchus, the British, the Japanese, the Nazis, and the Soviets: All built empires meant to last forever; all were to fail. But, as John Darwin shows in this magisterial book, their empire-building created the world we know today.From the death of Tamerlane in 1405, to America's rise to world "hyperpower," to the resurgence of China and India as g...

1951. The Cold War is heating up. With Soviet troops amassing across Eastern Europe, and the arrests of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for spilling nuclear secrets, President Harry Truman assigned General Curtis LeMay the task of installing nuclear forces in Britain. On March 22, a massive C-124 Globemaster cargo plane—possibly carrying a "Fat Man" bomb—was dispatched to Britain with passengers and crew including elite specialists in atomic warfare. Then tragedy struck . . .Th...

"Rich and complex . . . [A] beautifully observant book." —Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times Book Review**“A dizzying tour de force . . . From Life Itself leaves the reader with a sense of wonder.” —Elif Batuman, author of Either/Or and The IdiotOne neighborhood in Istanbul: a window on a city, country, region, and world in a state of upheaval.**Karagümrük, an Istanbul neighborhood once dominated by Ottoman-era...

A reporter and abortion access correspondent investigates the secret killers and hidden motives behind the death of abortion rights.They are going to kill people, investigative reporter for The Nation Amy Littlefield knew, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. After a decade covering abortion, she wanted to more deeply understand the motives, means, and opportunities behind the a...

A penetrating history of the year World War II became a global conflict and humankind confronted both destruction and deliverance on a planetary scale, “offering an intriguing perspective on a world at war” (Richard Overy, New York Times–bestselling author of Blood and Ruins)By the end of the Second World War, more than seventy million people across the globe had been killed, most of them civilians. Cities from Warsaw to Tokyo lay in ruins, and fu...

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • The “exhilarating” (The Boston Globe) story of the legendary Random House founder, whose seemingly charmed life at the apogee of the American Century afforded him a front-row seat to literary and cultural history in the making“[A] big, beautiful biography . . . There’s a new Power Broker in town.”—The New York Times“Feldman depicts a lost world, at ti...

A prominent historian exposes the dark side of making war more humane.In the years since 9/11, we have entered an age of endless war. With little debate or discussion, the United States carries out military operations around the globe. It hardly matters who’s president or whether liberals or conservatives operate the levers of power. The United States exercises dominion everywhere.In *Humane:*How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War...

You’ve heard of IQ and EQ. But in today's world, they’re no longer enough. We need the Agility Quotient (AQ).“Holistic, practical, and easy to digest (without feeling corporate). If you’re looking for a quick, yet addictive read about how to manage uncertainty, this is one of those books that will make you feel a little more steady.”—theSkimmIn a time defined by nonstop disruptions, when jobs vanish overnight, industries evolve in ...

A revelatory work—grounded in the author's own pathbreaking research—that explores the capacity for meaning-making and connection through "musical daydreams."We've all had the experience: a song comes on, and suddenly we're not where we were. We're back in the past, or living out a future that never happened, or imagining a scene that never existed. In Transported, Elizabeth Margulis explores the phenomenon of musical daydreams—the vivid, spontaneous, emot...