Based on Evan Wright's National Magazine Award-winning story in Rolling Stone, this is the raw, firsthand account of the 2003 Iraq invasion that inspired the HBO® original mini-series.Within hours of 9/11, America’s war on terrorism fell to those like the twenty-three Marines of the First Recon Battalion, the first generation dispatched into open-ended combat since Vietnam. They were a new pop-culture breed of American warrior unrecognizable to their foreb...

The true story of super-criminal Jon Roberts, star of the documentary Cocaine Cowboys.American Desperado is Roberts’ no-holds-barred account of being born into Mafia royalty, witnessing his first murder at the age of seven, becoming a hunter-assassin in Vietnam, returning to New York to become--at age 22--one of the city’s leading nightclub impresarios, then journeying to Miami where in a few short years he would rise to become the Medellin Cartel...

Read Evan Wright's posts on the Penguin Blog.The New York Times bestselling author of Generation Kill immerses himself in even more cultures on the edge.Evan Wright's affinity for outsiders has inspired this deeply personal journey through what he calls "the lost tribes of America." A collection of previously published pieces, Hella Nation delivers provocative accounts of sex workers in Porn Valley, a Hollywood üb...

The star of HBO's Generation Kill and the real-life warrior from the New York Times bestseller presents his empowering philosophy.In his publishing debut, Rudy Reyes introduces his warrior philosophy of "Hero Living": part Homer, part Joseph Campbell, part Bruce Lee, and part Spider-Man. He outlines the various stages in the journey to bring forth the hero within: recognizing the hero's call, following the hero's path, and returning from the battl...

The true story of super-criminal Jon Roberts, star of the documentary Cocaine Cowboys.American Desperado is Roberts’ no-holds-barred account of being born into Mafia royalty, witnessing his first murder at the age of seven, becoming a hunter-assassin in Vietnam, returning to New York to become--at age 22--one of the city’s leading nightclub impresarios, then journeying to Miami where in a few short years he would rise to become the Medellin Cartel...

They were called a generation without heroes. Then they were called upon to be heroes. Within hours of 9/11, America's war on terrorism fell to those like the twenty-three Marines of the First Recon Battalion, the first generation dispatched into open-ended combat since Vietnam. They were a new breed of American warrior unrecognizable to their forebears—soldiers raised on hip-hop, Internet porn, Marilyn Manson, video games, and The Real World, a band of born-again Christians, dope...

From his work as a reporter at Hustler magazine to his National Magazine Award—winning writing for Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair, Evan Wright has always had an affinity for outsiders—what he calls "the lost tribes of America." The previously published pieces in this collection chart a deeply personal journey, beginning with his stark but sympathetic portrayals of sex workers in Porn Valley, through his raw portrait of a Hollywood überagent—turned—war documentaria...

"I have many scars. Some of them are physical, but many more are scars on my soul. A bomb sent to kill me while I was in a maximum security prison has made me blind, yet now I see the world more clearly than I have ever seen it before. I have lived an incredible adventure. I watched as my brother, Pablo Escobar, became the most successful criminal in history, but also a hero to many of the people of Colombia. My brother was loved and he was feared. Hundreds of thousands of people marched i...

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that Americans in the early 1970s were smoking upwards of 35,000 pounds of marijuana per day. By the time the decade drew to a close, Time magazine reported that reefer had become “the most widely accepted illegal indulgence since drinking during Prohibition.”You can thank Jimmy Moree for helping to feed America’s insatiable pot habit. Nicknamed “Jimmy Divine” for his teetotaling ways, he would become one of the most succe...

In 1964, Mary Pinchot Meyer, the beautiful, rebellious, and intelligent ex-wife of a top CIA official, was killed on a quiet Georgetown towpath near her home. Mary Meyer was a secret mistress of President John F. Kennedy, whom she had known since private school days, and after her death, reports that she had kept a diary set off a tense search by her brother-in-law, newsman Ben Bradlee, and CIA spymaster James Jesus Angleton. But the only suspect in her murder was acquitted, and today her ...

Laurie Show was as compassionate as she was hardworking. The outgoing high-school junior worked part-time to pay for the home she and her divorced mother shared. Yet she always had time to tutor friends struggling in school. And she befriended a dejected classmate after his traumatic breakup with his pregnant long-time girlfriend Michelle Lambert.But soon things spiraled into jealous obsession, stalking, and a brutal attack that left Laurie murdered in her own bedroom. And once Mic...

From an award-winning New York Times reporter comes the full, mind-boggling true story of the lies, crimes, and ineptitude behind the Enron scandal that imperiled a presidency, destroyed a marketplace, and changed Washington and Wall Street forever.It was the corporate collapse that appeared to come out of nowhere. In late 2001, the Enron Corporation—a darling of the financial world, a company whose executives were friends of presidents and the powerful—im...