ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BEST BOOKS OF 2025 • The definitive history of Russia’s most secret spy program, from the earliest days of the Soviet Union to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and a revelatory examination of how that hidden history shaped both Russia and the West.More than a century ago, the new Bolshevik government began sending Soviet citizens abroad as deep-cover spies, training them to pose as foreign aristocrats, merchants, and students. Over time,...

In The Long Hangover, Shaun Walker presents a deeply reported, bottom-up explanation of Russia's resurgence under Putin. By cleverly exploiting the memory of the Soviet victory over fascism in World War II, Putin's regime has made ordinary Russians feel that their country is great again. Walker not only explains Putin's goals and the government's official manipulations of history, but also focuses on ordinary Russians and their motivations. He charts how Putin raised victory in WW...

ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BEST BOOKS OF 2025 • The definitive history of Russia’s most secret spy program, from the earliest days of the Soviet Union to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and a revelatory examination of how that hidden history shaped both Russia and the West.More than a century ago, the new Bolshevik government began sending Soviet citizens abroad as deep-cover spies, training them to pose as foreign aristocrats, merchants, and students. Over time,...

In The Long Hangover, Shaun Walker provides new insight into contemporary Russia and its search for a new identity, telling the story through the country's troubled relationship with its Soviet past. Walker not only explains Vladimir Putin's goals and the government's official manipulations of history, but also focuses on ordinary Russians and their motivations. He charts how Putin raised victory in World War II to the status of a national founding myth in the search for a unifyin...

The phenomenon of so-called 'snuff movies' (films that allegedly document real acts of murder, specifically designed to 'entertain' and sexually arouse the spectator) represents a fascinating socio-cultural paradox. At once unproven, yet accepted by many, as emblematic of the very worst extremes of pornography and horror, moral detractors have argued that the mere idea of snuff constitutes the logical (and terminal) extension of generic forms that are dependent primarily upon the excitemen...

The Washington Post**, A Book to Watch**Library Journal**, A Title to Watch**From National Book Award finalist Susan Straight, a captivating new novel about a group of nurses fighting through the first year of a pandemic and the beloved California community they will risk their lives to protectIn August 2020, a group of nurses are working in the ICU at a hospital in San Bernardino at the height of ...

A USA TODAY Bestseller | An NPR Best Book of 2024 | A Goodreads Best Thriller of 2024In this “page-turning suspense novel, shrewd character study, and captivating mystery” (Stephen King) Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s life is turned upside down when she gets the call that Ellie Black, a girl who disappeared years earlier, has resurfaced in the woods of Washington state—but her reappearance leaves Chelsey with more questions than answe...

“No one can doubt that the wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed, but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men. No one can doubt that cooperation in the pursuit of knowledge must lead to freedom of the mind and freedom of the soul.” —President John F. Kennedy, from a speech at University of California, March 23, 1962In a world gone wrong, heroes and villains are not always easy to distinguish and every individual h...

“An elegant, wide-ranging history” (The New York Review of Books) of the centuries-long quest to discover the critical role of germs in disease thatreveals as much about human reasoning—and the pitfalls of ego—as it does about microbes.“Levenson takes readers through an entertaining . . . journey of missed opportunities in microbiology and the eventual advances that arose in this field.”—ScienceScientists and enthusiastic ...

The untold WWII story of a former NFL player turned White House insider who worked with Churchill’s undercover agents in New York City to conduct the biggest foreign spy operation ever within the US, and inspired Ian Fleming's James Bond, for fans of Ben Macintyre and Erik Larson.As a tough but smart Italian American kid, Ernest Cuneo played Ivy League football at Columbia University and was in the old Brooklyn Dodgers NFL franchise before becoming a city hall lawy...

From Douglas Waller, New York Times bestselling author of Wild Bill Donovan, an intimate and expertly researched biography of little-known early CIA leader Frank Wisner, whose behind-the-scenes influence on Cold War policy--and hundreds of highly secret anti-Soviet missions--resonates with the international crises we see today.Frank Wisner was one of the most powerful men in 1950s Washington, though few knew it. Reporting directly to senior U.S. o...

**Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker“A book that is as deeply humane and profoundly rendered as any I’ve read about Afghanistan, or any other war.” —Elliot Ackerman, New York Times Book ReviewFrom one of the great foreign correspondents of our time, author of some of the most essential reporting from Afghanistan from before 9/11 to the return of the Taliban to power in 2021, the first full accounting of that entire era, combining previously pu...