From a New York Times story about new books coming in June:
‘The President’s Daughter,’ by Bill Clinton and James Patterson (Little, Brown)
Clinton and Patterson worked on an earlier political thriller, “The President Is Missing,” that became a best seller. Now, they tell the story of a former president whose daughter is kidnapped, who must draw on all his experience — as a politician, Navy SEAL veteran and father — to secure her safety.
‘Mercury Rising: John Glenn, John Kennedy, and the New Battleground of the Cold War,’ by Jeff Shesol (Norton)
When John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth in February 1962, it was an achievement that helped alleviate a grim sense of inevitability: If the United States couldn’t compete with the Soviet Union’s space program, what hope was there? In this joint biography, Shesol, a former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton, dives into each man’s uncertainties about the endeavor, drawing from unpublished notes by Glenn, interviews and more.
‘Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal,’ by George Packer (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
The crises of 2020 exposed many of the country’s frailties, Packer says, and the United States is at an inflection point. “America is no longer a light unto the nations,” he writes. “It was always a role that made us appear better and worse than what we were. What do we see in the mirror now?” Rather than look at trends or figures, he distills four central narratives that are endemic to the country — such as “Real America” and “Smart America” — and uses them as frameworks to understand how it found itself at this crossroads.
Speak Your Mind