Whenever we hear great news, we like to share it. Here, a sampling of the must-read, must-read titles coming from W.W. Norton next year. Why are are telling you so early? So you have save the bucks given to you throughout the holidays and then cash in on them! You’re welcome.
Bluff City: The Secret Life of Photographer Ernest Withers
By Preston Lauterbach (on sale January 15, 2019)
The little-known story of an iconic photographer, Ernest Withers, whose work captured and influenced a critical moment in American history.
From his position at the heart of the cultural revolution, Withers took some of the most legendary images of the ’50s and 60s: Martin Luther King Jr. riding a newly integrated bus in Montgomery, Alabama; Emmett Till’s uncle pointing an accusatory finger across the courtroom at his nephew’s killer. From Black Power meetings to raucous Memphis nightclubs where Elvis brushed shoulders with B.B. King, Withers was simultaneously gathering information for the FBI. In this gripping narrative history, Preston Lauterbach examines the complicated political and economic forces that supported Withers’ seeming betrayal of those he witnessed.
Team Human
By Douglas Rushkoff (on sale January 22, 2019)
Our technologies, markets, and institutions often contain an anti-human agenda. Douglas Rushkoff, digital theorist and host of the Team Human podcast, reveals how forces for human connection have turned into ones of isolation and repression: robots taking our jobs, algorithms directing our attention, and social media undermining our democracy.
But all is not lost. It’s time for Team Human to take a stand, regenerate the social bonds that define us and, together, make a positive impact on this earth.
Good to Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn from the Strange Science of Recovery
By Christie Aschwanden (on sale February 5, 2019)
An eye-opening, myth-busting exploration of how the human body can best recover and adapt to sports and fitness training.
In Good to Go, acclaimed FiveThirtyEight science writer Christie Aschwanden takes readers on an entertaining and enlightening tour through the pseudoscience behind the latest sports recovery trends, products and services, providing answers to the fundamental question: Do any of them actually help the body recover and achieve peak performance?
Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir
By Jessica Hindman (on sale February 12, 2019)
When aspiring violinist Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman lands a job with a professional ensemble, it is a lifelong dream come true. But the ensemble proves to be a sham—when the group “performs,” the microphones are never on. Instead, the music blares from a CD that sounds suspiciously like the Titanic soundtrack.
With vulnerability, humor, and sharp insight into ambition and gender, Hindman tells a surreal coming-of-age story that perfectly articulates the anxieties and illusions of her generation. As Sounds Like Titanic swells to a crescendo, it gives voice to the failed promises of a nation that takes comfort in false realities.
Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen
By Mary Norris (on sale April 2, 2019)
The beloved Comma Queen returns with a buoyant and charming book about language, love, and the wine-dark sea. In Greek to Me, Mary Norris delivers another wise and witty paean to the art of expressing oneself clearly and convincingly, this time filtered through her greatest passion: all things Greek.
Filled with Norris’s memorable encounters with Greek words, Greek gods, Greek wine—and more than a few Greek waiters—Greek to Me is the Comma Queen’s fresh take on Greece and the exotic yet strangely familiar language that so deeply influences our own.
Every Day is Extra shows Kerry for the dedicated, witty, and authentic man that he is, and provides forceful testimony for the importance of diplomacy and American leadership to address the increasingly complex challenges of a more globalized world.
![The Mueller Report: The Leaked Investigation into President Donald Trump and His Inner Circle of Con Men, Circus Clowns, and Children He Named After Himself by [Gilbert, Jason O.]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41Z0Z4wGdYL.jpg)
In addition to the gripping legal drama, the book doubles as a first-rate biography of both Kafka and Brod. Balint details the course of their heady friendship, marked by Kafka’s introversion and self-scrutiny and Brod’s exuberance. Brod was a critic, novelist, translator, and a seminal figure in the group of intellectuals known in the early years of the twentieth century as the “Prague Circle,” and Balint illuminates how the literary debates and disputes in taste between Kafka and Brod animated much of Kafka’s own writing. Despite the lackluster reception of Kafka’s early works, Brod worshipped Kafka and was the first to recognize his literary genius. This recognition led Brod to betray his friend’s dying wish and preserve for the world such foundational works of literary modernism at The Castle, The Trial, Kafka’s diaries, and the harrowing Letter to His Father.
Don’t skip the Blu-ray special tracks:
The ’50s produced a treasure trove of live dramatic programs originating from New York. Top talent from stage and screen were retained for both in front and back of the camera. These two prime examples convey the feeling of watching a Broadway performance, but with the advantage of abundant and intimate close-ups and medium shots. They are surprisingly cinematic, especially considering the impediments those behind the camera had to face: Clunky cameras, hot lights, quick set changes, live music and sound effects and always being mindful of keeping microphones out of the frame. The highlights of these programs are the intense performances by John Cassavetes, with his variation of method acting displayed in full form.
Nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Variety Special, the one-night event, which was filmed at the series’ original soundstage at CBS Television City in Los Angeles, features Burnett; original cast members Vicki Lawrence and Lyle Waggoner; costume designer Bob Mackie; and a slew of special guests, including Jon Batiste, Beth Behrs, Jim Carrey, Kristin Chenoweth, Stephen Colbert, Harry Connick Jr., Kaley Cuoco, Bill Hader, Steve Lawrence, Jay Leno, Jane Lynch, Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Amy Poehler, Tracee Ellis Ross, Maya Rudolph and Martin Short.
A keen contributor to history in the making, Konter managed to obtain the autographs of more than 150 individuals, both famous and unknown, all of whom respected the importance of Konter’s North Pole ukulele. Later, Konter accompanied Byrd to Antarctica and later married, for the first time at age 80, the love of his life.
Townes Van Zandt often stated that his main musical mission was to “write the perfect song that would save someone’s life.” However, his life was a work in progress he was constantly struggling to shape and comprehend. Eggers says of his close friend and business partner that “like the master song craftsman he was, he was never truly satisfied with the final product but always kept giving it one more shot, one extra tweak, one last effort.”