JAMIE'S BOOKSHELF: New Books Plentiful for Winter Reading

(Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part bookshelf column.)

Compiled by Jamie H. Vaught

--Elon Musk  by Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster, $35) is an intimate inside story of the most fascinating and controversial innovator of our era — a rule-breaking visionary who helped to lead the world into the era of electric vehicles, private space exploration, artificial intelligence, and Twitter (now called X). When Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist. His father’s impact on his psyche would linger. Nevertheless, he still became the world's richest man. The well-known author, who spent spent two years with Musk, attended his meetings, walked his factories with him, and spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and adversaries.

--Do All the Good You Can: How Faith Shaped Hillary Rodham Clinton's Politics by Gary Scott Smith (University of Illinois Press, $34.95) examines the role of Clinton’s faith in her life and work. Clinton’s lifelong Methodism shaped a missionary zeal that, combined with her impressive personal talents, fueled many of her high-profile political endeavors while helping her cope with the suffering brought on by never-ending conservative rancor and her husband’s infidelity. Clinton has said her Methodist outlook has "been a huge part of what I am and how I have seen the world, and what I believe in, and what I have tried to do in my life." The author, who has written several books, is a professor of history emeritus at Grove City College.

--Deception: The Great COVID Cover-Up by Rand Paul (Regnery Publishing, $32.99) reveals the catastrophic failures of the public health bureaucracy during the pandemic. An U.S. Senator from Kentucky, Paul, himself a physician, presents the evidence that 1) the COVID virus was likely the product of gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab in China — research funded in part by the U.S. government, 2) taxpayer dollars for that research were deceptively funneled to Wuhan without the required regulatory review, 3) Dr. Anthony Fauci and his scientific yes-men knew from day one about COVID's origin and tried to cover it up, and 4) Fauci and his allies ruthlessly attacked everyone — including highly qualified scientists — who threatened to reveal the truth about the pandemic. Why? Hundreds of millions of dollars of grants and unreported royalties were at stake, and heads would roll if the truth got out. Paul, who has represented Kentucky in the U.S. Senate since 2011, makes a powerful case that funding dangerous bioengineering in a totalitarian country is madness. If we don’t heed this warning, the next pandemic could be far worse. Paul and his wife, Kelley, live in Bowling Green and are the parents of three sons.

Author Amrita Chakrabarti Myers with her new book at the 2023 Kentucky Book Fair in Lexington. (Photo by Jamie H. Vaught)

--The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn by Amrita Chakrabarti Myers (University of North Carolina Press/A Ferris and Ferris Book, $30) is a fascinating story about the enslaved mixed-race wife of Richard Mentor Johnson, veteran of the War of 1812 and U.S. vice president under Martin Van Buren. Johnson never freed Chinn, but during his frequent absences from his large estate, he delegated to her managment of his property, including a boarding school for Indigenous men and boys. The author is an associate professor of history and gender studies at Indiana University in Bloomington.

--What's Left Unsaid: My Life at the Center of Power, Politics & Crises by Melissa DeRosa (Union Square & Co., $29.99) is a riveting story about one of the most powerful women in New York state government history who shares her gripping account about the COVID crises, and the meteoric rise and fall of Gov. Andrew Cuomo for the first time. When COVID hit the United States, Gov. Cuomo was thrust onto the national stage, hailed around the globe for his leadership. Alongside him every step of the way, the author quickly became a household name. In her memoir, DeRosa details her journey as a young woman in politics rising to the highest levels of government, writing with raw honesty and vulnerability about the personal challenges she faced —a failing marriage, infertility, death threats, misogyny — while navigating unprecedented professional landmines along the way.

--Abraham Lincoln: A Life by Michael Burlingame and edited/abridged by Jonathan W. White (John Hopkins University Press, $34.95) is an updated, condensed version of the 2,000-page two-volume set that The Atlantic hailed as one of the five best books of 2009, offering fresh interpretations of this endlessly fascinating American leader. Based on deep research in unpublished sources as well as newly digitized sources, this 703-page volume reveals how Lincoln's character and personality were the North's secret weapon in the Civil War, the key variables that spelled the difference between victory and defeat. He was a model of psychological maturity and a fully individuated man whose influence remains unrivaled in the history of American public life.

--Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and the Washington Post by Martin Baron (Flatiron Books, $34.99) explores the nature of power in the 21st century through the eyes of a longtime journalist and newspaper editor. In 2013, the author took charge of The Washington Post newsroom, after nearly 12 years leading The Boston Globe. Just seven months into his new job, Baron received explosive news: Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, would buy the Post, marking a sudden end to control by the highly-regarded family that had presided over the paper for 80 years. Just over two years later, Donald Trump won the presidency. Now, The Washington Post, owned by one of the world’s richest men, was tasked with reporting on a president who had campaigned against the press as the “lowest form of humanity.” In the face of Trump’s continous attacks, the author steadfastly managed the Post’s newsroom.

--Enough by Cassidy Hutchinson (Simon & Schuster, $30) is a revealing memoir about her extraordinary experiences as an idealistic young woman who worked in the Trump White House, just steps away from the most controversial president in recent U.S. history. And she was thrust into the middle of a national crisis in 2021 at the age of 24 when she risked everything to tell the truth about some of the most powerful people in Washington. Hutchinson was faced with a choice between loyalty to the Trump administration or loyalty to the country by revealing what she saw and heard in the attempt to overthrow a democratic election. Ever since a childhood visit to Washington, DC, the author aspired to serve her country in government. Raised in a working-class family with a military background, she was the first in her immediate family to graduate from college. This 363-page volume is a portrait of how the courage of one person can change the course of history.

--Class: A memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education by Stephanie Land (One Signal Publishers/Atria, $28) is an intimate and heartbreaking portrait of motherhood as it converges and often conflicts with personal desire and professional ambition. Who has the right to create art? Who has the right to go to college? And what kind of work is valued in our culture? The author grapples with these questions, offering a searing indictment of America’s educational system and an inspiring testimony of a mother’s triumph against all odds. Land's previous book, Maid, was handpicked by President Obama as one of the best books of 2019. Maid was a story about a housecleaner, but it was also a story about a woman with a dream. The book later was adapted into the hit Netflix series. In Class, the author takes us with her as she finishes college and pursues her writing career.

--The Year That Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968 by Luke A. Nichter (Yale University Press, $37.50) is an eye-opening account of the political calculations and maneuvering that decided this fiercely fought election which turns out to be a key moment in American history. The presidential race was a contentious battle between vice president Hubert Humphrey, Republican Richard Nixon, and Alabama governor George Wallace. The United States was reeling from the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy, and was bitterly divided on the Vietnam War and domestic issues, including civil rights and rising crime.

--Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics by H.W. Brands (Doubleday, $32.50) is a remarkable and well-researched book which reminds us that fierce partisanship is a problem as old as the republic. A bestselling historian and Pulitzer Price finalist, Brands writes a fresh and lively narrative of the early years of the republic as the Founding Fathers fought one another with competing visions of what our nation would be. The country’s first years unfolded in a contentious spiral of ugly elections and blatant violations of the Constitution. Still, peaceful transfers of power continued, and the growing nation made its way towards global dominance, against all odds.

--The Deadline: Essays by Jill Lepore (Liveright, $45) is a 450-page hardcover that is filled with remarkable essays that offer a prismatic portrait of the Americans. The author is one of the few historians who has brought such insight, wisdom, and empathy to public discourse. Lepore has brought a literary enthusiasm to everything from proflies of long-dead writers to urgent constitutional analysis to unsparing scrutiny of the woeful affairs of the nation itself. The author is a professor of Ameriican History at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker.

Jamie H. Vaught, a longtime sports columnist in Kentucky, is the author of six books about UK basketball, including recently-published “Forever Crazy About the Cats: An Improbable Journey of a Kentucky Sportswriter Overcoming Adversity." He is the editor and founder of KySportsStyle.com Magazine, and a professor at Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College in Middlesboro. You can follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @KySportsStyle or reach him via email at KySportsStyle@gmail.com.