O: A Presidential Novelis a novel about aspiration and delusion, set during the presidential election of 2012 and written by an anonymous author who has spent years observing politics and the fraught relationship between public image and self-regard. The novel includes revealing and insightful portraits of many prominent figures in the political world - some invented and some real.
The President and First Lady Raynetta Jefferson seem to be back on track. She has managed to hurdle over her husband's affairs, but her mother-in-law continues to be the real thorn in her side. Meanwhile President Jefferson has his mind on his job. Sweeping gun-control legislation has been passed, and terrorism is being dealt with in a major way. The president is riding high from his multiple accomplishments, until he's told about a son he never knew he had, who has been classified as a dangerous terrorist. The shocking news brings the president to his knees.
The angel appeared in the White House without warning, no blowing of trumpets or rushing of wings. It stood by the President’s bed, radiant, white. Its eyes were pools of love. Its light flooded the bedroom, surrounding and engulfing the President. The angel faded without saying a word, but its appearance forever changed the fate of the world . . . Millions of readers have come to cherish Burnham’s glorious A Book of Angels and Angel Letters. Now, in her deeply moving novel, The President’s Angel, Burnham weaves the divine grace of angelic apparition into a compelling tale of politics, passion, a spiritual awakening, and the world on the brink of annihilation. Matthew Adams is the popular, vital President of the United States. Wars rage. Drought and famine spawn violence and migrations. Weapons of mass destruction tempt mad generals. Fear and despair clamp a stranglehold on the spiritual life in America. In a world gone mad, the human race sullenly awaits its doom. And then an angel appears to the President. This is the story of what happens when the most powerful man on earth experiences a spiritual enlightenment. His colleagues think he has gone crazy. Some plan a coup. . . . Woven throughout the book are what Burnham calls “commentaries”—the world as seen from the point of view of angels, Christ, or God. A novel about the eternal dualities of salvation and despair, joy and terror, love and brutality. It unfolds in a great, uplifting rush of inspiration. Burnham has heard the laughter of angels and fathomed the dark mysteries of the human heart. In The President’s Angel, she gives a work to treasure and to muse on in our minds and hearts.
The people of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania voted Democratic for decades, until Donald Trump flipped it in 2016. What happened? Named one of the "juiciest political books to come in 2018" by Entertainment Weekly. In The Forgotten, Ben Bradlee Jr. reports on how voters in Luzerne County, a pivotal county in a crucial swing state, came to feel like strangers in their own land - marginalized by flat or falling wages, rapid demographic change, and a liberal culture that mocks their faith and patriotism. Fundamentally rural and struggling with changing demographics and limited opportunity, Luzerne County can be seen as a microcosm of the nation. In The Forgotten, Trump voters speak for themselves, explaining how they felt others were 'cutting in line' and that the federal government was taking too much money from the employed and giving it to the idle. The loss of breadwinner status, and more importantly, the loss of dignity, primed them for a candidate like Donald Trump. The political facts of a divided America are stark, but the stories of the men, women and families in The Forgotten offer a kaleidoscopic and fascinating portrait of the complex on-the-ground political reality of America today.
"Charlotte Kramer, the 45th President of the United States, has done the unprecedented in allowing a network news team to document a day in her life--and that of her most senior staff. But while twenty news cameras are embedded with the president, the unthinkable happens: five major attacks are leveled on US soil. Her secretary of defense, Melanie, and her press secretary, Dale, must instantly jump into action in supporting the president and reassuring the country that the safety they treasure is in capable hands"--
What is the role of ethics in American foreign policy? The Trump Administration has elevated this from a theoretical question to front-page news. Should ethics even play a role, or should we only focus on defending our material interests? In Do Morals Matter? Joseph S. Nye provides a concise yet penetrating analysis of how modern American presidents have-and have not-incorporated ethics into their foreign policy. Nye examines each presidency during theAmerican era post-1945 and scores them on the success they achieved in implementing an ethical foreign policy. Alongside this, he evaluates their leadership qualities, explaining which approaches work and which ones do not.
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Two starcrossed magicians engage in a deadly game of cunning in the spellbinding novel that captured the world's imagination. • "Part love story, part fable ... defies both genres and expectations." —The Boston Globe The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them both, this is a game in which only one can be left standing. Despite the high stakes, Celia and Marco soon tumble headfirst into love, setting off a domino effect of dangerous consequences, and leaving the lives of everyone, from the performers to the patrons, hanging in the balance.
The real collusion in the 2016 election was not between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. It was between the Clinton campaign and the Obama administration. The media–Democrat “collusion narrative,” which paints Donald Trump as cat’s paw of Russia, is a studiously crafted illusion. Despite Clinton’s commanding lead in the polls, hyper-partisan intelligence officials decided they needed an “insurance policy” against a Trump presidency. Thus was born the collusion narrative, built on an anonymously sourced “dossier,” secretly underwritten by the Clinton campaign and compiled by a former British spy. Though acknowledged to be “salacious and unverified” at the FBI’s highest level, the dossier was used to build a counterintelligence investigation against Trump’s campaign. Miraculously, Trump won anyway. But his political opponents refused to accept the voters’ decision. Their collusion narrative was now peddled relentlessly by political operatives, intelligence agents, Justice Department officials, and media ideologues—the vanguard of the “Trump Resistance.” Through secret surveillance, high-level intelligence leaking, and tireless news coverage, the public was led to believe that Trump conspired with Russia to steal the election. Not one to sit passively through an onslaught, President Trump fought back in his tumultuous way. Matters came to a head when he fired his FBI director, who had given explosive House testimony suggesting the president was a criminal suspect, despite privately assuring Trump otherwise. The resulting firestorm of partisan protest cowed the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel, whose seemingly limitless investigation bedeviled the administration for two years. Yet as months passed, concrete evidence of collusion failed to materialize. Was the collusion narrative an elaborate fraud? And if so, choreographed by whom? Against media–Democrat caterwauling, a doughty group of lawmakers forced a shift in the spotlight from Trump to his investigators and accusers. This has exposed the depth of politicization within American law-enforcement and intelligence agencies. It is now clear that the institutions on which our nation depends for objective policing and clear-eyed analysis injected themselves scandalously into the divisive politics of the 2016 election. They failed to forge a new Clinton administration. Will they succeed in bringing down President Trump?
