Books/Authors
BOOKS/AUTHORS
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Hounded by a relentless press, indifferent family and a coterie of supporters who would leak the most intimate details of her life, Princess Diana struggled to find her authentic self amid the chaos that surrounded her life. During this period, no one ever knew Diana was meeting with a private voice and presence coach, Stewart Pearce, in the two years before her death. Working in secret, Pearce helped her find her voice and how to share with the world messages of hope, empowerment, kindness, and authenticity. Now, 24 years after her death, he is sharing how he did it in his new book DIANA THE VOICE OF CHANGE (Echopoint, $20.95). Far from a scandalous tell-all, Pearce’s book is both a story and call to action, detailing how Diana’s legacy broke taboos, opened hearts and gave people the confidence to be themselves. A presage to the #Me2 movement, the book is also a workbook for women to be the voice of change in their own lives, learning from the Princess. DIANA THE VOICE OF CHANGE debuts June 15th on Amazon and bookstores nationwide.
Our brains excel at making split-second decisions based on instinct. Our biologically driven instincts evolved and honed over millennia to survive a world ruled by scarcity and danger. In today’s fast-paced, complex, and technologically-driven environment, those same instincts can pose a danger, driving us to respond and react instantaneously, without the careful consideration and critical thinking today’s challenges demand.
You can see instinctual decisions and responses played across today’s headlines, from polarizing political divides, perceived enemies and cultural groupthink to hiring biases, gender assumptions, mandatory diversity training, and management missteps.
In INSTINCT: Rewire Your Brain with Science-Backed Solutions to Increase Productivity and Achieve Success (on-sale April 27, 2021; Hardcover, $28.00), Dr. Rebecca Heiss offers a fascinating glimpse of the instinctual mind at work, why we are hardwired to make instant decisions that aren’t grounded in rational thought, and why it’s vital to intentionally slow down in the moment in order to process information to make the best decision.
In a beautifully sincere and clear voice, L.W. Clark’s THE YELLOW SUITCASE(9781098374242; trade paperback; $17.99; on-sale September 21, 2021) follows a young woman as she––literally––packs up and puts her old life aside in the pursuit of claiming a new one. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B098ZVL28K/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Desperate to shed the limiting expectations of her friends and family of Eastern Europe in the 1990s, Alyssa Florescu finds that looking for love, freedom, and life itself in America under New York’s city skyline isn’t at all it’s cracked up to be. It’s much more. Based on real events, THE YELLOW SUITCASE is an immigrant’s story about love, courage, and freedom. Written in the first person with internal dialogues to expose Alyssa’s innermost thoughts, this is a story of drama, comedy, and self-reliance.
Hidden in the beautiful coves of Bermuda, lies a terrifying secret. One so dangerous, that it’s worth killing for! Bob Richards’ compelling new World War II thriller, TRIANGLE OF TREASON (White Oak; June XX, 2021; $29.99 US) takes us on a high stakes adventure in the lives of three characters in this epic drama. Brimming with action, adventure and espionage, the book follows Rodney Grant, a retired British Naval Captain, who after a chance meeting with Adolf Hitler, becomes an unlikely spy for the Third Reich. Grant, who was looking forward to enjoying Bermuda’s peace and tranquility, finds himself embroiled in treason by providing the Germans with useful intelligence regarding the location of American and British warships as they cross the Atlantic. Meanwhile, American pilot Harley Harvey is deployed to Bermuda where he’ll fly reconnaissance missions around the island, scouting for any signs of German warships. In 1941, Bermuda played an important role in providing critical protection for many American cities and ports because of its location in the Atlantic. As the Nazis continued to march eastward, stationing troops in this pristine British territory was vital should Britain fall to the Nazis, who would turn their sights on the United States. Richards masterfully weaves together three powerful storylines in TRIANGLE OF TREASON while blurring the lines between fact and fiction, giving readers a rare inside look at this momentous period in Bermuda’s rich history.
Spies, Secrets and Suspense: Go Behind Enemy Lines with a Former CIA Agent in the Summer’s Ultimate Beach Read “In Red Weather.” Daniel Cameron didn’t just see the world change through the lens of South East Asia. He had a hand in doing it as a CIA operative, gathering secrets, recruiting spies and planning one of the most audacious operations in the agency’s history. Now, the retired case officer is sharing never-heard-before stories in his very first memoir IN RED WEATHER, the story of how a Harvard educated kid from Brooklyn wound up in Vietnam, planning coups, sabotaging plots and saving thousands of lives by foiling the Vietcong’s effort to shoot down US planes. That particular operation, code named “Habrink,” is at the heart of Cameron’s book, a fast-paced, you-are-there thriller that will leave readers riveted from beginning to end. “There are some stories I cannot share, even today,” said Cameron, who, as an intelligence officer, had to submit the book to the CIA for review. “But there are many more I can, which I think readers will enjoy. Life as a spy was thrilling, more adventurous than expected. There were, of course, times of physical danger, but the overall experience riveting, irresistible, and rewarding, and I think that comes through in the book.
GATECRASHER:
How I Helped the Rich Become Famous and Ruin the World
By Ben Widdicombe
“A fascinating and punchy account… This eye-opening account of a moment when ‘being wealthy was becoming embraced as a sub-culture’ will delight pop culture enthusiasts.”—Publishers Weekly
“Witty and insightful … A sharp-eyed and disturbing chronicle.”—Kirkus Reviews
A sharply funny memoir that will satisfy every gossip-lover’s itching questions about what it’s really like to mingle with the filthy rich and the inexplicably famous.
Have you ever caught yourself standing on line at the grocery store, discreetly craning your neck to catch a glimpse of the gossip rag headlines? Of course you have. You’re only human. But your secret glances will soon be a thing of the past, because Ben Widdicombe, society columnist extraordinaire, has arrived to be your in-depth guide into the dizzying heights of celebrity life with his sensational tell-all, Gatecrasher. No gossip-worthy venue will go unexplored—whether it be the Met Gala or Mar-a-Lago—and no high-flying family escapes his notice—be they Kardashians or Kochs.
Widdicombe’s Gatecrasher is not only a roaring good time, filled with every lurid, eye-popping detail you could hope for, but just look past that glitzy Instagram filter, and you’ll find plenty of harsh reality beneath its surface. Gatecrasher makes it all too clear that our fascination with star-studded human interest stories is no simple guilty pleasure. Widdicombe argues that our national obsession with the rich and famous has had lasting, far-reaching consequences. Could it be that our love of Paris Hilton was the beginning of a dotted line that led straight to the election of Donald Trump? “As the gossip pages go, so goes the country,” Widdicombe says, and he should know better than anybody. He is the only writer to possess one difficult-to-acquire distinction: the Triple-Crown of having worked for Page Six, TMZ, and The New York Times.
No other writer has slipped past more velvet ropes, dished on more juicy details, or brushed elbows with so many celebrities. If you want to gatecrash, this is your manual. If you want to make small talk with Anna Wintour or Henry Kissinger, this is your Bible. And if you want to see just how our country ended up where it is today? Well, this book can explain that, too. An endlessly comedic read that never skimps on detail or depth, Gatecrasher will be your next celebrity obsession and your go-to source for the last two decades of pop culture.
| Author Q & A | with Ben Widdicombe
Author of: Gatecrasher
Q: What’s the #1 reason you wanted to turn your experiences with the New York gossip scene into a book?
A: Gossip culture is garish fun, but I believe it is also a bellwether of the deeper currents in American public life. It anticipates mainstream culture and even political outcomes. This book is my attempt to outline that particular crackpot theory.
Q: Americans see so much gossip nowadays: on the newsstands, on Twitter, etc. Are there any preconceived notions about your industry you’d like to set right?
A: That gossip journalism can be done ethically, just like any other kind of journalism or profession.
Q: How did your background as an Australian immigrant factor into your early years on the job as you tried to climb the ranks?
A: I think it’s helpful to look at any culture from the perspective of being an outsider, because it highlights what elements are unique and distinctive to a particular time and place, and which others are just an expression of indelible human nature.
Q: What was the most surprising thing we should know about the lifestyles of the rich and famous?
A: That hanging out with them looks glamorous, but is mainly just stressful and expensive.
Q: Do you see a line between the American fascination with celebrity culture and the election of a reality star to the highest office?
A: It’s not so much a line as a power cord. Celebrity and democracy run on parallel tracks, since they are both popularity contests. Gossip culture is popular culture is mainstream culture, and in a democracy, mainstream culture determines political outcomes. In our modern era of decentralized media, with the new social norm that there is no such thing as too much personal publicity, there is much less separation between low culture and high office.
Q: If you could give one piece of advice to someone looking to start gatecrashing, what would you say is most important?
A: The three golden rules of gatecrashing are: dress the part, act like you belong, and always be ready to sail with the tide.
Q: You co-founded Chic Happens, the first online gossip column, which set the stage for Perez Hilton, Gawker, and so many others. How do you see the online gossip scene as having changed since you and Horacio Silva kick-started it all?
A: We were young enough to be among the very first to “get” the 1.0 internet, which was instinctive to us, and enabled us to be more nimble than legacy publications. However, we were old enough to exist before social media, which changed everything about gossip reporting, and completely washed away the blog generation. I’m grateful we found that niche, and were able to thrive in it.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like your readers to think about?
A: Fame will cost you your soul, but my book is only $27.
A shocking new book exposes secrets, lies and cover-ups behind the automotive industry’s biggest scandal. Killer Airbags: The Deadly Secret Automakers Don’t Want You to Know, by Jerry Cox, is an insider’s account of the downfall of the Japanese manufacturer Takata Corporation, which for years supplied defective airbags that have killed, seriously injured and maimed hundreds of drivers. The book, says consumer advocate Ralph Nader, has “all the ingredients for a movie . . . all the corruption, out of Central Casting, former Secretaries of Transportation, bankruptcy judges favoring corporations. It’s got it all.” Killer Airbags: the Deadly Secret Automakers Don’t Want You to Know (www.killerairbags.com) is available on Amazon and Lulu.
“This book is a warning to Americans who own or drive any of the 70 million cars that were equipped with Takata airbags,” says author Cox, a veteran transportation safety expert who helped establish the federal requirement for airbags in passenger vehicles. “Killer Airbags explains how the Japanese supplier put its own profits ahead of human lives and manipulated the U.S. government’s watchdog agency for 20 years.”