David Baerwald — The Fire Agent - with Steve Clemons

Jennie Durant — Bitter Honey: Big Ag's Threat to Bees and the Fight to Save Them - with Nancy Lawson

A revealing investigation into how industrial farming poses a growing threat to America's bees Each February, a vast yet largely invisible migration takes place across the United States. Semi-trucks stacked high with honey bee colonies head to California's Central Valley, carrying nearly 99 percent of the nation's domesticated bees. There, the bees pollinate millions of acres of blooming almond orchards before fanning out across the country for apples, berries, and other crops. This massive undertaking sustains both beekeepers and farmers--but it comes at a heavy price. In Bitter Honey [https://politics-prose.com/book/9781642834000], Jennie Durant takes readers behind the scenes to reveal the human and ecological cost of industrial farming for bees, beekeepers, and all of us who depend on them. Bees today face a gauntlet of threats: parasites and disease, pesticide exposure, and climate extremes--all magnified by Big Ag. Beekeepers, meanwhile, endure grueling practices just to survive, often losing half their hives each year. But this isn't a story of defeat. Durant introduces us to the beekeepers, farmers, and activists pioneering new ways to support both wild and managed bees. The stakes are high: nearly three-quarters of our major food crops depend on bees and other pollinators. Bitter Honey exposes the crisis threatening the nation's bees and spotlights the advocates working to protect them for generations to come. Jennie Durant is a writer and researcher focused on bees, agriculture, and the environment. She has spent more than a decade working with beekeepers, scientists, and policymakers, including time at the US Department of Agriculture and University of California, at both Davis and Berkeley. Her writing has appeared in Grist, Glamour, HuffPo, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family. Durant is in conversation with Nancy Lawson, the author of The Humane Gardener: Nurturing a Backyard Habitat for Wildlife and Wildscape: Trilling Chipmunks, Beckoning Blooms, Salty Butterflies, and other Sensory Wonders of Nature. A nature writer, habitat consultant, and founder of The Humane Gardener, she pioneers creative wildlife-friendly landscaping methods. Nancy co-chairs Howard County Bee City in Maryland and co-launched a community science project, Monarch Rx, after observing a little-known butterfly behavior in her own garden. Her habitat, books, and scientific endeavors have been featured in Science Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Oprah magazine, Entomology Today, and Ecological Entomology. Nancy is a columnist for American Gardener and an honorary director for Wild Ones. Her most recent book, Wildscape, received an honorable mention from the American Horticultural Society and was a 2024 finalist for an American Association for the Advancement of Science writing award. PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781642834000?ic_referral=VXRj6EB9vkrAqRH2j5uXpoL3iAgDonDyxioYDhFFpkUwM8SzRsAlNuHs9FJefc3gqYfBL9b4am47SiiltbRIy6nUaLVC7F28EZMRgrqbzmiPwlzjXd2CggBKHKXfYtHIW0btr7U

Darby Saxbe, PhD — Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How It Shapes Men's Lives - with Matt Yglesias

A groundbreaking exploration of the science and significance of fatherhood that shows great dads are made, not born Over the last decade, we’ve learned more about the transformative power of parenthood—biologically, psychologically, and socially—than ever before. But while the experience of motherhood has attracted well-deserved attention, fatherhood has remained overlooked and, often, misunderstood. Now, in Dad Brain [https://politics-prose.com/book/9781250387523], field-leading psychologist Darby Saxbe, PhD, explains how becoming a father changes men, from their bodies and brain architecture to their hormones and sense of purpose. Inspired by her relationship with her dad, Saxbe has studied fathers and families for over twenty years. In her first book, she takes readers behind the scenes of her new research and around the world, from hunter-gatherers in the Congo to contemporary suburban dads, and into her pioneering studies of how parenthood shapes men’s brains and lives. Readers may be surprised to learn that, in addition to altering a dad’s hormones and health (yes, men experience postpartum depression, and “dad bod” is real), parenthood can also benefit men. Dads who spend time with their kids sharpen their paternal instincts and even show more youthful brains in later life. Dads’ unique approach to play makes kids more resilient, and fathers bring new insights to workplaces and build better societies. Ultimately, fatherhood can help men discover a richer, more connected, and more meaningful life. For fans of science-based storytelling that is also irreverent, funny, and personal, Dad Brain offers an illuminating, empowering, and optimistic new understanding of fatherhood that will become a must-read for every parent. Darby Saxbe, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Southern California. She has published over eighty scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals and secured more than $3 million in grant funding for her research. She earned awards from the American Psychological Association and the Society for Research in Child Development and was a Fulbright fellow. Dr. Saxbe has written for outlets such as the New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, and Scientific American, and consulted on bestselling books, including Eve Rodsky’s Fair Play. She received her PhD in clinical psychology from UCLA and her BA in English and psychology from Yale University. Saxbe is in conversation with Matt Yglesias, who co-founded Vox.com with Ezra Klein and Melissa Bell back in the spring of 2014. He was a senior correspondent focused on politics and economic policy, and co-hosted The Weeds [https://www.vox.com/the-weeds] podcast twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. Before launching Vox, he was the author of the Moneybag column for Slate and before that he wrote and blogged for Think Progress, The Atlantic, TPM, and The American Prospect. Yglesias is the author of two books, most recently “The Rent Is Too Damn High” about the policy origins of the middle class housing affordability crisis in America. Yglesias was born and raised in New York City, but has lived in Washington DC since graduating college in 2003. PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781250387523?ic_referral=EsK3nLKP0vAd-ePVY7f8i1rrcnBfxqsXaZKCAvRkGAYwM0j7oUk-C_gob5r8njN0IL_4iPbygyu87sEu7PxL3k-rJMEf1AWqI3ayP7huDU_OQUoiDvtLiz9SfiizUdHh_AsKaUI

Samuel Clowes Huneke & Hugh Ryan — I Will Not Abandon You: Queer Women in Nazi Germany & My Bad: A Personal History of the Queer Nineties and Beyond

I Will Not Abandon You [https://politics-prose.com/book/9781487554347] brings to life the unrelenting defiance of queer women in fascist Germany. In his latest book, award-winning historian Samuel Clowes Huneke shows how love, queer resistance, and collective action survived in the harrowing circumstances of Nazi rule. Drawing on a decade of archival research, Huneke takes readers into a hidden world, from the wartime balls that lesbian activists continued to organize to the concentration camps where women accused of loving women were imprisoned. Following a diverse cast of characters, Huneke reveals both the oppression that queer women faced and how they resisted fascism in solidarity with one another. Arguing that this solidarity - which transcended race, class, and gender - offers a compelling alternative to today's fractured identity politics, I Will Not Abandon You is a vital, new history of queer life under fascism and a call to rethink the foundations of progressive politics today. Samuel Clowes Huneke is associate professor of History at George Mason University. He is the author of States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany, awarded the David Barclay Book Prize of the German Studies Association and the Smith Book Award of the Southern Historical Association. He has written for Boston Review, The Baffler, and Los Angeles Review of Books. ——— A powerful and hilarious personal history that tells the true story of the queer ’90s and how it transformed queer life in the decades that followed The 1990s were a decade of transformation. Globalization reshaped geopolitics, and the rise of the World Wide Web revolutionized technology forever. As society shifted from the analog to the digital at the turn of the century, LGBTQ life profoundly changed too. Increased visibility arrived, but at a heavy cost. In his most personal book yet, historian Hugh Ryan guides us through a pivotal decade for queer people and its aftershocks—from new breakthroughs in activism, to the early days of AOL chat rooms, and the eventual backlash to progress. Through the prism of his own experiences, Ryan maps how queer life transitioned from private to public in the late ’90s and early aughts, reshaping the challenges and possibilities LGBTQ people navigated in the new millennium. On a Greyhound bus headed to Burning Man and the glittery dance floors of clubs in Manhattan and Berlin, a timeless and all-too-common story emerges: how a young queer person chooses silence to protect himself—only to spend another beautiful, complicated decade undoing his shame. Funny, stylish, and deliciously nostalgic, My Bad [https://politics-prose.com/book/9781645030577] reckons with the gains and setbacks of a decade that reshaped queer life forever. Hugh Ryan is the award-winning author of When Brooklyn Was Queer (2019) and The Women’s House of Detention (2022). He teaches creative nonfiction in the MFA program at the Bennington Writing Seminars and runs the Queer History 101 Book Club with world-famous performer Peppermint.  PURCHASE BOOKS HERE: https://politics-prose.com/sam-huenke-hugh-ryan-061626

Daniel Squadron — The Fourth Branch: How State Government Can Save Our Union - with E.J. Dionne, Jr. and Senator Chuck Schumer

This part handbook, part history, and part personal narrative will open readers’ eyes to the oft-overlooked arm of government that has done more harm and more good than any other in recent years: state legislatures. After the 2024 election, many voters were left feeling disillusioned with America’s highest governing body. Anxious citizens point to the federal government and national elected officials with growing alarm, but the broken political system they see in Washington is merely a symptom. The site of that break—and the best opportunity to mend it—lies in the states. In The Fourth Branch, [https://politics-prose.com/book/9781638933854?ic_referral=2LjFaSUNPKfdZTPw8AYuwJ4JK-vMsGcpcw6dyP8cGlswMwtpfi5qnMur750co9P7dHRwGZgdvVyGL0Bk0_acmn_nbQsuwXbOEUhowV9F8I98553r_eNHi8jcoevLh3XxBjvv9PY] co-founder of The States Project Daniel Squadron opens readers’ eyes to the oft-overlooked arm of government that has far more power than most people even realize: state legislatures. Nearly every major issue that Americans care about—from climate change to minimum wage, abortion access to criminal justice reform, gun control to paid family leave—can be determined without the involvement of the federal government. Detailing the systems, experiences, and strategic thinking that inform The States Project’s approach to making change—one designed to combat decades of conservative investment and manipulation at the state level—this guide is an urgently needed and galvanizing framework for participation in our democracy, made all the more engaging by Daniel’s stories of his time as a New York State Senator and his work with inspiring lawmakers around the country. In examining the power and possibility of the states—both their capacity to influence national politics and the low barriers to involvement at the state level—this book will chart a course to real, grounded hope for the future through actions that any ordinary civilian can take to make concrete and lasting change.  A compelling exploration of where power really lies in our government, The Fourth Branch will be a book for anyone who cares about our country and wants to do something about where it’s headed. Daniel Squadron is a former aide to Senator Chuck Schumer, former New York State Senator, and co-founder of The States Project. Squadron will be in conversation with E.J. Dionne, Jr., a bestselling author, a syndicated columnist who appears twice weekly in The Washington Post and nearly a hundred other newspapers, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a professor at Georgetown University. His Why Americans Hate Politics won a Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was a nominee for the National Book Award. He is a regular commentator on National Public Radio and on other radio and television programs. He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, Mary Boyle, and their three children. A VIP special guest will be joining the conversation with Squadron and Dionne. Senator Chuck Schumer PURCHASE BOOK: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781638933854?ic_referral=32ec43wYYtdvbyTm1BXlk2sI8DCOy1o2hZQZCvdrnI8wM-wmqZXhJWI4Fh_RClSBQah9l42lBHsFodiY_2vDLrRPmiMkNG75eNx2rhHvwuyt1FC7_qkSdVWaq79S6aDxAHd9cHc

Madeleine Schwartz — How We See It: The World Looks at America in the Age of Trump -with Linda Kinstler

From the celebrated magazine of international writing, twelve sharp global perspectives on a changing United States, with an introduction by the Dial's editor in chief, Madeleine Schwartz The 2024 U.S. presidential election reverberated internationally, a global event whose outcome has already reshaped trade, migration, security, and rising authoritarianism across the world. Inside the United States, we are swamped by the news cycle; but how does the wider world see and interpret what is happening under Trump? In How We See It [https://politics-prose.com/book/9798893850222?ic_referral=MgrFWxR4AmgN4I8T1cZWKetvYXN-c_-g_8EwFvXGhP8wM5JhVrueqej1m0t88hP76br7ZylP4TKKV0FDVMnLpyXYGLTdo3jJDzN0a-efSg9-ta3KbZ4GSYUQ_2-dU0SfAmMqzyM], twelve of the most talented and insightful journalists from around the world probe their home countries' complex relationship with the United States--and how this has swerved under the new administration. A diverse, international cast of writers examines how Turkey's recent history helps us understand America's slide into autocracy, how Argentina's century-long obsession with the dollar has changed under Trump, anti-American tourism sentiment in Italy, and what right-wing Americans get wrong about South Africa. Essays in the collection also look at how Taiwan is navigating the uncertainty of Trump's response in the event of a Chinese invasion and the newly fraught view of the U.S. from Canada. Featuring pieces commissioned by The Dial, the award-winning magazine, How We See It shifts and expands our frame of reference, our self-awareness, and our understanding of how much our world has changed since the election of 2024. Madeleine Schwartz the founder and editor-in-chief of The Dial, a new, award-winning magazine of international writing. Founded in 2023, The Dial is an online magazine of culture, politics, and ideas, with a focus on local writing from around the world. Schwartz is in conversation with Linda Kinstler, a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine. Her first book, Come to This Court and Cry: How The Holocaust Ends, won a 2023 Whiting Award in Non-Fiction and was shortlisted for the Wingate Prize for Jewish Literature. PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9798893850222?ic_referral=YUqvefCpNQplGYg2i3Nn4JuN0xbdS_F20CWGOO3djB4wM8r73X8eGghS18Ji5u5xN5UQ-csTRmgNwGilRHsaqnd77veKnPvwdQro90jDzAksoHz2c3JieL_VP1ygTdvY6Rj7ft0