Today is Day 3 of the DNC!
The theme of today is A More Perfect Union. America is not going back to where it was before Donald Trump’s mismanagement of the pandemic and subsequent economic crisis, because for too many people, that wasn’t good enough. As he leads us out of crisis, Joe Biden will help build back better. He will have a historic partner in these efforts: the first female vice president. On Wednesday, you will hear from the Vice Presidential nominee and many others who are committed to working alongside Joe Biden to achieve his goals to form a more perfect union.
Check out the Books of Wednesday's Speakers:
Nancy Pelosi
The Nancy Pelosi Way
In this personal and important book Christine Pelosi takes a close look at how her mother went from homemaker to Speaker of the House of Representatives and became the most powerful female politician in America. Her book addresses Speaker Pelosi's role in current events, and offers advice on politics, family, and friendship gleaned from her mother's life.
From her childhood in Baltimore to her hands-on motherhood in San Francisco to her national leadership, this book demonstrates how a mother of five and grandmother of nine achieved her success. Chapters include:
- Know Your Power
- Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance
- Know Your Authentic Self
- Claim Your Seat at the Table
- Build Strategic Alliances
- Don't Agonize, Organize
- And more.
In 2007, Nancy Pelosi became the highest-ranking elected female government official in US history when she started her tenure as Speaker of the House of Representatives. In January 2019, she began her third term as Speaker during a tumultuous time in American political history. Having represented San Francisco for thirty-two years, she has become well-known for her work to expand health care, lift up workers, protect the environment, promote human rights, and make progress for the American people regardless of the president in the White House or the party controlling Congress.
This book serves as the perfect guide for anyone looking to enter public service or prosper as a leader in their own field.
Hilary Clinton
What Happened
In this "candid and blackly funny" (The New York Times) memoir, Hillary Rodham Clinton reveals what she was thinking and feeling during one of the most controversial and unpredictable presidential elections in history. She takes us inside the intense personal experience of becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party in an election marked by rage, sexism, exhilarating highs and infuriating lows, stranger-than-fiction twists, Russian interference, and an opponent who broke all the rules.
"At her most emotionally raw" (People), Hillary describes what it was like to run against Donald Trump, the mistakes she made, how she has coped with a shocking and devastating loss, and how she found the strength to pick herself back up afterward. She tells readers what it took to get back on her feet--the rituals, relationships, and reading that got her through, and what the experience has taught her about life. In this "feminist manifesto" (The New York Times), she speaks to the challenges of being a strong woman in the public eye, the criticism over her voice, age, and appearance, and the double standard confronting women in politics.
Offering a "bracing... guide to our political arena" (The Washington Post), What Happened lays out how the 2016 election was marked by an unprecedented assault on our democracy by a foreign adversary. By analyzing the evidence and connecting the dots, Hillary shows just how dangerous the forces are that shaped the outcome, and why Americans need to understand them to protect our values and our democracy in the future.
The election of 2016 was unprecedented and historic. What Happened is the story of that campaign, now with a new epilogue showing how Hillary grappled with many of her worst fears coming true in the Trump Era, while finding new hope in a surge of civic activism, women running for office, and young people marching in the streets.
Elizabeth Warren
This Fight Is Our Fight
The fiery U.S. Senator from Massachusetts and bestselling author offers a passionate, inspiring book about why our middle class is under siege and how we can win the fight to save it
Senator Elizabeth Warren has long been an outspoken champion of America’s middle class, and by the time the people of Massachusetts elected her in 2012, she had become one of the country’s leading progressive voices. Now, at a perilous moment for our nation, she has written a book that is at once an illuminating account of how we built the strongest middle class in history, a scathing indictment of those who have spent the past thirty-five years undermining working families, and a rousing call to action.
Warren grew up in Oklahoma, and she’s never forgotten how difficult it was for her mother and father to hold on at the ragged edge of the middle class. An educational system that offered opportunities for all made it possible for her to achieve her dream of going to college, becoming a teacher, and, later, attending law school. But now, for many, these kinds of opportunities are gone, and a government that once looked out for working families is instead captive to the rich and powerful. Seventy-five years ago, President Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal ushered in an age of widespread prosperity; in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan reversed course and sold the country on the disastrous fiction called trickle-down economics. Now, with the election of Donald Trump—a con artist who promised to drain the swamp of special interests and then surrounded himself with billionaires and lobbyists—the middle class is being pushed ever closer to collapse.
Written in the candid, high-spirited voice that is Warren’s trademark, This Fight Is Our Fight tells eye-opening stories about her battles in the Senate and vividly describes the experiences of hard-working Americans who have too often been given the short end of the stick. Elizabeth Warren has had enough of phony promises and a government that no longer serves its people—she won’t sit down, she won’t be silenced, and she will fight back.
Elizabeth Warren is the senior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts. A former Harvard Law School professor, she is the author of ten books, including A Fighting Chance, a national bestseller that received widespread critical acclaim. One of nation’s most influential progressives, she has long been a champion of working families and the middle class. The mother of two and grandmother of three, she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband, Bruce Mann.
Gabrielle Giffords
Gabby- A Story of Courage and Hope
As individuals, Gabrielle Giffordds and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, showed Americans how optimism, an adventurous spirit, and a call to service can help change the world. As a couple, they became a national example of the healing power to be found in deeply shared love and courage. Their arrival in the world spotlight came under the worst of circumstances. On January 8, 2011, while meeting with her constituents in Tucson, Arizona, Gabby was the victim of an assassination attempt that left six people dead and thirteen wounded. Gabby was shot in the head; doctors called her survival "miraculous."As the nation grieved and sought to understand the attack, Gabby remained in private, focused on her against-all-odds recovery. Mark spent every possible moment by her side, as he also prepared for his final mission as commander of space shuttle Endeavour.
Now, as Gabby's health continues to improve, the couple is sharing their remarkable untold story. Intimate, inspiring, and unforgettably moving, Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope provides an unflinching look at the overwhelming challenges of brain injury, the painstaking process of learning to communicate again, and the responsibilities that fall to a loving spouse who wants the best possible treatment for his wife. Told in Mark's voice and from Gabby's heart, the book also chronicles the lives that brought these two extraordinary people together--their humor, their ambitions, their sense of duty, their long-distance marriage, and their desire for family.
Gabby and Mark made a pledge to tell their account as honestly as possible, and they have done so in riveting detail. Both Gabby and Mark have lived large public lives, but this book takes readers behind many closed doors--from the flight deck of the space shuttle to the cloakrooms of Congress to the hospital wards where Gabby struggled to reclaim herself with the help of formidable medical teams and devoted family and friends.
Questions are answered with unvarnished candor. How do Gabby and Mark feel about the angry political discourse that was swirling in America at the time of the shooting, and that remains prevalent today? How do they see government living up to the highest possible ideals? And how do they understand and mourn the loss of the people who did not survive that day? Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope is a reminder of the power of true grit, the patience needed to overcome unimaginable obstacles, and the transcendence of love. In the story of Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly, we all can see the best in ourselves. As Mark and Gabby's friends have said: "The two of them are America as we dream it can be."
Kamala Harris
The Truths We Hold
From one of America's most inspiring political leaders, a book about the core truths that unite us, and the long struggle to discern what those truths are and how best to act upon them, in her own life and across the life of our country.
Senator Kamala Harris's commitment to speaking truth is informed by her upbringing. The daughter of immigrants, she was raised in an Oakland, California community that cared deeply about social justice; her parents--an esteemed economist from Jamaica and an admired cancer researcher from India--met as activists in the civil rights movement when they were graduate students at Berkeley. Growing up, Harris herself never hid her passion for justice, and when she became a prosecutor out of law school, a deputy district attorney, she quickly established herself as one of the most innovative change agents in American law enforcement. She progressed rapidly to become the elected District Attorney for San Francisco, and then the chief law enforcement officer of the state of California as a whole. Known for bringing a voice to the voiceless, she took on the big banks during the foreclosure crisis, winning a historic settlement for California's working families. Her hallmarks were applying a holistic, data-driven approach to many of California's thorniest issues, always eschewing stale "tough on crime" rhetoric as presenting a series of false choices. Neither "tough" nor "soft" but smart on crime became her mantra. Being smart means learning the truths that can make us better as a community, and supporting those truths with all our might. That has been the pole star that guided Harris to a transformational career as the top law enforcement official in California, and it is guiding her now as a transformational United States Senator, grappling with an array of complex issues that affect her state, our country, and the world, from health care and the new economy to immigration, national security, the opioid crisis, and accelerating inequality.
By reckoning with the big challenges we face together, drawing on the hard-won wisdom and insight from her own career and the work of those who have most inspired her, Kamala Harris offers in The Truths We Hold a master class in problem solving, in crisis management, and leadership in challenging times. Through the arc of her own life, on into the great work of our day, she communicates a vision of shared struggle, shared purpose, and shared values. In a book rich in many home truths, not least is that a relatively small number of people work very hard to convince a great many of us that we have less in common than we actually do, but it falls to us to look past them and get on with the good work of living our common truth. When we do, our shared effort will continue to sustain us and this great nation, now and in the years to come.
Barack Obama
Barack Before Obama
Coming December 1st!
A personal, intimate, photographic celebration of President Barack Obama in the years prior to his presidency, from friend and former aide David Katz
From 2004 to 2008, David Katz worked alongside then senate-hopeful Barack Obama as a personal aide, an unofficial documentarian, and a friend. During this time, the President and Katz spent approximately six days per week campaigning across downstate Illinois and developed a close, personal relationship. What began as two friends mounting a longshot senate run culminated with the election of America's first African-American president in 2008.
During this time, David was never without his camera, capturing quotidian scenes from the life of a man who would soon become known the world over: a dad playing with his small daughters; a young, unknown politician walking the streets of New York by himself with no one noticing; a devoted husband lovingly making faces at his wife in an elevator mirror; messy offices and midnight burger runs. In 2004, after seeing the personal and touching photographs David had amassed, Annie Leibovitz gave him some advice: "Don't release these photos of Obama for at least fifteen years. They need time to age."
Now, fifteen years later, Barack Before Obama is the treasury of these photographs, a collection of images that illustrate the making of an American icon. Pulled from an archive of over 90,000 images, every photograph in this collection is like nothing that has been seen before: the ease in which David captures the spirit and essence of one of our most beloved first families is unparalleled, and it is in this affectionate familiarity that his photographs sing. Warm, engaging captions tell the stories behind the photos--the surprise meeting with Nelson Mandela, the back room conversation before the rally, the emotion after sending one of the girls off to school--that bring readers closer than ever to the spirit and motivation behind the extraordinary man who became our 44th president.