Books

A People’s History of the United States Howard Zinn Howard Zinn retells American history from the vantage of workers, women, and the marginalized rather than its usual victors. 1 recommender Pachinko Min Jin Lee Four generations of a Korean family in Japan, enduring an adopted country that never quite accepts them. 2 recommenders Paddle Your Own Canoe Nick Offerman Offerman's ribald memoir-manifesto on delicious living, self-reliance, craftsmanship, and red meat, in the deadpan voice that made Ron Swanson a hero. Pakistan: A Personal History Imran Khan Part memoir, part history: Pakistan's story from its founding through the decades Imran Khan lived and played through. Paleoeconomics: Climate Change and Economic Development in Prehistory Ola Olsson Climate and geography in prehistory, and the long course of economic development that followed from both. 1 recommender Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict Oren Kessler Partition was first proposed during the 1936 revolt, the Palestinian leadership was broken, and the Haganah learned to fight. The shape was set before 1948. 1 recommender Palestine Inside Out Saree Makdisi The occupation documented through permits and checkpoints rather than through episodes of violence. Palestinian Identity Rashid Khalidi How Palestinian national identity formed before 1948, answered from the documentary record. Palestinian Refugees in International Law Francesca Albanese The standard legal reference on why Palestinian refugees sit outside the framework covering everyone else. Paper Girl Beth Macy The Dopesick reporter turns her attention homeward, and finds the national story running straight through her own family. 1 recommender Paradise Toni Morrison Toni Morrison's novel opens with a massacre at a rural women's shelter, then unfolds the history of an all-Black Oklahoma town. 1 recommender Paradise Bronx: The Life and Times of New York’s Greatest Borough Ian Frazier Frazier walked the borough end to end over several years, taking in the Grand Concourse, the burning of the seventies, hip hop, and the expressway that split it. 1 recommender Parallel Lives: A Love Story from a Lost Continent Iain Pears A British art historian married a Russian curator who had survived the siege of Leningrad as a child. Their novelist son-in-law reconstructs the marriage from letters. 1 recommender Parliamentary America: The Least Radical Means of Radically Repairing Our Broken Democracy Maxwell Stearns The case for fixing American democracy by importing the parliamentary machinery rather than rewriting the values. 1 recommender Patriot Alexei Navalny Written partly in prison by a man who went back to Russia knowing what waited. 1 recommender Patsy Nicole Dennis-Benn She leaves her daughter in Jamaica for New York, and the promised life is not there. 1 recommender Permission Marketing Seth Godin The 1999 book that saw it coming: attention would become the scarce resource, and the answer was to ask, not steal Personal History Katharine Graham Cast as the supportive wife, she ended up running the Washington Post through Watergate. 1 recommender Personal Pleasures: Essays on Enjoying Life Rose Macaulay Macaulay catalogues bed, hot baths, disbelieving and taking umbrage as pleasures worth defending, in 1930s essays by a novelist far better known for her ironies. 1 recommender Persuasion Jane Austen Anne Elliot was talked out of marrying the man she loved at nineteen, and meets him again eight years later with everything changed. 2 recommenders Pet Sematary Stephen King A doctor moves his family next to a burial ground that gives back what you bury there, changed. 1 recommender Phineas Finn Anthony Trollope A young Irishman with no money enters Parliament and finds out what keeping a seat actually costs. 1 recommender Picasso: Creator and Destroyer Arianna Huffington Huffington's controversial biography paints Picasso as a genius whose creativity ran in tandem with cruelty toward the women and friends around him. Picture Lillian Ross A reporter watches John Huston make a film and the studio quietly take it apart. 1 recommender Pierre Boulez: Organised Delirium Caroline Potter Boulez the composer read through French surrealism rather than through his reputation as an enforcer. 1 recommender Pigs at the Trough Arianna Huffington Written in the wake of Enron, a blistering account of executive excess and the cozy ties between corporate boardrooms and Washington. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie Dillard A giant water bug dissolving a frog, a mockingbird in freefall, and the question of why there is so much of everything. Dillard was twenty-nine and won the Pulitzer. 1 recommender Pimps, Hos, Playa Hatas, and All the Rest of My Hollywood Friends John Leguizamo The comedian's raucous, profane memoir of clawing from Queens to Broadway, told in a voice that's pure stand-up on the page. Piranesi Susanna Clarke A man lives alone in an endless labyrinth of halls and tides, keeping careful notes, until the truth of his world starts to surface. 1 recommender Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces that Shape Your Life Alex Mayyasi The economics podcast's guide to the forces behind prices, jobs and money, for people who skipped the course. 1 recommender Play Nice But Win Michael Dell Dell's candid account of the fights that defined his later career, going private, the Icahn proxy war, and the $67 billion EMC deal. Playful Parenting Lawrence Cohen Play as the language children process fear in, and the one adults keep trying to replace with talking. 1 recommender Poke the Box Seth Godin A short, sharp shove toward starting: the scarce skill now is initiative, the willingness to begin before you are ready Polis: A New History of the Ancient Greek City-State from the Early Iron Age to the End of Antiquity John Ma Two thousand years of the Greek city-state, treated as a working institution rather than a backdrop to philosophy. 1 recommender Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites Tucker Carlson Tucker Carlson's memoir of his early years in cable news. Politics and the English Language George Orwell Orwell's classic essay on how vague, stale language corrupts thought and shields bad politics, with rules for writing clearly.