If you want to stay ahead the latest developments in politics, news and current events, explore our editor-curated list of book recommendations for our Maverick Reader Type. With mid-term elections coming up, it's the perfect time to dive into nonfiction books that explore modern politics, historical events and critical turning points that have shaped our nation and the world. Our latest collection of new releases includes books from acclaimed journalists, commentators, historians and scientists like Bill O'Reilly, Derf Backderf, Neil Degrasse Tyson and Jason Bell.
New Political Books September 2026
Confronting America: What Has to Change
by Bill O'Reilly - Josh Hammer
Drawn from more than 50 years of first-person encounters with the most powerful people in America: the new book in the #1 bestselling series
In his more than five decades as a journalist, Bill O'Reilly has reported from 86 countries, covered wars, elections, riots, serial killers, and almost every human interest story imaginable, and enjoyed in-depth conversations with many of the most powerful and influential leaders in America and the world.
Confronting America: What Has to Change is a deeply personal book account of America's recent history, informed by O'Reilly's first-hand encounters and opinions about those people and their actions. O'Reilly reveals never-before-reported information about five presidential administrations, terrorism, crime, corruption, and famous people, including power media figures he has worked with and competed against.
Written in his legendary "No Spin" style, O'Reilly's breakdown of the United States and its vexing problems is unique, provocative, and compelling. From Donald Trump, Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Bushes, to Paul McCartney, Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, Mike Wallace, Barbara Walters, and scores of other iconic people, O'Reilly offers eyewitness history at its best.
Confronting America promises to make news--and to delight the more than 20 million readers of Bill O'Reilly's books.
The Dissidents: Autocrats! Vigilantes! Communists! and Cartoonists!
by Derf Backderf
From the award-winning author of My Friend Dahmer and Kent State comes a timely graphic novel about racism, violence, and political turmoil in the early 20th century, when a handful of cartoonists and journalists pushed back against a corrupt administration to defend the rights of free speech
"WE'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE ... BUT WE FORGOT."
It's 1916. President Woodrow Wilson--a deeply divisive authoritarian who is also a white supremacist with open contempt for constitutional rights--sits in the Oval Office.
Racial tensions, unprecedented economic inequality, a groundswell of support for unionization, and the rise of both a reactionary far right militia and a growing radical opposition shake the very foundations of American society. A pandemic is two years away. And the 1900s have only just gotten started.
"AMERICA IS A COUNTRY ON THE BRINK OF CHAOS."
The Dissidents follows a group of real and influential political cartoonists who worked for the magazine The Masses--Art Young, Boardman Robinson, Cornelia Barns, and others, dominant in their day but now forgotten--as well as a fictional young German immigrant from Cleveland, Joe Hertle, who has come to New York to make his name.
They rub elbows with the great opposition voices of the day, such as journalists Max Eastman and John Reed, and the radical provocateur Emma Goldman. What they document in their cartoons and illustrations is a country spiraling into darkness, under attack by German saboteurs and private militias, plagued by racism, and rocked by class war.
For the crime of documenting the times they live in, these cartoonists are indicted for sedition and put on trial by the U.S. government--with twenty-year sentences hanging over their heads. Two others are forced to flee the country into exile. Another is incarcerated by the U.S. army and scheduled for execution!
Award-winning author Derf Backderf raises the bar for visual storytelling in this gripping, layered, and perceptive original graphic novel, told through the lens of the political cartoonists whose work shaped our history and also held a mirror to it. Finding a personal connection as a journalist who started out as a political cartoonist, he opens a door to our past and crafts a story that pulls from the strongest elements of his previous work. In The Dissidents, Backderf delivers an utterly unique account of U.S. history, making connections to the events of today as they relate to the seeds that were sown over a hundred years ago.
The Dissidents is his magnum opus. It is a gripping tale of political passion, artistic ambition, love, and betrayal, with great characters and unexpected twists. It's a suspenseful and fascinating American story that is almost completely forgotten today--and a terrifying and relevant warning from the past.
I Want to Be Famous: When Everybody and Nobody Is a Celebrity
by Bobby Finger - Lindsey Weber
A sharp, funny examination of fame in the digital era and what makes our hunger for it equally alluring and embarrassing--from the podcasters behind Who? Weekly
"Nothing short of a modern soliloquy on what it means to seek the gaze of the masses. Come for the laughs and incredible cultural deep cuts, stay for the exegesis on how we wound up ... here."--Lena Dunham, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Famesick
While being photographed in 1966, Warhol reportedly said, "Everyone wants to be famous." (To which his photographer Nat Finkelstein responded, "Yeah, for about fifteen minutes, Andy.") Warhol was right then, and he's right now. Fifteen minutes be damned, all you need is the drive--or desperation--and a singular spark. But if you're not careful, you'll end up a Who.
Who is a Who? In I Want to Be Famous, Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber, the journalists behind the pop culture podcast Who? Weekly, distill celebrity into two categories--Whos and Thems--transcending the snarky, antiquated judgment of the "A-listers" to "D-listers." If you come across an allegedly famous face you've never seen before and are compelled to utter "Who?", well, there's your answer. (Can you picture Rita Ora, Ava Max, or Hilaria Baldwin without googling them?) If the subject elicits something along the lines of, "Oh, Them," there you've found the opposite (Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Tom Cruise). It's the fundamental binary of fame.
And yet, as more Whos spawn, the path to Themdom narrows. We've entered an era where accessibility to fame is within everyone's grasp, though only a select few can crack the algorithm and hold our ever-diminishing attention spans. Celebrities have taken desperate measures to stay relevant--from the makeup, supplements, and alcohol they peddle to the Notes app apologies they post--as the media who cover them compete with celebrities breaking their own news on social media and as PopCrave decides who "stuns" next.
Blending juicy pop culture history with the authors' signature wit, I Want to Be Famous argues fame no longer means ubiquity and examines what the future holds for those seeking our collective attention.
Lost in Space: 5,000 Facts for Navigating the Universe
by Neil Degrasse Tyson - Lindsey Nyx Walker
Prepare for liftoff with a sweeping new book on the universe from the world's most celebrated astrophysicist, brimming with wit, authority, and laugh-out-loud humor.
Filled with 5,000 tantalizing facts and more than 300 charts, maps, and photographs, this book offers a dazzling look at the cosmos from our home planet to the farthest reaches of outer space.
Strap in for a thrilling journey through our solar system to the edge of the cosmos. This alluring treasury of 5,000 facts will take you there and back again, learning and laughing all the way.
With an eye-popping design and bold illustrations, Lost in Space takes on humanity's exploration of the universe--telescopes, space missions, planets, moons, exoplanets, stars, galaxies, and more--backed by signature scientific know-how and a large dose of hilarity. In these pages, you'll discover that:
- 100 trillion neutrinos pass through your body every second.
- If you weigh 150 pounds on Earth, you'd weigh 380 pounds on Jupiter.
- In 500 billion years, our sun will become a red giant star and expand to 100 times its original size.
- In 1999, astronomers discovered five exoplanets orbiting the same sun.
- Astronomers estimate there are two trillion galaxies in the observable universe.
Bursting with cool space photos, breathtaking archival images, infographics, moon maps, and a plethora of pop culture icons, Lost in Space is not just a journey--it's a trip!
Operation Sparrow: The Incredible True Story of the Spies Who Tricked Hitler and Won the War
by Jason Bell
The extraordinary true WWII story of three American commandos who parachuted behind enemy lines with orders to get captured--and convince the Nazis that D-Day was coming a thousand miles away.
March 16, 1944. Colonel Duke jumped into Hitler's Europe to lead Operation Sparrow, an OSS mission authorized by the president. Duke was forty-eight, twice the age of most paratroopers. He had played pro football for the New York Giants, flown fighter planes, and made his fortune in advertising before World War II made him a spy behind enemy lines.
Within days, the three Sparrows were captured in Hungary. It wasn't a failure. It was the plan. Under brutal Gestapo interrogation, Duke and his men set out to convince the Third Reich that the D-Day invasion would strike the Balkans, far from France.
Survive torture while making a lie sound true--it was either genius or suicidal. Probably both.
If the ruse held, Axis divisions would defend the wrong coast. If it broke, three Americans would be shot as spies--and the Wehrmacht would be poised to win D-Day.
Of the tens of millions who fought in the war, the Sparrows were the only ones whose mission required capture by the Nazis. Drawing on recently declassified OSS files, Jason Bell brings their story to life.
Operation Sparrow reveals:
- The American heroes who turned their own capture into a weapon
- The Gestapo interrogation rooms that became a secret Allied battlefield
- The top-secret deception that kept Hitler's divisions away from Normandy
Meticulously researched and told at the pace of a thriller, Operation Sparrow is narrative history for readers of Operation Mincemeat and Unbroken.
Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War's Most Extraordinary Spy
by Ben MacIntyre
From the bestselling author of The Spy and the Traitor comes the ultimate true-life Cold War thriller: the untold story of a Russian double agent with a desperate secret--and the key to stopping a nuclear apocalypse.
"Ben Macintyre has a rare ability to turn history and espionage upside down and give us true, colorful stories that astound us as they draw us in. Redwood might be his best."--John Grisham
In 1981, KGB Major Vladimir Kuzichkin, codenamed "Redwood," was the best Soviet officer in Iran, running spies in the wake of the Islamic revolution and working with a hidden network of Iranian communists to undermine the new regime. But Kuzichkin had a problem, a sexual secret that, if revealed, would humiliate him with his colleagues, cost him his job, and send him into exile. Desperate for a solution, he reached out to the only place he believed could help: Britain's MI6.
So begins one of the most astounding true spy stories of the Cold War, set against the terrifying prospect of nuclear armageddon. Taking readers through shadowy back alleys of Tehran, across bloody streets and into cloistered intelligence offices, Ben Macintyre unfolds a world in turmoil, where no one's motive is what it seems, and exposure means death.
As Kuzichkin helps the Soviet leadership plot an overthrow of the Ayatollah's fledgling regime--and the American government secretly contemplates a nuclear response if they do--it falls on MI6's resourceful young undercover officer Ian McCredie to spirit Kuzichkin's vital information back to the West. But when both Iranian intelligence and the KGB close in on the Russian double-agent, McCredie must design an improbable high-stakes escape plan for Kuzichkin, in which failure is almost certain and the direction of the Cold War hangs in the balance.
This is the gripping tale of one man's courage, and its extraordinary unintended consequences that still shape our world today. It's about a moving friendship between spies on opposite sides of the global conflict; about marriage, loyalty, and betrayal.
Rock*: A Mainstream Alternative History of Alternative Mainstream Music
by Chuck Klosterman
Kaleidoscopic culture critic Chuck Klosterman rewrites the history of reality in an "ingenious" (Kirkus Reviews) work of speculative fiction based on a question that has never been considered or (in all likelihood) even asked: What if The Beatles had only developed a cult following while the Velvet Underground emerged as the most popular band in the world?
"This twisted, ironic tribute will delight, surprise, and provoke rock fans." (Publishers Weekly starred review)
The Velvet Underground & Nico was released in the spring of 1967. For decades, the cliche has been that it initially only sold 10,000 copies, though everyone who bought it supposedly started a band. It is the definition of a record whose influence outstrips its mass popularity. But what if the opposite had transpired? What if instead of selling 10,000 copies, it had sold ...10 million copies? What if it had sold 100 million copies? What would have happened if the Velvet Underground had inexplicably become the biggest group in the history of popular music, and everything about the rest of the 20th century was merely a footnote to that phenomenon?
Whatever answer you imagine is an infinitesimal splinter, at least when compared to Rock*. Chuck Klosterman has generated a fictitious universe where almost everything is different, except for the songs. The songs remain the same--the difference is how they are heard and what they now mean. Lou Reed is a messiah, reversing the monoculture and dictating the outcome of presidential elections.
The Beatles disappear, though they never break up. The Rolling Stones collapse while Led Zeppelin goes bankrupt. Punk rock fills stadiums, undermined only by insouciant radicals like Boston and Van Halen. Disco is destroyed. Hip-hop becomes country. The 1980s are defined by disposable pop icons (like G.G. Allin) and Christian revivalists (like Madonna). Lenny Kravitz lets love rule, Oasis collides with a wonderwall, and the terrorist attacks of 9/11 are somehow blamed on the Strokes.
Presented like The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll if written by Philip K. Dick, Jorge Luis Borges, and Patrick Bateman, Rock* intermixes satiric contrarianism and Spinal Tap-ish absurdity with darker theories about what makes art popular, how success delineates perception, and the inescapable consensus of subjective history. It is not, nor does it claim to be, the greatest book ever written about rock and roll. But it's probably the last one that ever needs to be written.
When America Roared: How the 1980s Saved, Then Broke, the Country--And Led Us to Today
by Jonathan Kaufman
The panoramic story of the 1980s, exploring the triumphs and failures of the decade that shaped the 21st century more than any other, from a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter who witnessed the transformations firsthand
In January 1980, America seemed broken. Inflation raged. Interest rates topped 20 percent. Americans were held hostage in Iran. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan with impunity. Japan was eating American manufacturing alive. Three networks controlled what Americans watched. China had been closed for 30 years.
Ten years later, everything had changed. The economy was booming. The Soviet Empire was collapsing. American businesses were competitive again.
In this immersive, character-driven narrative, Jonathan Kaufman lays bare the contending ideologies--and people--who battled for control of business, media and politics in the 1980s, shaping the way we live today. As Ronald Reagan and conservatives pummeled the Democratic party, as Jack Welch redefined leadership at Fortune 500 companies, and as deregulation spearheaded by Mark Fowler allowed television to become the hundreds of specialized and partisan channels we watch now, the groundwork was laid for our current economic and political conflicts.
The decade also launched transformative social and political movements. Karen Nussbaum and Jane Fonda galvanized a struggling women's movement, Evan Wolfson spearheaded the gay community's legal fight against a hostile government, and Barack Obama cut his teeth as a community organizer in Chicago--all building long-lasting movements whose success progressives can learn from today.
Related Book Recommendations
For more nonfiction books, check out our top recommendations for Self-Starters, focusing on business and personal development. You may also enjoy our lineup of new memoirs and biographies selected for Lifelong Learners. Don't forget to check out our Maverick new releases from Summer 2026 for more great titles to add to your reading list.