New Releases by John Nichols

Fresh from the first 10 billion election campaign, two award-winning authors show how unbridled campaign spending defines our politics and, failing a dramatic intervention, signals the end of our democracy. Blending vivid reporting from the 2012 campaign trail and deep perspective from decades covering American and international media and politics, political journalist John Nichols and media critic Robert W. McChesney explain how US elections are becoming controlled, predictable enterprises that are managed by a new class of consultants who wield millions of dollars and define our politics as never before. As the money gets bigger -- especially after the Citizens United ruling -- and journalism, a core check and balance on the government, declines, American citizens are in danger of becoming less informed and more open to manipulation. With groundbreaking behind-the-scenes reporting and staggering new research on "the money power," Dollarocracy shows that this new power does not just endanger electoral politics; it is a challenge to the DNA of American democracy itself.

Jonathan Kepler wants to climb Spoon Mountain with his grown son and daughter on his sixty-fifth birthday in three weeks. The kids, Ben and Miranda, think he’s crazy. For starters, Spoon Mountain is almost the tallest alpine peak in New Mexico. Jonathan’s health is terrible. Still reeling from his third, nearly fatal, divorce, he has a rotten heart, serious asthma, and a fed-up girlfriend who is about to drop him like a bad habit. Once a celebrated novelist, Hollywood screenwriter, and environmental activist, Jonathan is now tottering at the ragged end of his career and yearning to make amends to his children for his past sins before it’s too late. Years ago, Spoon Mountain was very special to the Kepler family. They once shared halcyon days in the wilderness. Can they go home again? Does Spoon Mountain offer redemption . . . or annihilation? And why is getting there so laden with pratfalls? John Nichols is at his hilarious and poignant best in this rollicking tale of love, anarchy, and the awesome Rocky Mountains. It is drop-dead comedy with an inspiring and beautiful message.

Describes the labor protest movement in 2011 over collective bargaining rights for public employees and teachers, emphasizing the media attention it received and its influence on the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Daily newspapers are closing across America. Washington bureaus are shuttering; whole areas of the federal government are now operating with no press coverage. International bureaus are going, going, gone. Journalism, the counterbalance to corporate and political power, the lifeblood of American democracy, is not just threatened. It is in meltdown. In The Death and Life of American Journalism, Robert W. McChesney, an academic, and John Nichols, a journalist, who together founded the nation''s leading media reform network, Free Press, investigate the crisis. They propose a bold strategy for saving journalism and saving democracy, one that looks back to how the Founding Fathers ensured free press protection with the First Amendment and provided subsidies to the burgeoning print press of the young nation.

Political reporter Nichols argues that socialism has a long, proud American history. This short, irreverent book gives Americans back a crucial part of their history and makes a forthright case for socialist ideas today.

The Oshkaabewis Native Journal is a interdisciplinary forum for significant contributions to knowledge about the Ojibwe language.

The Oshkaabewis Native Journal is a interdisciplinary forum for significant contributions to knowledge about the Ojibwe language. All proceeds from the sale of this publication are used to defray the costs of production, and to support publications in the Ojibwe language. No royalty payments will be made to individuals involved in its creation.

Our Media, Not Theirs! The Democratic Struggle Against Corporate Media examines how the current media system in the United States undermines democracy, and what we can do to change it. McChesney and Nichols begin by detailing how the media system has come to be dominated by a handful of transnational conglomerates that use their immense political and economic power to saturate the population with commercial messages. Further, the authors provide an analysis of the burgeoning media reform activities in the United States, and outline ways we can structurally change the media system through coalition work and movement-building: the tools we need in order to battle for a better media.

An aspiring writing adrift in New York finds love and community at a corner empanada stand in this novel by the author of The Milagro Beanfield War. It’s Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, when ex-patriots, artists, and colorful bums are kings. A tiny stand selling empanadas near the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal streets is the center of the action for the shy narrator, an aspiring writer just out of college. There, he falls in with a crowd of kooky outcasts from Argentina who introduce him to their raucous adventures, melodramatic dreams, and women—particularly a tough little flamenco dancer from Buenos Aires. Charming and insightful, this deceptively simple novel is a tale told by a master. It is a wise coming-of-age story, full of joy and touched by heartbreak, that captures a special time and place with extraordinary empathy and humor.

Presents the history, players, and accomplishments of the Boston Bruins.

You read the famous cheese book and digested its message. Perhaps it even moved you. Now here''s your chance for a fresh perspective, an opportunity to understand cheese from the bottom up.

A Wind Swept Over the Waters presents reflections on sixty well-known and beloved biblical passages. A work of meditation rather than scholarship, these passages speak to our daily lives, issues, and concerns. Ideal for anyone seeking a fresh approach to the Bible. This book includes passages from the Old and New Testaments: "A Wind from God Swept Over the Face of the Waters," Genesis 1:1-4 "O Sing to the Lord a New Song," Psalm 96:1-4 "The Assurance of Things Hoped For," Hebrews 10:32-36, 11:1-3 "I Do Not Do the Good I Want but the Evil I Do Not Want Is What I Do," Romans 7:15-19/ 20-24 "The Parable of the Good Samaritan," Luke 10:24-37 * A collection of verses from the Old and New Testaments that are familiar and inspiring. * Uses metaphorical understandings of scripture to connect these ancient words to our lives.

Traces the history of the team from its beginnings through 2003.

A dazzling, darkly comic novel by the author of "The Sterile Cuckoo, The Voice of the Butterfly" looks at chaotic relationships fraught with conservation efforts. Funny and touching, Nichols''s novel is a wild ride through the lunacies of the postmodern age.

Minutes before midnight on the evening of March 12, 1928, the St. Francis Dam collapsed. The dam''s 200-foot concrete wall crumpled, sending billions of gallons of raging flood waters down San Francisquito Canyon, sweeping 54 miles down the Santa Clara River to the sea, and claiming over 450 lives in the disaster. Captured here in over 200 images is a photographic record of the devastation caused by the flood, and the heroic efforts of residents and rescue workers. Built by the City of Los Angeles'' Bureau of Water Works and Supply, the failure of the St. Francis Dam on its first filling was the greatest American civil engineering failure of the 20th century. Beginning at dawn on the morning after the disaster, stunned local residents picked up their cameras to record the path of destruction, and professional photographers moved in to take images of the washed-out bridges, destroyed homes and buildings, Red Cross workers giving aid, and the massive clean-up that followed. The event was one of the worst disasters in California''s history, second only to the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire.

Traces the history of the team from its beginnings through 1999.

Traces the history of the team from its beginnings through 1999.

Examines the history of the University of North Carolina basketball program.

A history of the NBA expansion team that began playing in Orlando, Florida, during the 1989-90 season.

Describes the background and history of the Minnesota Timberwolves pro basketball team.

At forty-eight, Bart Darling is about to perform a movie stunt that will in all likelihood kill him. Lorraine, his hillbilly girlfriend who is carrying his child, gives him an ultimatum: call it off or she''ll split. Bart summons his emotionally distant, twenty-nine-year-old son Marcel from New York to help him hold on to Lorraine. But Marcel finds himself falling for Lorraine, even as he sorts out his ambiguous feelings for Bart.

"John Nichols has remarkable insight into life''s crazy blend of comedy and tragedy. . . . Pure pleasure to read." —New York Times Book Review It''s World War II, and young Wendall Oler has been sent to stay will his father''s family in rural Stebbinsville, Vermont. Using this opportunity to act out his resentment for the death of his mother and his father''s leaving to fight in the war he does all he can to tyrannize his new family. Yet, thrown into the warmth of this country family, Wendall finds his resolve softening.