Вручение 23 января 2022 г.

Церемония онлайн.

Страна: США Место проведения: город Вашингтон, RUSA Book & Media Awards Дата проведения: 23 января 2022 г.

Художественная книга

Kirstin Valdez Quade 0.0
From an award-winning storyteller comes a stunning debut novel about a New Mexican family’s extraordinary year of love and sacrifice.

It’s Holy Week in the small town of Las Penas, New Mexico, and thirty-three-year-old unemployed Amadeo Padilla has been given the part of Jesus in the Good Friday procession. He is preparing feverishly for this role when his fifteen-year-old daughter Angel shows up pregnant on his doorstep and disrupts his plans for personal redemption. With weeks to go until her due date, tough, ebullient Angel has fled her mother’s house, setting her life on a startling new path.

Vivid, tender, funny, and beautifully rendered, The Five Wounds spans the baby’s first year as five generations of the Padilla family converge: Amadeo’s mother, Yolanda, reeling from a recent discovery; Angel’s mother, Marissa, whom Angel isn’t speaking to; and disapproving Tíve, Yolanda’s uncle and keeper of the family’s history. Each brings expectations that Amadeo, who often solves his problems with a beer in his hand, doesn’t think he can live up to.

The Five Wounds is a miraculous debut novel from a writer whose stories have been hailed as “legitimate masterpieces” (New York Times). Kirstin Valdez Quade conjures characters that will linger long after the final page, bringing to life their struggles to parent children they may not be equipped to save
Лорен Грофф 3.5
Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, seventeen-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease.

At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. In this crucible, Marie steadily supplants her desire for family, for her homeland, for the passions of her youth with something new to her: devotion to her sisters, and a conviction in her own divine visions. Marie, born the last in a long line of women warriors and crusaders, is determined to chart a bold new course for the women she now leads and protects. But in a world that is shifting and corroding in frightening ways, one that can never reconcile itself with her existence, will the sheer force of Marie's vision be bulwark enough?

Equally alive to the sacred and the profane, Matrix gathers currents of violence, sensuality, and religious ecstasy in a mesmerizing portrait of consuming passion, aberrant faith, and a woman that history moves both through and around. Lauren Groff's new novel, her first since Fates and Furies, is a defiant and timely exploration of the raw power of female creativity in a corrupted world.
Энтони Дорр 4.3
Впервые на русском — новейший роман Энтони Дорра, автора книги «Весь невидимый нам свет», удостоенной Пулицеровской премии; как и этот международный бестселлер, «Птичий город за облаками» включен в шорт-лист Национальной книжной премии США. Роман выстроен подобно матрешке (или «Облачному атласу» Дэвида Митчелла): здесь хитроумно перекрещиваются жизни и судьбы Анны и Омира, пребывающих по разные стороны стены в осажденном турками Константинополе 1453 года, а также пожилого энтузиаста древнегреческой литературы Зено и юного экотеррориста Сеймура в современном Айдахо, а также Констанции, которая летит к далекой экзопланете на корабле «Арго» под управлением всезнающей Сивиллы. Подобно Мари-Лоре и Вернеру в романе «Весь невидимый нам свет», все пятеро здесь — мечтатели и аутсайдеры, не теряющие надежды и посреди самого беспросветного, казалось бы, хаоса и отчаяния: «„Птичий город за облаками“ показывает, что для нас еще не все потеряно — и что важным инструментом спасения является именно литература» (Boston Globe) — например, мифическая история древнего грека Аитона, мечтающего обернуться птицей и улететь в сказочный заоблачный город…

«„Птичий город за облаками“ охватывает невероятный диапазон знаний и жизненного опыта. Это человечная и вдохновляющая книга для взрослых, наполненная незабываемой магией читательских впечатлений детства» (New York Times Book Review).
Патриция Энгель 4.0
For readers of Valeria Luiselli and Edwidge Danticat, an urgent and lyrical novel about a Colombian family fractured by deportation, offering an intimate perspective on an experience that so many have endured—and are enduring right now.

At the dawn of the new millennium, Colombia is a country devastated by half a century of violence. Elena and Mauro are teenagers when they meet, their blooming love an antidote to the mounting brutality of life in Bogotá. Once their first daughter is born, and facing grim economic prospects, they set their sights on the United States.

They travel to Houston and send wages back to Elena’s mother, all the while weighing whether to risk overstaying their tourist visas or to return to Bogotá. As their family expands, and they move again and again, their decision to ignore their exit dates plunges the young family into the precariousness of undocumented status, the threat of discovery menacing a life already strained. When Mauro is deported, Elena, now tasked with caring for their three small children, makes a difficult choice that will ease her burdens but splinter the family even further.

Award-winning, internationally acclaimed author Patricia Engel, herself the daughter of Colombian immigrants and a dual citizen, gives voice to Mauro and Elena, as well as their children, Karina, Nando, and Talia—each one navigating a divided existence, weighing their allegiance to the past, the future, to one another, and to themselves. Rich with Bogotá urban life, steeped in Andean myth, and tense with the daily reality for the undocumented in America, Infinite Country is the story of two countries and one mixed-status family—for whom every triumph is stitched with regret and every dream pursued bears the weight of a dream deferred.
Луиза Эрдрич 4.1
Маленький независимый книжный в течение года посещает призрак надоедливой покупательницы, которая отказывается покидать магазин. Индианка Туки, которая устроилась туда продавцом после нескольких лет тюремного заключения, должна разгадать тайну этой навязчивой гостьи и в то же время попытаться разобраться в себе, своих страхах и происходящих в городе переменах.

Перед вами загадочный, наполненный магией роман, как и многие книги Эрдрич, не лишенный глубины и эмоциональности — о проживании горя, материнстве и несправедливой судьбе.
Damon Galgut 3.8
The Promise charts the crash and burn of a white South African family, living on a farm outside Pretoria. The Swarts are gathering for Ma's funeral. The younger generation, Anton and Amor, detest everything the family stand for -- not least the failed promise to the Black woman who has worked for them her whole life. After years of service, Salome was promised her own house, her own land... yet somehow, as each decade passes, that promise remains unfulfilled.

The narrator's eye shifts and blinks: moving fluidly between characters, flying into their dreams; deliciously lethal in its observation. And as the country moves from old deep divisions to its new so-called fairer society, the lost promise of more than just one family hovers behind the novel's title.

In this story of a diminished family, sharp and tender emotional truths hit home. Confident, deft and quietly powerful, The Promise is literary fiction at its finest.

'Gorgeous and pleasurable' Tessa Hadley

'The most important book of the last ten years' Edmund White

'Simply: you must read it' Claire Messud
Nancy Harris, Натан Харрис 0.0
In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry—freed by the Emancipation Proclamation—seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm, hoping through an unexpected friendship to stanch their grief. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys.

Parallel to their story runs a forbidden romance between two Confederate soldiers. The young men, recently returned from the war to the town of Old Ox, hold their trysts in the woods. But when their secret is discovered, the resulting chaos, including a murder, unleashes convulsive repercussions on the entire community. In the aftermath of so much turmoil, it is Isabelle who emerges as an unlikely leader, proffering a healing vision for the land and for the newly free citizens of Old Ox.

With candor and sympathy, debut novelist Nathan Harris creates an unforgettable cast of characters, depicting Georgia in the violent crucible of Reconstruction. Equal parts beauty and terror, as gripping as it is moving, The Sweetness of Water is an epic whose grandeur locates humanity and love amid the most harrowing circumstances.
Кадзуо Исигуро 4.1
Клара совсем новая.

С заразительным любопытством из-за широкого окна витрины она впитывает в себя окружающий мир — случайных прохожих, проезжающие машины и, конечно, живительное Солнце. Клара хочет узнать и запомнить как можно больше — так она сможет стать лучшей Искусственной Подругой своему будущему подростку.

От того, кто выберет Клару, будет зависеть её судьба.

Чистый, отчасти наивный взгляд на реальность, лишь слегка отличающуюся от нашей собственной, — вот, что дарит новый роман Кадзуо Исигуро. Каково это — любить? И можно ли быть человеком, если ты не совсем человек?

История, рассказанная с обескураживающей искренностью, заставит вас по-новому ответить на эти вопросы.
Шарлотта Макконахи 4.3
Инти Флинн прибывает в Шотландию вместе со своей сестрой-близняшкой Эгги, чтобы возглавить команду биологов, цель которых — вернуть к жизни лес и спасти местную популяцию серых волков от вымирания. Для героини возможность повлиять на сохранение стремительно меняющегося ландшафта Северо-Шотландского нагорья — это еще и попытка разобраться в собственной драматичной судьбе, разрушенной ужасными тайнами, приведшими их с сестрой в Европу из далекой Аляски.

Инти уже не та, кем была когда-то. Боль и страдания, которые люди причинили не только ей, но и окружающей природе, навеки изменили женщину. Однако, воодушевленная первыми успехами эксперимента с волками, она начинает возрождаться и верить в лучшее. Может, и у нее есть шанс на счастье?

Ситуация меняется, когда местного фермера находят мертвым. Все население готово ополчиться против волков, но героиня уверена, что они здесь ни при чем. Инти решает во что бы то ни стало защитить животных. Но если дело не в волках, кто тогда виновен в гибели человека? И как она поступит, узнав, что к убийству может быть причастен ее новый возлюбленный?

Захватывающая и увлекательная история женщины, отчаянно пытающейся спасти тех, кто ей дорог, пока ее окончательно не поглотила природная стихия, некогда служившая надежным убежищем.
Харуки Мураками 4.0
Новый сборник рассказов Харуки Мураками.
В целом он автобиографический, но «Кто может однозначно утверждать, что когда-то произошло с нами на самом деле?».
Все это воспоминания, но затронутые темы актуальны всегда.
Казалось бы, мы все уже знаем о Харуки Мураками. А вот, оказывается, есть еще истории, которыми автор хочет поделиться.
О чем они? О любви и одиночестве, о поиске смысла жизни, в них мистические совпадения, музыка, бейсбол. Воспоминания, бередящие душу и то, что вряд ли кому-то сможешь рассказать. Например, о том, что ты болтал за кружкой пива с говорящей обезьяной.
Или о выборе пути: «Выбери я что-нибудь иначе, и меня бы здесь не было. Но кто же тогда отражается в зеркале?»
Вот такой он, Харуки Мураками – с ним хочется грустить, удивляться чудесам, быть честным с собой, вспоминать собственные мистические совпадения в жизни. Захочется опять послушать Beatles, джаз и «Карнавал» Шумана.
Эрик Нгуен 3.8
A stunning debut novel about an immigrant Vietnamese family who settles in New Orleans and struggles to remain connected to one another as their lives are inextricably reshaped.

When Huong arrives in New Orleans with her two young sons, she is jobless, homeless, and worried about her husband, Cong, who remains in Vietnam. As she and her boys begin to settle in to life in America, she continues to send letters and tapes back to Cong, hopeful that they will be reunited and her children will grow up with a father.

But with time, Huong realizes she will never see her husband again. While she copes with this loss, her sons, Tuan and Binh grow up in their absent father's shadow, haunted by a man and a country trapped in their memory and imagination. As they push forward, the three adapt to life in America in different ways: Huong takes up with a Vietnamese car salesman who is also new in town; Tuan tries to connect with his heritage by joining a local Vietnamese gang; and Binh, now going by Ben, embraces his adopted homeland and his burgeoning sexuality. Their search for identity--as individuals and as a family--threatens to tear them apart. But then disaster strikes the city they now call home, and they must find a new way to come together and honor the ties that bind them.
Ричард Пауэрс 3.8
Астробиолог Тео Бирн ищет жизнь в далеком космосе и после смерти жены в одиночку воспитывает своего девятилетнего сына Робина, необычного умного мальчика, который сочиняет стихи и может часами в мельчайших подробностях рисовать животных и растения. А еще его хотят исключить из школы за то, что он избил собственного друга. С каждым месяцем состояние Робина ухудшается, и тогда отец прибегает к новейшему методу лечения – нейронной обратной связи. Робин начинает контролировать собственные эмоции, взаимодействуя с моделью, которая основана на предварительно записанном образе эмоций его покойной матери, ранее участвовавшей в эксперименте. А тем временем мир вокруг Бирнов и по всей Земле начинает разрушаться.
Санджив Сахота 3.9
Начало XX века, Пенджаб. Пятнадцатилетняя Мехар с назваными сестрами Гурлин и Харбанс выданы замуж на одной церемонии. Теперь они прячутся от посторонних глаз в скромной фарфоровой комнате, расположенной в стороне от дома. Следуя традиции, жены должны оставаться в тени. Забыть про личное пространство, работать, не задавая лишних вопросов, почитать властную свекровь больше матери, а прихоти старших - больше своих желаний. Девушки даже не знают, какой из трех братьев достался каждой из них в мужья. Только родив сына, надеются они однажды обрести голос.

Много лет спустя молодой человек, выросший в маленьком английском городе, приезжает в Индию. Как избалованный гость, он с осторожностью осматривает места, где жили его предки. В заброшенной родовой усадьбе все кажется ему странным и чуждым… Кроме запертой на засов фарфоровой комнаты. В ней он откроет сокровенную историю, сложенную из строгих предписаний и прямых запретов, смелой любви и попыток изменить старый мир.
Мэгги Шипстед 4.3
Мэриен Грейвз была сорвиголовой всю свою жизнь. После встречи с пилотами-каскадерами она навсегда влюбляется в небо. В четырнадцать лет Мэриен бросает школу и встречает богатого бутлегера, который предоставляет ей самолет и оплачивает уроки пилотирования. В 1950 году она отправляется в свое самое захватывающее приключение — полет вокруг земного шара, и бесследно исчезает.

Полвека спустя Хэдли Бэкстер, скандально известная голливудская актриса, получает предложение сыграть Мэриен Грейвз. Возможно, эта роль поможет ей раскрыть тайну знаменитого исчезновения? И примириться с трагедией, которая изменила ее жизнь.
Энтони Весна Со 0.0
A vibrant story collection about Cambodian-American life—immersive and comic, yet unsparing—that offers profound insight into the intimacy of queer and immigrant communities

Seamlessly transitioning between the absurd and the tenderhearted, balancing acerbic humor with sharp emotional depth, Afterparties offers an expansive portrait of the lives of Cambodian-Americans. As the children of refugees carve out radical new paths for themselves in California, they shoulder the inherited weight of the Khmer Rouge genocide and grapple with the complexities of race, sexuality, friendship, and family.

A high school badminton coach and failing grocery store owner tries to relive his glory days by beating a rising star teenage player. Two drunken brothers attend a wedding afterparty and hatch a plan to expose their shady uncle’s snubbing of the bride and groom. A queer love affair sparks between an older tech entrepreneur trying to launch a “safe space” app and a disillusioned young teacher obsessed with Moby-Dick. And in the sweeping final story, a nine-year-old child learns that his mother survived a racist school shooter.
Лауреат
Том Лин 0.0
Orphaned young, Ming Tsu, the son of Chinese immigrants, is raised by the notorious leader of a California crime syndicate, who trains him to be his deadly enforcer. But when Ming falls in love with Ada, the daughter of a powerful railroad magnate, and the two elope, he seizes the opportunity to escape to a different life. Soon after, in a violent raid, the tycoon’s henchmen kidnap Ada and conscript Ming into service for the Central Pacific Railroad.

Battered, heartbroken, and yet defiant, Ming partners with a blind clairvoyant known only as the prophet. Together the two set out to rescue his wife and to exact revenge on the men who destroyed Ming, aided by a troupe of magic-show performers, some with supernatural powers, whom they meet on the journey. Ming blazes his way across the West, settling old scores with a single-minded devotion that culminates in an explosive and unexpected finale.

Written with the violent ardor of Cormac McCarthy and the otherworldly inventiveness of Ted Chiang, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu is at once a thriller, a romance, and a story of one man’s quest for redemption in the face of a distinctly American brutality.

Публицистика

Лауреат
Ханиф Абдурракиб 0.0
A stirring meditation on Black performance in America from the New York Times bestselling author of Go Ahead in the Rain

At the March on Washington in 1963, Josephine Baker was fifty-seven years old, well beyond her most prolific days. But in her speech she was in a mood to consider her life, her legacy, her departure from the country she was now triumphantly returning to. “I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too,” she told the crowd. Inspired by these few words, Hanif Abdurraqib has written a profound and lasting reflection on how Black performance is inextricably woven into the fabric of American culture. Each moment in every performance he examines—whether it’s the twenty-seven seconds in “Gimme Shelter” in which Merry Clayton wails the words “rape, murder,” a schoolyard fistfight, a dance marathon, or the instant in a game of spades right after the cards are dealt—has layers of resonance in Black and white cultures, the politics of American empire, and Abdurraqib’s own personal history of love, grief, and performance.

Abdurraqib writes prose brimming with jubilation and pain, infused with the lyricism and rhythm of the musicians he loves. With care and generosity, he explains the poignancy of performances big and small, each one feeling intensely familiar and vital, both timeless and desperately urgent. Filled with sharp insight, humor, and heart, A Little Devil in America exalts the Black performance that unfolds in specific moments in time and space—from midcentury Paris to the moon, and back down again to a cramped living room in Columbus, Ohio.
Ибрам Кенди, Кейша Н. Блейн 0.0
An epoch-defining history of African America, the first to appear in a generation, Four Hundred Souls is a chronological account of four hundred years of Black America as told by ninety of America's leading Black writers.

Curated by Ibram X. Kendi, author of the number one bestseller How To Be an Antiracist, and fellow historian Keisha N. Blain, Four Hundred Souls begins with the arrival of twenty enslaved Ndongo people on the shores of the British colony in mainland America in 1619, the year before the arrival of the Mayflower.

In eighty chronological chapters, the book charts the tragic and triumphant four-hundred-year history of Black American experience in a choral work of exceptional power and beauty.

Contributors include some of the best-known scholars, writers, historians, journalists, lawyers, poets and activists of contemporary America who together bring to vivid life countless new facets to the drama of slavery and resistance, segregation and survival, migration and self-discovery, cultural oppression and world-changing artistic, literary and musical creativity. In these pages are dozens of extraordinary lives and personalities, rescued from the archives and restored to their rightful place in America's narrative, as well as the ghosts of millions more.

Four Hundred Souls is an essential work of story-telling and reclamation that redefines America and changes our notion of how history is written.
Кристен Радтке 0.0
From the acclaimed author of Imagine Wanting Only This--a timely and moving meditation on isolation and longing, both as individuals and as a society.

There is a silent epidemic in America: loneliness. Shameful to talk about and often misunderstood, loneliness is everywhere, from the most major of metropolises to the smallest of towns.

In Seek You, Kristen Radtke's wide-ranging exploration of our inner lives and public selves, Radtke digs into the ways in which we attempt to feel closer to one another, and the distance that remains. Through the lenses of gender and violence, technology and art, Radtke ushers us through a history of loneliness and longing, and shares what feels impossible to share.

Ranging from the invention of the laugh-track to the rise of Instagram, the bootstrap-pulling cowboy to the brutal experiments of Harry Harlow, Radtke investigates why we engage with each other, and what we risk when we turn away. With her distinctive, emotionally charged drawings and deeply empathetic prose, Kristen Radtke masterfully shines a light on some of our most vulnerable and sublime moments, and asks how we might keep the spaces between us from splitting entirely.
Дэниел Джеймс Браун 0.0
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat, a gripping World War II saga of patriotism and courage: the special Japanese-American Army unit that overcame brutal odds in Europe; their families, incarcerated back home; and a young man who refused to surrender his constitutional rights, even if it meant imprisonment.

They came from across the continent and Hawaii. Their parents taught them to embrace both their Japanese heritage and the ways of their American homeland. They faced bigotry, yet they believed in their bright futures as American citizens. But within days of Pearl Harbor, the FBI was ransacking their houses and locking up their fathers. And within months many would themselves be living behind barbed wire.

Facing the Mountain is an unforgettable chronicle of war-time America and the battlefields of Europe. Based on Daniel James Brown's extensive interviews with the families of the protagonists as well as deep archival research, it portrays the kaleidoscopic journey of four Japanese-American families and their sons, who volunteered for 442nd Regimental Combat Team and were deployed to France, Germany, and Italy, where they were asked to do the near impossible.

But this is more than a war story. Brown also tells the story of these soldiers' parents, immigrants who were forced to shutter the businesses, surrender their homes, and submit to life in concentration camps on U.S. soil. Woven throughout is the chronicle of a brave young man, one of a cadre of patriotic resisters who stood up against their government in defense of their own rights. Whether fighting on battlefields or in courtrooms, these were Americans under unprecedented strain, doing what Americans do best--striving, resisting, pushing back, rising up, standing on principle, laying down their lives, and enduring.
Джон Данн 2.0
No family of birds has quite the compelling allure offered by the hummingbird. For centuries they have captured our imaginations: revered by Native Americans, coveted by European collectors and admired worldwide for their jewel-like plumage, acrobatic flight and immense character.
Though their renown extends throughout the world, hummingbirds are found exclusively in the Americas. Small in stature yet fiercely tenacious, they have con
Джон Грин 4.4
The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his groundbreaking podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet—from the QWERTY keyboard and Staphylococcus aureus to the Taco Bell breakfast menu—on a five-star scale.

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene’s reviews have been praised as “observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy.” John Green’s gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection that includes both beloved essays and all-new pieces exclusive to the book.
Дин Джобб 3.8
Поведение доктора Крима всем казалось странным: он с ненавистью говорил о женщинах, был одержим ядами, охотно показывал всем фотографии с голыми женщинами и крайне настороженно относился к людям. Тот факт, что никто изначально не заподозрил его в совершении серии страшных преступлений, свидетельствует о безусловном доверии людей к врачам, а также несостоятельности методов ведения расследований.

Тогда термина "серийный убийца" еще не существовало, и Крим положил начало новой "породе" преступников, которые, как ошибочно казалось, действовали без мотива и "убивали только ради убийства".

Доктора Крима неоднократно арестовывали и допрашивали, но потом снова отпускали на свободу. Не боясь наказания, он продолжал планировать и осуществлять новые зверства…
Patrick Radden Keefe 4.6
A grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin, by the prize-winning, bestselling author of Say Nothing

The Sackler name adorns the walls of many storied institutions—Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, known for their lavish donations to the arts and the sciences. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing a blockbuster painkiller that was the catalyst for the opioid crisis.

Empire of Pain begins with the story of three doctor brothers, Raymond, Mortimer and the incalculably energetic Arthur, who weathered the poverty of the Great Depression and appalling anti-Semitism. Working at a barbaric mental institution, Arthur saw a better way and conducted groundbreaking research into drug treatments. He also had a genius for marketing, especially for pharmaceuticals, and bought a small ad firm.

Arthur devised the marketing for Valium, and built the first great Sackler fortune. He purchased a drug manufacturer, Purdue Frederick, which would be run by Raymond and Mortimer. The brothers began collecting art, and wives, and grand residences in exotic locales. Their children and grandchildren grew up in luxury.

Forty years later, Raymond’s son Richard ran the family-owned Purdue. The template Arthur Sackler created to sell Valium—co-opting doctors, influencing the FDA, downplaying the drug’s addictiveness—was employed to launch a far more potent product: OxyContin. The drug went on to generate some thirty-five billion dollars in revenue, and to launch a public health crisis in which hundreds of thousands would die.

This is the saga of three generations of a single family and the mark they would leave on the world, a tale that moves from the bustling streets of early twentieth-century Brooklyn to the seaside palaces of Greenwich, Connecticut, and Cap d’Antibes to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. Empire of Pain chronicles the multiple investigations of the Sacklers and their company, and the scorched-earth legal tactics that the family has used to evade accountability. The history of the Sackler dynasty is rife with drama—baroque personal lives; bitter disputes over estates; fistfights in boardrooms; glittering art collections; Machiavellian courtroom maneuvers; and the calculated use of money to burnish reputations and crush the less powerful.

Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling. It is a portrait of the excesses of America’s second Gilded Age, a study of impunity among the super elite and a relentless investigation of the naked greed and indifference to human suffering that built one of the world’s great fortunes.
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