New Releases by Gene Weingarten

“One of the 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Last 25 Years”—Slate On New Year’s Day 2013, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Gene Weingarten asked three strangers to, literally, pluck a day, month, and year from a hat. That day—chosen completely at random—turned out to be Sunday, December 28, 1986, by any conventional measure a most ordinary day. Weingarten spent the next six years proving that there is no such thing. That Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s turned out to be filled with comedy, tragedy, implausible irony, cosmic comeuppances, kindness, cruelty, heroism, cowardice, genius, idiocy, prejudice, selflessness, coincidence, and startling moments of human connection, along with evocative foreshadowing of momentous events yet to come. Lives were lost. Lives were saved. Lives were altered in overwhelming ways. Many of these events never made it into the news; they were private dramas in the lives of private people. They were utterly compelling. One Day asks and answers the question of whether there is even such a thing as “ordinary” when we are talking about how we all lurch and stumble our way through the daily, daunting challenge of being human.

This endearing friendship story about a boy and his dog from a Pulitzer Prize–winning writer gently explores a timeless question: who’s really in charge? Meet Sid. He’s an ordinary kid. He’s far from perfect. But to Murphy, Sid’s faithful dog, Sid is the whole world. Murphy thinks Sid is the absolute best—and that he’s in charge of everything. Sid loves Murphy right back, but he can’t help but wonder what Murphy would think if he realized the truth: Sid’s just a kid, and Murphy’s just a dog, and neither one can control the world. This deceptively simply picture book is the perfect start to a discussion about a subject seldom seen in children’s books—the nonthreatening feel of a world based on fact and reason, and not faith.

Recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. What happens when one of the world’s most renowned musicians appears incognito outside of a Washington, D.C. metro station to play some of the most beautiful music ever composed? In the audacious social experiment, “Pearls Before Breakfast”, Gene Weingarten seeks out the answer to this question as he chronicles how an audience of rush hour pedestrians pass indifferently by as international wunderkind Joshua Bell plays his Stradivarius. He also examines a horrifying phenomenon in the remarkable story "Fatal Distraction", in which he speaks to thirteen mothers and fathers whose children died as the result of being left in a sweltering car during the hot summer months. The result is an emotional revelation that inspires readers to take a closer look at the world around them.

GENE WEINGARTEN IS THE O. HENRY OF AMERICAN JOURNALISM Simply the best storyteller around, Weingarten describes the world as you think it is before revealing how it actually is—in narratives that are by turns hilarious, heartwarming, and provocative, but always memorable. Millions of people know the title piece about violinist Joshua Bell, which originally began as a stunt: What would happen if you put a world-class musician outside a Washington, D.C., subway station to play for spare change? Would anyone even notice? The answer was no. Weingarten’s story went viral, becoming a widely referenced lesson about life lived too quickly. Other classic stories—the one about “The Great Zucchini,” a wildly popular but personally flawed children’s entertainer; the search for the official “Armpit of America”; a profile of the typical American nonvoter—all of them reveal as much about their readers as they do their subjects.

Featuring sixty black-and-white photographs of old dogs shot by Pulitzer Prize–winning photographer Michael S. Williamson and narrated by Washington Post staffer and columnist Gene Weingarten, this is a perfect collection for dog lovers that celebrates “man’s best friend.” Anyone who has ever loved an old dog will love Old Dogs. In this collection of profiles and photographs, Weingarten and Williamson document the unique appeal of man''s best friend in his or her last, and best, years. This book is a tribute to every dog who has made it to that time of life when the hearing and eyesight begin to go, when the step becomes uncertain, but when other, richer traits ripen and coalesce. It is when a dog attains a special sort of dignity and a charm all his own. If you''ve known a favorite old dog, you''ll find him or her on these pages. Your dog might go by a different name and have a different shape, but you''ll recognize him or her by the look in an eye or the contours of a life story. There is the dog who thinks he is a house cat; the herder, the fetcher, the punk and the peacock, the escape artist, the demolition artist, the patrician, the lovable lout, the amiable dope, the laughable clown, the schemer, the singer, the daredevil, the diplomat, the politician, the gourmand, and the thief. Plus, as a special bonus, you will find the first Latvian elkhounds ever photographed. Old Dogs is a glorious gift book and a fitting tribute to that one dog you can''t ever forget.

Is God male or female? Why do women, but not men, flush public toilets with their feet? Why are men, but not women, obsessed with parallel parking? Why do women, but not men, leave eleven-minute messages on answering machines? Why do men feel guilty about nothing, and women feel guilty about everything? Was Marilyn Monroe...fat? These philosophical quandaries, and more, are finally debated in I''m with Stupid, an uproariously funny dialogue between Gene Weingarten, the gleefully misogynistic Washington Post humor columnist, and Gina Barreca, the gleefully feminist University of Connecticut professor. The first significant book about men and women actually written by a man and a woman, I''m with Stupid is privy to the dark secrets of both sexes. It''s not a lecture, but an extended argument, a combustion of viewpoints that winds up unearthing startling truths. In the words of Gene and Gina: "Our Mars and Venus breach their orbits and collide in a screaming fireball from Hell." The subject matter spans art and expression, science and technology, politics and history, spirituality and religion, sex and sexuality, as well as the complex etiology, sociology, and etymology of dirty jokes. Men: Learn at last how to know for sure when you are having a fight. Women: Learn what he really means when he says "I''m sorry." Take sides as Gene and Gina face off in a haggling challenge in which the winner manages to get the lowest price for a Mercedes S500. Or just take in the show. I''m with Stupid is the book that finally establishes, conclusively, that women are funnier than men. And vice versa.

A brilliantly original, laugh-out-loud funny, and ultimately poignant exploration of hypochondria is offered by someone who inadvertently discovered the cure for all imaginary illnesses that plague the hypochondriac mind.