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Book Five Men Who Broke My Heart

Download or read book Five Men Who Broke My Heart written by Susan Shapiro and published by Delacorte Press. This book was released on 2004-01-20 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this honest, hilarious, fiercely intelligent memoir, journalist Susan Shapiro dares to do what every woman dreams of: track down the five men who'd broken her heart and find out what really went wrong. Between the ages of thirteen and thirty-five, Susan had plunged into love, heart-first, five times. One bad breakup was more hurtful and humiliating than the next. With insight and daring, Susan chronicles her six-month-long journey back down a road strewn with romantic regret. Although for years she'd blamed her boyfriends for their flagrant infidelity, ludicrous faults, and immature foibles, to her shock she can now suddenly pinpoint the exact moment where she herself screwed up each relationship. A successful freelance writer living in Manhattan, Susan Shapiro was in the midst of a midlife crisis she called her “no-book-no-baby summer.” Married for five years to Aaron, a workaholic TV comedy writer always on the road, she was beginning to wonder if she'd remain book- and babyless forever. Then the phone rang, and it was Brad, a college flame who'd become a Harvard scientist with a book coming out. Susan offers to interview him, and she winds up launching into all the intense, invasive questions she'd always wanted to ask him. To her surprise, he answers them! This ignites a spark that sends her on a cross-country jaunt back through her lust-littered past. While Brad is still single, she finds that Heartbreaks Number Two, Three, and Four are not. George, a theater professor, and Richard, a music biographer, are happily married with children. Tom, a handsome blond lawyer in L.A., is getting divorced. Just as it's becoming easy to worm her way back into her exes' good graces, she crashes head-on with David, a wry Canadian root canal specialist. ("It’s the equivalent of what you did to me emotionally," she tells him.) She then gut-wrenchingly relives the agony of splitting up with her first love all over again. Yet somewhere between the tantalizing what-ifs and bittersweet might-have-beens, she finds what she's been searching for all along. Part relationship manifesto, part confessional, and part valentine to the males in her life she adores, Five Men Who Broke My Heart is for anyone who has ever wondered what became of their first love. Or second, third, fourth, or fifth…

Book Lighting Up

Download or read book Lighting Up written by Susan Shapiro and published by Delacorte Press. This book was released on 2004-12-28 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the critically acclaimed Five Men Who Broke My Heart, Manhattan journalist Susan Shapiro revisited five self-destructive romances. In her hilarious, illuminating new memoir, Lighting Up, she rejects five self-destructive substances. This difficult quest for clean living starts with Shapiro’s shocking revelation that, at forty, her lengthiest, most emotionally satisfying relationship has been with cigarettes. A two-pack-a-day smoker since the age of thirteen, Susan Shapiro quickly discovers that it’s impossible to be a writer, a nonsmoker, sane, and slender in the same year. The last time she tried to quit, she gained twenty-three pounds, couldn’t concentrate on work, and wanted to kill herself and her husband, Aaron, a TV comedy writer who hates her penchant for puffing away. Yet just as she’s about to choose her vice over her marriage vows, she stumbles upon a secret weapon. Dr. Winters, “the James Bond of psychotherapy,” is a brilliant but unorthodox addiction specialist, a former chain-smoker himself. Working his weird magic on her psyche, he unravels the roots of her twenty-seven-year compulsion, the same dangerous dependency that has haunted her doctor father, her grandfather, and a pair of eccentric aunts from opposite sides of the family, along with Freud and nearly one in four Americans. Dr. Winters teaches her how to embrace suffering, then proclaims that her months of panic, depression, insecurity, vulnerability, and wild mood swings win her the award for “the worst nicotine withdrawal in the history of the world.” Shapiro finally does kick the habit–while losing weight and finding career and connubial bliss–only to discover that the second she’s let go of her long-term crutch, she’s already replaced it with another fixation. After banishing cigarettes, alcohol, dope, gum, and bread from her day-to-day existence, she conquers all her demons and survives deprivation overload. But relying religiously on Dr. Winters, she soon realizes that the only obsession she has left to quit is him. . . . Never has the battle to stem substance abuse been captured with such wit, sophisticated insight, and candor. Lighting Up is so compulsively readable, it’s addictive.

Book The Forgiveness Tour

    Book Details:
  • Author : Susan Shapiro
  • Publisher : Simon and Schuster
  • Release : 2021-01-12
  • ISBN : 1510766154
  • Pages : 264 pages

Download or read book The Forgiveness Tour written by Susan Shapiro and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Apologies Can Help You Move Forward With Your Life “To err is human; to forgive divine.” But what if the person who hurt you most refuses to apologize or express any regret? That’s the question haunting Manhattan journalist Susan Shapiro when her trusted advisor of fifteen years repeatedly lies to her. Stunned by the betrayal, she can barely eat or sleep. She’s always seen herself as big-hearted and benevolent, someone who will forgive anyone anything - as long as they’re remorseful. Yet the addiction specialist who helped her quit smoking, drinking and drugs after decades of self-destruction won’t explain – or stop - his ongoing deceit, leaving her blindsided. Her crisis management strategy is becoming her crisis. To protect her sanity and sobriety, Shapiro ends their relationship and vows they’ll never speak again. Yet ghosting him doesn’t end her distress. She has screaming arguments with him in her mind, relives their fallout in panicked nightmares and even lights a candle, chanting a secret Yiddish curse to exact revenge. In her entrancing, heartfelt new memoir The Forgiveness Tour: How to Find the Perfect Apology, Shapiro wrestles with how to exonerate someone who can’t cough up a measly “my bad” or mumble “mea culpa.” Seeking wisdom, she explores the billion-dollar Forgiveness Industry touting the personal benefits of absolution, where the only choice on every channel is: radical forgiveness. She fears it’s all bullshit. Desperate for enlightenment, she surveys her old rabbis, as well as religious leaders from every denomination. Unable to reconcile all the confusing abstractions, she embarks on a cross country journey where she interviews people who suffered unforgivable wrongs that were never atoned: victims of genocides, sexual assault, infidelity, cruelty and racism. A Holocaust survivor in D.C. admits he’s thrived from spite. A Michigan man meets with the drunk driver who killed his wife and children. A daughter in Seattle grapples with her mother - who stayed married to the father who raped her. Knowing their estrangement isn’t her fault, a Florida mom spends eight years apologizing to her son anyway -with surprising results. Does love mean forever having to say you’re sorry? Critics praised Shapiro’s previous memoir Lighting Up: How I Stopped Smoking, Drinking and Everything Else I Loved in Life Except Sex as fiercely honest, fascinating, funny and “a mind-bendingly good read.” Now the bestselling author and popular writing professor returns with a darker, wiser follow up, addressing the universal enigma of blind forgiving. Shapiro’s brilliant new gurus sooth her broken psyche and answer her burning mystery: How can you forgive someone without an apology? Does she? Should you?

Book Secrets of a Fix up Fanatic

Download or read book Secrets of a Fix up Fanatic written by Susan Shapiro and published by Delta. This book was released on 2007 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever since her former boss introduced her to her handsome, brilliant husband-to-be, Susan Shapiro has been on a marital mission. So far, she's fixed up twelve marriages and countless couples. Unlike all those "relationship experts" who are incapable of having a real relationship, or who took off their first ring to pledge their vows to their second or third life partner, Shapiro has witnessed--and scored--on all sides of the setup spectrum. She learned to charm her own blind dates, walk down the aisle with her personal Mr. Perfect, keep her first and only marriage rapturous, and expertly set up dozens of other duets. Now the author of the acclaimed memoirs Lighting Up and Five Men Who Broke My Heart, and a self-proclaimed "diehard romantic optimist," shares her honest, provocative, and sometimes downright subversive slant on every stage of dating, sex, and domestic relations. She'll show you how to: - Fix yourself up first so you're really ready to be fixed up fabulously - Recognize raw marriage material and not let a good one get away - Break through your fears, insecurities, and dating defenses to land true love - Find love mentors who will set you up and help you close the deal - Decide which love and marriage myths to lose if you want to win - Keep fixing up your relationship so it stays warm and loving forever

Book Overexposed

    Book Details:
  • Author : Susan Shapiro
  • Publisher : Macmillan
  • Release : 2010-08-03
  • ISBN : 9781429937993
  • Pages : 320 pages

Download or read book Overexposed written by Susan Shapiro and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-08-03 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edgy Manhattan shutterbug Rachel Solomon can't wait to escape her difficult Midwestern Jewish family of doctors—and her crazy, condescending WASP friend and photography mentor, Elizabeth Mann. Not so easy when Elizabeth marries Rachel's surgeon-brother, moves to the Midwest, and becomes the daughter Rachel's mother always wanted—one who pops out four babies in a row, who are named after Rachel's dead Yiddish-speaking relatives. Although Rachel long ago rejected the suburban female role, she's shocked to find she's been replaced. With unsparing candor, sparkling emotional insights, and hilarity, the girl who cut herself out of old photographs now has to fight her way back into the Solomons' photo albums, homes, and hearts. From the author of the hilarious fictional debut Speed Shrinking—which became an international phenomenon—and the acclaimed memoir of past passion Five Men Who Broke My Heart comes a new book that blows the lid off of the secrets of female friendship. Based on a true story, Susan Shapiro's darkly comic novel Overexposed chronicles the brilliantly twisted tale of two strong women who wind up switching lives.

Book Broken Horses

Download or read book Broken Horses written by Brandi Carlile and published by Crown. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The critically acclaimed singer-songwriter, producer, and six-time Grammy winner opens up about faith, sexuality, parenthood, and a life shaped by music in “one of the great memoirs of our time” (Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed). NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND AUTOSTRADDLE • “The best-written, most engaging rock autobiography since her childhood hero, Elton John, published Me.”—Variety Brandi Carlile was born into a musically gifted, impoverished family on the outskirts of Seattle and grew up in a constant state of change, moving from house to house, trailer to trailer, fourteen times in as many years. Though imperfect in every way, her dysfunctional childhood was as beautiful as it was strange, and as nurturing as it was difficult. At the age of five, Brandi contracted bacterial meningitis, which almost took her life, leaving an indelible mark on her formative years and altering her journey into young adulthood. As an openly gay teenager, Brandi grappled with the tension between her sexuality and her faith when her pastor publicly refused to baptize her on the day of the ceremony. Shockingly, her small town rallied around Brandi in support and set her on a path to salvation where the rest of the misfits and rejects find it: through twisted, joyful, weird, and wonderful music. In Broken Horses, Brandi Carlile takes readers through the events of her life that shaped her very raw art—from her start at a local singing competition where she performed Elton John’s “Honky Cat” in a bedazzled white polyester suit, to her first break opening for Dave Matthews Band, to many sleepless tours over fifteen years and six studio albums, all while raising two children with her wife, Catherine Shepherd. This hard-won success led her to collaborations with personal heroes like Elton John, Dolly Parton, Mavis Staples, Pearl Jam, Tanya Tucker, and Joni Mitchell, as well as her peers in the supergroup The Highwomen, and ultimately to the Grammy stage, where she converted millions of viewers into instant fans. Evocative and piercingly honest, Broken Horses is at once an examination of faith through the eyes of a person rejected by the church’s basic tenets and a meditation on the moments and lyrics that have shaped the life of a creative mind, a brilliant artist, and a genuine empath on a mission to give back.

Book Unhooked

    Book Details:
  • Author : Frederick Woolverton
  • Publisher : Skyhorse Publishing Inc.
  • Release : 2012
  • ISBN : 1616084189
  • Pages : 241 pages

Download or read book Unhooked written by Frederick Woolverton and published by Skyhorse Publishing Inc.. This book was released on 2012 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is smoking, alcohol, drugs, food, gambling, the Internet, or sex holding you back from living a full...

Book The Five People You Meet In Heaven

Download or read book The Five People You Meet In Heaven written by Mitch Albom and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2009-06-11 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE INSPIRATIONAL CLASSIC FROM THE MASTER STORYTELLER WHOSE BOOKS HAVE TOUCHED THE HEARTS OF OVER 40 MILLION READERS 'Mitch Albom sees the magical in the ordinary' Cecilia Ahern _________ To his mind, Eddie has lived an uninspiring life. Now an old man, his job is to fix rides at a seaside amusement park. On his eighty-third birthday, Eddie's time on earth comes to an end. When a cart falls from the fairground, he rushes to save a little girl's life and tragically dies in the attempt. When Eddie awakens, he learns that the afterlife is not a destination, but a place where your existence is explained to you by five people - some of whom you knew, others who were ostensibly strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, five individuals revisit their connections to Eddie on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his 'meaningless' life and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: 'Why was I here?' __________ WHAT READERS SAY ABOUT THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN 'Breathtakingly beautiful. A story that will stay with you forever' 'A beautiful and flawlessly choreographed book . . . No other book may ever compare' 'One of my favourite books . . . Wonderful, inspirational, and heart-warming! To me, it is a MUST READ! 'The book is beyond words . . . Well written, engaging, poignant' 'This really is a wonderful book. You should read it'

Book They Both Die at the End

Download or read book They Both Die at the End written by Adam Silvera and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adam Silvera reminds us that there’s no life without death and no love without loss in this devastating yet uplifting story about two people whose lives change over the course of one unforgettable day. #1 New York Times bestseller * 4 starred reviews * A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year * A Kirkus Best Book of the Year * A Booklist Editors' Choice * A Bustle Best YA Novel * A Paste Magazine Best YA Book * A Book Riot Best Queer Book * A Buzzfeed Best YA Book of the Year * A BookPage Best YA Book of the Year On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: They’re going to die today. Mateo and Rufus are total strangers, but, for different reasons, they’re both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. The good news: There’s an app for that. It’s called the Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure—to live a lifetime in a single day. In the tradition of Before I Fall and If I Stay, They Both Die at the End is a tour de force from acclaimed author Adam Silvera, whose debut, More Happy Than Not, the New York Times called “profound.” Plus don't miss The First to Die at the End: #1 New York Times bestselling author Adam Silvera returns to the universe of international phenomenon They Both Die at the End in this prequel. New star-crossed lovers are put to the test on the first day of Death-Cast’s fateful calls.

Book Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory

Download or read book Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory written by Raphael Bob-Waksberg and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-06-11 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written with all the scathing dark humor that is a hallmark of BoJack Horseman, Raphael Bob-Waksberg delivers a fabulously off-beat collection of short stories about love—the best and worst thing in the universe. Featuring: • A young engaged couple forced to deal with interfering relatives dictating the appropriate number of ritual goat sacrifices for their wedding. • A pair of lonely commuters who ride the subway in silence, forever, eternally failing to make that longed-for contact. • A struggling employee at a theme park of U.S. presidents who discovers that love can’t be genetically modified. And fifteen more tales of humor, romance, whimsy, cultural commentary, and crushing emotional vulnerability.

Book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Download or read book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee written by Dee Brown and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2012-10-23 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The “fascinating” #1 New York Times bestseller that awakened the world to the destruction of American Indians in the nineteenth-century West (The Wall Street Journal). First published in 1970, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee generated shockwaves with its frank and heartbreaking depiction of the systematic annihilation of American Indian tribes across the western frontier. In this nonfiction account, Dee Brown focuses on the betrayals, battles, and massacres suffered by American Indians between 1860 and 1890. He tells of the many tribes and their renowned chiefs—from Geronimo to Red Cloud, Sitting Bull to Crazy Horse—who struggled to combat the destruction of their people and culture. Forcefully written and meticulously researched, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee inspired a generation to take a second look at how the West was won. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Dee Brown including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.

Book The Bosnia List

Download or read book The Bosnia List written by Kenan Trebincevic and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young survivor of the Bosnian War returns to his homeland to confront the people who betrayed his family. The story behind the YA novel World in Between: Based on a True Refugee Story. At age eleven, Kenan Trebincevic was a happy, karate-loving kid living with his family in the quiet Eastern European town of Brcko. Then, in the spring of 1992, war broke out and his friends, neighbors and teammates all turned on him. Pero - Kenan's beloved karate coach - showed up at his door with an AK-47 - screaming: "You have one hour to leave or be killed!" Kenan’s only crime: he was Muslim. This poignant, searing memoir chronicles Kenan’s miraculous escape from the brutal ethnic cleansing campaign that swept the former Yugoslavia. After two decades in the United States, Kenan honors his father’s wish to visit their homeland, making a list of what he wants to do there. Kenan decides to confront the former next door neighbor who stole from his mother, see the concentration camp where his Dad and brother were imprisoned and stand on the grave of his first betrayer to make sure he’s really dead. Back in the land of his birth, Kenan finds something more powerful—and shocking—than revenge.

Book What s Never Said

    Book Details:
  • Author : Susan Shapiro
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 2015-08-03
  • ISBN : 9781942762171
  • Pages : 284 pages

Download or read book What s Never Said written by Susan Shapiro and published by . This book was released on 2015-08-03 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's dangerous to search for an old flame you never got over. What if you find him-and he doesn't remember you? In her captivating new novel, Susan Shapiro explores the perils of revisiting past passion. Lila Penn leaves Wisconsin for graduate school in the big city, where she falls for her professor Daniel Wildman. Decades after their tangled link, she arranges a tete-a-tete in downtown Manhattan. But the shocking encounter blindsides Lila, causing her to question her memory-and sanity. Switching between Greenwich Village and Tel Aviv, the saga unravels the sexual secret that's haunted Daniel and Lila for thirty years. PRAISE FOR SUSAN SHAPIRO: "Frank, darkly funny, entertaining..." -New York Times Book Review "A promiscuously readable guilty pleasure..." -Elle Magazine "Sly, candid, disarming..." -Pam Houston "Shapiro's voice is so passionate and honest, it's bewitching." -Erica Jong "Irresistible energy, winning humor... breathtakingly frank honesty." -Philip Lopate "Unputdownable." -Gael Greenereal"

Book Broke Heart Blues

    Book Details:
  • Author : Joyce Carol Oates
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 2024-10
  • ISBN : 9781636141145
  • Pages : 0 pages

Download or read book Broke Heart Blues written by Joyce Carol Oates and published by . This book was released on 2024-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The much-anticipated reissue of a novel that is one of Joyce Carol Oates's personal favorites among her oeuvre; featuring a new afterword by Oates

Book Fame Shark

Download or read book Fame Shark written by Royal Young and published by . This book was released on 2013-06 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this gritty "Memoir Noir," Royal Young reexamines his turbulent childhood and adolescence in New York City of the 1990s. Grappling with issues of sexuality, addiction, and self-definition, he doggedly pursues every possible path to stardom, only to find himself mired in mangled relationships. His story is an unapologetic and ultimately profound, poignant commentary on celebrity culture and love in all its forms. "Royal Young has accomplished a rare feat in his fresh and riveting debut: he manages to recount his fascinating youth and unconventional family with a mixture of humor, scathing honesty & tenderness. Much more than simply a book about a kid who dreams of stardom, Fame Shark is a thoughtful, hilarious and moving love letter to his family and the Lower East Side of New York City." -Kristen Johnston, Emmy Award-winning actress and New York Times bestselling author of Guts "Royal Young stands out as heir apparent to ... literary Jews from early Philip Roth to any-time Jonathan Ames ... Some books you like, some you enjoy, some you feel the need to command the air waves and scream to the masses that they either have to read immediately, or live artistically stunted lives ... " - Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight "Royal Young's memoir is about a dreamer, set in the post-apocalyptic celebrity world of today, and Young, who grew up in New York-like Holden Caulfield if he wanted to be famous-is looking for adventure and action and becomes entangled in all sorts of romantic and sordid relationships. He points out the perplexing tragedy (and good fortune, I think) of what it means to be talented and rebellious, but not a celebrity." -Lily Koppel, bestselling author of The Astronaut Wives Club and The Red Leather Diary "Courageously confessional ... Royal Young's searing emotions burst through the page. At times I read Fame Shark through tears." - Jaime Lubin, The Huffington Post "Fame Shark is American Psycho meets Call It Sleep. A no-holds -barred saga of the extremes a human being can go to in his or her quest for attention. Young has the precocity and audacity of Shelley and the fearlessness of Philippe Petit." -Francis Levy, author of Erotomania: A Romance and Seven Days in Rio "Shameless, elegant, obscene." -Leopoldine Core, Poet and Center for Fiction Fellow "Fame Shark chronicles the hip and hilarious adventures of a neurotic, broke New York bookworm named Hazak who's trying to escape his name, his history, his shrink parents and his Jewish guilt. Not easy when he's surrounded by his father's penis paintings, rich and famous friends and the ambitious heartbreaking city itself." -Susan Shapiro, author of Speed Shrinking and Five Men Who Broke My Heart "Fast, funny, and sometimes a squirmingly uncomfortable ... Young's unflinching memoir adds much to the dialogue about America's quest for adulation, or at least some shiny, sparkling lights." -Whit Hill, author of Not About Madonna: My Little Pre-Icon Roommate and Other Memoirs

Book World in Between

Download or read book World in Between written by Kenan Trebincevic and published by Clarion Books. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Kenan loves drawing and playing soccer with his friends. He wants to be a famous athlete, hates it when his classmates trash his buck teeth by calling him 'Bugs Bunny,' and fights with his big brother, who's too busy and cool for him lately. Sometimes his parents drive him crazy, but he feels loved and protected--until the war ruins everything. Soon, Kenan's family is trapped in their home with little food or water, surrounded by enemies. Ten long months will pass before they finally make it out of the country alive, with help from friends and strangers. And that's only the beginning of their journey. A riveting story of a Muslim boy's exile from war-torn Bosnia to the United States, World in Between celebrates the power of community and resilience, hope and kindness"--Dust jacket.

Book The Man Who Broke Capitalism

Download or read book The Man Who Broke Capitalism written by David Gelles and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-05-31 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller New York Times reporter and “Corner Office” columnist David Gelles reveals legendary GE CEO Jack Welch to be the root of all that’s wrong with capitalism today and offers advice on how we might right those wrongs. In 1981, Jack Welch took over General Electric and quickly rose to fame as the first celebrity CEO. He golfed with presidents, mingled with movie stars, and was idolized for growing GE into the most valuable company in the world. But Welch’s achievements didn’t stem from some greater intelligence or business prowess. Rather, they were the result of a sustained effort to push GE’s stock price ever higher, often at the expense of workers, consumers, and innovation. In this captivating, revelatory book, David Gelles argues that Welch single-handedly ushered in a new, cutthroat era of American capitalism that continues to this day. Gelles chronicles Welch’s campaign to vaporize hundreds of thousands of jobs in a bid to boost profits, eviscerating the country’s manufacturing base and destabilizing the middle class. Welch’s obsession with downsizing—he eliminated 10% of employees every year—fundamentally altered GE and inspired generations of imitators who have employed his strategies at other companies around the globe. In his day, Welch was corporate America’s leading proponent of mergers and acquisitions, using deals to gobble up competitors and giving rise to an economy that is more concentrated and less dynamic. And Welch pioneered the dark arts of “financialization,” transforming GE from an admired industrial manufacturer into what was effectively an unregulated bank. The finance business was hugely profitable in the short term and helped Welch keep GE’s stock price ticking up. But ultimately, financialization undermined GE and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies. Gelles shows how Welch’s celebrated emphasis on increasing shareholder value by any means necessary (layoffs, outsourcing, offshoring, acquisitions, and buybacks, to name but a few tactics) became the norm in American business generally. He demonstrates how that approach has led to the greatest socioeconomic inequality since the Great Depression and harmed many of the very companies that have embraced it. And he shows how a generation of Welch acolytes radically transformed companies like Boeing, Home Depot, Kraft Heinz, and more. Finally, Gelles chronicles the change that is now afoot in corporate America, highlighting companies and leaders who have abandoned Welchism and are proving that it is still possible to excel in the business world without destroying livelihoods, gutting communities, and spurning regulation.