Government Fiction

In 2007, two CIA spooks meet with an American colonel in military intelligence. The war is going badly, and President Bush, who steadfastly refuses to back down, remains unchallenged at home as Democrats and Republicans focus on the 2008 elections. Meanwhile, Iran's pursuit of nuclear energy will yield enriched uranium by 2012 - uranium that could be used to manufacture suitcase nukes. The US military is too drained to invade Iran, and a preemptive strike is out of the question.

For everyone who's had their fill of politicians, TV trials and the daily events seen on the evening news, Simon & Schuster Audio offers some relief with this collection of the funniest opening monologues from Comedy Central's hit show, Politically Incorrect starring Bill Maher.

P.J. O'Rourke traces his development from hippie protester to conservative grouch to jaded humorist. Along the way, we are privy to his strange, twisted days as editor in chief of National Lampoon, as well as the in-depth looks at appropriate sports for middle-aged Republicans, namely those which can be engaged in with a smuggled Havana between the teeth - fly-fishing, bird hunting, deep-sea fishing, and of course, golf. Plus, you'll hear O'Rourke's take on the Virtues of Automobiles - because what good was oil doing sitting in the ground for millions of years? - and many other hilarious rants in this off-the-wall collection by America's premier political humorist.

In Time to Start Thinking, Edward Luce offers an incisive and highly engaging account of America’s economic and geopolitical decline. The Washington bureau chief for the Financial Times for the last four years, Luce has traveled the country interviewing public officials like Lawrence Summers and Senator Don Riegle, business leaders including Jeff Immelt and Bill Gates, as well as teachers, health care workers, and scientists.

For generations, the people of Watertown, New York, have been haunted by the mysterious caves that lurk beneath the cliffs along the Black River. When a school trip vanished decades ago, locals deemed the caves cursed, but the questions only deepened. Ethan Grayson grew up hearing the eerie legends, but it was his best friend Jimmy’s unexplained disappearance that bound him to the caves’ dark legacy. Now, years later, Ethan is unexpectedly drawn back to his hometown. Rumors of sealed-off tunnels, secret military operations, and strange phenomena surrounding the caves have resurfaced. ...

All Karen Parker wants is a fresh start. Simple as that. She does not want a fight, nor is she a national security threat. Then her son, Tommy, disappears with a mysterious man who may not be from this world. Tommy’s disappearance thrusts Karen into a desperate search, pitting her against nature, time, and killers. Her only ally is an enemy from her past. Karen is not the only person looking for Tommy, but she is the only one who wants to find him alive.

In collaboration with the ACLU, authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman have curated an anthology of essays about landmark cases in the organization’s 100-year history. Fight of the Century takes you inside the trials and the stories that have shaped modern life. Some of the most prominent cases that the ACLU has been involved in - Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, Miranda v. Arizona - need little introduction. Others you may never even have heard of, yet their outcomes quietly defined the world we live in now.

This audiobook will introduce you to ten people. In a way, you already know them. Only you don't - not really. In a sense, they are you. Only they're not entirely. They inform and shape the most important decisions in your life. But you're almost certainly unaware of their intervention. They are the Ten Types of Human. Who are they? What are they for? How did they get into your head? We want to believe that there are some things we would never do. We want to believe that there are others we always would. But how can we be sure?

For the last 60 years, fear has seeped into every area of American life: Americans own more guns than citizens of any other country, sequester themselves in gated communities, and retreat from public spaces. And yet, crime rates have plummeted, making life in America safer than ever. Why, then, are Americans so afraid - and where does this fear lead to? In this remarkable work of social history, May demonstrates how our obsession with security has made citizens fear each other and distrust the government, making America less safe and less democratic.

For many decades, the White Tower barricaded the population inside the Boundary, creating an oasis of civilization and stability in a war-ravaged world. Now ambition finally trumps caution as the Tower starts reclaiming abandoned lands and de facto enslaving the Freeborn, the non-status people it formerly cast out. Priscilla, the rebellious daughter of former president Alexander Dahl, doesn't have to fear these new laws. Her birth and connections will protect her, her husband Benjamin, and their baby son. However, spurred on by their sense of justice, Priscilla and Ben side with the ...

Three decades after Khomeinist thugs raided the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Westerners are puzzled by Iran. As a nation, Iranians still like the United States. As a revolutionary regime, however, Iran is the principal bastion of anti-Americanism. From Ayatollah Khomeini's "historic mission" to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's messianic campaign in the name of the "Hidden Imam," The Persian Night depicts a trajectory that will most likely lead to war.

Fresh off his biggest triumphs, a landslide reelection victory, and the birth of twins, Donald Burlington’s world almost comes crashing down when first his beautiful wife, Nicole, then he almost lose their lives. Political intrigue, infighting, and an epic power play for the very office he holds, President of the United States follows leading to a constitutional crisis that nearly leads to war. Can Donald Burlington regain his health, bring his family back together, and finish the job he started - helping restore the United States of America back to the vision and ideals first defined by ...

A false messiah. A pending alien invasion. One mysterious young girl stands in defiance. After losing his wife and daughter, Navy Chaplain Luke Remington encounters a crisis of faith and reinvents himself as an elite Navy SEAL sniper. When Luke’s first overwatch assignment at a controversial UN Summit is disrupted by an all-powerful figure claiming to be Jesus, things get weird—especially when the crowd starts vanishing by the hundreds. But his trouble really starts when a peculiar nine-year-old girl defies the alleged messiah and motions for Luke to come find her. Thus begins a mind-...

Who watches the watchmen? Mai Fisher’s tenure as head of the United Nations Intelligence Directorate has gone smoother than she expected—until someone in her inner circle betrays The Directorate and tries to rig the U.S. presidential election to favor the conservative billionaire candidate. Mai knows if he wins, the top levels of the U.S. government will be headed by deconstructionist right-wingers and white supremacists, but first she has to deal with the traitor in The Directorate's midst. His fate? Extraordinary rendition and indefinite incarceration. But someone in The ...

The Center revolves around nine young scientists and friends, working together to save the human race in the not too distant future. Our main character, Dr. Ben Logan PHD, has been visited by a woman, in his dreams, since he was five years old. Over the years she has shown him events that will begin happening to his planet, Earth. Natural disasters, and manmade ones. Uncontrollable Global Warming, Political unrest, corruption, and War. Events that will eventually lead to the end of life on Earth. She has tasked him with building a team and finding a way to lead that team and a handful of ...

Germany’s deadliest secrets don’t go through official channels. They go through Department 89 Led by the ruthless and brilliant Major Sophie Decker, Department 89 handles the missions no one else will touch. Covert assassinations. Political blackmail. International threats. Domestic enemies. This elite black-ops intelligence unit operates without oversight—and without mercy. They don’t follow rules. They remove problems. In twenty high-stakes missions of espionage, betrayal, and covert action, Sophie Decker and her team strike from the shadows to protect a nation that can never ...

In this fast-paced novella, a young Guardian is dropped into Chinese-held Tanzania on a solo mission to find a man he's never met. When he is exposed and captured, it seems that the worst he faces is some low-level proscribed pre-Egan tech of the military kind. Then he finds the man he's never met and his mission pivots to become a race against time to save not only his own life, but that of his entire country.

Now is an extraordinary time. Across the country, people are losing their loved ones, their livelihoods, their homes, and even their own lives to COVID-19. Despite the pandemic, countless protests erupted this summer over the recurring loss of Black lives. Reverberations of shock and outrage remain with us all. There's a Revolution Outside, My Love captures and articulates all of these roiling sentiments unleashed by a profound national reckoning.

A graphic and biting polemic that still holds a fierce political relevance and impact despite being written over half a century ago. First published in 1937 it charts George Orwell's observations of working-class life during the 1930s in the industrial heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire. His depictions of social injustice and rising unemployment, the dangerous working conditions in the mines amid general squalor and hunger also bring together many of the ideas explored in his later works and novels.

Mohsin Hamid's brilliant, moving, and extraordinarily clever novels have not only made him an international best seller, they have earned him a reputation as a "master critic of the modern global condition" ( Foreign Policy). His stories are at once timeless and of-the-moment, and his themes are universal: love, language, ambition, power, corruption, religion, family, identity. Here, he explores this terrain from a different angle in essays that deftly counterpoise the personal and the political.