HOT BOOKS Inaugural Party

Hosted by David Talbot

with Rebecca Gordon, Nicholas Schou, and Alexander Zaitchik

City Lights celebrates an exciting new publishing venture!

Our body politic has grown sluggish and dull-witted, stuffed with a steady diet of junk media and corporate propaganda. It's time to light a fire under this slumbering giant, American democracy. It's time to think dangerous thoughts. Enter Hot Books. The Hot Books series will seek to live up to its name – offering tightly-written books (no longer than 40,000 words) that passionately address the most burning issues of our day. Some Hot Books will take the form of argument and storytelling. Others will be works of investigative journalism, trying to fill the void left by too many newspapers and magazines in the digital age, when in-depth reporting and editorial budgets have been severely cut back. Whether they are searing collections of essays or works of crusading journalism, Hot Books will draw inspiration from that great prophetic tradition of speaking truth to power and enlightening the public. Hot Books authors will dare to speak the unspeakable.

Three new books are celebrated:

American Nuremberg: The US Officials Who Should Be Prosecuted for Post 9/11 War Crimes - by Rebecca Gordon

Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood - by Nicholas Schou

The Gilded Rage: A Wild Ride Through Donald Trump's America - by Alexander Zaitchik

David Talbot dreamed up Hot Books in partnership with Tony Lyons, publisher of the independent book company Skyhorse. Talbot is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Salon. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, the national bestseller, Season of the Witch, and, most recently, The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA and the Rise of America’s Secret Government. Talbot was a senior editor at Mother Jones magazine, and his writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Time, The Guardian and other publications. He lives in San Francisco.