Books from Anderson Cooper

Guts

The New York Times–bestselling memoir from the two-time Emmy Award–winning actress is “vividly and memorably rendered . . . honest, brave and funny” (Kirkus Reviews).“It felt like I was speeding on the Autobahn toward hell, trapped inside a DeLorean with no brakes. And even if I could somehow stop, I’d still be screwed, because there’s no way I’d ever be able to figure out how to open those insane, cocaine-designed doors.”The award-winning star of Third Rock from the Sun and The Exes, Kristen Johnston has written her first book, a surprisingly raw and triumphant memoir that is outrageous, moving, sweet, tragic, and heartbreakingly honest. Guts is a true achievement—a memoir that manages to be as frank and revealing as it takes us on a journey from addiction to recovery that is so truthful and relatable, so remarkably fresh, it promises to stay with you for a long, long time.“Guts is at once deadly serious and wildly hilarious—an impossible magic trick at which you are powerless not to stare.” —Rob Burnett Executive Producer, The Late Show with David Letterman“I literally couldn’t put it down.” —Amy Sedaris“Disarming in its honesty, hysterically funny, pure, real, and so heartbreakingly brutal.” —Kate Winslet“A spirited, raw and thrilling book.” ―George C. Wolfe, director and writer“A captivating, laugh-out-loud, totally vulnerable and excellently crafted book.” —Andy Cohen, VP of programming and host at Bravo“Should be required reading for anyone who is an addict, or simply cares about one. Which means everyone on the planet.” —Joe Schrank, National Youth Recovery Foundation & co-creator of TheFix
Anderson Cooper
TV Host, Journalist
I can’t stop reading @kjothesmartass’s memoir #GUTS. Her battle with addiction. Dark, honest and hilarious.
Books from Anderson Cooper

Coming Out to Play

A history making memoir of the first openly gay professional athlete in North America, now the producer of Fellow Travelers and My Policeman“Rogers made history.” —Sports Illustrated Robbie Rogers knows better than most that keeping secrets can crush you. But for much of his life Robbie lived in paralyzing fear that sharing his big secret would cost him the love of his family and his career as a professional soccer player. So he never told anyone what was destroying his soul, both on and off the field. While the world around Robbie was changing with breathtaking speed, he knew that for a gay man playing a professional team sport it might as well be 1958. He could be a professional soccer player. Or he could be an out gay man. He couldn’t do both. Then at the age of twenty-five and after nearly stepping away from a brilliant career—one that included an NCAA Championship, winning the MLS Cup, and competing in the Olympics—he chose to tell the truth. But instead of facing the rejection he feared, he was embraced—by his family, by his teammates, and his fans. In Coming Out to Play, Robbie takes readers on his incredible journey from terrified teenager to a trailblazing out and proud professional soccer player for the L.A. Galaxy, who has embraced his new identity as a role model and champion for those still struggling with the secrets that keep them from living their dreams.
Anderson Cooper
TV Host, Journalist
Looking forward to reading my friend @RobbieRogers new book #ComingOutToPlay. He is a real inspiration. So proud of all he has accomplished
Books from Anderson Cooper

Forever

From the shores of Ireland, Cormac O'Connor sets out on a fateful journey to avenge the deaths of his parents and honour the code of his ancestors. His quest brings him to the settlement of New York, seething with tensions between English and Irish, whites and blacks, British and Americans, where he is swept up in a tide of conspiracy and violence. In return for aiding an African shaman who was brought to America in chains, Cormac is given an otherworldly gift: he will live forever - as long as he never leaves the island of Manhattan.A writer, a painter, and a man of sensual appetites, Cormac takes part in the dramas of his times through fat years and lean. Through it all, Cormac must fight, generation after generation, a force of evil that returns relentlessly in the scions of a single family. It is a family whose path first crossed his in Ireland and whose persistence puts at risk all his hopes for fulfilling his destiny. As he searches out these blood enemies, he must watch everyone he touches slip away. And so he seeks the mysterious dark lady who alone can free him from the blessing and the curse of his long life.
Anderson Cooper
TV Host, Journalist
I'm reading Forever by Pete Hamill. I like it!
Books from Anderson Cooper

Acrobaddict

"This raw and emotional tale is a roller coaster through the depths of addiction, tragedy, hard work, and redemption that truly reflects Joe's spirit and determination to stay clean in a world where he is surrounded by temptation. It is proof that with hard work, anything is possible."—Sanjay Gupta, MD, CNN Chief Medical CorrespondentA world-class athlete's tale of two passions: his ardent love for gymnastics and his intoxicating romance with heroin. Gritty and raw, this is a story that goes beyond the typical addiction memoir. A gripping narrative that captures the fragility and tenacity of the human spirit and how Putignano ultimately triumphs in his recovery and redemption. Follow the author as he goes on a journey from the US Olympic Training Center to homeless shelters to shooting heroin on the job to being declared deas. Acrobaddict is a story about the close relationship between athletics and addiction—how the same energy, obsession, and dedication that can create an Olympic athlete can also create a homeless drug addict.
Anderson Cooper
TV Host, Journalist
Am reading #Acrobaddict. A very raw, honest and harrowing account of addiction and survival by gymnast @JoePutignano.
Books from Anderson Cooper

Columbine

**THE GROUNDBREAKING BESTSELLER AND CLASSIC**'Excellent . . . amazing how much still comes as a surprise' New York Times Book Review'Like Capote's In Cold Blood, this tour de force gets below the who and the what of a horrifying incident to lay bare the devastating why' People'A staggering work of journalism' Washington Post'The tragedies keep coming. As we reel from the latest horror...' So begins the epilogue, illustrating how Columbine has become the template for nearly two decades of "spectacle murders." It makes the imperative to understand the crime that sparked this flame more urgent than ever.What really happened on April 20th, 1999? The horror left an indelible stamp on the American psyche, but most of what we thought we knew was wrong. It wasn't about jocks, Goths or the Trench Coast Mafia. Dave Cullen was one of the first reporters on the scene, and he spent ten years on this book, the definitive account. With a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen, he draws on mountains of evidence, insight from the world's leading forensic psychologists , and the killers' own words and drawings - several reproduced in a new appendix. Cullen paints raw portraits of two polar opposite killers. They contrast starkly with the flashes of resilience and redemption among the survivors.
Anderson Cooper
TV Host, Journalist
Just read @DaveCullen's remarkable book "Columbine"for the second time. So well researched and well written. Essential reading.
Books from Anderson Cooper

No Place to Hide

GLENN GREENWALD is the author of several best sellers, including How Would a Patriot Act? and With Liberty and Justice for Some. Acclaimed as one of the 25 most influential political commentators by The Atlantic and one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy for 2013, Greenwald is a former constitutional law and civil rights attorney. He was a columnist for The Guardian until October, 2013, and is now building a new media organization. He is a frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC and various other television and radio outlets. His NSA reporting in 2013 has won numerous awards, including the top investigative journalism award for the 2013 Online Journalism Association, the Esso Award for Excellence in Reporting (the Brazilian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize), and the 2013 Pioneer Award from Electronic Frontier Foundation. He is also the recipient of the first annual I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism in 2009 and the 2010 Online Journalism Association Award for his investigative work on the arrest and detention of Bradley Manning. He is a frequent guest lecturer on college campuses and his work has appeared in many newspapers and political news magazines, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The American Conservative.
Anderson Cooper
TV Host, Journalist
Am reading @ggreenwald's new book #NoPlaceToHide. It's a really good read. - exciting, alarming, eye-opening
Books from Anderson Cooper

The Syrian Rebellion

Fouad Ajami offers a detailed historical perspective on the current rebellion in Syria. Focusing on the similarities and differences in skills between former dictator Hafez al-Assad and his successor son, Bashar, Ajami explains how an irresistible force clashed with an immovable object: the regime versus people who conquered fear to challenge a despot of unspeakable cruelty.
Anderson Cooper
TV Host, Journalist
I've been reading Fouad Ajami's new book "The Syrian Rebellion." I recommend it highly.
Books from Anderson Cooper

It's Not Over

From the author of the groundbreaking bestseller Queer in America, a myth-shattering look at the present and future of gay rights Marriage equality has surged across the country. Closet doors have burst open in business, entertainment, and even major league sports. But as longtime advocate Michelangelo Signorile argues in his most provocative book yet, the excitement of such breathless change makes this moment more dangerous than ever. Puncturing the illusion that victory is now inevitable, Signorile marshals stinging evidence that an age-old hatred, homophobia, is still a basic fact of American life. He exposes the bigotry of the brewing religious conservative backlash against LGBT rights and challenges the complacency and hypocrisy of supposed allies in Washington, the media, and Hollywood. Not just a wake-up call, It's Not Over is also a battle plan for the fights to come in the march toward equality. Signorile tells the stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans who have refused to be merely tolerated, or worse, and are demanding full acceptance. And he documents signs of hope in schools and communities finding new ways to combat ignorance, bullying, and fear. Urgent and empowering, It's Not Over is a necessary book from one of our most electrifying voices.
Anderson Cooper
TV Host, Journalist
Just finished @ItsNotOverBook by @MSignorile. Really interesting and important read about the struggle for equality.
Books from Anderson Cooper

Fire Shut Up in My Bones

A gorgeous, moving memoir of how one of America's most innovative and respected journalists found his voice by coming to terms with a painful past. New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow mines the compelling poetry of the out-of-time African-American Louisiana town where he grew up -- a place where slavery's legacy felt astonishingly close, reverberating in the elders' stories and in the near-constant wash of violence. Blow's attachment to his mother -- a fiercely driven woman with five sons, brass knuckles in her glove box, a job plucking poultry at a nearby factory, a soon-to-be-ex-husband, and a love of newspapers and learning -- cannot protect him from secret abuse at the hands of an older cousin. It's damage that triggers years of anger and searing self-questioning. Finally, Blow escapes to a nearby state university, where he joins a black fraternity. After a passage of brutal hazing, he enters a world of racial and sexual privilege that feels like everything he's ever needed and wanted, until he's called upon, himself, to become the one perpetuating the shocking abuse. A powerfully redemptive memoir that both fits the tradition of African-American storytelling from the South, and gives it an indelible new slant. AUTHOR: Charles M. Blow has been a columnist at the New York Times since 2008, is a CNN commentator, and has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, the BBC, Al Jazeera, and HBO. Blow lives in Brooklyn with his three children and was recently named eleventh most influential African American in the world by Root magazine. Website for book: http://www.charlesmblow.com/ REVIEWS: "'Fire Shut Up in My Bones' is a luminous memoir that digs deep into territory I've longed to read about in black men's writing: into the horror of being submerged in a vast drowning swirl of racial, spiritual and sexual complexity, only to somehow find one's self afloat, though gasping for breath, and then, at long last and at great cost, swimming. I believe both ancestors and Descendents will cheer." - Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 'The Color Purple'. "When you finish Charles Blow's mesmerizing memoir, you will cry. And you will better understand poverty, the south, racism, sex, fear, rage and love. Then you will miss being in his authorial grip. Then you will start reading this stunning book again." - Lawrence ODonnell Host of MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell
Anderson Cooper
TV Host, Journalist
Just finished reading powerful new book by @CharlesMBlow. It's called #FireShutUpInMyBones. So well-written!
Books from Anderson Cooper

All the Light We Cannot See

*NOW A NETFLIX LIMITED SERIES—from producer and director Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) starring Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie, and newcomer Aria Mia Loberti* Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, the beloved instant New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the Resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge. Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times).
Anderson Cooper
TV Host, Journalist
In Washington DC for the night. Just finished #AllTheLightWeCannotSee. I loved it. If you haven't read it, it's very moving.
Books from Anderson Cooper

Live Wire

An instant New York Times bestseller from Kelly Ripa—a sharp, funny, and honest collection of real-life stories showing the many dimensions and crackling wit of the beloved daytime talk show host.In Live Wire, her first book, Kelly shows what really makes her tick. As a professional, as a wife, as a daughter and as a mother, she brings a hard-earned wisdom and an eye for the absurdity of life to every minute of every day. It is her relatability in all of these roles that has earned her fans worldwide and millions of followers on social media. Whether recounting how she and Mark really met, the level of chauvinism she experienced on set, how Jersey Pride follows her wherever she goes, and many, many moments of utter mortification (whence she proves that you cannot, in fact, die of embarrassment) Kelly always tells it like it is. Ms. Ripa takes no prisoners.Surprising, at times savage, a little shameless and always with humor… Live Wire shows Kelly as she really is offscreen—a very wise woman who has something to say.
Anderson Cooper
TV Host, Journalist
WOW! @kellyripa’s new book is soooo good! It’s really, really funny, sharply written, intimate, and revealing.
Books from Anderson Cooper

Await Your Reply

BONUS: This edition contains an Await Your Reply discussion guide. The lives of three strangers interconnect in unforeseen ways–and with unexpected consequences–in acclaimed author Dan Chaon’s gripping, brilliantly written new novel. Longing to get on with his life, Miles Cheshire nevertheless can’t stop searching for his troubled twin brother, Hayden, who has been missing for ten years. Hayden has covered his tracks skillfully, moving stealthily from place to place, managing along the way to hold down various jobs and seem, to the people he meets, entirely normal. But some version of the truth is always concealed. A few days after graduating from high school, Lucy Lattimore sneaks away from the small town of Pompey, Ohio, with her charismatic former history teacher. They arrive in Nebraska, in the middle of nowhere, at a long-deserted motel next to a dried-up reservoir, to figure out the next move on their path to a new life. But soon Lucy begins to feel quietly uneasy. My whole life is a lie, thinks Ryan Schuyler, who has recently learned some shocking news. In response, he walks off the Northwestern University campus, hops on a bus, and breaks loose from his existence, which suddenly seems abstract and tenuous. Presumed dead, Ryan decides to remake himself–through unconventional and precarious means. Await Your Reply is a literary masterwork with the momentum of a thriller, an unforgettable novel in which pasts are invented and reinvented and the future is both seductively uncharted and perilously unmoored.
Anderson Cooper
TV Host, Journalist
Await Your Reply — “It’s a really well written novel about identity theft, which makes it sound dull, but it’s not. It’s so well written, and has wonderful twists and turns.”
Books recommended by Anderson Cooper
8 books

Anderson Cooper Book Recommendations - Part 3

8 Books recommended by Anderson Cooper.
Anderson Cooper
TV Host, Journalist
8 Books recommended by Anderson Cooper.
Books recommended by Anderson Cooper
10 books

Anderson Cooper Book Recommendations - Part 2

10 Books recommended by Anderson Cooper.
Anderson Cooper
TV Host, Journalist
10 Books recommended by Anderson Cooper.
Books recommended by Anderson Cooper
5 books

Anderson Cooper Book Recommendations - Part 1

Books recommended by Anderson Cooper.
Anderson Cooper
TV Host, Journalist
Books recommended by Anderson Cooper.