Who's ready for the oval office?
They call it a horse race, and in this election the candidates got out of the gate early. But it's still hard to tell them apart and make a choice. Mark Halperin, veteran reporter and political analyst, sizes up the White House hopefuls with intelligence, insight, and his trademark wit, offering engaging, in-depth examinations of the histories, qualifications, agendas, and personal beliefs of the major candidates—including Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson, as well as some "dark horse" contenders.
Among the features in this book:
<ul>
<li>Issue-by-issue charts defining where each candidate stands on the war in Iraq, health care, taxes, the economy, and other significant points of debate.</li>
<li>An assessment of each candidate's strengths and weaknesses.</li>
<li>A hypothetical glimpse into the future of each candidate's potential presidency.</li>
<li>Areas of possible controversy that could spark heated discussion and affect the outcome of the race.</li>
<li>Personal facts and anecdotes about each candidate—including exclusive Q&amp;As covering everything from their junk food weaknesses to their biggest superstitions.</li>
</ul>

The Undecided Voter's Guide to the Next President: Who the Candidates Are, Where They Come from, and How You Can Choose

Politics & Social Sciences

Halperin, Mark

Politics & Government

Harper-perennial

"This shit would be really interesting if we weren't in the middle of it." —Barack Obama, September 2008 In 2008, the presidential election became blockbuster entertainment. Everyone was watching as the race for the White House unfolded like something from the realm of fiction. The meteoric rise and historic triumph of Barack Obama. The shocking fall of the House of Clinton—and the improbable resurrection of Hillary as Obama's partner and America's face to the world. The mercurial performance of John McCain and the mesmerizing emergence of Sarah Palin. But despite the wall-to-wall media coverage of this spellbinding drama, remarkably little of the real story behind the headlines has yet been told. In Game Change, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, two of the country's leading political reporters, use their unrivaled access to pull back the curtain on the Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Palin campaigns. How did Obama convince himself that, despite the thinness of his résumé, he could somehow beat the odds to become the nation's first African American president? How did the tumultuous relationship between the Clintons shape—and warp—Hillary's supposedly unstoppable bid? What was behind her husband's furious outbursts and devastating political miscalculations? Why did McCain make the novice governor of Alaska his running mate? And was Palin merely painfully out of her depth—or troubled in more serious ways? Game Change answers those questions and more, laying bare the secret history of the 2008 campaign. Heilemann and Halperin take us inside the Obama machine, where staffers referred to the candidate as "Black Jesus." They unearth the quiet conspiracy in the U.S. Senate to prod Obama into the race, driven in part by the fears of senior Democrats that Bill Clinton's personal life might cripple Hillary's presidential prospects. They expose the twisted tale of John Edwards's affair with Rielle Hunter, the truth behind the downfall of Rudy Giuliani, and the doubts of those responsible for vetting Palin about her readiness for the Republican ticket—along with the McCain campaign staff's worries about her fitness for office. And they reveal how, in an emotional late-night phone call, Obama succeeded in wooing Clinton, despite her staunch resistance, to become his secretary of state. Based on hundreds of interviews with the people who lived the story, Game Change is a reportorial tour de force that reads like a fast-paced novel. Character driven and dialogue rich, replete with extravagantly detailed scenes, this is the occasionally shocking, often hilarious, ultimately definitive account of the campaign of a lifetime.

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime

Heilemann, John

Reference

Harper

“It’s one of the best books on politics of any kind I’ve read. For entertainment value, I put it up there with Catch 22.” —The Financial Times
“It transports you to a parallel universe in which everything in the National Enquirer is true….More interesting is what we learn about the candidates themselves: their frailties, egos and almost super-human stamina.” —The Financial Times
“I can’t put down this book!” —Stephen Colbert
Game Change is the New York Times bestselling story of the 2008 presidential election, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, two of the best political reporters in the country. In the spirit of Richard Ben Cramer’s What It Takes and Theodore H. White’s The Making of the President 1960, this classic campaign trail book tells the defining story of a new era in American politics, going deeper behind the scenes of the Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin campaigns than any other account of the historic 2008 election.

History

Americas

Harper Large Print

"This shit would be really interesting if we weren't in the middle of it." —Barack Obama, September 2008 In 2008, the presidential election became blockbuster entertainment. Everyone was watching as the race for the White House unfolded like something from the realm of fiction. The meteoric rise and historic triumph of Barack Obama. The shocking fall of the House of Clinton—and the improbable resurrection of Hillary as Obama's partner and America's face to the world. The mercurial performance of John McCain and the mesmerizing emergence of Sarah Palin. Based on hundreds of interviews with the people who lived the story, Game Change is a reportorial tour de force that reads like a fast-paced novel. Character driven and dialogue rich, replete with extravagantly detailed scenes, this is the occasionally shocking, often hilarious, ultimately definitive account of the campaign of a lifetime.

Game Change CD

HarperAudio

In 2008, the presidential election became blockbuster entertainment. Everyone was watching as the race for the White House unfolded like something from the realm of fiction. The meteoric rise and historic triumph of Barack Obama. The shocking fall of the House of Clinton—and the improbable resurrection of Hillary as Obama's partner and America's face to the world. The mercurial performance of John McCain and the mesmerizing emergence of Sarah Palin.
Based on hundreds of interviews with the people who lived the story, Game Change is a reportorial tour de force that reads like a fast-paced novel. Character driven and dialogue rich, replete with extravagantly detailed scenes, this is the occasionally shocking, often hilarious, ultimately definitive account of the campaign of a lifetime.

Game Change Low Price: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime

The runaway number one bestseller. The book that set Washington ablaze. The new non-fiction classic. Forget everything you think you know about the making of the most powerful man on the planet. Obama's triumph was not inevitable: it was the end product of a brilliant, crazy, unique political campaign. Race of a Lifetime is the gripping inside story of those thrilling months, from the collapsing House of Clinton to the erratic John McCain and the bewildering Sarah Palin. Brimming with exclusive revelations, this compulsively readable book lays bare the characters of the candidates, warts and all, and charts the true path to the White House. It's a tour de force: the shocking, funny, and definitive account of the campaign of a lifetime.

Race of a Lifetime: How Obama Won the White House

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

Penguin

Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times: "Those hungry for political news will read Double Down for the scooplets and insidery glimpses it serves up about the two campaigns, and the clues it offers about the positioning already going on among Republicans and Democrats for 2016 ... The book testifies to its authors’ energetic legwork and insider access... creating a novelistic narrative that provides a you-are-there immediacy... They succeed in taking readers interested in the backstabbing and backstage maneuvering of the 2012 campaign behind the curtains, providing a tactile... sense of what it looked like from the inside." In their runaway bestseller Game Change, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann captured the full drama of Barack Obama’s improbable, dazzling victory over the Clintons, John McCain, and Sarah Palin. With the same masterly reporting, unparalleled access, and narrative skill, Double Down picks up the story in the Oval Office, where the president is beset by crises both inherited and unforeseen—facing defiance from his political foes, disenchantment from the voters, disdain from the nation’s powerful money machers, and dysfunction within the West Wing. As 2012 looms, leaders of the Republican Party, salivating over Obama’s political fragility, see a chance to wrest back control of the White House—and the country. So how did the Republicans screw it up? How did Obama survive the onslaught of super PACs and defy the predictions of a one-term presidency? Double Down follows the gaudy carnival of GOP contenders—ambitious and flawed, famous and infamous, charismatic and cartoonish—as Mitt Romney, the straitlaced, can-do, gaffe-prone multimillionaire from Massachusetts, scraped and scratched his way to the nomination. Double Down exposes blunders, scuffles, and machinations far beyond the klieg lights of the campaign trail: Obama storming out of a White House meeting with his high command after accusing them of betrayal. Romney’s mind-set as he made his controversial “47 percent” comments. The real reasons New Jersey governor Chris Christie was never going to be Mitt’s running mate. The intervention held by the president’s staff to rescue their boss from political self-destruction. The way the tense détente between Obama and Bill Clinton morphed into political gold. And the answer to one of the campaign’s great mysteries—how did Clint Eastwood end up performing Dada dinner theater at the Republican convention? In Double Down, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann take the reader into back rooms and closed-door meetings, laying bare the secret history of the 2012 campaign for a panoramic account of an election that was as hard fought as it was lastingly consequential.

Double Down: Game Change 2012

Penguin??Books

In Falling Through the Music, his fifth major book of poetry, Mark Halperin gives us consolation, guidance, and companionship while delivering an accomplished meditation on the first real glimpses of the limits on a life. Displaying an agility of formal invention―he moves easily from a Whitmanesque and witty litany to rhymed quatrains―Halperin deftly melds technique to theme. As in “Someone Pausing," he is able to place us in the mind of someone―any one of us―who has stood on an island in the street, fully attentive and present, knowing nothing stays, not even the observer.

Falling Through the Music

Literature & Fiction

United States

University of Notre Dame Press

The intense piety of late T'ang essays on Buddhism by literati has helped earn the T'ang its title of the "golden age of Chinese Buddhism." In contrast, the Sung is often seen as an age in which the literati distanced themselves from Buddhism. This study of Sung devotional texts shows, however, that many literati participated in intra-Buddhist debates. Others were drawn to Buddhism because of its power, which found expression and reinforcement in its ties with the state. For some, monasteries were extravagant houses of worship that reflected the corruption of the age; for others, the sacrifice and industry demanded by such projects were exemplars worthy of emulation. Finally, Buddhist temples could evoke highly personal feelings of filial piety and nostalgia.
This book demonstrates that representations of Buddhism by lay people underwent a major change during the T'ang-Sung transition. These changes built on basic transformations within the Buddhist and classicist traditions and sometimes resulted in the use of Buddhism and Buddhist temples as frames of reference to evaluate aspects of lay society. Buddhism, far from being pushed to the margins of Chinese culture, became even more a part of everyday elite Chinese life.

Out of the Cloister: Literati Perspectives on Buddhism in Sung China, 960–1279 (Harvard East Asian Monographs)

Asia

Harvard University Asia Center

Double Down

‘What am I supposed to do when he starts spewing his bullshit?’ Barack Obama preparing for his first debate with Mitt Romney In their runaway bestseller Game Change / Race of a Lifetime, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann captured the full drama of Barack Obama’s improbable, dazzling victory over the Clintons, John McCain and Sarah Palin. With the same masterly reporting, unparalleled access, and narrative skill, Double Down picks up the story in the Oval Office, where the president is beset by crises both inherited and unforeseen – facing defiance from his political foes, disenchantment from voters, disdain from the nation’s powerful finance figures and dysfunction within the West Wing. As 2012 looms, leaders of the Republican Party, salivating over Obama’s political fragility, see a chance to wrestle back control of the White House – and the country. So how did the Republicans screw it up? How did Obama survive the onslaught and defy the predictions of a one-term presidency? Double Down follows the gaudy carnival of Republican contenders – ambitious and flawed, famous and infamous, charismatic and cartoonish – as Mitt Romney, the straitlaced, can-do, gaffe-prone multimillionaire from Massachusetts, scraped and scratched his way to the nomination, while Obama is seen storming out of a White House meeting with his high command after accusing them of betrayal, and gradually transforming a tense détente with Bill Clinton into political gold. Double Down takes you into back rooms and closed-door meetings, laying bare the secret history of the 2012 campaign in a panoramic account of an election that was as hard fought as it was lastingly consequential.

Historical

WH Allen

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Halperin, Mark. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Halperin, Mark

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Halperin, Mark. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Undecided Voter's Guide to the Next President: Who the Candidates Are, Where They Come from, and How You Can Choose

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime

Game Change CD

Game Change Low Price: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime

Race of a Lifetime: How Obama Won the White House

Double Down: Game Change 2012

Falling Through the Music

Out of the Cloister: Literati Perspectives on Buddhism in Sung China, 960–1279 (Harvard East Asian Monographs)

Double Down