You Tell’em Joel Stein

The night Donald Trump won the presidency, Joel Stein, who wrote the bestseller Man Made: A Stupid Quest For Masculinity, knew why. Never mind economic anxiety or racism. Trump was anti-elite. This was a rejection of academics, policy papers, international treaties and people who think they're better than you — in a word, people like Joel Stein. His response, In Defense of Elitism (Grand Central Publishing), is a full-throated argument for expertise, the mainstream press, medium-rare steak (no ketchup, please), and civility. To find out how we got here and what can be done, he spends a week in Roberts County, TX, which had the highest percentage of Trump voters in the country, and takes note — all the while using the biggest words he knows. New York Times bestselling author Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs, Einstein) warns that "Every paragraph of this book will make you laugh, but it will also (I promise) change the way you think. […] Deeply reported and poignant, with a light touch of sweet self-awareness, his journey can help us all take our minds to a better place."

Roxanne Coady is the owner of R.J. Julia, one of the leading independent booksellers in the United States, and founder of Just the Right Book, the largest online personalized book-of-the-month subscription service. Authors of every genre choose R.J. Julia as the place to begin their publicity tours and the store was named the best independent bookstore by Publishers Weekly magazine. Coady is sought frequently for her opinion on the latest books. She appears periodically on the Today Show and Good Morning America.