In her three decades as a journalist, Lisa Napoli has worked for the New York Times, MSNBC, the National Public Radio Show Marketplace, and a variety of other outlets. She’s covered everything from presidential campaigns, to hacker conventions and a hostage standoff, to the dawn of the World Wide Web. Her first book, Radio Shangri-La, was about the impact of media culture on the mysterious Kingdom of Bhutan, where she was invited to help start a radio station at the dawn of democratic rule. Ray & Joan: The Man Who Made the McDonald’s Fortune and the Woman Who Gave It All Away (Dutton) is a quintessentially American tale of corporate intrigue and private passion. Ray Kroc was peddling franchises around the country for a fledgling hamburger stand in the 1950s, when he entered a St. Paul supper club and encountered a beautiful young piano player who would change his life. The attraction between Ray and Joan was instantaneous, and instantly problematic. Yet even the fact that both were married to other people couldn’t derail their roller-coaster of a romance. Together, their two stories form a compelling portrait of the twentieth century: a story of big business, big love, and big giving.
