Book tours

Tuesday

Liz Truss

Liz Truss’s American book tour

National Harbor, Maryland I’ve been visiting the United States for many years, but 2024 was my first time at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, where I spoke on the main stage, complete with American-style big hair. Compared to political events in the United Kingdom, people at CPAC take things to a whole new level: where else could you have a debate about the Constitution with a woman in a Statue of Liberty costume? Or meet a family of five in matching sweaters that each bear a letter to spell out “TRUMP?” The enthusiasm for the cause was infectious. And few speakers were more dazzling than the newly installed Argentinean president Javier Milei. I confess to bagging a front-row seat for his address.

CPAC

Thursday

Benjamin Hall

I was injured covering Ukraine — but I’ll work my way back

A little over a year ago, I was gravely injured in a missile blast while covering the Ukraine-Russia war for Fox News. The severity of my injuries has made recovery a very long and arduous process. Every day I have a number of things I have to do. So in the morning, I’ve got about an hour and a half or so of facing all the problems that have popped up overnight. I do a lot of exercises, a lot of stretches. I do a lot of balance work. Everything from using rubber bands to try and get my thumb to move a little bit more to taking care of my burns because if I don’t, they break open and bleed a lot. I do that every single day. The list is honestly endless, and the beginning of every day is tough. I tell myself that the worst part of the day is finished in the morning, which is great.

recovery

Saturday

Bethany Mandel

A new book and a newborn

One of the most famous lines from the classic 2002 romcom Sweet Home Alabama has leading lady Reese Witherspoon incredulously asking a redneck hometown friend, “You brought a baby... to a bar?” I encounter that incredulity frequently, every time I cart my kids to work events, including those at bars. But a book tour? This was a new one. A book tour with a baby is hard, but babies (and kids) are worth all the hardships. As Scrubs’s wise Dr. Kelso once explained, “Nothing that’s worth having in life comes easy.” That’s a mantra in our home as we wade through the hard times, and it’s a lesson we impart to our kids as we endeavor to raise them into happy warriors and resilient and caring adults.

book

Sunday

James Kirchick

Have we finally reached Peak Pride?

Have we reached Peak Pride? As a gay man, I suppose I should feel gratified by the fervor with which seemingly every entity across the Western world declares its solidarity with the LGBTQIAA+ community every June. But this year, the omnipresence of the rainbow flag — the latest iteration of which resembles a testing of the Emergency Broadcast System on acid — has gone a tad too far. Lounging poolside at a Las Vegas resort for my younger brother’s bachelor party, I casually reveal to the bikini-clad young woman lying next to me that I am gay. “Happy Pride!” she enthuses, in a way that a gentile wishes me a “Happy Chanukah” upon discovering, at Christmastime, that I’m Jewish.

gay