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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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English
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ONE DAY

Gene Weingarten

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Gene Weingarten explores the events of a random day in U.S. history, offering a diorama of American life that illuminates all that has changed--and all that hasn't--in the last three decades.
December 28, 1986. It was a Sunday--Ronald Reagan was president, Oliver Stone's Platoon was lighting up movie screens across the country, and readers were terrified by Stephen King's latest novel, It. It is also the date that Gene Weingarten, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and Washington Post columnist, literally pulled out of a hat, selecting the month, day, and year at random. Compared to other dates seared in our collective memory, that was a quiet Sunday between Christmas and the New Year. But as Weingarten asks, is there really such a thing as an ordinary day?

In ONE DAY, what was a seemingly insignificant day in American history has been transformed into a riveting, poignant collection about the quiet dramas that were entered into the public record but escaped public memory. Through a combination of crowd-sourced stories and years of research, Weingarten revisits the lives of December 28's stories, showing how an arbitrarily chosen 24 hours can act as a herald for the momentous events that would later make history. He finds that racial and economic disparity, and the mistreatment of minority groups are deep veins, running through even the quietest days in American history. And he shows that small dramas and kindnesses in the unremarkable news items can illuminate the often surprising moments of human connection.

Gene Weingarten is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and writer for The Washington Post, where he writes "Below the Beltway," the weekly humor column. His previous books include I'm With Stupid: One Man. One Woman. 10,000 Years of Misunderstanding Between the Sexes Cleared Right Up; The Hypochondriac's Guide to Life. And Death; and Old Dogs: Are the Best Dogs. He lives with his wife in Washington, DC.
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Book

Published 2019-10-22 by Blue Rider Press

Book

Published 2019-10-22 by Blue Rider Press

Comments

The book adds up to something greater than the individual stories... Weingarten taps into the wonder of what it is to be alive. Read more...

USA Today included the book in their list of "5 Books not to Miss," saying the book has a "a fascinating conceit." Read more...

Gene Weingarten has a great Guardian interview/feature talking about One Day that live early this morning. The Guardian calls One Day an "excellent book.humble yet profound." The full interview/feature is really great... Read more...

Bookmarks also marked ONE DAY as a rave, according to five great reviews. Read more...

Bookmarks marked ONE DAY as a rave, according to six great reviews. "...a helluva good look at The Human Experience..." / "... fascinating, well-researched narrative..." / "...This collection should have wide appeal, whether read straight through, cover to cover, or dipped into for an occasional article." ... Read more...

New York Post included the book in their roundup of "The Best Books this Week.": Pulitzer Prize winner Weingarten dismisses the idea that there could be such a thing as an "ordinary" day in his exploration of the events of Dec. 28, 1986. A fascinating look at 24 hours. Read more...

Ace writer... The journalistic version of a swan dive off a tall ladder into a teacup.

Gene Weingarten's ONE DAY will be the inspiration for a full CBS "48 Hours" episode in early December. The episode will focus mainly on the first chapter of the book (which you can read via Washington Post Magazine), and they will incorporate Gene's inspiration for writing the book and have his narration throughout the episode. Final air-date and more details to come.

Gene Weingarten has a great Guardian interview/feature talking about One Day that live early this morning. The Guardian calls One Day an "excellent book.humble yet profound." The full interview/feature is really great; you can read it here: "'Truth is the best story': inside Gene Weingarten's extraordinary new book." Read more...

A master storyteller... a helluva good look at The Human Experience.

The book adds up to something greater than the individual stories.Weingarten taps into the wonder of what it is to be alive. Read more...