In a forthcoming memoir, E. Jean Carroll, the former advice columnist for Elle magazine, claims that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s. The book, What Do We Need Men For?, will be released by St. Martin's Press next month, and an excerpt with her account of the rape is currently on New York Magazine's website. Trump has responded: "I've never met this woman in my life." A photograph of Trump and Carroll at a party suggests otherwise. In another statement, Trump states: "Shame on those who make up false stories of assault to try to get publicity for themselves, or sell a book..."
Slate has a transcript of Ta-Nehisi Coates's testimony at last week's congressional hearing on reparations. "It is impossible to imagine America without the inheritance of slavery. As historian Ed Baptist has written, enslavement 'shaped every crucial aspect of the economy and politics of America,' so that by 1836, more than 600 million, or more than half of the economic activity in the United States, derived directly or indirectly from the cotton produced by the million-odd slaves. By the time the enslaved were emancipated, they comprised the largest single asset in America: 3 billion in 1860 dollars, more than all the other assets in the country combined."
Andrew Weissmann, a former top prosecutor for Robert S. Mueller, has sold a book to Random House. The book will reportedly offer an insider's account of the special cousel's Russia investigations.
Musician and writer Leonard Cohen's love letters to Marianne Ihlen sold at an online Christie’s auction for $876,000.
Reza Aslan, the bestselling author of Zealot, has sold a his new nonfiction book Baskerville to Norton. The book is an account of Howard Conklin Baskerville, an American born in the 1880s who is the only US citizen who died fighting for democracy in Iran. According to Aslan: “Even today, Howard Baskerville remains a hero among many in Iran, but he’s been largely forgotten in the United States. During a time of heightened animosity between the U.S. and Iran, his remarkable and historic story and his place in Iranian history provide amazing insight into the long, complicated relationship between our two countries.”
