Book of the Day: 'Assume Nothing: Encounters With Assassins, Spies, Presidents and Would Be Masters of the Universe'

This memoir by renowned investigative journalist Edward Jay Epstein is a compelling, fast read filled with fascinating stories.

So I’ve decided to reinstitute our “Book of the Day” feature. We’ll see if I can manage to make it a consistent feature each day (probably not!). I’d like to try since we really need to up the amount of premium content for our paid subscribers and at the same time try and encourage more people to upgrade. So I’ll try for each day to feature a book from my collection or that I’ve acquired from the library and I’ll discuss a bit about why the book interests me. For many of these titles I won’t have read them yet and will more be talking about why I got them from the library or what I chose to buy them not having read them yet.

What I plan to do with this feature: a few paragraphs will discuss briefly what the book is about and why I’m so excited about it. And then behind the paywall I’ll record exclusive audio for our subscribers discussing it and the subjects it explores.

First up is the memoir of one of my favorite writers whose complete collection of books I’m in the process of collecting. He’s one of my “read everything they write” authors and I’m just endlessly impressed by the unique information from his investigative journalistic research and the infectious style of his prose. Each one of his books that I’ve read just reads like butter - so rich, so slick, such a treat.

He’s explored so many subjects in his many books: three titles exploring the JFK assassination with rigor and reason, Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth (1966), Counterplot (1968), Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald (1978), and The JFK Assassination Diary: My Search for Answers to the Mystery of the Century (2013); media analyses News from Nowhere. Television and the News (1973), Between Fact and Fiction: The Problem of Journalism (1975) The Big Picture: Money and Power in Hollywood (2000), The Hollywood Economist: The Hidden Financial Reality Behind the Movies (2010); crime in Agency of Fear: Opiates and Political Power in America (1977) and The Annals of Unsolved Crime (2013); and espionage with Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB & the CIA (1989), Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer (1996), and How America Lost Its Secrets: Snowden, the Man and the Theft (2017).

He’s also started self-publishing titles too, including: Suicides and Disguised Murders, James Jesus Angleton: Was He Right?, The Money Demons, and his most recent title which I just purchased a few weeks back, One Hundred Theories About Trump.

I hope that gives you an idea of the fascinating range of subjects he’s explored in over 50 years of writing.

Oh: and yesterday I got to interview Epstein for an article I’m writing about him and his memoir for Jewish News Syndicate.

Now I’ll talk a bit about his book and my overall interest in him behind the paywall. Please consider upgrading to a premium subscription to hear more!