When the networks called the 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden on Saturday, November 7, 2020, people from coast to coast exhaled--and danced in the streets. This quick-turnaround volume, a collection of 38 personal essays from writers all over the country--"many of America's most thoughtful voices," as Jon Meacham puts it--captures the week Trump was voted out, a unique juncture in American life, and helps point toward a way forward to a nation less divided. An eclectic lineup of contributors--from Rosanna Arquette, Susan Bro and General Wesley Clark to Keith Olbermann, Stewart O'Nan and Anthony Scaramucci--puts a year of transition into perspective, and summons the anxieties and hopes so many have for better times ahead. As award-winning columnist Mary C. Curtis writes in the lead essay, "Saying you're not interested in politics is dangerous because, like it or not, politics is interested in you." Novelist Christopher Buckley, a former speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, laments, "The Republican Senate, with one exception, has become a stay of ovine, lickspittle quislings, degenerate descendants of such giants as Everett Dirksen, Barry Goldwater, Howard Baker and John McCain." Nero Award-winning mystery novelist Stephen Mack Jones writes, to Donald Trump, "Remember: You live in my house. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is my house. My ancestors built it at a cost of blood, soul and labor. I pay my taxes every year to feed you, clothe you and your family and staff and fly you around the country and the world in my tricked-out private jet. If you violate any aspect of your four-year lease--any aspect--Lord Jesus so help me, I will do everything in my power to kick yo narrow ass to the curb." As Publisher Steve Kettmann writes in the Introduction: "The hope is that in putting out these glimpses so quickly, giving them an immediacy unusual in book publishing, we can help in the mourning for all that has been lost, help in the healing (of ourselves and of our country), and help in the pained effort, like moving limbs that have gone numb from inactivity, to give new life to our democracy. We stared into the abyss, tottered on the edge, and a record-setting surge of voting and activism delivered us from the very real threat of plunging into autocracy."

The stinkers, the rascals, the reprobates. . . and the just plain dumb.

(Yes, Bill, he's talking about you.)

Geraldo Rivera. The Coca-Cola Company. Victoria Gotti. Tom Cruise. Various members of the Bush administration. All have earned the dishonor of "Worst Person in the World," awarded by MSNBC's witty and controversial reporter Keith Olbermann on his nightly MSNBC show Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Now, he brings all his bronze, silver, and gold medalists together in this wildly entertaining collection that reveals just how twisted people can be--and how much fun it is to call them out on it. Plus, he reveals the winner of the most coveted award of all: "Worst in Show."

From tongue-in-cheek observations to truly horrific accounts, Olbermann skewers both the mighty and the meek, the well-known and the anonymous for their misdeeds, including:

Ann Coulter, for, among other things, calling Muslims "ragheads" in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington

22-year-old Ronald MacDonald, who was accused of theft at his place of employment . . . Wendy's

Barbara Bush, for making a generous donation to the Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund earmarked exclusively for the purchase of computer software . . . software sold by her son, Neil

The stinkers, the rascals, the reprobates. . . and the just plain dumb.

(Yes, Bill, he's talking about you.)

Geraldo Rivera. The Coca-Cola Company. Victoria Gotti. Tom Cruise. Various members of the Bush administration. All have earned the dishonor of "Worst Person in the World," awarded by MSNBC's witty and controversial reporter Keith Olbermann on his nightly MSNBC show Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Now, he brings all his bronze, silver, and gold medalists together in this wildly entertaining collection that reveals just how twisted people can be--and how much fun it is to call them out on it.

From tongue-in-cheek observations to truly horrific accounts, Olbermann skewers both the mighty and the meek, the well-known and the anonymous for their misdeeds, including:

Ann Coulter, for, among other things, calling Muslims "ragheads" in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington

Barbara Bush, for making a generous donation to the Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund earmarked exclusively for the purchase of computer software . . . software sold by her son, Neil

The staff of Your World with Neil Cavuto, for the story about the murders of Iraqi civilians that was accompanied by the on-screen graphic: "All-out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Be a Good Thing?"

Olbermann also reports on some of the recent fallout from his awards, such as the controversy with John Gibson and the mysterious disappearance of remarks about Cindy Sheehan on Rush Limbaugh's Web site. Plus, he reveals the winner of the most coveted award of all: "Worst in Show."

From World Sports Headquarters in historic Bristol, Connecticut, comes the book that's more colorful than Dennis Rodman's hair. Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick, the former tag-team partners of ESPN's award winning SportsCenter, mark for the ages their most unforgettable moments, which have transformed the art of sports broadcasting -- bringing what People magazine calls their "Letterman-like loopiness and Koppelesque smarts" to the printed page in THE BIG SHOW

Less expensive (and easier to read) than a big-leaguer's autograph, The Big Show gives you the honest, horrifying, yet always entertaining story of two men, three cameras, and highlights run amok, including:

• How Keith and Dan made The Big Show run slicker than Pat Riley's hair

• The origins of Dan and Keith's patented phrases

• Keith and Dan's on-air flubs -- errors that made Bill Buckner's blunder seem minor

• Dan and Keith's pantheon of all-time greatest athletes (Okay, who picked Coach Reeves from The White Shadow?)

• And so much more we couldn't -- and wouldn't dare -- mention here!

"I have done a report of some kind on the Fred Merkle story, whether in print, on radio, or on TV, on or about its anniversary, September 23, virtually every year since I was in college. The saga has always seemed to me to be a microcosm not just of baseball, nor of celebrity, but of life. The rules sometimes change while you're playing the game. Those you trust to tell you the changes often don't bother to. That for which history still mocks you, would have gone unnoticed if you had done it a year or a month or a day before. That's who Fred Merkle is. I have often proposed September 23 as a national day of amnesty, in Fred Merkle's memory."--Keith Olbermann, from his foreword.