The Washington Post eBooks

The Kennedy Baby: The Loss that Transformed JFK

A sensitive portrait of how a profound tragedy changed one of America’s most prominent families.

“A warm, intimate, intriguing look at a less-well known side of JFK--as family man. Judiciously but movingly, Steven Levingston shows us the cool and ironic Kennedy becoming a tender husband and father in the last months of his life.” -- Evan Thomas, author of Robert Kennedy: His Life

Their marriage is the subject of countless books. His presidency has been pored over minute by minute by historians. They lived their lives in the public eye and under a microscope that magnified all of their flaws, all of their scandals, all of their tragedies. Now Steven Levingston, nonfiction editor at The Washington Post, presents a devastating story in unprecedented detail, about a child John and Jackie Kennedy loved and lost.

On August 7, 1963, heavily pregnant Jackie Kennedy collapsed, marking the beginning of a harrowing day and a half. The doctors and family went into full emergency mode, including a helicopter ride to a hospital, a scramble by the President to join her from the White House, and a C-section to deliver a baby boy, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, five and a half weeks early with a severe respiratory ailment. The baby was so frail he was immediately baptized.
Over the next thirty nine hours the nation watched and waited. The vigil was spread across the front pages of the newspapers; the country watched the life of Patrick unfold on the evening news. Within the Kennedy family, the drama was transforming the president and his marriage. Both he and Jackie, long known for their cool exteriors, were brought together by a shared sadness and love as they never had been. Although baby Patrick succumbed after 39 hours, his father was born anew through the tragedy.

The Kennedy Baby is a vivid drama of a national tragedy and private trauma for the Kennedy family, taking readers through the lead up to the birth, the ordeal in the hospital, and JFK’s personal growth through his hardship and the progress toward a changed marriage – a breakthrough all the more acute in light of the tragedy that loomed only months away.

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Fall Dining Guide: Washington DC 2013

Washington D.C.'s culinary landscape is celebrated in the 14th annual Fall Dining Guide.

The Washington Post's food critic's essential guide to the D.C. dining scene is here. For his 14th Fall Dining Guide, Tom Sietsema selects his 40 favorite Washington D.C.-area restaurants, reflecting a much-changed dining scene with exciting new flavors. From bars and taco joints to four star local legends, the Fall Dining Guide has a dinner for everyone.

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The Permanent War: Rise of the Drones

The Pulitzer Prize Finalist examines the United States drone campaign, and U.S. counterterrorism policies.

On January 30, 2013, President Barack Obama acknowledged publicly what most Americans already knew: The U.S. government was operating a covert drone campaign in Pakistan. Even as Obama maintained policy was for judicious actions only, his own administration was drawing up secret plans to institutionalize targeted killings in U.S. counterterrorism policy.
The scope of those plans remained hidden until The Washington Post published a three-part series as reporters Craig Whitlock, Greg Miller, Karen DeYoung and Julie Tate explored how the use of drones moved from a temporary means to kill terrorists to a permanent weapon of war.
Collected together for the first time, The Permanent War is the result of a year of investigative reporting on the who, what, and how behind the targeted killing policies that will form the core of American counterterrorism efforts for years to come.

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Civil War Stories: A 150th Anniversary Collection

Stories from - and about - a nation divided.

At The Washington Post, the Civil War has held an enduring fascination for both readers and writers. Raging from 1861-1865, the Battle Between the States has left a lasting imprint on the United States' collective psyche for 150 years. Civil WarStories: A 150th Anniversary Collection aggregates historical data with contemporary reflections, as journalists and historians put the bloody war into context:

- A timeline of Lincoln's candidacy - and what may have happened if he had lost the election
- An ode to West Virginia, which abandoned Virginia rather than secede from the Union
- The obstacles faced by emancipated slaves
- Women in the federal workforce - and disguised as men on the battlefields
- The modern anti-slavery crusade of Frederick Douglass' great-great-great-grandson

Personal stories of tragedy and triumph still resonate today. From biographical histories to examinations of the war's legacies, Civil War Stories: A 150th Anniversary Collection is a unique compilation of stories of when our nation was divided..

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The Prophets of Oak Ridge: How Three Pacifists Broke Into the Nuclear Sanctum

In the summer of 2012, in the dead of night, three peace activists penetrated the exterior of Y-12 in Tennessee, supposedly one of the most secure nuclear-weapons facilities in the United States. A drifter, an 82-year-old nun and a house painter. And if they had been terrorists armed with explosives, intent on mass destruction? That nightmare scenario underlies the government’s response to the intrusion. The Prophets of Oak Ridge is the story of two competing worldviews, of conscience vs. court, of fantasy vs. reality, of history vs. the future.

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The Bryce Harper Story: Rise of a Young Slugger

No one had ever seen a player like Bryce Harper before, and perhaps never had a rookie lived up so completely to his billing. This newly updated e-book from The Washington Post has the stories of the jaw-dropping achievements as covered by The Post, whose sports journalists have been there for the entire ride. Get your story of a legend today.

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Published in partnership with
Diversion Books

Democracy Inc: How Members of Congress Have Cashed In On Their Jobs

Have lawmakers helped themselves while helping the country?
After the nation’s financial crisis led Congress to unprecedented economic intervention, The Washington Post began an investigation that pierced the secrecy of the deeply flawed financial disclosure system that governs the 535 men and women who draft the nation’s laws. Members of Congress directed millions of dollars to infrastructure projects near their residences and businesses, in some cases paving roads in front of their houses. They made major trades in the stocks of companies pressing them for legislation. They wrote laws favoring industries in which they were invested. They sponsored bills on which their own family members were paid to lobby. All of it is legal under the rules Congress has written for itself. Democracy Inc. shows the consequences of this system.

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Keystone XL: Down the Line
A Journey Along the Controversial Pipeline and Into America's Energy Frontier

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline has inflamed the bitter fight over America’s energy future. Opponents of the 1,700-mile pipeline, which is designed to bring oil extracted from Canadian tar sands to refineries in Texas, say it represents a furthering of a dead-end oil-based energy policy that is unsustainable and poisonous. They have turned the permit requests to build the pipeline into an environmental litmus test for President Barack Obama. Supporters of the Keystone XL say it represents a step toward America’s energy independence. Beyond the Beltway, the real story of this pipeline is one about American frontiers — the lengths to which we go for oil and the intrusive effects that quest causes all the way down the line. Steven Mufson, a reporter for The Washington Post, journeyed by car along the length of the proposed pipeline to see what this policy debate looks like at the ground level. Each segment of his trip touched on different issues: climate change and the oil sands; the U.S. energy trade with Canada; the North Dakota shale boom and its woes; prairie populism in Nebraska; the Ogallala aquifer and the threat of leaks; Native Americans and their desire to protect land, water, and burial sites along the old Trail of Tears; the fight of ranchers and farmers against a Canadian company’s right to eminent domain; and why both oil sands producers and Texas refiners want to see the pipeline completed. As long as the world relies on fossil fuels for transportation and industry, we will face unappealing choices. The Keystone XL pipeline serves as a larger metaphor, illuminating the vast energy infrastructure it takes to sustain the American lifestyle and the debatable choices we must make in pursuit of short-term comfort. Which risks, now and in the future, are we willing to take?
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Published in partnership with
Diversion Books

Kids Around the World

From the Editors of KidsPost

KidsPost journeys around the world to show readers how children in other countries and cultures live and play. These stories by Post foreign correspondents feature the real-life stories of kids all over the world. From Yuki who rides a subway train to school every day in Tokyo to Sayeed who guides tourists on camel rides in Egypt, these children’s stories carry the underlying message that in the eyes of our children, there is far more that unites us than divides us.

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Published in partnership with
Diversion Books

Guns in America

In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy, The Washington Post investigates America's complicated relationship with guns.

Wayne LaPierre, the leader of the National Rifle Association, calls gun control "the fight of the century." For more than a year, The Washington Post examined the long, bloody history of gun control in America, an investigation that was reopened and expanded after the massacre of first-graders in Newtown, Connecticut.

With new reporting on the state of gun reform in the aftermath of Newtown, including how the families are recovering and the dangers represented by new technologies such as 3D printing, this updated eBook shines a light on the hidden life of guns in the United States. From the power of the NRA and its war over the Second Amendment to US guns fueling the drug war along the Mexican border, the prize-winning journalists of the Washington Post reveal the politics and the passions behind the continuing gun control debate.

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Diversion Books

Zero Day: The Threat in Cyberspace

Will the world’s next war be fought in cyberspace?

"It's going to happen," said former National Defense University Professor Dan Kuehl.

So much of the world’s activity takes place on the internet now – including commerce, banking and communications -- the Pentagon has declared war in cyberspace an inevitability. For more than a year, Washington Post reporter Robert O'Harrow has explored the threats proliferating in our digital universe. This eBook is a compilation of that reporting. With chapters built around real people, including hackers, security researchers and corporate executives, this book will help regular people, lawmakers and businesses better understand the mind-bending challenge of keeping the internet safe from hackers and security breaches -- and all out war.

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Published in partnership with
Diversion Books

Obama vs. Romney: 'The Take' on Election 2012

The presidential campaign of 2012 was one of the closest and most fierce, expensive, and unpredictable in our history, and Washington Post senior political correspondent Dan Balz chronicled every twist.

Obama vs. Romney: 'The Take' on Election 2012 is a collection of dispatches from the campaign trail, by one the preeminent political journalists of our times.  Balz recounts the back-and-forth slugfest of 2012 in a single seamless narrative, including his hundreds of interviews with behind-the-scenes players who crafted both Obama’s scorched-earth re-election game plan and Romney’s audacious strategy for unseating a president. The result is a complete inside story of the campaign from the early days in both parties, through the dramatic ending that wasn’t written until the very last hours of the election. 

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Published in partnership with
Diversion Books

Obama: The Evolution of a President

Barack Obama arrived in Washington in 2008 symbolizing the political change he promised on the campaign trail during his historic presidential victory. But in many ways, Washington changed Obama more than Obama changed Washington.  This is the story of how the idealist of the 2008 campaign evolved into a hard-nosed pragmatist, shelving his promise of a new kind of politics to fight increasingly partisan budget battles and run a bare-knuckles re-election campaign. Through a series of articles and photographs published by The Washington Post, this book outlines the change in his political personality during his four years in office, and describes his engagement with some of the most challenging issues he confronted during his time in office – and what his approach may mean for a second term.

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The Original Watergate Stories

Forward by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
To mark the 40th anniversary of the Watergate scandal, The Washington Post's seminal Watergate stories have been gathered together as an eBook, including a foreword by journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein assessing the impact of their stories 40 years later. 

"Held in Plot to Bug Democratic Offices Here", said the headline at the bottom of page one in the Washington Post on Sunday, June 18, 1972.  The story reported that a team of burglars had been arrested inside the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office complex in Washington. On assignment, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward uncovered a widespread political scandal and cover-up at the highest levels of government, culminating with the resignation of President Richard Nixon. The Post won a Pulitzer Prize for its work, which became the subject of two best-selling books and a renowned movie, "All the President's Men."

This eBook is a look back at the dramatic chain of events that would convulse Washington for two years and lead to the first resignation of a U.S. president, forever changing American politics. 

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Published in partnership with
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The Hunt for bin Laden

The long and secret effort to track down Osama bin Laden has been called the biggest, costliest manhunt in history. This reconstruction, compiled from reporting from more than two- dozen Washington Post correspondents and staffers over more than 15 years, traces the hunt from its beginnings in 1997, during the Clinton administration.

The Hunt for bin Laden is a behind-the-scenes narrative reveals the fourteen-year, billion-dollar effort that brought the hunt to a swift and conclusive end, including:
- The numerous times CIA agents had bin Laden in their crosshairs prior to 9/11, only to have missions canceled at the last moment
- Vivid details of bin Laden’s behavior in the wake of the attacks on September 11th.
- The myriad of ways he evaded detection in his years on the lam, including his narrow escape from the caves and tunnels of Tora Bora
- How the war in Iraq drained resources and diverted the spotlight from the hunt, turning the mission to kill or capture bin Laden into a back-burner operation and political liability for the Bush administration. 
- It wasn't until the Iraq war began to wind down that the search gained its endgame momentum, the Post shows, reclassified as a highest priority again by a new president.
- How increasingly punishing drone attacks, interrogations of captured al Qaeda operatives, and an ever-expanding network of informants finally began to yield a trail that led to bin Laden’s courier, a cell phone interception, and ultimately, bin Laden.

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