Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Michael Willrich
Murder on Federal Street: Tyrone Everett, the Black Mafia, Fixed Fights, and the Last Golden Age of Philadelphia Boxing
Sean Nam. Rushcutters Bay, $22.99 trade paper (332p) ISBN 979-8-218-13729-8 Journalist Nam delivers a knockout debut that shines a light on the underbelly of the boxing industry in 1970s Philadelphia. In 1976, 23-year-old Tyrone “the Butterfly” Everett was a rising star in the ring. His reputation suffered, however, when he lost the WBC super featherweight crown in a shocking upset that some reporters and boxing insiders attributed to a ref who was paid off by the Mafia.
November 1942: An Intimate History of the Turning Point of World War II
Peter Englund, trans. from the Swedish by Peter Graves. Knopf, $32 (496p) ISBN 978-1-524-73331-5 Swedish historian Englund takes a captivating firsthand look at a pivotal month of WWII by drawing on the diaries, letters, and memoirs of 39 people who lived through it—the same approach he utilized in The Beauty and the Sorrow, his 2012 study of WWI.
Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America
Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America Abraham Lincoln’s ambidextrous political acumen is the focus of journalist and public radio personality Inskeep (Imperfect Union) in this eclectic assortment of encounters Lincoln had with those who quarrelled with him. Spotlighting 16 diverse people and their disagreements with Lincoln, Inskeep reveals how the president “learned, adapted, and sought advantage” through these interactions.
Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided
Scott Eyman. Simon & Schuster, $29.99 (432p) ISBN 978-1-982176-35-8 Biographer Eyman (20th Century Fox) presents a riveting account of the events that led the U.S. government in 1952 to banish Charlie Chaplin, a Brit by birth who had lived in America for decades after first arriving as a teenager.
MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios
Trial By Content podcasters Robinson and Gonzales team up with journalist Edwards (The Tao of Bill Murray) to deliver a superb chronicle of how Marvel Studios conquered Hollywood.
Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality
Angus Deaton. Princeton Univ, $24.95 (280p) ISBN 978-0-691-24762-5 Nobel Prize–winning British economist Deaton (The Great Escape) lambastes American economic injustice in these feisty missives.
The Little Book of Aliens
Adam Frank. Harper, $27.99 (240p) ISBN 978-0-06-327973-5 “Is there anyone out there?” asks University of Rochester astrophysicist Frank (Light of the Stars) in this animated overview of scientists’ search for extraterrestrial life.
Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet by Taylor Lorenz
Taylor Lorenz. Simon & Schuster, $29.99 (352p) ISBN 978-1-982146-86-3 This astute debut from Lorenz, a Washington Post technology columnist, traces the tumultuous history of social media from the early 2000s to the present. She describes how such platforms as Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter evolved from the humblest of beginnings, noting that YouTube launched as a dating site in 2005 before broadening its focus.
Mapping the Darkness: The Visionary Scientists Who Unlocked the Mysteries of Sleep
Kenneth Miller. Hachette, $32.50 (400p) ISBN 978-0-306-92495-8 Journalist Miller’s eye-opening debut explores the lives and work of four researchers who pioneered the scientific understanding of sleep. He begins with Nathaniel Kleitman, the “patriarch” of sleep science, who fled Russian pogroms and landed in the U.S. in 1916 at age 20.
Foolish: Tales of Assimilation, Determination, and Humiliation
This witty memoir-in-essays from comedian Cooper (How to Be Successful Without Hurting Men’s Feelings) traces her trajectory from bookish child of Jamaican immigrants to social media superstar. Cooper, who rose to fame in 2020 by lip-syncing to then-president Donald Trump’s statements about Covid-19 (“I see the disinfectant knocks it out in a minute”), begins by recounting her youth in Rockville, Md., as the youngest of four children.
White Holes by Carlo Rovelli
Carlo Rovelli, trans. from the Italian by Simon Carnell. Riverhead, $26 (176p) ISBN 978-0-593-54544-7 This mind-bending outing by physicist Rovelli (Anaximander) explores the possibility of the existence of white holes, the hypothesized inverse of black holes.
S1E64: The Origins of Vaccine Hesitancy / Jonathan Berman, Nadja Durbach, Michael Willrich
“Every generation has generated its own anti-vaccinationism based on very similar concerns.” -Jonathan Berman Vaccines are a safe and critical public health tool. They prevent crippling childhood diseases like polio. They’re responsible for the eradication of one of the deadliest diseases ever — smallpox — and, today, they’re one of the most important measures we have to end the coronavirus pandemic.
Testimony by Robbie Robertson
Robertson, guitarist and songwriter for the Band, highlights his career, from his early days with Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks to the last waltz of the Band in 1976. A masterly storyteller, Robertson easily draws readers into tales of his youth and of his days with Bob Dylan. He describes the eventual formation of the Band and the group’s quick climb to fame. For the first time, Robertson tells his side of the story regarding his relationship with fellow Band member Levon Helm.
How The 'Pox' Epidemic Changed Vaccination Rules
Pox: An American History By Michael Willrich Hardcover, 400 pages Penguin Press List Price: $27.95 Read An Excerpt Historian Michael Willrich was planning to write a book about civil liberties in the aftermath of Sept. 11 when he stumbled across an article from The New York Times archives. It was about a 1901 smallpox vaccination raid in New York — when 250 men arrived at a Little Italy tenement house in the middle of the night and set about vaccinating everyone they could find.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Michael
Contact Michael, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack