As the nation's top spymaster, former Director of National Intelligence Clapper vowed never to publish a memoir. Then he became enraged at Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign on behalf of Donald Trump, and he changed his mind about writing a book.A few weeks before Trump's surprise victory, Clapper and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson issued a public warning about Russian dirty tricks meant to influence American voters. The author felt dismay when the vast majority of Americans apparently paid no attention to the warning. In the introduction, Clapper states unambiguously that following the election, "the CIA and the FBI continued to uncover evidence of preelection Russian propaganda, all intended to undermine [Hillary] Clinton and promote Trump, and the Intelligence Community continued to find indications of Russian cyber operations to interfere with the election." The author then devotes the next 300 pages to the trajectory of his career, during which he served Republican and Democratic presidents from positions inside and outside the military. From 2010 to 2017, Clapper served as President Barack Obama's nonpartisan senior intelligence adviser. As the author's chronicle of his spy management unfolds chronologically, he offers insights into U.S. relations with North and South Korea, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Ukraine, and, of course, Russia, with an emphasis on Vladimir Putin's determination to damage the U.S. in any way short of nuclear warfare. In the final quarter of the text, Clapper demonstrates his increasing exasperation with the current president's lies, inability to deal rationally with other nations, utter lack of respect for worthy diplomats and politicians, and, especially, his cozying up to Putin.The book will be judged, fairly or unfairly, by what comes next. If Clapper's revelations undermine the support of an irrational Trump among voters, he will consider the book a success, however limited. However, if the book fails to contribute to the halting of Trump's widespread corruption, Clapper makes clear he will do whatever he can from his retirement to protect what is left of American democracy. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

twilight of the gods By Steven Hyden. (Dey Street, $25.99.) As the rock icons of the 20th century become increasingly geriatric, Hyden explores the history and significance of groups like the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles - and how their music changed the culture. sh?tshow By Charlie LeDuff. (Penguin Press, $27.) LeDuff, a journalist often given the moniker "gonzo," traveled the country seeking out real Americans, putting him on the front lines of what he calls the decline of the United States, facts and fears By James R. Clapper with Trey Brown. (Viking, $30.) Clapper's memoir covers his eventful years as director of national intelligence, a period that spanned the raid on Osama bin Laden, the Benghazi attack, the leaks of Edward Snowden and - most consequentially - Russia's interference in the last presidential election, the summer i met jack By Michelle Gable. (St. Martin's, $27.99.) This novel is based on the real story of Alicia Darr, a postwar refugee who worked in the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Mass. Prom there some imagination takes over as Gable recounts this unlikely love story of a future president's romance with the European maid. Harvey milk By Lillian Faderman. (Yale, $25.) The first openly gay man elected to public office in the United States, Harvey Milk was a San Francisco city supervisor until his assassination in 1978. Faderman puts Milk's story into context, describing how, being both Jewish and gay, he felt himself to be a double outsider. "My favorite sort of novel is the one that seems at first a genteel tale of family life, then cracks open to illuminate the world. The so-called domestic (an epithet we almost only apply to books by women) story that ends up being about something bigger than one family's life. Shirley Hazzard's the transit of venus is the best example of such I've read since slogging through Henry James. Hazzard is better, actually, because her book isn't an endurance test but rather sheer exhilaration. The sentences are flawless, the story (of two orphaned Australian sisters making their way in the world) riveting. Describing a bedroom, Hazzard writes, 'Even a mildewed snapshot of an English cottage, if it was labelled 1915, was smirched and spattered with a brown consciousness of the trenches.' That's the book in a nutshell: a canny and moving examination of how the two world wars affected everything that came thereafter." - RUMAAN ALAM, SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR, BOOKS, ON WHAT HE'S READING.