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HUSTLE HARDER HUSTLE SMARTER

Name: HUSTLE HARDER HUSTLE SMARTER
Author: Curtis Jackson
ISBN: 978-0-06-295380-3

by Curtis Jackson ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 28, 2020

Savor the celebrity gossip and push through to the lessons of one of hip-hop’s most successful businessmen ever.

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The successful rap artist and media mogul reflects on surviving the streets of Queens, New York, blowing up in the 2000s hip-hop scene, and now thriving in the executive boardroom. “I’ve managed to make it to the top twice,” writes Jackson, popularly known as 50 Cent, who distinguishes himself from the gangster persona he adopted “in order to help deal with the chaos and insanity that I saw all around me growing up.” After semiretiring from a generation-defining hip-hop career (more than 30 million albums sold worldwide), his transition into Hollywood with the hit drama series Power landed him one of the biggest deals in premium cable history. Jackson’s previous book, The 50th Law, co-written by 48 Laws of Power author Robert Greene, was a bestseller; here, the author emphasizes the maturity and growth, as well as the ruthlessness, that come with “moving in corporate America.” Through nine interrelated principles—fans will know he survived being shot nine times—Jackson lays out a key framework for improving one’s personal and professional lives. While the Machiavellian-esque advice (see “how to influence others,” “maintain control”) may read a little rehearsed and rehashed, what promises to keep readers intrigued are the scintillating short stories that reveal the advice’s utility. The author has consistently made headlines through the detailed advertising of the behind-the-scenes lives of celebrities. Indeed, that is one of the lessons: “How To Control the Conversation.” Just like his rhyming, Jackson is adept at delivering a big punchline, such as his call to embrace honesty: “Whether you’re the boss, a partner, or just a worker, you have to create an environment where people can be honest about their character with you. Otherwise, you’re going to build unsustainable situations. That’s what ruined Ja Rule’s career.” Savor the celebrity gossip and push through to the lessons of one of hip-hop’s most successful businessmen ever.

Pub Date: April 28, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-06-295380-3

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 2, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020

Categories:

- BOOK REVIEW
THE ACCOMPLICE
by Curtis Jackson with Aaron Philip Clark

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WHEN WE SEE YOU AGAIN

by Rachel Goldberg-Polin ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 21, 2026

Suffering unfathomable anguish, a mother memorializes her murdered son with great tenderness.

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Remembering “Hershy.”

Three hundred and twenty-eight days. That’s how long Hersh Goldberg-Polin was held in captivity—tortured and starved by his captors in underground tunnels—before he was executed. He was 23 years old. In this unvarnished and heartrending account, Goldberg-Polin’s mother, Rachel, writes of the unending torment that she and her husband, Jon, endured after learning that their son had been kidnapped by Hamas terrorists during the attacks of October 7, 2023. Like so many other young people on that day, Hersh was attending a music festival in Israel—a celebration of love and unity. As Goldberg-Polin writes, her son was “the only American citizen kidnapped alive on October 7th who did not return alive.” In direct, plainspoken language that steers clear of politics, the author, a Jewish educator, recounts “being in a daze of the most indescribably sickening horror and fear, like nothing I had ever felt in my life. I remember my heart racing and feeling like I was in a permanent state of someone scaring me.” In addition to “shovel[ing] out my pain in the form of words,” she shares reminiscences of her son, as well as details that only a parent could notice. “His eyes were cookies,” she says of her “Hershy.” “I couldn’t find the pupils within the dark chocolate-brown irises.…He had a raspy voice, even when he was a baby.” And: “I thought he was hilarious; his sarcasm and humor were similar to mine.” Hersh and his sisters, Leebie and Orly, adapted well to life in Israel after the family moved from Richmond, Virginia. (Hersh was born in the Bay Area.) After being discharged from his service in the Israeli army as a combat medic, he was planning to journey around the world—a longtime dream of his. “So many people have come to love you, Hersh,” Jon Polin writes in the book’s afterword. And with one simple word that has the power to touch any heart, he signs off: “Dada.”

Suffering unfathomable anguish, a mother memorializes her murdered son with great tenderness.

Pub Date: April 21, 2026

ISBN: 9798217198009

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: April 21, 2026

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2026

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BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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Awards & Accolades

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Our Verdict

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New York Times Bestseller

TANQUERAY

by Stephanie Johnson & Brandon Stanton illustrated by Henry Sene Yee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2022

A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.

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Awards & Accolades

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609

Our Verdict

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New York Times Bestseller

A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.

Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.

A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.