One of the many things I enjoyed during my 21 years at USA TODAY (1987-2008) was working with and learning from so many terrific writers. Many have written books; fiction and nonfiction on a wide variety of topics. Some were published during those years, but most came later. I’ve curated these titles below, by current and former USA TODAY writers, editors, and people who worked behind the scenes.
Many of these authors were my colleagues during those 21 years; some for a long time and others for only a short period. Some came to the paper after my time. I’ve also included authors with USAT bylines, but who were primarily associated with either Gannett News Service, or individual Gannett newspapers.
I’ve attempted to make this list as complete as possible, but inevitably I’ve overlooked some authors and/or books. Please let me know what needs to be added, and I will update the file periodically. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these books!
Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz: Zero Day Threat: The Shocking Truth of How Banks And Credit Bureaus Help Cyber Crooks Steal Your Money and Identity
Kevin Allen: 100 Things Red Wings Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die; Red Wing Nation: Detroit’s Greatest Players Talk about Red Wings Hockey; Star-Spangled Hockey: Celebrating 75 Years of USA Hockey; “Then Wayne Said to Mario. . .”: The Best Stanley Cup Stories Ever Told (Best Sports Stories Ever Told); What It Means to Be a Wolverine: Michigan’s Greatest Players Talk About Michigan Football; Why Is the Stanley Cup in Mario Lemieux’s Swimming Pool?: How Winners Celebrate with the World’s Most Famous Cup; Without Fear: Hockey’s 50 Greatest Goaltenders
Cheryl Somers Aubin: The Survivor Tree: Inspired by a True Story
Edward C. Baig: iPad and iPad Pro For Dummies; iPhone For Dummies: Updated for iPhone 12 models and iOS 14; Macs For Dummies, 14th edition
Joan Biskupic: American Original: The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia; Breaking In: The Rise of Sonia Sotomayor and the Politics of Justice; Sandra Day O’Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice; The Chief: The Life and Turbulent Times of Chief Justice John Roberts
Cathie Black: Basic Black: The Essential Guide for Getting Ahead at Work (and in Life)
Hal Bodley: How Baseball Explains America; The Team That Wouldn’t Die: The Philadelphia Phillies, World Champions, 1980
Nathan Bomey: After the Fact: The Erosion of Truth and the Inevitable Rise of Donald Trump; Bridge Builders: Bringing People Together in a Polarized Age; Detroit Resurrected: To Bankruptcy and Back
Stephen Borelli: How about That!: The Life of Mel Allen
Norman Brewer: Blending In: A Tale of Homegrown Terrorism
César Brioso: Havana Hardball: Spring Training, Jackie Robinson, and The Cuban League; Last Seasons in Havana: The Castro Revolution and the End of Professional Baseball in Cuba
Donna Britt: Brothers (and Me): A Memoir of Loving and Giving
Rodney A. Brooks: Fixing the Racial Wealth Gap; Rolek Retirement Planning: 60-Second Assessments to Improve Your Planning Today (with Kyle Rolek)
Ben Brown (with Robert A. Watson): Leadership Secrets of the Salvation Army
Don Campbell and Wendell Cochran: Inside the Beltway: A Guide to Washington Reporting, 2nd Edition
Reid S. Cherner: Justice For Some
Josh Chetwynd: Baseball in Europe: A Country by Country History – Second Edition; British Baseball and the West Ham Club: History of a 1930s Professional Team in East London (with Brian A. Belton); How the Hot Dog Found its Bun: Accidental Discoveries and Unexpected Inspirations That Shape What We Eat and Drink; The Book of Nice: A Nice Book About Nice Things for Nice People; The Field Guide to Sports Metaphors: A Compendium of Competitive Words and Idioms; The Secret History of Balls: The Stories Behind the Things We Love to Catch, Whack, Throw, Kick, Bounce and Bat; Totally Scripted: Idioms, Words, and Quotes from Hollywood to Broadway That Have Changed the English Language
Paul Clancy: Chance Encounters: A Family Memoir; Hampton Roads Chronicles: History from the Birthplace of America; Ironclad: The Epic Battle, Calamitous Loss, and Historic Recovery of the USS Monitor; Just a Country Lawyer: Sam Ervin and the Unraveling of Watergate
Chris Colston: American Sportswriter (The American Sportswriter Series Book 1); Tales from the Virginia Tech Sideline: A Collection of the Greatest Hokies Stories Ever Told; The Honor Tap
Steve Conley: The Middle Age – Better Than Nothing: A Sir Quimp Fantasy Graphic Novel; The Middle Age – Sword Troubles: A Sir Quimp Fantasy Graphic Novel; The Middle Age Sketchbook No. 3
Mike Connell: Diamond Pipe: A kid on the run, a fortune on the line; Don’t Retire: Reinvent Yourself: Getting Up to Speed on a New Journey in Life (with Dr. Frank Jenio)
Colleen Connolly-Ahern: Make Book Club Lit Again: Recipes and Ideas to Bring Classics to Life
Larry Copeland: The Moaning Bench
Gary Craig: Seven Million: A Cop, a Priest, a Soldier for the IRA, and the Still-Unsolved Rochester Brink’s Heist
Lloyd B. Cunningham: The Death Boat: The tragic accident on West Lake Okoboji that left nine dead and changed boating in Iowa forever
Anthony DeBarros: Practical SQL: A Beginner’s Guide to Storytelling with Data, Second Edition
John Diamond: The CIA and the Culture of Failure: U.S. Intelligence from the End of the Cold War to the Invasion of Iraq
Pat Duncan: Last Kings of the Old NFL: The 1969 Minnesota Vikings
Jori Epstein: The Upstander: How Surviving the Holocaust Sparked Max Glauben’s Mission to Dismantle Hate
Ken Fortenberry: Flight 7 Is Missing: The Search For My Father’s Killer
William Florence: Emerald Ridge (The Max Blake Mysteries Book 6); Faraway Ridge: A Max Blake Mystery (Max Blake Mystery Series Book 3); Melia Ridge (The Max Blake Mysteries Book 7); Misery Ridge: A Max Blake Mystery; Neptune’s Ridge: A Max Blake Mystery; Raptor’s Ridge (The Max Blake Mysteries Book 8); Raven’s Ridge (The Max Blake Mysteries Book 9); Snowfall Ridge (Max Blake Mysteries Book 4); The Killing Trail; Trail from Crooked River (Max Blake Westerns Book 5); Trail of Revenge (Max Blake: Federal Marshal); Trail to Dead Man’s Gulch (Max Blake Westerns); Trail to Redemption (Max Blake: Federal Marshal)
Bruce Frankel: What Should I Do with the Rest of My Life?: True Stories of Finding Success, Passion, and New Meaning in the Second Half of Life
Tim Friend: Animal Talk: Breaking the Codes of Animal Language; The Third Domain: The Untold Story of Archaea and the Future of Biotechnology
Jim Gath: 264 West 40th St; Diary of a Horseman: My Life and Times at Tierra Madre Horse Sanctuary; COWBOY: A Memoir; Custerfluck; I Hear You, Horse.; Luna Sonora: A Collection
Sheila Gibbons: Exploring Mass Media for A Changing World (with Ray Eldon Hiebert); Taking Their Place: A Documentary History of Women and Journalism (with Maurine H. Beasley)
Kristin Grady Gilger and Julia Wallace: There’s No Crying in Newsrooms: What Women Have Learned about What It Takes to Lead
Meryl Gordon: Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend; Mrs. Astor Regrets: The Hidden Betrayals of a Family Beyond Reproach; The Phantom of Fifth Avenue: The Mysterious Life and Scandalous Death of Heiress Huguette Clark
Jefferson Graham: Video Nation: A DIY guide to planning, shooting, and sharing great video from USA Today’s Talking Tech host
Jim Graham: Bound to the Country: 30 Years of Photographing Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds
George Hager: Balancing Act: Washington’s Troubled Path to a Balanced Budget (with Eric Pianin)
Kerry Hannon: Great Jobs for Everyone 50 +, Updated Edition: Finding Work That Keeps You Happy and Healthy…and Pays the Bills; Great Pajama Jobs: Your Complete Guide to Working from Home; In Control at 50+: How to Succeed in the New World of Work; Love Your Job: The New Rules for Career Happiness; Money Confidence: Really Smart Financial Moves for Newly Single Women; Never Too Old to Get Rich: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Starting a Business Mid-Life; What’s Next? Updated: Finding Your Passion and Your Dream Job in Your Forties, Fifties and Beyond
John Hillkirk: A Better Idea: Redefining the Way Americans Work (with Donald E. Petersen); Grits, Guts, and Genius: True Tales of MegaSuccess: Who Made Them Happen and How They Did It (with Gary Jacobson)
Bruce Horovitz: Explaining Everything: Poems
Edward Iwata: Fusion Entrepreneurs; The Billionaire’s Gift: A Spiritual Business Parable
Steve Jackson: A Clockwork Murder; All Secure: A Special Operations Soldier’s Fight to Survive on the Battlefield and the Homefront (with Tom Satterly); Bogeyman; Love Me To Death (Pinnacle True Crime); Lucky Lady: The World War II Heroics of the USS Santa Fe and Franklin; Monster; NO ANGELS: The Short Life And Brutal Death Of Brandaline Rose Duvall; No Stone Unturned: The True Story of the World’s Premier Forensic Investigators; Not Lost Forever: My Story of Survival (with Carmina Salcido); Rough Trade: A Shocking True Story of Prostitution, Murder, and Redemption; Smooth Talker: Trail Of Death; To the Edge and Back: My Story from Organ Transplant Survivor to Olympic Snowboarder (with Chris Klug); TRUE CRIME WRITER’S ANTHOLOGY: Volume One Steve Jackson
Kaitlyn Jain: Passports and Pacifiers: Traveling the World, One Tantrum at a Time
Laurence Jolidon: Last Seen Alive: The Search for Missing POWs from the Korean War
Charisse Jones: I Am These Truths: A Memoir of Identity, Justice, and Living Between Worlds (with Sunny Hostin); Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina (with Misty Copeland); Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America (with Kumea Shorter-Gooden)
Del Leonard Jones: Advice From the Top: 1001 Bits of Business Wisdom from the Great Leaders of the Recent Past; At The Bat: The Strikeout That Shamed America; The Cremation of Sam McGee
Daniel J. Kadlec: A New Purpose: Redefining Money, Family, Work, Retirement, and Success (with Ken Dychtwald); Masters of the Universe: Winning Strategies Of America’s Greatest Deal Makers; The Power Years: A User’s Guide to the Rest of Your Life (with Ken Dychtwald)
Deborah Kalb: George Washington and the Magic Hat (The President and Me); Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama (with Marvin Kalb), John Adams and the Magic Bobblehead (The President and Me); Thomas Jefferson and the Return of the Magic Hat (The President and Me)
Katy Kelly: Lucy Rose: Big on Plans; Lucy Rose: Busy Like You Can’t Believe; Lucy Rose: Here’s the Thing About Me; Lucy Rose: Working Myself to Pieces and Bits; Melonhead; Melonhead and the Big Stink; Melonhead and the Vegalicious Disaster
Kelly Kennedy: They Fought for Each Other: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Hardest Hit Unit in Iraq
Larry King: Anything Goes!: What I’ve Learned from Pundits, Politicians, and Presidents; Daddy Day, Daughter Day (with Chaia King); How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: The Secrets of Good Communication; Larry King by Larry King; Love Stories of World War II; My Dad and Me: A Heartwarming Collection of Stories About Fathers from a Host of Larry’s Famous Friends; My Remarkable Journey; Powerful Prayers: Conversations on Faith, Hope, and the Human Spirit with Today’s Most Provocative People; Remember Me When I’m Gone: The Rich and Famous Write Their Own Epitaphs and Obituaries; Taking on Heart Disease: Famous Personalities Recall How They Triumphed Over the Nation’s #1 Killer and How You Can, Too; The People’s Princess: Cherished Memories of Diana, Princess of Wales, From Those Who Knew Her Best; Truth Be Told: Off the Record about Favorite Guests, Memorable Moments, Funniest Jokes, and a Half Century of Asking Questions; When You’re from Brooklyn, Everything Else Is Tokyo
Matt Krantz: Online Investing For Dummies
Joyce Lamb: Caught in the Act; Cold Midnight; Flash Heat; Found Wanting; Relative Strangers; True Colors (True Trilogy Book 2); True Shot (True Trilogy Book 3); True Vision (True Trilogy Book 1)
Jill Lawrence: The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock; Opening Arguments; Phoning It In and Failing to Show: The Story of the 2014 House Primaries (with Walter Shapiro)
Thuan Le Elston: Rendezvous At The Altar: From Vietnam to Virginia
Doug Levy: The Communications Golden Hour: The Essential Guide To Public Information When Every Minute Counts
Wanda Smalls Lloyd: Coming Full Circle: From Jim Crow to Journalism
Ray Locker: Haig’s Coup: How Richard Nixon’s Closest Aide Forced Him from Office; Nixon’s Gamble: How a President’s Own Secret Government Destroyed His Administration
David J. Lynch: When the Luck of the Irish Ran Out: The World’s Most Resilient Country and Its Struggle to Rise Again
Kevin Maney: Intended Consequences: How to Build Market-Leading Companies with Responsible Innovation (with Hemant Tenaja); Megamedia Shakeout: The Inside Story of the Leaders and the Losers in the Exploding Communications Industry; The Maverick and His Machine: Thomas Watson, Sr. and the Making of IBM; The Two-Second Advantage: How We Succeed by Anticipating the Future–Just Enough (with Vivek Ranadive); Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On, and Others Don’t
Tammi Wark Marcoullier: Driving Forces: Inside the First U.S. Women’s Olympics Bobsled Team
Tony Mauro: Illustrated Great Decisions of the Supreme Court; The Supreme Court: Landmark Decisions: 20 Cases that Changed America
Micheline Maynard: City Tips: A Journalist’s Guide To The World’s Great Cities; Collision Course: Inside the Battle for General Motors; Satisfaction Guaranteed: How Zingerman’s Built a Corner Deli into a Global Food Community; The End of Detroit: How the Big Three Lost Their Grip on the American Car Market; The Selling of the American Economy: How Foreign Companies Are Remaking the American Dream
Jim Mc Tague: Crapshoot Investing: How Tech-Savvy Traders and Clueless Regulators Turned the Stock Market into a Casino; Follow the Leader: Murder and Mayhem on Capitol Hill; Onion Heads: They Came to Earth with a Deadly Hidden Agenda; Shake the Money Tree
Robyn Meredith: The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us
Jim Michaels: A Chance in Hell: The Men Who Triumphed Over Iraq’s Deadliest City and Turned the Tide of War
Jerry Mitchell: Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights
Darius Myers: Black Camelot’s Dawn & The Return of Madame Hot Temper; Black Camelot’s Days Of War; Black Camelot’s Dazed by Death; The Publisher’s Dilemma: A Big City Tale of Privilege, Power and Murder
Al Neuharth: Confessions of an S.O.B.
Johanna Neuman: And Yet They Persisted: How American Women Won the Right to Vote; Death With Honors: A Knight & Day Mystery (with Ron Nessen); Gilded Suffragists: The New York Socialites who Fought for Women’s Right to Vote; Lights, Camera, War: Is Media Technology Driving International Politics?; Press Corpse: A Knight & Day Mystery (Knight & Day Mysteries) (with Ron Nessen)
Jayne O’Donnell: Gen BuY: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-Somethings Are Revolutionizing Retail; (with Kit Yarrow)
Susan Page: Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power (April, 2021); The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty
Kimberly Palmer: Generation Earn: The Young Professional’s Guide to Spending, Investing, and Giving Back; Smart Mom, Rich Mom: How to Build Wealth While Raising a Family; The Economy of You: Discover Your Inner Entrepreneur and Recession-Proof Your Life
Catherine Payne: Chepchop Unai; Ten Little Surfers in Hawaii
Peter Prichard: The Making of McPaper: The Inside Story of USA Today
Chuck Raasch: Imperfect Union: A Father’s Search for His Son in the Aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg
Reverend Dr. Barbara Reynolds: Coretta: My Life, My Love, My Legacy (with Coretta Scott King); No, I Won’t Shut Up!; Thirty Years of Telling it Like it Is; Out Of Hell & Living Well
John Ritter: Fatal Conceit
Eileen Rivers: Beyond the Call: Three Women on the Front Lines in Afghanistan
Bruce Rosenstein: Create Your Future the Peter Drucker Way; Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life
Deborah Sharp: Mama Does Time (A Mace Bauer Mystery (1); Mama Gets Hitched (A Mace Bauer Mystery, 3); Mama Gets Trashed (A Mace Bauer Mystery, 5); Mama Rides Shotgun (A Mace Bauer Mystery, 2); Mama Sees Stars (A Mace Bauer Mystery, 4)
Rachel Shuster: LeBron James: King of the Court
Barbara Slavin: Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation
Doug Smith: My Life in Women’s Tennis (with Zina Garrison); Same Same; Whirlwind: The Godfather of Black Tennis: The Life and Times of Dr. Robert Walter Johnson
Jane Sutter: Sutter’s Sodas Satisfy: A Memoir of 90 Years of Sutter Drug Co
Greg Toppo: Running with Robots: The American High School’s Third Century (September 2021); The Game Believes in You: How Digital Play Can Make Our Kids Smarter
Joe Urschel: The Year of Fear: Machine Gun Kelly and the Manhunt that Changed the Nation
Judith Valente: Atchison Blue: A Search for Silence, a Spiritual Home, and a Living Faith; Discovering Moons; How to Be: A Monk and a Journalist Reflect on Living & Dying, Purpose & Prayer, Forgiveness & Friendship (with Brother Paul Quenon); How to Live: What the Rule of St. Benedict Teaches Us About Happiness, Meaning, and Community; Inventing an Alphabet; The Art of Pausing: Meditations for the Overworked and Overwhelmed (with Brother Paul Quenon)
Laura Vanderkam: 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think; All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know About Wealth; I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time; Juliet’s School of Possibilities: A Little Story About the Power of Priorities; Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done; The New Corner Office: How the Most Successful People Work from Home; What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Mornings–and Life; What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend: A Short Guide to Making the Most of Your Days Off
Jeannette Walls: Dish: The Inside Story On The World Of Gossip Became the News and How the News Became Just Another Show; Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel; The Glass Castle: A Memoir; The Silver Star: A Novel
John Walston: The Buzzword Dictionary: 1,000 Phrases Translated from Pompous to English (How America Speaks series)
Jonathan Weisman: (((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump
Larry Weisman: Companions in Courage: Triumphant Tales of Heroic Athletes (with Pat LaFontaine); Let’s Go to the Videotape: All the Plays and Replays from My Life in Sports (with Warner Wolf)
Tim Wendel: Buffalo, Home of the Braves; Cancer Crossings: A Brother, His Doctors, and the Quest for a Cure to Childhood Leukemia; Castro’s Curveball: A Novel; Down to the Last Pitch: How the 1991 Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves Gave Us the Best World Series of All Time; Escape from Castro’s Cuba: A Novel; High Heat: The Secret History of the Fastball and the Improbable Search for the Fastest Pitcher of All Time; Night on Manitou Island; Summer of ’68: The Season That Changed Baseball — and America – Forever
Miles White: From Jim Crow to Jay-Z: Race, Rap, and the Performance of Masculinity (African American Music in Global Perspective)
Stu Whitney: The Covid Chronicles
DeWayne Wickham: Bill Clinton and Black America; Thinking Black: Some of the Nation’s Best Black Columnists Speak Their Mind (edited by DeWayne Wickham); Woodholme: A Black Man’s Story of Growing Up Alone
Tom Wilber: Under the Surface: Fracking, Fortunes, and the Fate of the Marcellus Shale
Jack Williams: The AMS Weather Book: The Ultimate Guide to America’s Weather; The Weather Book: An Easy-to-Understand Guide to the USA’s Weather
Craig Wilson: It’s the Little Things . . .: An Appreciation of Life’s Simple Pleasures
Brian Winter: Long After Midnight at the Niño Bien: A Yanqui’s Missteps in Argentina
Gregg Zoroya: The Chosen Few: A Company of Paratroopers and Its Heroic Struggle to Survive in the Mountains of Afghanistan