Bitcoin Widow

She met the man of her dreams and suddenly had it all. Then, in one fateful night, she lost everything, and the nightmare began Jennifer Robertson was working hard to build a life for herself from the ashes of her first marriage. Still only twenty-six, she swiped right on a dating app and met Gerry Cotten, a man she would not normally have considered—too young and not her type—but found she’d met her match. Eccentric but funny and kind, Cotten turned out to be a bitcoin wizard who quickly amassed substantial wealth through his company, Quadriga. The couple travelled the world, first class all the way, while Cotten worked on his multitude of encrypted laptops. Then, while the couple was on their honeymoon in India, opening an orphanage in their name, Gerry fell ill and died in a matter of hours. Jennifer was consumed by grief and guilt, but that was only the beginning. It turned out that Gerry owed $250 million to Quadriga customers, and all the passwords to his encrypted virtual vaults, hidden on his many laptops, had died with him. Jennifer was left with more than one hundred thousand investors looking for their money, and questions, suspicions and accusations spiralling dangerously out of control. The Quadriga scandal touched off major investment and criminal investigations, not to mention Internet rumours circulating on dark message boards, including claims that Gerry had faked his own death and that his wife was the real mastermind behind a sophisticated sting operation. While Jennifer waited for a dead man’s switch e-mail that would probably never come, it became clear that Cotten had gambled away about $100 million of the funds entrusted to him for investment in his many schemes, leaving Robertson holding the bag. Bitcoin Widow is Catch Me If You Can meets a widow betrayed, a life of fairy-tale romance and private jets torched by duplicity, as Jennifer Robertson tries to reset her life in the wake of one of the biggest investment scandals of the digital age.

"She met the man of her dreams and suddenly had it all. In one fateful night, she lost everything, and the true nightmare began. Jennifer Robertson worked hard and was building a life for herself in the ashes of the marriage to her first husband. Still only 26, she swiped right on a dating app and met Gerry Cotten, a man she would not normally have considered--too young and not her type--but found she'd met her match. Eccentric but funny and kind, Cotten proved a bitcoin wizard who quickly amassed substantial wealth through his company, Quadriga. The couple travelled the world, first class all the way, while Cotton worked away on his multitude of encrypted laptops. Then, while the couple was in India opening an orphanage in their name in December 2018 while on their honeymoon, Gerry died suddenly at the age of 30. Jennifer was consumed by grief and guilt, but soon her nightmare would only grow. It turned out that Gerry owed $250-million to Quadriga customers, and all of the passwords to his encrypted virtual vaults, hidden on his many laptops, died with him. Jennifer found herself with more than one hundred thousand investors looking for their money, and Gerry's secrets had died with him. The Quadriga scandal touched off major investment and criminal investigations, not to mention a million internet rumours circulating on dark message boards, including that he had faked his own death and that his wife was the real mastermind behind a sophisticated sting operation. While Jennifer waited for a dead man's switch e-mail that would probably never come, it became clear that Cotten had gambled away about $100-million of those funds entrusted to him for investment in his many schemes, leaving Jennifer holding the bag. Bitcoin Widow is Catch Me If You Can meets a widow betrayed, a life of fairy-tale romance and private jets torched by betrayal, as Jennifer Robertson looks to reset her life in the wake of one of the biggest investment scandals of the digital age." --

An insightful biography of Mary Ball Washington, the mother of our nation's father The Widow Washington is the first life of Mary Ball Washington, George Washington’s mother, based on archival sources. Her son’s biographers have, for the most part, painted her as self-centered and crude, a trial and an obstacle to her oldest child. But the records tell a very different story. Mary Ball, the daughter of a wealthy planter and a formerly indentured servant, was orphaned young and grew up working hard, practicing frugality and piety. Stepping into Virginia’s upper class, she married an older man, the planter Augustine Washington, with whom she had five children before his death eleven years later. As a widow deprived of most of her late husband’s properties, Mary struggled to raise her children, but managed to secure them places among Virginia’s elite. In her later years, she and her wealthy son George had a contentious relationship, often disagreeing over money, with George dismissing as imaginary her fears of poverty and helplessness. Yet Mary Ball Washington had a greater impact on George than mothers of that time and place usually had on their sons. George did not have the wealth or freedom to enjoy the indulged adolescence typical of young men among the planter class. Mary’s demanding mothering imbued him with many of the moral and religious principles by which he lived. The two were strikingly similar, though the commanding demeanor, persistence, athleticism, penny-pinching, and irascibility that they shared have served the memory of the country’s father immeasurably better than that of his mother. Martha Saxton’s The Widow Washington is a necessary and deeply insightful corrective, telling the story of Mary’s long, arduous life on its own terms, and not treating her as her son’s satellite.

“Part love story, part mystery, this engrossing tale of Cuban-Canadian connections . . . gets to the heart of what can happen when we cross borders.” —Karen Dubinsky, author of Cuba Beyond the Beach Eli Cooper is a resolutely single, fifty-something newspaper copy editor. He spends his nights obsessing over reporters’ unnecessary “thats” and his days caring for a demented father he knows should be in twenty-four-hour care. Eli is too busy—and too self-absorbed—to acknowledge what’s missing in his life. But then, on a single day in February 2008, Eli loses his job and his father. Alone and adrift, he begrudgingly accepts his sister’s gift: a two-week forget-it-all vacation to Cuba. After a series of misadventures, he meets Mariela—an off-the-books, thirtysomething tour guide—and falls in love. But does Mariela fall for Eli, or is he just her ticket to a new life? Eli and Mariela each have secrets they’re not ready to share—until they have no choice. A bittersweet story that takes readers from Havana, to Halifax, to Miami, and back again, The Sweetness in the Lime is a charming, clever novel that peels back the rind to discover there really is sweetness in the lime of life. “A quietly powerful novel—poignant with the sorrow of great loss, uplifting with the joy of discovery.” —The Miramichi Reader “A tense, honest and moving tale of latter-life love in the time of post-colonial globalization. You won’t want to put it down.” —Chris Benjamin, author of Boy With a Problem “A story about home, friendship, loss and new beginnings; about second chances and the power of loyalty and abiding love.” —Carmen Rodríguez, author of Atacama

175 countries, four billion dollars, one scam: the thrilling rise and fall of the biggest cryptocurrency con in history and the woman behind it all In 2016, on stage at Wembley Arena in front of thousands of adoring fans, Dr. Ruja Ignatova promised her followers a financial revolution. The future, she said, belonged to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. And the Oxford-educated, self-styled cryptoqueen vowed that she had invented the Bitcoin Killer. OneCoin would not only earn its investors untold fortunes; it would change the world. By March 2017, more than $4 billion had been invested in OneCoin in countries all around the world. But by October 2017, Ruja Ignatova had disappeared, and it slowly became clear that her revolutionary cryptocurrency was not all it seemed. Fortune was left asking, “Is OneCoin the biggest financial fraud in history?” In The Missing Cryptoqueen, acclaimed tech journalist Jamie Bartlett tells the story he began in his smash hit BBC podcast, entering the murky worlds of little-regulated cryptocurrencies and multilevel marketing schemes. Through a globe-crossing investigation into the criminal underworlds, corrupt governments, and the super-rich, he reveals a very modern tale of intrigue, techno-hype and herd madness that allowed OneCoin to become a million-person pyramid scheme—where, at the top, investors were making millions and, at the bottom, people were putting their livelihoods at risk. It’s the inside story of the smartest and biggest scam of the 21st Century—and the genius behind it, who is still on the run.

How insurgencies—enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere—have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world. In the words of economist and scholar Arnold Kling, Martin Gurri saw it coming. Technology has categorically reversed the information balance of power between the public and the elites who manage the great hierarchical institutions of the industrial age: government, political parties, the media. The Revolt of the Public tells the story of how insurgencies, enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere, have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world. Originally published in 2014, The Revolt of the Public is now available in an updated edition, which includes an extensive analysis of Donald Trump’s improbable rise to the presidency and the electoral triumphs of Brexit. The book concludes with a speculative look forward, pondering whether the current elite class can bring about a reformation of the democratic process and whether new organizing principles, adapted to a digital world, can arise out of the present political turbulence.

“Ann Druyan has unearthed a treasure. It is a treasure of reason, compassion, and scientific awe. It should be the next book you read.” —Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith “A stunningly valuable legacy left to all of us by a great human being. I miss him so.” —Kurt Vonnegut Carl Sagan's prophetic vision of the tragic resurgence of fundamentalism and the hope-filled potential of the next great development in human spirituality The late great astronomer and astrophysicist describes his personal search to understand the nature of the sacred in the vastness of the cosmos. Exhibiting a breadth of intellect nothing short of astounding, Sagan presents his views on a wide range of topics, including the likelihood of intelligent life on other planets, creationism and so-called intelligent design, and a new concept of science as "informed worship." Originally presented at the centennial celebration of the famous Gifford Lectures in Scotland in 1985 but never published, this book offers a unique encounter with one of the most remarkable minds of the twentieth century.

NAMED A BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF 2022 BY ESQUIRE “[C]harming and surprising. . . The work of Admissions is laying down, with wit and care, the burden James assumed at 15, that she — or any Black student, or all Black students — would manage the failures of a racially illiterate community. . . The best depiction of elite whiteness I’ve read.”—New York Times A Most Anticipated Book by Vogue.com · Parade · Town & Country · Nylon ·New York Post · Lit Hub · BookRiot · Electric Literature · Glamour · Marie Claire · Publishers Weekly · Bustle · Fodor's Travel· Business Insider · Pop Sugar · InsideHook · SheReads Early on in Kendra James’ professional life, she began to feel like she was selling a lie. As an admissions officer specializing in diversity recruitment for independent prep schools, she persuaded students and families to embark on the same perilous journey she herself had made—to attend cutthroat and largely white schools similar to The Taft School, where she had been the first African-American legacy student only a few years earlier. Her new job forced her to reflect on her own elite education experience, and to realize how disillusioned she had become with America’s inequitable system. In ADMISSIONS, Kendra looks back at the three years she spent at Taft, chronicling clashes with her lily-white roommate, how she had to unlearn the respectability politics she'd been raised with, and the fall-out from a horrifying article in the student newspaper that accused Black and Latinx students of being responsible for segregation of campus. Through these stories, some troubling, others hilarious, she deconstructs the lies and half-truths she herself would later tell as an admissions professional, in addition to the myths about boarding schools perpetuated by popular culture. With its combination of incisive social critique and uproarious depictions of elite nonsense, ADMISSIONS will resonate with anyone who has ever been The Only One in a room, dealt with racial microaggressions, or even just suffered from an extreme case of homesickness.