Anheuser-Busch created the world famous Budweiser and Michelob beer brands and are one of the most colorful, enduring and wealthiest family dynasties in American commerce history. In Bitter Brew ($19) William Knoedelseder, a journalist who has won much critical acclaim tells the riveting and often scandalous tale of the rise and the fall of the highly dysfunctional family called Busch. This is an epic tale involving prosperity, hubris, profligacy and the subsequent dark consequences that come from success spanning three centuries. Their story stretches from the Civil War’s opening salvos up to the present day.
Every so often a book comes out that reveals everything about a subculture that you never even knew existed. Very rarely, this book then goes on to become a phenomenon all of its own. First published in 2004, the Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopedia ($23) was one such phenomenon, going on to spawn a further 2 […]