Pelosi

The story ain’t always pretty. Yet the picture Molly Ball paints in her intimate book is that of a woman remaining in charge with fascinating style and grace. Ball’s nuanced portrait of Nancy Pelosi offers a master class in grit and dealmaking. O Magazine said of this bestseller, “Molly Ball…captures all the facets of Madam Speaker: steely combatant, peerless number cruncher, master of details.”

Ball’s book spends quite some time detailing Pelosi’s pre-political life: Her father, US Representative Thomas D’Alesandro, was also mayor of Baltimore. Her mother, Annunciata, was a campaign veteran and political operative. Nancy married Paul Pelosi in 1963 and moved to his home town, San Francisco, where they had five children in six years.