“The absolute best book of 2023: a real genre-bender, and moving.”
—Alexandra Jacobs, The New York Times

writer, editor, cultural critic

Named a Top 10 Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Slate, and People Magazine

One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2023

Pulitzer Prize Finalist.

It is a story about the bonds of family, friendship, and community; the promise of intellectual achievement; and the lure of utopian solutions. Tender, funny, and harrowing by turns, at times almost unbearably sad, The Best Minds is an extreme version of a story that is tragically familiar to all too many.

Photo by Tali Rosen

“This artful, reflective, and even entertaining book—one of the best of this or any year—is his powerful effort to take responsibility for changing minds, to persuade us of the danger of allowing compassion to obscure truth. The Best Minds manages to honor both.”
—Elaine Showalter, The Times Literary Supplement

“Rosen tells this story with such a keen mix of compassion and eloquence we can't help but hope there will be a twist that somehow saves everyone from the inevitably heartbreaking outcome.… An incisive but intimate tour de force that's as much about Michael's story as it is about the stories we tell as a culture-what we value, what we see, and what we do our best not to see even when it's right in front of us... Masterful.”
—The Washington Post

writer, editor, cultural critic

“Immensely emotional and unforgettably haunting.” — The Wall Street Journal

“Immensely emotional and unforgettably haunting.”
— The Wall Street Journal