Club Book Presents: Richard Zacks

Richard Zacks is an accomplished journalist and historian, best known by many for his gripping, well-researched books on topics relating to the Golden Age of Piracy. These include The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd (2002), billed as a “rare, authentic pirate story for grown-ups,” and The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805 (2005) – a bestseller that Kirkus Reviews lauds as an intense adventure narrative peppered with “exquisitely researched, character-enhancing tangential anecdotes.” Zacks expanded his investigative lens in 2012 with Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt’s Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York. His newest, Chasing the Last Laugh, tells the tale of a round-the-world comedy tour that took American humorist Mark Twain as far from home as Australia and South Africa. Booklist recommended it highly as a “fast-paced and revealing look at a neglected episode in Twain’s life.”

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