Upcoming Appearances

• While I’ll be doing some events in connection with the May 13, 2025, publication of an updated, paperback edition of The Age of Grievance, those haven’t been arranged yet, and from December 2024 to April 2025, I’m not scheduling many public appearances.

• Wednesday, February 5, to Thursday, February 6, Rancho Mirage, Calif. Several stage appearances at the Rancho Mirage Writers Festival. Festival schedule should be available soon here.

The Age of Grievance is a New York Times best seller! Order it in one of multiple formats:

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Bookshop

Praise for The Age of Grievance:

“In this feverish era for America and the world, Frank Bruni is the doctor we need. His diagnoses of our fractured politics are clear and compelling. His prescriptions are designed to heal. And his bedside manner—the wise, charming voice that has made him one of America’s most admired commentators—helps the medicine taste like sugar.” — David Von Drehle, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Charlie

“It’s not just the most astute diagnosis of the rage, recrimination and revenge culture that ails our country. It’s also the best prescription for our redemption.” — Bret Stephens in his weekly “Conversation” with Gail Collins in The New York Times

A “brilliant book . . . Bruni writes with humor, insight and precision.” — Wall Street Journal “Buy Side” list of 15 essential summer reads

“An astonishing, alarming catalogue of the grievances that we nurture. I kept wanting to skip to the section on solutions (which are smart and hopeful, don't worry) but I couldn't do it. The writing was so sharp and good that I didn't want to miss anything! Damn you, Bruni!” — Amanda Ripley, author of High Conflict 

“The Age of Grievance is much-needed reading for the self-righteous Ivy Leaguer and the red-hatted insurrectionist alike.” — Tim Miller, author of Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell

Selected interviews about and coverage of the book:

• Excerpt from The Age of Grievance, “The Most Important Thing I Teach My Students Isn’t on the Syllabus,” The New York Times, 4/20/24.

• CBS Mornings interview about the book, 4/30/24.

• Stay Tuned with Preet Bharara interview about the book, current political matters and more, 5/23/24.

• CNBC Squawk Box interview about the book, 5/2/24.

• Next Question with Katie Couric recording of our onstage conversation about the book in Manhattan on 5/1/24.

• Short clip — watchable on Instagram — of my 5/10/24 appearance on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher.

• Interview on The Bulwark podcast with Tim Miller, 4/23/24.

The Age of Grievance

From bestselling author and longtime New York Times columnist Frank Bruni comes a lucid, powerful examination of the ways in which grievance has come to define our current culture and politics, on both the right and left.

The twists and turns of American politics are unpredictable, but the tone is a troubling given. It’s one of grievance. More and more Americans are convinced that they’re losing because somebody else is winning. More and more tally their slights, measure their misfortune, and assign particular people responsibility for it. The blame game has become the country’s most popular sport and victimhood its most fashionable garb.

Grievance needn’t be bad. It has done enormous good. The United States is a nation born of grievance, and across the nearly two hundred and fifty years of our existence as a country, grievance has been the engine of morally urgent change. But what happens when all sorts of grievances—the greater ones, the lesser ones, the authentic, the invented—are jumbled together? When people take their grievances to lengths that they didn’t before? A violent mob storms the US Capitol, rejecting the results of a presidential election. Conspiracy theories flourish. Fox News knowingly peddles lies in the service of profit. College students chase away speakers, and college administrators dismiss instructors for dissenting from progressive orthodoxy. Benign words are branded hurtful; benign gestures are deemed hostile. And there’s a potentially devastating erosion of the civility, common ground, and compromise necessary for our democracy to survive.

How did we get here? What does it say about us, and where does it leave us? The Age of Grievance examines these critical questions and charts a path forward.