Born and raised in Port Talbot --- a small Welsh steelworks town --- amid war and depression, Sir Anthony Hopkins grew up around men who were tough, to say the least, and eschewed all forms of emotional vulnerability in favor of alcoholism and brutality. A struggling student in school, he was deemed by his peers, his parents and other adults as a failure with no future ahead of him. But, on a fateful Saturday night, the disregarded Welsh boy watched the 1948 adaptation of Hamlet, sparking a passion for acting that would lead him on a path that no one could have predicted. With candor and a voice that is both arresting and vulnerable, Sir Anthony recounts his various career milestones and provides a once-in-a-lifetime look into the brilliance behind some of his most iconic roles.

Words are the currency of culture --- and never more than today. From selfie to doomscrolling to rizz, our hyper-connected digital world coins and spreads new words with lightning speed and locks them into mainstream consciousness with unprecedented influence. Journalist and bestselling author Stefan Fatsis embedded as a lexicographer-in-training at America’s most famous dictionary publisher, Merriam-Webster, to learn how words get into the dictionary, where they come from, who decides what they mean, and how we write and think about them. As he recounts in UNABRIDGED, he discovered the history and fascinating subculture of the dictionary and of those who curate and revere “one of the most basic features of our collective humanity.”

O. Henry, born William Sidney Porter, arrived in New York City fresh from the Ohio Penitentiary, where he had served three-and-a-half years for embezzlement. The American magazine had just reached its pinnacle as an enterprise, and the short story was the most popular medium in entertainment. Porter was in the city to write. From his cell, he already had sold a number of stories to big magazines, and within five years of arriving in Manhattan, he would become the most successful fiction writer in the country. But he never --- never --- said anything about his prison experience, or, indeed, anything about his past life. Anything true, that is. In life as well as on the page, Porter was a yarn-spinner of the highest order. In this twisting tale, Ben Yagoda uses the novelist’s art to get at the truth that lay behind Porter’s reticence, and in doing so, he presents an iridescent portrait of New York at the time.

As a pioneering female sportswriter, Jane Leavy eventually turned her talent to books, penning three of the all-time best baseball biographies about three of the all-time best players: Sandy Koufax, Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth. But when she went searching for a fourth biographical subject, she realized that baseball had faltered. The Moneyball era of the last two decades obsessed over data and slowed the game down to a crawl. Major League Baseball has begun to address issues too long ignored, yet the questions linger: How much have these efforts helped to improve the game and reassert its place in American culture? Leavy takes a whirlwind tour of the country seeking answers to these questions. What she uncovers is not only what’s wrong with baseball --- and how to fix it --- but also what’s right with baseball.

SKIPPER takes on an ambitious Moneyball-esque premise: a deep dive into the ongoing struggle for control that often takes place behind the scenes between Major League Baseball managers and the ownership groups, and now, their data analysts. In a culture still attempting to come to terms with the Digital Age, there’s a bigger story behind the evolution of authority of managing inside the major leagues. Packed with baseball history, interviews with dozens of MLB's current stars and veterans, and an exclusive, inside look at the day-to-day life of LA Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, SKIPPER is a fascinating look into the highs, the lows and the inner workings of the changing world of professional baseball.

How does the son of a Presbyterian minister wind up winning a Pulitzer Prize for writing a wildly inaccurate newspaper column read by millions of people? Dave Barry takes us on a hilarious ride, starting with a childhood largely spent throwing rocks for entertainment --- there was no internet --- and preparing for nuclear war by hiding under a classroom desk. After literally getting elected class clown in high school, he went to college, where, as an English major, he read snippets of great literature when he was not busy playing in a rock band (it was the ’60s). CLASS CLOWN isn’t just a memoir; it’s a vibrant celebration of a life rich with humor, absurdity, joy and sadness.

Before he'd covered dozens of World Series; before he'd written about countless hirings, firings, superstars and scandals, Bill Madden was a cub reporter on one of his first assignments at Yankee Stadium --- and manager Ralph Houk had just gone out of his way to spit tobacco juice all over Madden's shoes. “That’s Ralph’s way with rookie writers he doesn’t recognize,” came the explanation. “He doesn’t mean anything by it.” So began a Hall of Fame scribe's career, as detailed in this clear-eyed memoir. With verve and candor, Madden reflects on five decades of triumphs, misadventures and unforgettable characters.

Batavia, New York --- between Rochester and Buffalo --- hosted its first professional baseball game in 1897. Despite decades of deindustrialization and evaporating middle-class jobs, the Batavia Muckdogs endured. When Major League Baseball cravenly shut them down in 2020 --- along with 41 other minor league teams --- the town fought back, reviving the Muckdogs as a summer league team comprised of college players. As MLB considers further cuts and private equity buys up what remains, the mom-and-pop operations once prevalent in baseball are endangered. But for now, the sights and sounds of local baseball live on in Batavia. Will Bardenwerper's HOMESTAND exposes the beating heart of small town America, friends and neighbors coming together as the crack of the bat echoes in the summer twilight.

Long before the Moneyball Era, the Earl of Baltimore reigned over baseball. History’s feistiest and most colorful manager, Earl Weaver transformed the sport by collecting and analyzing data in visionary ways, ultimately winning more games than anybody else during his time running the Orioles from 1968 to 1982. Beyond being a great baseball mind, Weaver was a rare baseball character. Major League Baseball is show business, and Weaver understood how much of his job was entertainment. THE LAST MANAGER uncovers the story of Weaver’s St. Louis childhood with a mobster uncle, his years of minor-league heartbreak, and his unlikely road to becoming a big-league manager, while tracing the evolution of the game from the old-time baseball of cross-country trains and “desk contracts” to the modern era of free agency, video analysis and powerful player agents.

Larger than life. In the history of American sports, rare is the athlete who fits that description better than Don Drysdale. On the mound, the towering 6-foot-5 righthander intimidated National League hitters for more than a decade, amassing career totals of 209 wins, 2,486 strikeouts…and hitting 154 batters, a stat he led the major leagues in four times. Off the field, Drysdale’s personality dominated every room he walked into. With a smile as immense as the sun, his contemporaries included Frank Sinatra and Howard Cosell. In UP AND IN, longtime Orange County Register sportswriter Mark Whicker takes readers on a remarkable journey through Drysdale’s life and career.