Acclaimed as the ultimate New York movie director, Sidney Lumet began his astonishing five-decades-long directing career with the now classic 12 Angry Men, followed by such landmark films as Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon and Network. His remarkably varied output included award-winning adaptations of plays by Anton Chekhov, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill, whose Long Day’s Journey into Night featured Katharine Hepburn and Ralph Richardson in their most devastating performances. With the help of exclusive interviews with family, colleagues and friends, author Maura Spiegel provides a vibrant portrait of the life and work of this extraordinary director whose influence is felt through generations.

Since his election to the U.S. Senate in 2006, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown has sat on the Senate floor at a mahogany desk with a proud history. In DESK 88, he tells the story of eight of the Senators who were there before him. They range from Hugo Black, who helped to lift millions of American workers out of poverty, to Robert F. Kennedy, whose eyes were opened by an undernourished Mississippi child and who then spent the rest of his life afflicting the comfortable. Brown revives forgotten figures such as Idaho’s Glen Taylor, a singing cowboy who taught himself economics and stood up to segregationists, and offers new insights into George McGovern, who fought to feed the poor around the world even amid personal and political calamities. He also writes about Herbert Lehman of New York, Al Gore Sr. of Tennessee, Theodore Francis Green of Rhode Island, and William Proxmire of Wisconsin.

The unlikeliest of champions, the 1949–50 City College Beavers were extraordinary by every measure. City College was a tuition-free, merit-based college in Harlem known far more for its intellectual achievements and political radicalism than its athletic prowess. Every single member of the Beavers was either Jewish or African American, and they stunned the basketball world by becoming the only team in history to win the NIT and NCAA tournaments in the same year. However, during the following season, all of the team’s starting five were arrested, charged with conspiring with gamblers to shave points. The story centers on two teammates, Eddie Roman and Floyd Layne --- one white, one black --- each caught up in the scandal, each searching for a path to personal redemption.

In the small Florida town of Seabrook, a young lawyer named Keith Russo was shot dead at his desk as he worked late one night. The killer left no clues. But the police soon came to suspect Quincy Miller, a young black man who was once a client of Russo’s. Quincy was tried, convicted and sent to prison for life. For 22 years he languished in prison, maintaining his innocence. But no one was listening. In desperation, he writes a letter to Guardian Ministries, a small nonprofit run by Cullen Post, a lawyer who is also an Episcopal minister. Powerful, ruthless people murdered Keith, and they do not want Quincy exonerated. They killed one lawyer 22 years ago, and they will kill another without a second thought.

With the death of his nemesis, corrupt business mogul Abner Brown, retired Marine infantry officer Jack Dana can finally return to his peaceful career as a novelist. And after falling hard for Heidi Krohn, the glamorous high-powered lawyer who helped avenge his best friend’s death, Jack dreams of starting a family of his own. But dark forces intervene to upend Jack’s comfortable new life when two of his uncle Harry’s closest friends are brutally murdered in their own home. Quickly it becomes clear that these murders are a message, sent by a shadowy criminal Jack comes to call “the Monster.” His warning to Jack: a fate even more cruel awaits you. Indeed, despite the best-laid precautions, there seems to be no escape when Heidi and her nephew are kidnapped.

One beautiful September day, three men in their late 60s convene on Martha's Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college in the ’60s. They couldn't have been more different then, or even today --- Lincoln is a commercial real estate broker, Teddy is a tiny-press publisher, and Mickey is a musician beyond his rockin' age. But each man holds his own secrets, in addition to the monumental mystery that none of them has ever stopped puzzling over since a Memorial Day weekend right here on the Vineyard in 1971. Now, 45 years later, three lives and that of a significant other are put on display while the distant past confounds the present in a relentless squall of surprise and discovery.

In 1914, Henry Ford and naturalist John Burroughs visited Thomas Edison in Florida and toured the Everglades. The following year, Ford, Edison and tire maker Harvey Firestone joined together on a summer camping trip and decided to call themselves the Vagabonds. They would continue their summer road trips until 1925, when they announced that their fame made it too difficult for them to carry on. Although the Vagabonds traveled with an entourage of chefs, butlers and others, this elite fraternity also had a serious purpose: to examine the conditions of America’s roadways and improve the practicality of automobile travel. In THE VAGABONDS, Jeff Guinn shares the story of this pivotal moment in American history.

While lifting weights in the Seldon Jackson College gymnasium on a rainy autumn night, Jaed Coffin hears the distinctive whacking sound of sparring boxers down the hall. A year out of college, he has been biding his time as a tutor at a local high school in Sitka, Alaska, without any particular life plan. That evening, Coffin joins a ragtag boxing club; despite feeling initially terrified, he learns to fight. His coach, Victor “the Savage,” invites him to participate in the monthly Roughhouse Friday competition, where men contend for the title of best boxer in southeast Alaska. With every successive match, Coffin realizes that he isn’t just fighting for the championship belt; he is also learning to confront the anger he feels about a past he never knew how to make sense of.

When America declared war on Spain in 1898, the US Army had just 26,000 men spread around the country --- hardly an army at all. In desperation, the Rough Riders were born. A unique group of volunteers, ranging from Ivy League athletes to Arizona cowboys and led by Theodore Roosevelt, they helped secure victory in Cuba in a series of gripping, bloody fights across the island. Roosevelt called their charge in the Battle of San Juan Hill his “crowded hour” --- a turning point in his life, one that led directly to the White House. As THE CROWDED HOUR reveals, it was a turning point for America as well, uniting the country and ushering in a new era of global power.

Retired FBI agent Brigid Quinn and her husband Carlo, a former priest and university professor, are trying to enjoy each other in this new stage in their lives. But a memento from Carlo's days as a prison chaplain --- a handwritten document hidden away undetected in a box of Carlo's old things --- has become a target for a man on the run from his past. Jerry Beaufort has just been released from prison after decades behind bars, and though he'd like to get on with living the rest of his life, he knows that somewhere there is a written record of the time he spent with two killers in 1959. Following the path of this letter will bring Jerry into contact with the last person he'll see as a threat: Brigid Quinn.