The agents at the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois, appear ordinary enough to a newly arrived trainee named David Foster Wallace. But as he immerses himself in a routine so tedious and repetitive that new employees receive boredom-survival training, he learns of the extraordinary variety of personalities drawn to this strange calling.

From the critically acclaimed and bestselling author David Maraniss, a groundbreaking book that weaves sports, politics, and history into a tour de force about the 1960 Rome Olympics, eighteen days of theater, suspense, victory, and defeat. Using the meticulous research and sweeping narrative style that have become his trademark, Maraniss reveals the rich palate of character, competition, and meaning that gave Rome 1960 its singular essence.

In THE BIG SCRUM, John J. Miller discusses how Teddy Roosevelt became a vocal advocate of American football. A longtime fan, Roosevelt fought to preserve the game, even as he understood the need for reform.

Shedding light on the lives of individuals often willingly cast adrift from their histories, Colm Tóibín's stories tell of fleeing the past and returning home, of family threads lost and ultimately regained.

Jason Kolarich’s wife and daughter were killed while he was at the office, awaiting a call from a confidential informant named Ramirez --- a call that never came. He can't bring back his family, but he can find out who killed Ramirez and bring the killer to justice. 

Tommy Ogden declines to give his wife the money to commission a bust of herself from the French master Auguste Rodin, and instead announces his intention to endow a boys’ school. His decision reverberates years later in the life of Lee Goodell, whose coming of age is at the heart of Ward Just’s novel.