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Reviews

Reviews

by Brett Cyrgalis - Nonfiction, Sports, Technology

The world of golf is at a crossroads. As technological innovations displace traditional philosophies, the golfing community has splintered into two deeply combative factions: the old-school teachers and players who believe in feel, artistry and imagination, and the technical-minded who want to remake the game around data. In GOLF’S HOLY WAR, Brett Cyrgalis takes readers inside the heated battle playing out from weekend hackers to PGA Tour pros. But this is more than just a book about golf --- it’s a story about modern life and how we are torn between resisting and embracing the changes brought about by the advancements of science and technology. It’s also an exploration of historical legacies, the enriching bonds of education, and the many interpretations of reality.

by Tom Clavin - History, Nonfiction

On October 26, 1881, nine men clashed in what would be known as the most famous shootout in American frontier history. Thirty bullets were exchanged in 30 seconds, killing three men and wounding three others. Cattle rustlers had been terrorizing the back country of Mexico and selling the livestock they stole to corrupt ranchers. The Mexican government built forts along the border to try to thwart American outlaws. That October, tensions boiled over with Ike and Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury, and Billy Claiborne confronting the Tombstone marshal, Virgil Earp, and the suddenly deputized Wyatt and Morgan Earp and shotgun-toting Doc Holliday. Tom Clavin peers behind decades of legend surrounding the story of Tombstone to reveal the true story of the drama and violence that made it famous.

by John Grisham - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Just as Bruce Cable’s Bay Books is preparing for the return of bestselling author Mercer Mann, Hurricane Leo veers from its predicted course and heads straight for the island. Florida’s governor orders a mandatory evacuation, and most residents board up their houses and flee to the mainland, but Bruce decides to stay and ride out the storm. One of the apparent victims is Nelson Kerr, a friend of Bruce’s and an author of thrillers. But the nature of Nelson’s injuries suggests that the storm wasn’t the cause of his death: He has suffered several suspicious blows to the head. Who would want Nelson dead? As Bruce starts to investigate, what he discovers between the lines is more shocking than any of Nelson’s plot twists --- and far more dangerous.

by Jon Pessah - Biography, Nonfiction, Sports

Lawrence "Yogi" Berra was never supposed to become a major league ballplayer. That's what his immigrant father told him. That's what Branch Rickey told him, too --- right to his face. Yet baseball was his lifeblood. Berra couldn't allow a constant stream of ridicule about his appearance, taunts about his speech, and scorn about his perceived lack of intelligence to keep him from becoming one of the best to ever play the game --- at a position requiring the very skills he was told he did not have. Drawing on more than 100 interviews and four years of reporting, Jon Pessah delivers a transformational portrait of how Berra handled his hard-earned success --- on and off the playing field --- as well as his failures.

by Erik Larson - History, Nonfiction

On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next 12 months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally --- and willing to fight to the end. In THE SPLENDID AND THE VILE, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people “the art of being fearless."

by Gish Jen - Dystopian, Fiction, Humor

The time: not so long from now. The place: AutoAmerica, a country surveilled by one “Aunt Nettie,” a Big Brother that is part artificial intelligence, part internet and oddly human --- even funny. The people: divided. The “angelfair” Netted have jobs and, what with the country half under water, literally occupy the high ground. The Surplus live on swampland if they’re lucky, on water if they’re not. The story: To a Surplus couple --- he once a professor, she still a lawyer --- is born a girl, Gwen, with a golden arm. Her teens find her happily playing in an underground baseball league, but when AutoAmerica faces ChinRussia in the Olympics, Gwen finds herself in dangerous territory, playing ball with the Netted even as her mother battles this apartheid-like society in court.

edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman - Essays, History, Nonfiction, Politics

The American Civil Liberties Union began as a small group of idealists and visionaries, including Helen Keller and Jane Addams. A century after its founding, the ACLU remains the nation’s premier defender of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. In collaboration with the ACLU, prize-winning authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman have curated an anthology of essays about landmark cases in the ACLU’s 100-year history. In FIGHT OF THE CENTURY, bestselling and award-winning authors --- including Michael Cunningham, Jennifer Egan, Dave Eggers, Ann Patchett, Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth Strout --- present unique literary takes on historic decisions like Brown v. Board of Education, the Scopes trial, Roe v. Wade and more.

by Maura Spiegel - Biography, Entertainment, Movies, Nonfiction

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.

by Sherrod Brown - Biography, History, Nonfiction, Politics

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.

by Matthew Goodman - History, Nonfiction, Sports

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.