Skip to main content

Features

Julie Checkoway, author of The Three-Year Swim Club: The Untold Story of Maui's Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory

In 1937, a schoolteacher on the island of Maui challenged a group of poverty-stricken sugar plantation kids to swim upstream against the current of their circumstance. The goal? To become Olympians. In spite of everything --- including the virulent anti-Japanese sentiment of the late 1930s --- by their third year, they'd be declared the greatest swimmers in the world, but they'd also face their greatest obstacle: the dawning of a world war and the cancellation of the Games. Still, in 1948, they'd have one last chance for Olympic glory.

Read more »

October 2015

October's roundup of History titles includes PACIFIC, an enthralling biography of the Pacific Ocean and its role in the modern world from Simon Winchester, who explores our relationship with this imposing force of nature; DRINKING IN AMERICA, in which Susan Cheever chronicles our national love affair with liquor, taking a long, thoughtful look at the way alcohol has changed our nation's history; LADY BIRD AND LYNDON by Betty Boyd Caroli, a fresh look at Lady Bird Johnson that upends her image as a plain Jane who was married for her money and mistreated by Lyndon; and Michael Broers' NAPOLEON: SOLDIER OF DESTINY,  the first volume of a majestic two-part biography of the great French emperor and conqueror that makes full use of his newly released personal correspondence compiled by the Napoléon Foundation in Paris.

Read more »