Adult

Many years ago, when James Dodson was 13 years old, he wrote himself a list titled “Things to Do in Golf.” It included the golfing aspirations of a young boy who had no idea where life would take him. A few years ago, now in his 60s and one of the most respected golf writers of all time, Dodson rediscovered the piece of paper in an old trunk. Realizing that he had yet to achieve many of his 13-year-old dreams, and pondering the things he’d add to the list if he wrote it today, he expanded the list into a golfing “bucket list” of the people and places he had yet to meet and see in the golf world. In this tribute to the game he loves, Dodson takes readers on a journey around the world and into the lives of characters large and small.

Bobby Jones and Tiger Woods won their first majors at the age of 21. Jack Nicklaus and Jordan Spieth claimed their first majors at the age of 22. By the time he was 21, Gene Sarazen had won three. Considered one of the top golfers in the 1920s and ’30s, he is one of only a handful of golfers to win all the major championships --- the US Open, the PGA Championship, the Open Championship and the Masters Tournament. SARAZEN details Gene Sarazen’s life and storied career, from his days sweeping floors in a pro shop through his rise in the golfing world to become one of the country’s foremost players.

Golf is a beloved yet technical game, so a sound swing and precise technique are essential. Most golfers who want to improve their skills go to the range and work painstakingly on their swings, not realizing it’s often their performance state on the course that needs work, not their technique. Pia Nilsson and Lynn Marriott, founders of VISION54’s groundbreaking and innovative golf program, are here to help. Aimed at both the weekend golfer and the advanced player, each chapter presents a series of “human skills” --- including assignments, explorations and mini-lessons --- that strip away the complexity surrounding swing technique and playing consistency, the conditional variations that plague golfers.

GARY PLAYER'S BLACK BOOK contains 60 questions and detailed responses from 18-time major winner Gary Player. The book, divided into three parts, focuses on specific scenarios and problems that arise in golf, life and business. In the first section on golf, topics include putting, scoring, etiquette, the mental side of the game, and fitness and nutrition. In the section on life, Player, the father of six and grandfather to 22, addresses issues such as parenting, who to turn to when in need of advice, and more. Finally, in the section on business, he details how to deal with competition, among other topics.

The last thing FBI agent Will Brody remembers is the explosion. He wakes without a scratch. The building is in ruins. His team is gone. Outside, Chicago is dark. Cars lie abandoned. No planes cross the sky. He’s relieved to spot other people --- until he sees they’re carrying machetes. Claire McCoy, the head of an FBI task force, stands over the body of Will Brody. A terrorist has claimed 18 lives and thrown the nation into panic. Against this horror, something reckless and beautiful happened. She fell in love…with Will Brody. But the line between life and death is narrower than any of us suspect --- and all that matters to Will and Claire is getting back to each other.

The world knows well the tale of Tevye, the beloved Jewish dairyman from the shtetl Anatevka of Tsarist Russia. Tevye, his wife Golde and their five daughters dealt with the outside influences that were encroaching upon their humble lives. But what happened to those remarkable characters after the curtain fell? In AFTER ANATEVKA, Alexandra Silber picks up where “Fiddler on the Roof” left off. Second-eldest daughter Hodel takes center stage as she attempts to join her Socialist-leaning fiancé Perchik to the outer reaches of a Siberian work camp. But before Hodel and Perchik can finally be together, they both face extraordinary hurdles and adversaries attempting to keep them apart at all costs.

Anne had romantic affairs with several prominent men, but she married none of them. She preferred to live independently --- even traveling alone to Paris during the upheaval of the French Revolution. When she did marry, it was to an impoverished army officer many years her junior. Hounded by gossip, the couple escaped to the Cape Colony where Lady Anne painted the vibrant landscapes and penned her memoirs. 

In Jenny Allen's debut essay collection, the longtime humorist and performer declares no subject too sacred, no boundary impassable. One moment she’s flirting shamelessly --- and unsuccessfully --- with a younger man at a wedding; the next she’s stumbling upon X-rated images on her daughter’s computer. She ponders the connection between her ex-husband’s questions about the location of their silverware, and the divorce that came a year later. While undergoing chemotherapy, she experiments with being a “wig person.” And she considers those perplexing questions that we never pause to ask: Why do people say “It is what it is”? What’s the point of fat-free half-and-half ? And haven’t we heard enough about memes?

In 1949, Frank Weeks of the newly formed CIA was exposed as a Communist spy and fled the country to vanish behind the Iron Curtain. Now, 12 years later, he has written his memoirs and has asked his brother Simon, a publisher, to come to Moscow to edit the manuscript. At first Frank is still Frank --- the same charm, the same jokes, the same bond of affection that transcends ideology. Then Simon begins to glimpse another Frank, still capable of treachery, still actively working for “the service.” He finds himself dragged into the middle of Frank’s new scheme, caught between the KGB and the CIA in a fatal cat and mouse game that only one of the brothers is likely to survive.

Military intelligence operator Tristan Lyons approaches Melisande Stokes, an expert in linguistics and languages, about translating some very old documents, which, if authentic, are earth-shattering. They prove that magic actually existed and was practiced for centuries. But the arrival of the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment weakened its power and endangered its practitioners. And so the Department of Diachronic Operations --- D.O.D.O. --- gets cracking on its real mission: to develop a device that can bring magic back, and send Diachronic Operatives back in time to keep it alive…and meddle with a little history at the same time.