Adult

In THE 100 THING CHALLENGE, Dave Bruno relates how he remade his life and regained his soul by getting rid of almost everything. But The 100 Thing Challenge is more than just the story of how one man started a movement to unhook himself from consumerism by winnowing his life’s possessions down to 100 things in one year. It’s also an inspiring, invigorating guide to how we all can begin to live simpler, more meaningful lives.

THE JOY OF LESS is a fun, lighthearted guide to minimalist living. Part One provides an inspirational pep talk on the joys and rewards of paring down. Part Two presents the STREAMLINE method: ten easy steps to rid your house of clutter. Part Three goes room by room, outlining specific ways to tackle each one. Part Four helps you trim your to-do list and free up your time, and explains how saving space in your closets can save the planet.

By 2010, the New York Mets had suffered an embarrassing September collapse and two bitter losing seasons. Their GM had made costly mistakes. And their principle owners were embroiled in the largest financial scam in American history. To whom did they turn? Sandy Alderson, a former marine who served in Vietnam and graduated from Harvard Law. Granted unprecedented access to a working GM over several seasons, bestselling author Steve Kettmann traces Alderson’s history and his renewal of the Mets despite a limited budget.

Phil Pepe spent years as the New York Daily News Yankee beat reporter. While he was there to report on the action that occurred on the field, as well as the many disruptions occurring in the locker room --- especially during the tumultuous '70s when Billy Martin and the “Boss” were constantly at one another’s throats --- that directly affected the team’s performance on the field, Pepe also saw a world that never made the papers. YANKEE DOODLES humanizes the legends we have come to love and worship. We get to know the players as Pepe did, once the lights and cameras were turned off.

Even now, years after his death, Billy Martin remains one of the most intriguing and charismatic figures in baseball history. And the most misunderstood. A manager who is widely considered to have been a baseball genius, Martin is remembered more for his rabble-rousing and public brawls on the field and off. He was combative and intimidating, yet endearing and beloved. Drawing on exhaustive interviews and his own time covering Martin as a young sportswriter, Bill Pennington resolves these contradictions and pens the definitive story of Martin’s life.

Tommy Lasorda believed that winning wasn't about being the best, but about believing you are the best --- and that philosophy runs throughout TOMMY LASORDA: MY WAY. Author Colin Gunderson takes readers through Lasorda's days as a player and the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, including their two World Series Championships in 1981 and 1988. It also provides fans with a peek at what makes Lasorda tick: his relationship with his father, whom he emulated; his childhood growing up in Norristown, Pennsylvania, working odd jobs; and his unfailing work ethic.

He was told that the color of his skin would keep him out of the big leagues, but Joe Black worked his way up through the Negro Leagues and the Cuban Winter League. He burst into the Majors in 1952 when he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers. In the face of segregation, verbal harassment and even death threats, he rose to the top of his game. In this first-ever biography of Joe Black, his daughter Martha Jo Black tells the story not only of a baseball great who broke through the color line, but also of the father she knew and loved.

The Roaring Twenties is the only decade in American history with a widely applied nickname, and our collective fascination with this era continues. But how did this surge of innovation and cultural milestones emerge out of the ashes of The Great War? Acclaimed author Eric Burns investigates the year of 1920, which was not only a crucial 12-month period of its own, but one that foretold the future, foreshadowing the rest of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st.

Ray Welter, who until recently was a high-flying advertising executive in Chicago, has left the world of newspeak behind. He decamps to the isolated Scottish Isle of Jura in order to spend a few months in the cottage where George Orwell wrote most of his seminal novel, NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR. A few of the local islanders take a decidedly shallow view of a foreigner coming to visit in order to sort himself out, and Ray quickly finds himself having to deal with not only his own issues but also a community whose eccentricities are at times amusing and at others downright dangerous.

As a teenager at the prestigious Bradley School, Ani FaNelli endured a shocking, public humiliation that left her desperate to reinvent herself. Now, with a glamorous job, expensive wardrobe, and handsome blue blood fiancé, she’s this close to living the perfect life she’s worked so hard to achieve. But Ani has a secret. There’s something else buried in her past that still haunts her, something private and painful that threatens to bubble to the surface and destroy everything.