what everett reads, jan - march 2025

Rickey Henderson (with John Shea), Off Base. NY: HarperCollins, 1992. Rickey Henderson died in December, not long after I started reading this autobiography -- I should read Art of the Deal next, maybe. I enjoyed it, and it did humanize a larger-than-life figure. It also, near the end, gave his base-running advice -- while making clear that, even with his help, you can’t catch Rickey. Robert Burk, Much More than a Game. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2001. The second half of Beck’s economic study of baseball covers two eras: the age of Branch Ricky, who as general manager of the Cardinals and Dodgers implemented the two biggest cheap-labor moves available: building farm systems to develop talent, and hiring black players others wouldn’t. After these developments came Marvin Miller, the union boss who led his Players’ Association to a fair share of the take. Finally, it closes with a look at the disastrous 1994 strike and the need for cooperation among stakeholders to grow the game for all. Kurt Vonnegut Jr, Breakfast of Champions. NY: Delacorte, 1973. Warning: this book contains impolite words and descriptions of human anatomy and activity. That isn’t what makes it dangerous, though. That comes from its incessant questioning of human activity, thoughts, and motivations, which challenges the status quo. Stephen King, Later. London: Titan, 2021. This, the narrator tells us, is a horror story, a story about what happened to him because he sees dead people. They see him, too, and must answer questions truthfully. That part is really interesting, to the living who learn his secret, and their reaction is the true horror. Keith Laumer, Best of Keith Laumer. NY: Pocket, 1976. These stories, originally published between 1961 and 1970, feel like perfect Golden Age pulp: vigorous, daring heroes caught up in galactic action, succeeding through their human efforts, skills, and values in a universe they don’t fully understand. Deb Miller Landau, Devil Went Down to Georgia. NY: Pegasus, 2024. A veteran journalist revisits the case that started her career: the murder-for-hire of a Black woman in her Atlanta home, as orchestrated by her rich white husband. Theodore Sturgeon, Synthetic Man. NY: Pyramid, 1950. Sturgeon wrote sci-fi, and prolifically. This on is about aliens, and the question of what it means to be human -- the same question that drove everything Sturgeon wrote. Theodore Sturgeon, More Than Human. NY: Ballantine, 1953. This time, no aliens: a new evolution of humanity, in this case, must discover what it means to be human -- particularly, how and why to care about, and for, humanity.