Stephen King, Blockade Billy. NY: Scribner, 2010.
Further evidence, like The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, that King loves baseball. This novella is framed as an interview about an old team mate, the titular Billy, and his brief run of unexpected big-league success.
Chelsie Edwards, Upsy Daisy. NY: Smartypants Romance, 2020.
For Daisy, going to Fisk University is a chance to finally escape the shadow of her father’s position; to make sure of the fresh start, she makes one small change at registration. The consequences are, of course, opposite her expectations.
Christopher Moore, Noir. NY: Wm Morrow, 2018.
What else is a poor San Francisco bartender to do when a woman like that walks into his life and then disappears?
Roger Angell, Pitcher’s Story. NY: Warner, 2001.
This collaboration with David Cone was intended as celebration of a great competitor’s career but wound up following him through a frustrating, doubt- and injury-filled season.
Tony Hillerman, People of Darkness. NY: Harper, 1980.
In Navajo tradition, the first witch had no one else to harm, so killed himself in order to begin again as evil. This story is the end of a thirty year witch-hunt.
Bruce Chadwick, Lincoln for President. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2009.
An in-depth study of the first victorious Republican Presidential campaign, a very modern affair that saw the first active candidate stumping, extensive polling, and an Electoral College strategy that counted votes and ignored half the country -- as well as more traditional techniques like convention packing, proxy speakers, and outright lies.
Vern Smith, Under the Table. Brea, CA: RunAmok, 2021.
Under the table is how Arlene pays employees at her Toronto television production company (because she’s Smurfing, laundering money by making it disappear), which means that she has a tempting safe full of cash the morning after production wraps. More than one of her employees has their eyes on the pile. Add a giant rubber chicken and a serious crush on Billy Idol, mix in a little cross-dressing, and the book is probably more fun than the never-to-air comedy they’re supposed to be making.
Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World. NY: Norton, 2004.
Any biography of Shakespeare is necessarily speculative; the man lived over 400 years ago and didn’t leave us his diaries. Greenblatt, an eminent Elizabethan scholar, uses what is known of his life after centuries of combing the public record, as well as material from the texts to attempt a theory of what might have led a man to produce such material -- material so very different from anything previous, or of his contemporaries -- or an innovation like that seen in Hamlet, where he discovered how to convey thought effectively, or Othello, when he eliminates motive as a cause of action: he let us know what characters thought, then showed that it didn’t matter. Greenblatt’s explanations about exposure to death and Catholicism make sense; they may not be “true”, yet are true enough to inform and increase our understanding and enjoyment of the work.
Cait Murphy, Crazy ’08. NY: HarperCollins, 2007.
Murphy’s thesis, that 1908 was the most exciting year in Major League history, is well supported by two pennant races decided on the final day; stars like Wagner, Cobb, and Mathewson; the beginnings of the concrete stadium era; and the last time (as of its writing) that the Cubs won the World Series.
Tom Stanton, Terror in the City of Champions. NY: Lyon Press, 2016.
It may be hard to believe, but in 1935 Detroit was know as the City of Champions, home of title-holding Tigers, Lions, and Red Wings teams, as well as heavyweight Joe Louis. It was also home to a domestic terror organization spun off as too radical for the Ku Klux Klan, the Black Legion, which recruited at gunpoint and plotted political assassinations. Stanton skillfully weaves these two plots into a gripping exposé.
Alexis Cole, You Never Forget Your First. NY: Penguin, 2020.
Gotcha! It’s a George Washington bio, not a romance novel. However, by focusing on George, not General, and the personal rather than professional, Cole humanizes an otherwise nearly deified man who, like any other, had more than enough faults and failings.
Syed M Masood, Bad Muslim Discount. NY: Doubleday, 2020.
Please read this book. It’s really good.
I said, “please”; I meant it as an imperative. Read it. Now.
