Moneyball: The Art Of Winning An Unfair Game

Moneyball: The Art Of Winning An Unfair Game by Thorndike Press
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Lewis was in the room with the A's top management as they spent the summer of 2002 adding and subtracting players and he provides outstanding play-by-play. In the June player draft, Beane acquired nearly every prospect he coveted (few of whom were coveted by other teams) and at the July trading deadline he engaged in a tense battle of nerves to acquire a lefty reliever. Besides being one of the most insider accounts ever written about baseball, Moneyball is populated with fascinating characters. We meet Jeremy Brown, an overweight college catcher who most teams project to be a 15th round draft pick (Beane takes him in the first). Sidearm pitcher Chad Bradford is plucked from the White Sox triple-A club to be a key set-up man and catcher Scott Hatteberg is rebuilt as a first baseman. Read more Moneyball: The Art Of Winning An Unfair Game

Oogy: The Dog Only a Family Could Love

Oogy: The Dog Only a Family Could Love by Grand Central Publishing
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"Among the picks of the litter." (People )"In simple, touching prose, Levin relates the details of Oogy's rescue, his entry into their family, and the joy he continues to spread . . . Highly recommended for anyone (that's all of us) in need of inspiration." (Library Journal )"Among the many pet tales currently on bookstore shelves, this is the pick of the litter. . . Levin knits Oogy's story together with the stories of the many people involved in the dog's miraculous rescue and recovery. This is a cozy tale you'll want to curl up with and maybe wag once or twice." (Lincoln Journal Star (Nebraska) )"Heartwarming. . . . As remarkable in spirit as he is distinctive in appearance, the extraordinary Oogy receives a hero's biography from adoring Levin." (Publishers Weekly )"Oogy, the disfigured puppy rescued from a dog-fighting operation, has a story that's hard not to love. . . a compelling story that highlights the plight of dogs victimized by dog-fighting operations . . . a joy to read." (The Roanoke Times )"Oogy's story confirms what Dewey taught me years ago...that even a wounded animal tossed aside is capable of amazing joy if given love and respect by the human chosen to share life with them. Read more Oogy: The Dog Only a Family Could Love

Confessions of a Video Vixen

Confessions of a Video Vixen by HarperAudio
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“An easy, entertaining read... a cautionary tale that contains a timeless message to a new generation of women.” (--South Florida Sun Sentinel ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. Read more Confessions of a Video Vixen

It's All About the Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness on Two Wheels

It's All About the Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness on Two Wheels by
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It's All About the Bike is, like Penn's dream bike, a tale greater than the sum of its parts. An enthusiastic and charming tour guide, Penn uses each component of the bike as a starting point for illuminating excursions into the rich history of cycling. Just like a long ride on a lovely day, It's All About the Bike is pure joy - enriching, exhilarating, and unforgettable.

It's All About the Bike follows Penn's journey, but this book is more than the story of his hunt for two-wheel perfection. En route, Penn brilliantly explores the culture, science, and history of the bicycle. From artisanal frame shops in the United Kingdom to California, where he finds the perfect wheels, via Portland, Milan, and points in between, his trek follows the serpentine path of our love affair with cycling. It explains why we ride. Robert Penn has saddled up nearly every day of his adult life. In his late 20s, he pedaled 25,000 miles around the world. Today he rides to get to work, sometimes for work, to bathe in air and sunshine, to travel, to go shopping, to stay sane, and to skip bath time with his kids. He's no Sunday pedal pusher. So when the time came for a new bike, he decided to pull out all the stops. He would build his dream bike, the bike he would ride for the rest of his life; a customized machine that reflects the joy of cycling. Read more It's All About the Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness on Two Wheels

Mules and Men (P.S.)

Mules and Men (P.S.) by HarperCollins e-books
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REA’s MAXnotes is an insightful series of literature study guides covering over 80 of the most popular literary works.

MAXnotes study guides are student friendly and provide all the essentials needed to prepare students for homework, discussions, reports, and exams. Our MAXnotes for Zora Neale Hurston’s Mules and Men study guide includes an overall summary, character lists, explanation and discussion of the plot, overview of the work’s historical context, and a biography of the author. Each section of the work is individually summarized and includes study questions and answers. Our Zora Neale Hurston’s Mules and Men MAXnotes study guide is a handy resource when preparing for exams or doing homework, and it makes a great companion to the original work. The Zora Neale Hurston’s Mules and Men MAXnotes is also an invaluable resource for English teachers who are teaching the original work and need a refresher. Each MAXnotes includes topics for term papers with sample outlines. Read more Mules and Men (P.S.)

The End of Food

The End of Food by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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This potentially interesting investigation into the challenges of global food production and distribution is marred by the burial of its argument at the end of the book. Beneath a history of food (old news to any reader of Michael Pollan), factoid avalanches and future-tense fretting, Roberts (The End of Oil) makes a familiar plea for rethinking food systems. When the author illustrates his points with actual players, the narrative becomes affecting and memorable: a French meat packer shows how retail powerhouses dictate prices; a Kenyan farmer demonstrates how hunger-ending technologies are often poorly suited to the climates, soils and infrastructures in malnourished regions. Unfortunately, these anecdotes are overshadowed by colorless recitations of Internet research and data culled from interviews. Roberts worries about our vast and overworked [food] system and proffers the usual solutions: eat less (land-based) meat, farm more fish, support regional (not just local) agriculture and pressure food policy makers to fund research into more sustainable farming methods (including genetic modification). Despite the undeniable urgency of the issue, Roberts's arguments are as commonplace as his prescriptions. (June 4) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Read more The End of Food

In the Wake of Madness: The Murderous Voyage of the Whaleship Sharon

In the Wake of Madness: The Murderous Voyage of the Whaleship Sharon by
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Nonfiction accounts about whaling tend to intone Melville's name like a mantra, and Druett's volume about the bedeviled 1841-1845 voyage of the Sharon is no exception. By any measure, the expedition was a catastrophe, with mutiny, desertion and the mid-voyage murder of Capt. Howes Norris by South Pacific Kanaka tribesmen. "It is probably no coincidence," Druett writes, "that Captain Ahab found disaster in the same empty tropic seas where Captain Norris was killed." New Zealander Druett, a well-known maritime journalist (She Captains; Rough Medicine; etc.), doesn't focus on Norris's death. Read more In the Wake of Madness: The Murderous Voyage of the Whaleship Sharon

We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals that Changed Their Lives

We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals that Changed Their Lives by Weinstein Books
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Between his wife Katherine's diagnosis of glioblastoma and her quiet death less than three years later, Mee (The Call of DIY), his siblings and his mother bought a bedraggled zoo, complete with decaying buildings, a ragtag group of animals, an eclectic staff and a reputation that had been quickly going to the wolves. In this occasionally charming (to his children: Quiet. Daddy's trying to buy a zoo) but overly wordy book, Mee writes about caring for his dying wife and their two young children, dealing with Code Red emergencies (when a dangerous animal escapes its confines), hiring staff, learning about his new two- and four-footed charges and setting his sights on refurbishing his zoo into a sanctuary for breeding and raising endangered animals. Mee tends to meander with too-long explanations for one-sentence points, and the awe he feels about each individual animal is repetitive. Coupled with Britishisms that are never explained and a curious lack of varied wild animal stories, this book that was obviously meant to make animal lovers roar with pleasure will only make them whine with frustration. (Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. Read more We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals that Changed Their Lives

My Dog Tulip

My Dog Tulip by
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My Dog Tulip has been adapted to screen as a major animated feature film with a cast that includes Christopher Plummer, Lynn Redgrave, and Isabella Rossellini. It has been heralded as "a stroke of genius" by New York Magazine and "the love story of the year" by Vanity Fair.

Distinguished British man of letters J. R. Ackerley hardly thought himself a dog lover when, well into middle age, he came into possession of a German shepherd named Tulip. To his surprise, she turned out to be the love of his life, the "ideal friend" he had been seeking in vain for years. My Dog Tulip is a bittersweet retrospective account of their 16-year companionship, as well as a profound and subtle meditation on the strangeness that lies at the heart of all relationships. In vivid and sometimes startling detail, Ackerley tells of Tulip's often erratic behavior and very canine tastes and of his own fumbling but determined efforts to ensure for her an existence of perfect happiness. Read more My Dog Tulip

A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France

A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France by
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Eventually the Gestapo hunted down 230 of these women and imprisoned them in a fort outside Paris. Separated from home and loved ones, these disparate individuals turned to one another, their common experience conquering divisions of age, education, profession, and class as they found solace and strength in their deep affection and camaraderie. In January 1943, they were sent to their final destination: Auschwitz. Only 49 would return to France.

They were teachers, students, chemists, writers, and housewives - a singer at the Paris Opera, a midwife, a dental surgeon. They distributed anti-Nazi leaflets, printed subversive newspapers, hid resisters, spirited Jews to safety, transported weapons, and conveyed clandestine messages. The youngest was a schoolgirl of 15 who scrawled "V" for victory on the walls of her lycée; the eldest, a farmer's wife in her sixties who harbored escaped Allied airmen. Strangers to one another, hailing from villages and cities from across France, these brave women were united in hatred and defiance of their Nazi occupiers.A Train in Winter draws on interviews with these women and their families; German, French, and Polish archives; and World War II resistance organization documents to uncover a dark chapter of history that offers an inspiring portrait of ordinary people, of bravery and survival, and of the remarkable, enduring power of female friendship. Read more A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France

The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars

The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars by
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The Murder of the Century is a rollicking tale - a rich evocation of America during the Gilded Age and a colorful re-creation of the tabloid wars that have dominated media to this day.

The grisly finds that began on the afternoon of June 26, 1897, plunged detectives headlong into the era's most perplexing murder. Seized upon by battling media moguls Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, the case became a publicity circus. Re-creations of the murder were staged in Times Square, armed reporters lurked in the streets of Hell's Kitchen in pursuit of suspects, and an unlikely trio - an anxious cop, a cub reporter, and an eccentric professor - all raced to solve the crime. What emerged was a sensational love triangle and an even more sensational trial: an unprecedented capital case hinging on circumstantial evidence around a victim that the police couldn't identify with certainty - and that the defense claimed wasn't even dead. In Long Island, a farmer found a duck pond turned red with blood. On the Lower East Side, two boys playing at a pier discovered a floating human torso wrapped tightly in oilcloth. Blueberry pickers near Harlem stumbled upon neatly severed limbs in an overgrown ditch. Clues to a horrifying crime were turning up all over New York, but the police were baffled: There were no witnesses, no motives, no suspects. Read more The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars

The Last Days of Socrates (Penguin Classics)

The Last Days of Socrates (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics
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Plato (c. 427–347 b.c.) founded the Academy in Athens, the prototype of all Western universities, and wrote more than twenty philosophical dialogues.

Hugh Tredennick was professor of classics at Royal Holloway College and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at London University. Read more The Last Days of Socrates (Penguin Classics)

The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology

The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology by Wheeler Publishing
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Once upon a time there lived a man who discovered the secrets of the earth. He traveled far and wide, learning about the world below the surface. After years of toil, he created a great map of the underworld and expected to live happily ever after. But did he? Simon Winchester (The Professor and the Madman) tells the fossil-friendly fairy tale life of William Smith in The Map That Changed the World. In the end, the villains are foiled, our hero restored, and science triumphs. Winchester clearly relishes his happy ending, and his honey-tinged prose ("that most attractively lovable losterlike Paleozoic arthropod known as the trilobite") injects a lot of life into what seems, on the surface, a rather dry tale. Like Smith, however, Winchester delves into the strata beneath the surface and reveals a remarkable world. --Sunny Delaney --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Despite this triumph, Smith's road remained more rocky than smooth. Snubbed by the gentlemanly Geological Society, Smith complained that "the theory of geology is in the possession of one class of men, the practice in another." Indeed, some members of the society went further than mere ostracism--they stole Smith's work. These cartographic plagiarists produced their own map, remarkably similar to Smith's, in 1819. Meanwhile the chronically cash-strapped Smith had been forced to sell his prized fossil collection and was eventually consigned to debtor's prison. Born to humble parents, Smith was also a child of the Industrial Revolution (the year of his birth, 1769, also saw Josiah Wedgwood open his great factory, Etruria, Richard Arkwright create his first water-powered cotton-spinning frame, and James Watt receive the patent for the first condensing steam engine). While working as surveyor in a coal mine, Smith noticed the abrupt changes in the layers of rock as he was lowered into the depths. He came to understand that the different layers--in part as revealed by the fossils they contained--always appeared in the same order, no matter where they were found. He also realized that geology required a three-dimensional approach. Smith spent the next 20 some years traveling throughout Britain, observing the land, gathering data, and chattering away about his theories to those he met along the way, thus acquiring the nickname "Strata Smith." In 1815 he published his masterpiece: an 8.5- by 6-foot, hand-tinted map revealing "A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales. Read more The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology

For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf

For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf by Scribner
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“Passionate and lyrical...In poetry and prose Shange describes what it means to be a black woman in a world of mean streets, deceitful men, and aching loss. Read more For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf

What Is Zen?

What Is Zen? by Harper & Row
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. Read more What Is Zen?

Howard Hughes: The Untold Story

Howard Hughes: The Untold Story by
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Howard Hughes was one of the most amazing, intriguing, and controversial figures of the 20th century. He was the billionaire head of a giant corporation, a genius inventor, an ace pilot, a matinee-idol-handsome playboy, a major movie-maker who bedded a long list of Hollywood glamour queens, a sexual sultan with a harem of teenage consorts, a political influencer with intimate ties to Watergate, a Las Vegas kingpin, and, ultimately, a bizarre recluse whose final years and shocking death were cloaked in mystery. Until now, few people have been able to penetrate the wall of secrecy that concealed this complex man. In this revelation-packed biography, the full story of one of the most daring, enigmatic, and reclusive power brokers America has ever known is finally told. Read more Howard Hughes: The Untold Story

The Empire of Tea: The Remarkable History of the Plant that Took Over the World

The Empire of Tea: The Remarkable History of the Plant that Took Over the World by
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From Darjeeling to Lapsang Souchon, from India to Japan-a fresh, concise, world-encompassing exploration of the way tea has shaped politics, culture, and the environment throughout history.

From the fourth century BC in China, where it was used as an aid in Buddhist meditation, to the Boston Tea Party in 1773, to its present-day role as the most consumed substance on the planet, the humble Camellia plant has had profound effects on civilization. Read more The Empire of Tea: The Remarkable History of the Plant that Took Over the World

Stealing the General: The Great Locomotive Chase and the First Medal of Honor

Stealing the General: The Great Locomotive Chase and the First Medal of Honor by Westholme Publishing
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Starred Review. A spy and trader in contraband led an ill-fated commando mission during the first year of the Civil War with these words: "Now my lads, you have been chosen by your officers to perform a most important service, which if successful, will change the whole aspect of the war, and aid materially in bringing an early peace to our distracted country." The episode, which formed the basis for one of Buster Keaton's best-known films, took place in April 1862, when 20 Union soldiers crossed Confederate lines to steal a locomotive called the General and destroy a critical Confederate supply line. In this gripping, smooth-running account of the raid and its aftermath, Atlanta lawyer and Civil War historian Bonds zooms effortlessly from broad-stroke overviews of Civil War strategy to minute-by-minute scrutiny of unfolding events on the ground. He sets up the story with a quick, punchy outline of the first year of the war. Read more Stealing the General: The Great Locomotive Chase and the First Medal of Honor

The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America

The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America by
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In The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan put the environmental disaster of the Dust Bowl at the center of a rich history, told through characters he brought to indelible life. Now he performs the same alchemy with The Big Burn, the largest-ever forest fire in America, a tragedy that cemented Teddy Roosevelt's legacy.On the afternoon of August 20, 1910, a battering ram of wind moved through the drought-stricken national forests of Washington, Idaho, and Montana, whipping hundreds of small blazes into a roaring inferno that destroyed towns and timber in an eye-blink. Forest rangers assembled nearly 10,000 men - college boys, day workers, immigrants from mining camps - to fight the fire. But no living person had seen anything like those flames, and neither the rangers nor anyone else knew how to subdue them.Egan narrates the struggles of the overmatched rangers with unstoppable dramatic force. Equally dramatic is the larger story he tells of President Teddy Roosevelt and his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot. Pioneering the notion of conservation, Roosevelt and Pinchot did nothing less than create the idea of national forests as our national treasure, owned by and preserved for every citizen. The robber barons fought them, but the fire saved the forests even as it destroyed them: the heroism shown by the rangers turned public opinion permanently in favor of the forests, even as it changed the mission of the Forest Service, with consequences felt in the fires of today.The Big Burn tells an epic story, paints a moving portrait of the people who lived it, and offers a critical cautionary tale for our time. Read more The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America

Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart

Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart by Bantam
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Yale Law School professor and econometrician Ayres argues in this lively and enjoyable book that the recent creation of huge data sets allows knowledgeable individuals to make previously impossible predictions. He calls the data set analysts super crunchers and discusses the changes they're making to industries like medical diagnostics, air travel pricing, screenwriting and online dating services. Although Ayres presents both sides of this revolution, explaining how the corporate world tries to manipulate consumer behavior and telling consumers how to fight back, his real mission is to educate readers about the basics of statistics and hypothesis testing, spending most of his time in an edifying and entertaining discussion of the use of regression and randomization trials. He frequently asks whether statistical methods are more accurate than the more intuitive conclusions drawn by experts, and consistently concludes that they are. Ayres skillfully demonstrates the importance that statistical literacy can play in our lives, especially now that technology permits it to occur on a scale never before imagined. (Sept. 4) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Read more Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart

The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine

The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine by Crown
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The titular bottle, from a cache of allegedly fine, allegedly French wine, allegedly owned by Thomas Jefferson in the 1780s, set a record price when auctioned in 1985. The subsequent brouhaha over the cache's authenticity takes wine journalist Wallace on a piquant journey into the mirage-like world of rare wines. At its center are Hardy Rodenstock, an enigmatic German collector with a suspicious knack for unearthing implausibly old and drinkable wines, and Michael Broadbent, a Christie's wine expert, who auctioned Rodenstock's lucrative finds. The argument over the Jefferson bottles and other rarities aged for decades, flummoxed a wine establishment desperate to keep the cork in a controversy that might deflate the market for antique vintages. (In the author's telling, a 2006 lawsuit almost settles the issue.) Wallace sips the story slowly, taking leisurely digressions into techniques for faking wine and detecting same with everything from Monticello scholarship to nuclear physics. He paints a colorful backdrop of eccentric oenophiles, decadent tastings and overripe flavor rhetoric (Broadbent describes one wine as redolent of chocolate and schoolgirls' uniforms). Investigating wines so old and rare they could taste like anything, he playfully questions the very foundations of connoisseurship. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Read more The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine