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Off the Shelf: Crazy Basketball by Charley Rosen

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Rosen Read from Chapter 1, "Portrait of the Hooper as a Young Man" from Crazy Basketball: A Life In and Out of Bounds by Charley Rosen, Foreword by Phil Jackson:

"My first formal game was in a ninth-grade tournament at Junior High School No. 44, where my class (of intellectually gifted students) was trounced by class 9-14, a low-IQ team of unruly young men who’d been left back several times and who shaved every day. My main memories of playing in the cold, windy schoolyard were of wearing my long pants with my shirttails flapping, of getting razzed for being so clumsy as to stumble over a foul line, and later getting beaten by my father for tearing my pants.

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Off the Shelf: The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz by Jules Verne

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Verne Read the beginning of The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz: The First English Translation of Verne's Original Manuscript by Jules Verne, translated and edited by Peter Schulman:

"“. . . And get here as soon as possible, my dear Henry. I can’t wait to see you. By the way, this country is magnificent and there’s a lot for an engineer to see in the industrial region of Lower-Hungary. You won’t regret coming.

 Yours with all my heart
 Marc Vidal”

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UNP author to help Major League Baseball trace its roots

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University of Nebraska Press Author David Block will serve on a committee that will trace the beginnings of U.S. baseball. The committee, announced by Major League Baseball on March 15, will be made up of 12 baseball experts who will seek out the history of baseball’s very early days, along with the game’s evolution and growth. The committee will also look at the history and evolution of in various regions, cities and communities. Block, the author of Baseball Before We Knew It, which won the Seymour Medal in 2006, is in good company; other committee members include Ken Burns and … Continue reading UNP author to help Major League Baseball trace its roots

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Off the Shelf: Coda by René Belletto

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Coda Read the beginning of Coda: A Novel by René Belletto, translated by Alyson Waters:

"It is to me that we owe our immortality, and this is the story that proves it beyond all doubt.

On Monday, the first of August in the year _ _ _ _ at 9:30 a.m., Anna and I arrived in front of the Parc Monceau in Paris. I was bringing my daughter to the house of her maternal grandparents, Maurice and Maureen Michelangeli.

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Author on Chicago radio

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New this month from University of Nebraska Press is Beyond DiMaggio: Italian Americans in Baseball by Larry Baldassaro. It is a social history of baseball, tracing the evolution of American perceptions toward those big players of Italian decent like DiMaggio, Giamatti and Piazza. It chronicles the baseball exploits that influenced those perceptions. Baldassaro conducted more than fifty interviews with players, coaches, managers, and executives—some with careers dating back to the thirties—in order to put all these figures and their stories into the historical context of baseball, Italian Americans, and, finally, the culture of American sports. Baldassaro was invited by Cubs … Continue reading Author on Chicago radio

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Roundup news

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This month Another Burning Kingdom by Robert Vivian is featured on the Ninth Letter homepage with an excerpt from the book. Philip Graham writes “Vivian's prose travels strange territory, mixing colloquial speech with the heightened language of spiritual insight, a music fusing dissonance and consonance like matches trying to spark a reader alert.” Click here to take a look.   Lisa Harper, author of A Double Life: Discovering Motherhood was a guest blogger on Motherhood Later, Rather than Sooner last week. On the blog, Harper discusses her experience of becoming a mother at 36. Read her blog post here.   … Continue reading Roundup news

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Murder mystery review

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Author A. B. Guthrie Jr. (1901–91) was a historian and novelist whose 1949 book The Way West won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. He was also a fantastic storyteller who could write a great murder mystery. The University of Nebraska Press has recently begun re-releasing his murder mysteries, all of which feature small-town Montana sheriff Chick Charleston and his highly educated sidekick, Jason Beard, in paperback editions. The most recent of those, Playing Catch-Up was recently reviewed in the Washington Post by Dennis Drabelle who said “for anyone who doesn't know Guthrie's work, Playing Catch-Up is a fine place to … Continue reading Murder mystery review

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Off the Shelf: First Laugh by Margaret Randall

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Randall Read the beginning of "The American People" from First Laugh: Essays, 2000-2009 by Margaret Randall:

"The congressman stands on the Senate steps. He adjusts this season’s fashionable pink tie and the little electronic receiver continually threatening to slip from his ear, and faces the camera head-on. Which has him facing us. The reporter makes short shrift of the usual pleasantries: “Thank you, Congressman, for being willing to talk to us tonight.” The congressman smiles and says it’s his pleasure. I know what’s coming next. Whatever the issue, whatever the question about it, and regardless of whether the spokesperson is a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent, within the next thirty seconds he or she will use the catch-all phrase, “The American People.” I can bet my future on it.

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Sonya Huber interview

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Cover Me: A Health Insurance Memoir is Sonya Huber’s story about her experiences with health care in the United States. From college graduation through hear early 30s, Huber struggles to find a job she enjoys that provides insurance covering routine care — dental checkups and fillings, doctor's visit's, and, eventually, labor and delivery and health care for an infant. She becomes a healthcare activist and, at times, works for non-profits dedicated to improving health care for the middle class and poor, while, ironically, going without insurance herself. Huber’s irreverent and affecting memoir of navigating the nation’s health-care system brings a … Continue reading Sonya Huber interview

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Celebrating Wally Yonamine

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Wally Yonamine was both the first Japanese American to play for an NFL franchise and the first American to play professional baseball in Japan after World War II. He is also the subject of Robert Fitt’s biography Wally Yonamine: The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball, which is the unlikely story of how a shy young man from the sugar plantations of Maui overcame prejudice to integrate two professional sports in two countries. The two-sport star died Monday at the age of 85. The San Francisco Chronicle said he “was known as the ‘Nisei Jackie Robinson’ for breaking into Japanese baseball … Continue reading Celebrating Wally Yonamine