Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Books: The Story Of The 1986 Red Sox Told In "Two Sides Of Glory"



Two Sides of Glory: The 1986 Boston Red Sox in Their Own Words

By Erik Sherman; foreword by Joe Castiglione

Nebraska; hardcover, 288 pages; $29.95; available Thursday, April 1

The 1986 Major League Baseball postseason is one of the most memorable ever, with the Mets beating the Houston Astros for the National League pennant, and the Boston Red Sox coming away from the brink of defeat to beat the California Angels in seven games.

Books: "Cobra," The Compelling Story Of Baseball Slugger Dave Parker

 



Cobra: A Life of Baseball and Brotherhood

By Dave Parker and Dave Jordan

Nebraska; hardcover, 480 pages; $34.95; available Thursday, April 1

Dave Parker is one of the moot memorable players of the colorful era of baseball (literally marked by bright-colored uniforms, especially on his Pittsbugh Pirates) in the late 1970s and into the '80s. Standing at six-foot-five and weighing 235 pounds, the slugger known as Cobra was a World Series champion with both the Pirates, in 1979. and a decade later, with the Oakland Athletics, in 1989; a seven-time All-Star, a two-time batting champion, the 1978 National League Most Valuable Player, and a frequent Gold Glove winner.

Books: Baseball Biographies On Yankee Legend Tony Lazzeri & A Pair Of Inspiring Comeback Pitchers

Baseball is a game full of memorable personalities, and there are two new books that capture some vintage stories you are sure to enjoy as Opening Day is upon us: Tony Lazzeri: Yankee Legend and Baseball Pioneer, by Lawrence Baldassaro; and Comeback Pitchers, by Lyle Spatz and Steve Steinberg.

Books: "Lies We Bury" By Elle Marr



Lies We Bury

By Elle Marr

Thomas & Mercer; trade paperback, 303 pages; $15.95; available Thursday, April 1

In her novels, Elle Marr tells powerful and compelling stories of women who demonstrated resilience in the face of great obstacles. She believes representation matters, and as a first-generation Chinese-American on her father's side, she is passionate about including mixed-race, Asian-American characters who look like her in her novels.

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

What To Expect When Attending Yankee Stadium, Which Will Also Continue To Give Out Vaccines


Yankee Stadium on Tuesday morning. Provided by New York Yankees.

Opening Day at Yankee Stadium is this Thursday, and the Yankees released information on what you can expect if you are one of the lucky ones in attendance.

Monday, March 29, 2021

Baseball Books To Welcome The New Season

Photo by Jason Schott.


Baseball's Opening Day is this Thursday, with the Yankees hosting the Toronto Blue Jays in front of a crowd at Yankee Stadium and the Mets will be in Washington to take on the Nationals. 

Friday, March 26, 2021

Books: "Is This Heaven?" On The Magical Field Of Dreams

 



Is This Heaven? The Magic of the Field of Dreams

By Brett H. Mandel

Lyons Press; hardcover, $24.95; paperback, $17.95; eBook, $17.00

When "Field of Dreams" was released in 1989, it instantly became a baseball movie classic, but it's about so much more.

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Dr. Bobby Brown, Yankees Legend Who Lived A Remarkable Life

The Yankees' tribute to Dr. Brown. @Yankees.


The Yankees announced the sad news that Dr. Bobby Brown, who was a member of five championship teams in their glorious era in the 1940's and '50s, passed away on Thursday morning at the the age of 96 in Fort Worth, Texas.

Yankees-Stonewall Scholarships Announced

Yankee Stadium. Photo by Jason Schott.


The Yankees, New York City Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter, and The Stonewall Inn recently announced that applications are open for the  2021 Yankees-Stonewall Scholarships.

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Books: "The Little French Bridal Shop" By Jennifer Dupee

 



The Little French Bridal Shop

By Jennifer Dupee

St. Martin's Press; hardcover; $26.99

Jennifer Dupee is the eldest of a set of fraternal triplets, and she grew up seeking any quiet corner of the house so that she could read, write, and work on puzzles. Her life-long passion for old houses inspired Elmhurst, the grand home featured in her debut novel The Little French Bridal Shop

Books: A Look At The Life Of Lakers Legend Elgin Baylor



Elgin Baylor: The Man Who Changed Basketball

By Bijan C. Bayne; foreword by Bob Ryan

Rowman & Littlefield; paperback, $29.00; eBook, $27.50

The basketball world was saddened on Monday with the passing of Lakers legend Elgin Baylor, who transformed the way the game is played, was a civil rights trailblazer, and a true superstar. 

Books: How To Pass "The Dry Challenge"



The Dry Challenge: How To Lose the Booze for Dry January, Sober October, and Any Other Alcohol-Free Month

By Hilary Sheinbaum; foreword by Lo Bosworth

Harper Design; hardcover; $19.99

Many people just successfully completed a Dry January, in which they abstained from alcohol for a full month, and it is something you can attempt any time of the year.

Tuesday, March 23, 2021

Books: Remarkable New Novels To Enjoy On A Spring Afternoon

Photo by Jason Schott.

Spring has arrived in New York City, and there is a quartet of new books that would be perfect to read as you enjoy an afternoon in the park: The Consequences of Fear, by Jacqueline Winspear; The Vietri Project, by Nicola DeRobertis-Theye; The Little French Bridal Shop, by Jennifer Dupee; and Sparks Like Stars, by Nadia Hashimi.




The Consequences of Fear: A Maisie Dobbs Novel

By Jacqueline Winspear

Harper; hardcover, 352 pages; $27.99; available Tuesday, March 23rd

This compelling work is the 16th installment of the Maisie Dobbs series, and in this one we find that what the psychologist and investigator find could have disastrous effects.

Set in October 1941, Europe is bending under the weight of German might. In London, daily bombing raids have made it perilous to move around town, yet along the Londoners "doing their bit" to aid the war effort are fleet-footed boys who run messages for government offices while dodging debris and aerial raids.

On one of those errands, a runner named Freddie Hackett spots two men arguing in an alley. As the child of a violent father, he is anxious not to be seen when the disagreement escalates. While hiding in a doorway, he is certain he sees a brutal murder committed by a man with a distinctive scar. Freddie, though reeling, runs to finish his delivery, and is greeted at his destination by the scarred man.

It will take Maisie Dobbs help Hackett. After the police dismissed him, he turned to Maisie, who he had met on another message run. Dobbs believes him, but she has trouble untangling what he might have seen. Initially, she approaches it as a separate case for her agency, but images and coincidences from Hackett's case keep shadowing her own ultra-secret war work, an assignment with the Special Operations Executive. 

Maisie's remit is to assess the suitability of candidates for crucial yet dangerous work with the French resistance, a role that's beginning to compromise her integrity. At a training retreat, she is introduced to a powerful man with a telling facial scar. As she begins to did deeper, a link to the unquiet circumstances of a guerilla war is revealed.

Winspear has ofren drawn on her own family's wartime experiences, and Freddie Hackett is inspired by the role her father was obliged to take on a take on as a boy, running messages across war-torn London. Her novels tell the story of everyday life far from the front lines, and the trauma adults and children suffer while living under the extraordinary strain of conflict.



The Vietri Project

By Nicola DeRobertis-Theye

Harper; hardcover, 240 pages; $24.99; available Tuesday, March 23rd

In this debut novel from Nicola DeRobertis-Theye, a search for a mysterious customer in Rome leads a young bookseller to confront the complicated history of her family, and that of Italy itself.

Gabriele is working at a bookstore in Berkeley, and has become intrigued by the orders of signor Vietri, a customer from Rome whose numerous purchases grow increasingly mystical and esoteric. She becomes restless and uncertain of the future, and heads to Rome and looks for Vietri. 

Unable to locate him, Gabriele begins a quest to unearth the well-concealed facts of his life. She follows a trail of obituaries and military records, a memoir of life in a village forgotten by modernity, and the court records of a communist murder trial. 

Gabriele then meets an eclectic assortment of the city's inhabitants, from the widow of an Italian prisoner of war to members of a generation set adrift by the financial crisis. Each encounter draws her unexpectedly closer to her own painful past and complicated family history - an Italian mother diagnosed with schizophrenia and institutionalized during her childhood, and an extended family in Rome still recovering from the losses and betrayals in their past.

Through their voices and histories, Gabriele discovers what it means to be a person in the world, a member of a family, and a citizen of a country. Reconciling these stories may be the key to understanding her own tale.




The Little French Bridal Shop

By Jennifer Dupee

St. Martin's Press; hardcover; $26.99

Jennifer Dupee is the eldest of a set of fraternal triplets, and she grew up seeking any quiet corner of the house so that she could read, write, and work on puzzles. Her life-long passion for old houses inspired Elmhurst, the grand home featured in her debut novel The Little French Bridal Shop

Another inspiration for this deeply thoughtful work came as an outgrowth of losing her mother to breast cancer when she was 24 years old, and she strove to capture the feelings of loss of identity, disorientation, and confusion that consume a person, even an adult, who becomes a caretaker of their ailing parent.

In The Little French Bridal Shop, Larisa Pearl returns home to her insular seaside hometown in Massachusetts to manage Elmhurst, the historic home left to her by her late aunt, who recently passed away. 

One day, Larisa strolls into the town's local bridal shop on a whim and, seemingly out of nowhere, buys a dress. This comes even though she is not engages and is unsure if she wants a future with her boyfriend.

Word spreads around town that she is getting marries, and rather than dispelling the rumor, she chooses to perpetuate the lies, which escalate into a tangled web that confounds and hurts her parents and friends. This is also while Larisa is struggling to cope with her mother's worsening dementia; it's only when she can cope with her mother's fragile future that she is able to straighten out the chaos of her life.

This book is a unique one in that it focuses on dementia from the view of the caretakers and family members of the person with the disease. It is a work that will resonate with readers who have faced, or are facing, profound changes in the relationships they have with their aging parents.




Sparks Like Stars

By Nadia Hashimi

William Morrow; hardcover; $27.99

Nadia Hashimi is a pediatrician and the author of three bestselling novels. parents left Afghanistan in the 1970s, before the Soviet invasion. In 2002, Hashimi visited Afghanistan for the first time with her family, and she currently lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband, an Afghan-born neurosurgeon, and their four children.

In Hashimi's new book, Sparks Like Stars, Sitara Zemani lives a privileged life in Afghanistan's thriving cosmopolitan capital, Kabul, as the daughter of a prominent family. The 1970s was a time of remarkable promise in Afghanistan, as the country was led by Sardar Daoud, the country's progressive president, and his right-hand man, Sitara's father. 

10-year-old Sitara's world is shattered in an instant when communists stage a coup and assassinate the president and Sitara's entire family, leaving her as the lone survivor.

Sitara is smuggled out of the palace by a guard names Shair, and she finds her way to the home of a female American diplomat who adopts her and raises her in America. In her new country, Sitara takes on a new name, Aryana Shepherd, and throws herself into her studies, eventually becoming a renowned surgeon. 

Jump ahead to 2008 in New York City, and Aryan's world is turned upside down again when an elderly patient arrives in her examination room, a man she never thought she would see again. It is Shair, the soldier who saved her, but might have killed her entire family. 

The sight of him brings back Aryana's anger and search for answers, as well as thoughts of revenge. Realizing that she cannot continue without finding the truth, Aryana embarks on a quest that takes her back to Kabul - a battleground between the corrupt government and the fundamentalist Taliban - and shadowy memories of the world she loved and lost.

This story is one of home, of America and Afghanistan, two countries that will be forever linked by the War on Terror, and it will bring out so many emotions, as it is heartbreaking, yet hopeful. 



 

Thursday, March 18, 2021

Amazin' News: Fans Can Return To Citi Field For Mets Games In 2021

Citi Field in the summer of 2019. Photo by Jason Schott.


Mets fans can once again, as the song says, "Meet the Mets, Meet the Mets, Step right up and greet the Mets!" at Citi Field this season after a year marked by cardboard cutouts in the stands.

The Mets made the major announcement on Thursday that fans can return to the ballpark starting on with the Mets' home opener, Thursday April 8 at 1:10 p.m. against the Miami Marlins.

Yankee Stadium To Host Fans For Start of 2021 Season

Yankees Stadium in the summer of 2019. Photo by Jason Schott.


Take us out to the ballgame! After a year without fans, there will be a crowd on Opening Day at Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees, along with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Department of Health, announced on Thursday that they will open The Stadium at 20 percent capacity to start the 2021 regular season.

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

Books: "Saving Freedom," Joe Scarborough On Truman's Greatness



Saving Freedom: Truman, the Cold War, and the Fight for Western Civilization

By Joe Scarborough 

Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers; hardcover, 288 pages; $29.99

There are moments where leaders hear the call of history, and that was especially true for President Harry Truman in the 1940s when he was tasked with uniting the Western world against Soviet communism.

Books: "Creatures Of Passage" By Morowa Yejide



Creatures Of Passage

By Morowa Yejide

Akashic Books, Brooklyn, NY; hardcover, $25.00; E-book, $25.99; available today, Tuesday, March 16th

Morowa Yejide is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Time of the Locust, which was a 2012 finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize, long-listed for the 2015 PEN/Bingham Prize, and a nominee for a 2015 NAACP Image Award. She is a Washington, DC, native who resides in the area with her husband and three sons.

Monday, March 15, 2021

Books: "Covet" By Tracy Wolff, Latest Part of "Crave" Series



Covet

By Tracy Wolff

Entangled Teen, an imprint of Entangled Publishing LLC; hardcover; $19.99

Tracy Wolff is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of sixty-four novels that run the gamut from young adult action adventures to new adult romance and from women's fiction to erotica. Tracy, a long-time devotee of vampires, dragons, and all things that go bump in the night, loves nothing more than combining her affection for paranormal creatures with her love of writing tortured heroes and strong heroines.

Books On Basketball As March Madness Is Here

 

Madison Square Garden. Photo by Jason Schott.


As college basketball's March Madness is upon us and the NBA season is hitting the stretch run, it's a good time to read up on the game of basketball. These new books will teach you a ton about hoops, The Hot Hand by Ben Cohen, The Boston Celtics All-Time All-Stars by John Karalis, and How To Watch Basketball Like A Genius by Nick Greene.

Thursday, March 11, 2021

Books: Illustrated Works Inspired by Otis Redding & Tim McGraw Songs

Akashic Books, a publisher located right here in Brooklyn, New York, and LyricVerse have collaborated on a children's picture book collection called LyricPop. Two new releases in this incredible collection are based on Otis Redding's classic "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay" and Tim McGraw's "Humble and Kind."

Tuesday, March 9, 2021

Books: A Tale Of True Crime & Novels Filled With Intrigue

In this extended book review, we will take a look at three new books that are sure to intrigue. Maniac: The Bath School Disaster and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer, by Harold Schechter, focuses on one of the worst mass murders in American history when a school was bombed. The novel The Windsor Knot: Her Majesty the Queen Investigates: Volume Number 1, by SJ Bennett, centers on Queen Elizabeth investigating a murder in the castle. The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World, by Laura Imai Messina, tells the incredible story of how people attempted to communicate to loved ones lost in the 2011 Japanese tsunami, based on true story.

Books: "A Fatal Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum" On Life In Ancient Rome



A Fatal Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome

By Emma Southon, PhD

Abrams Press; hardcover, 352 pages; $27.00; available today, Tuesday, March 9th

Ancient Rome was known for many contributions to the world, but the one commonality on all stories from there was murder - even its founding. 

Saturday, March 6, 2021

Boone Returns To Yankees, Says Watching Cole Pitch "Always a good way to get back into it"


Yankees Manager Aaron Boone on Saturday. @Yankees.


Yankees Manager Aaron Boone returned to the team on Saturday, just three days after having surgery to install a pacemaker, and he was in good spirits being back at the Yankees spring training complex in Tampa.

Books: "Land" By Simon Winchester




Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World

By Simon Winchester

Harper; hardcover, 464 pages; $29.99

Simon Winchester, the renowned author of The Professor and the Madman and The Perfectionists, explores the idea of property and people's proprietary relationship with land, through human history, how it has shaped us and what it means for the future.

Thursday, March 4, 2021

Lou Gehrig Day To Be Honored Across Baseball on June 2nd

Lou Gehrig.


Major League Baseball announced that one of the greatest players in history, an iconic Yankee, if not the iconic Yankee, will have a day in his honor. 

Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Yankees Manager Aaron Boone To Take Leave Of Absence Due To Health Issues

Yankees Manager Aaron Boone in 2019. Photo by Jason Schott.


The Yankees announced on Wednesday afternoon news that is nothing short of stunning. Manager Aaron Boone will be taking "an immediate medical leave of absence to receive a pacemaker." 

The surgery took place at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa late Wednesday afternoon, and the Yankees tweeted (@Yankees) the following at 6 p.m.: "Manager Aaron Boone is out of surgery and in the recovery room at St. Joe's Hospital. The procedure went as expected."

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Books: "Don't Turn Around" By Jessica Barry

 



Don't Turn Around 

By Jessica Barry

Harper/HarperCollins Publishers; paperback, $16.99; available today, Tuesday, March 2nd

Jessica Barry is a pseudonym for an American author who grew up in a small town in Massachusetts and was raised on a steady diet of library books and PBS. She is the author of Freefall, which was a thriller focused on a woman who survived a plane crash only to be hunted by somebody who wants her dead, and has been optioned for a feature film.

Monday, March 1, 2021

Books: "How To Watch Basketball Like A Genius" By Nick Greene



How To Watch Basketball Like A Genius: What Game Designers, Economists, Ballet Choreographers, and Theoretical Astrophysicists Reveal About the Greatest Game on Earth

By Nick Greene

Abrams Press; hardcover, 272 pages; $28.00; available Tuesday, March 2nd

Basketball is a game that can mean many things to people, with its combination of athleticism, craftiness, rules, intangibles, and superstardom making it a game of culture, art, and all the things that make us human.

On Day Many Yankees' New Faces Debut, They Get Statement From A Familiar One

Gary Sanchez connecting on a mammoth home run on Monday afternoon. Provided by New York Yankees.



The second spring training game for the Yankees was one which marked the debut of new faces like pitchers Jameson Taillon and Jhoulys Chacin, and outfielder Jay Bruce, but was marked by a big day from a very familiar one, catcher Gary Sanchez, entering his sixth season in pinstripes.