The End of Baseball
by Peter Schilling Jr. (Ivan R. Dee)
No, we’re not talking about the Mets collapse last year. In Schilling’s novel, set in the 1944 season, baseball maverick Bill Veeck buys the Philadelphia Athletics and, determined to field the best team, recruits ballplayers from the Negro League for his roster (he reportedly considered doing this in real life). Of course, the establishment – the cranky commissioner Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis and even J. Edgar Hoover – is aghast. But readers are sure to cheer both Veeck and players such as Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige in this alternate take on baseball history.
Playing with the Grown-Ups
by Sophie Dahl (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday)
In her first full-length novel, former model Sophie Dahl – the granddaughter of legendary children’s author Roald Dahl – has written a coming-of-age tale which sometimes mimics her own life. It explores the relationship between Kitty and her free-spirited mother Marina, transporting them from the English countryside to an ashram, a boarding school and New York City.
A Carrion Death
by Michael Stanley (HarperCollins)
Michael Stanley, is the name that a pair of authors – Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip – use for their partnership. This first in what’s planned as a detective series introduces David “Kubu” Bengu, who, like Precious Ramotswe in Alexander McCall Smith’s “No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” series, does his sleuthing in Botswana. Perhaps coincidentally, Smith also has a new one out: “The Miracle at Speedy Motors” (Pantheon). Can “CSI: Botswana” be far behind?
We’re Going to See The Beatles
An Oral History of Beatlemania as Told by the Fans Who Were There
by Garry Berman (Santa Monica Press)
Four decades after The Beatles broke up, the band still inspires books. Lifelong Fab Four fan Berman doesn’t delve into Beatle archives or grill countless insiders and hangers-on. He writes from the outside looking in, interviewing fans for their stories. We find what it was like to try and sneak into the Plaza when The Beatles stayed there, how they played on Ed Sullivan’s stage, what it sounded like at Shea Stadium.
Why You shouldn’t Eat Your Boogers& Other Useless or Gross Information About Your Body
by Francesca Gould (Tarcher/Penguin)
Boogers aside, there really is plenty of useful “useless” information in this 228-page paperback. British writer Gould asks not-so-common questions and answers them in deadpan style: “If all the blood vessels in one person’s body were laid end to end, how far would they reach?” 100,000 miles (!) from an adult.