"Darryl has written a profound book on the meaning of celebrity, sports and manhood . . . a riveting and memorable account." — David ConeFormer New York Met and Yankee slugger Darryl Strawberry has subtitled his autobiography Straw, "Finding My Way"—and his path was never easy. A National League Rookie of the Year, eight-time MLB All Star, and four-time World Series Champion, Strawberry's baseball achievements were often overshadowed by his...

Cultural commentator John Strausbaugh's The Village is the first complete history of Greenwich Village, the prodigiously influential and infamous New York City neighborhood.From the Dutch settlers and Washington Square patricians, to the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and Prohibition-era speakeasies; from Abstract Expressionism and beatniks, to Stonewall and AIDS, the connecting narratives of The Village tell the story of America itself.Illustrated with historic...

A witty, deeply researched history of the surprisingly ramshackle Soviet space program, and how its success was more spin than science.In the wake of World War II, with America ascendant and the Soviet Union devastated by the conflict, the Space Race should have been over before it started. But the underdog Soviets scored a series of victories--starting with the 1957 launch of Sputnik and continuing in the years following--that seemed to achieve the impossible. It ...

A refreshingly clearheaded and taboo-breaking look at race relations reveals that American culture is neither Black nor White nor Other, but a mix-a mongrel.Black Like You is an erudite and entertaining exploration of race relations in American popular culture. Particularly compelling is Strausbaugh's eagerness to tackle blackface-a strange, often scandalous, and now taboo entertainment. Although blackface performance came to be denounced as purely racist mockery, and sham...

A witty, deeply researched history of the surprisingly ramshackle Soviet space program, and how its success was more spin than science.In the wake of World War II, with America ascendant and the Soviet Union devastated by the conflict, the Space Race should have been over before it started. But the underdog Soviets scored a series of victories—starting with the 1957 launch of Sputnik and continuing in the years following—that seemed to achieve the impossible. It wa...

From John Strausbaugh, author of City of Sedition and The Village, comes the definitive history of Gotham during the World War II era.New York City during World War II wasn't just a place of servicemen, politicians, heroes, G.I. Joes and Rosie the Riveters, but also of quislings and saboteurs; of Nazi, Fascist, and Communist sympathizers; of war protesters and conscientious objectors; of gangsters and hookers and profiteers; of latchkey kids and b...

In a single definitive narrative, City of Sedition tells the spellbinding story of the huge-and hugely conflicted-role New York City played in the Civil War.No city was more of a help to Abraham Lincoln and the Union war effort, or more of a hindrance. No city raised more men, money, and materiel for the war, and no city raised more hell against it. It was a city of patriots, war heroes, and abolitionists, but simultaneously a city of antiwar protest, draf...

A "wonderfully written account of America in the '30s," the follow-up to Only Yesterday examines Black Tuesday through the end of the Depression ( The New York Times).Wall Street Journal BestsellerOpening on September 3, 1929, in the days before the stock market crash, this information-packed volume takes us through one of America's darkest times all the way to the light at the end of the tunnel.Following Black Tue...

What Hemingway's A Moveable Feast did for Paris in the 1920s, this charming yet undeceivable memoir does for Greenwich Village in the late 1940s. In 1946, Anatole Broyard was a dapper, earnest, fledgling avant-gardist, intoxicated by books, sex, and the neighborhood that offered both in such abundance. Stylish written, mercurially witty, imbued with insights that are both affectionate and astringent, this memoir offers an indelible portrait of a lost bohemia.We see Broyard...

“Pearlman’s book develops a stark, unsparing picture of Clemens’s life that surpasses anything that’s come before.” —Boston GlobeNew York Times bestselling author Jeff Pearlman reconstructs pitcher Roger Clemens's life—from his Ohio childhood to the mounds of Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium—to reveal a flawed and troubled man whose rage for baseball immortality took him to superhuman heights before he crashed down to earth.A fearless, hard-nosed Texan with a 98-mph fastball ...

"Jeff Pearlman has captured the swagger of the '86 Mets. You don't have to be a Mets fan to enjoy this book—it's a great read for all baseball enthusiasts."—Philadelphia Daily NewsAward-winning Sports Illustrated baseball writer Jeff Pearlman returns to an innocent time in 80s baseball when a city worshipped a man named Mookie and the Yankees were the second-best team in New York.It was 1986, and the New York Mets won 108 ...

In this magnificently illustrated cultural history—the tie-in to the PBS and BBC series The Story of the Jews—Simon Schama details the story of the Jewish experience, from their beginnings as an ancient tribal people to the opening of the New World in 1492.It is a story like no other: an epic of endurance against destruction, of creativity in oppression, joy amidst grief, the affirmation of life against the steepest of odds.This epic of world histo...