A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year (Nonfiction) Finalist for the Marfield Prize, National Award for Arts Writing “Evokes the fire of Redding.... Ribowsky tells the story with nonstop energy, while always probing for the larger social and musical pictures.” —New York Times Book Review When he died in one of rock's string of tragic plane crashes, Otis Redding was only twenty-six, yet already the avatar of a new kind of soul music. The beating heart of Memphis-based Stax Records, he had risen to fame belting out gospel-flecked blues in stage performances that seemed to ignite not only a room but an entire generation. If Berry Gordy's black-owned kingdom in Motown showed the way in soul music, Redding made his own way, going where not even his two role models who had preceded him out of Macon, Georgia—Little Richard and James Brown—had gone. Now, in this transformative work, New York Times Notable Book author Mark Ribowsky contextualizes his subject's short career within the larger cultural and social movements of the era, tracing the crooner's rise from preacher's son to a preacher of three-minute soul sermons. And what a quick rise it was. At the tender age of twenty-one, Redding needed only a single unscheduled performance to earn a record deal, his voice so "utterly unique" (Atlantic) that it catapulted him on a path to stardom and turned a Memphis theater-turned-studio into a music mecca. Soon he was playing at sold-out venues across the world, from Finsbury Park in London to his ultimate conquest, the 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival in California, where he finally won over the flower-power crowd. Still, Redding was not always the affable, big-hearted man's man the PR material painted him to be. Based on numerous new interviews and prodigious research, Dreams to Remember reintroduces an incredibly talented yet impulsive man, one who once even risked his career by shooting a man in the leg. But that temperament masked a deep vulnerability that was only exacerbated by an industry that refused him a Grammy until he was in his grave—even as he shaped the other Stax soul men around him, like Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, and Booker T. and The MG's. As a result, this requiem is one of great conquest but also grand tragedy: a soul king of truth, a mortal man with an immortal voice and a pain in his heart. Now he, and the forces that shaped his incomparable sound, are reclaimed, giving us a panoramic of an American original who would come to define an entire era, yet only wanted what all men deserve—a modicum of respect and a place to watch the ships roll in and away again.
Biographer of Phil Spector (He's a Rebel), among others, Ribowsky takes a dishy, insider look at Berry Gordy's making of the Supremes, with some nasty swipes at Diana Ross while elevating Flo Ballard as the trio's martyr. In his detailed look at how Berry engineered his Motown empire, thanks to his smart sisters and a lot of luck and fortuitous pairing of talent, Ribowsky nicely intersperses some hindsight reflections by the main players, such as the brothers Brian and Eddie Holland of the legendary songwriting team with Lamont Dozier, with comparative accounts by Mary Wilson, Ross and others in order to sift the truth from the legend. While the author constantly snipes at Ross for her popping eyes and naked ambition, it was largely her single-minded drive that garnered attention to the trio's early incarnation as the Primettes, and her high girl-woman singing voice that established the Supremes' distinctive sound. Moreover, Ross's influence on Gordy (and his faith in her future solo stardom) motivated him to keep pushing the group into the limelight, in spite of other girl groups that had a bigger top hit following, such as Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. In this engaging, vivacious account, Ribowsky energetically and thoroughly underscores the Supremes' significance as one of the first crossover successes. (July) Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The first and only definitive biography of legendary Motown group, the Temptations The Temptations are an incomparable soul group, with dozens of chart-topping hits such as My Girl and Papa Was a Rollin Stone. From the sharp suits, stylish choreography, and distinctive vocals that epitomized their onstage triumphs to the personal failings and psycho-dramas that played out behind the scenes, Ain't Too Proud to Beg tells the complete story of this most popular—and tragic—of all Motown super groups. Based on in-depth research and interviews with founding Temptations member Otis Williams and many others, the book reveals the highly individual, even mutually antagonistic, nature of the group's members. Venturing beyond the money and the fame, it shares the compelling tale of these sometime allies, sometime rivals and reveals the unique dynamic of push and pull and give and take that resulted in musical genius. The first book to tell the whole story of Motown's greatest group, with all-new interviews and previously undiscovered sources and photographs Gives the last word on enduring Motown mysteries, including the deaths of Paul Williams and David Ruffin and the truth behind Ruffin's tumultuous romance with Tammi Terrell Reveals the secret "can't miss" formula behind the Temptations' thirty-seven chart hits Draws on more than one hundred interviews with the group's associates, industry figures, family members, and most importantly, founding Temptation Otis Williams Ain't Too Proud to Beg takes a cohesive and penetrating look at the life and enduring legacy of one of the greatest groups in popular music. It is essential reading for fans of the Temptations, music lovers, and anyone interested in the history of American popular culture over the last fifty years.
“This entertaining, fast-paced biography” of the legendary singer-songwriter “will thrill fans of Little Richard and early rock and roll” (Publishers Weekly). Richard Wayne Penniman, known to the world as Little Richard, blazed the trail for generations of musicians: The Beatles, James Brown, the Everly Brothers, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Prince . . . the list seems endless. He was “The Originator,” “The Innovator,” and the self-anointed “King and Queen of Rock ’n’ Roll.” In The Big Life of Little Richard, Mark Ribowsky shares the raucous story of his life from early childhood in Macon, Georgia, to his death in 2020. Ribowsky, acclaimed biographer of musical icons―including the Supremes, the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, and Otis Redding―takes readers through venues, gigs, and studios, conveying the sweaty energy of music sessions limited to a few tracks on an Ampex tape machine and vocals sung along with a live band. He explores Little Richard’s musicianship; his family life; his uphill battle against racism; his interactions with famous contemporaries and the media; and his lifelong inner conflict between his religion and his sexuality. By 2020, eighty-seven-year-old Little Richard’s electrifying smile was still intact, as were his bona fides as rock’s royal architect: the ’50s defined his reign, and he extended elder statesmanship ever since. The Big Life of Little Richard not only explores a legendary stage persona, but also a complex life under the makeup and pomade
The first definitive biography of music legend Stevie Wonder Stevie Wonder's achievements as a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer are extraordinary. During a career that has spanned almost fifty years, he has earned more than thirty Top 10 hits, twenty-six Grammy Awards, and a place in both the Rock and Roll and Songwriter Halls of Fame—and he's not finished yet. On the verge of turning sixty, he is still composing, still touring, and still attracting dedicated fans around the world. For the first time, Signed, Sealed, and Delivered takes an in-depth look at Stevie Wonder's life and his evolution from kid-soul pop star into a mature artist whose music helped lay the groundwork for the evolution of hip hop and rap. Explores the life, achievements, and influence of one of America's biggest musical icons, set against the history of Motown and the last fifty years of popular music Based on extensive interviews with Motown producers, music executives, songwriters, and musicians, including founding Temptation Otis Williams, Mickey Stevenson, surviving Funk Brother Eddie Willis, synthesizer genius Malcolm Cecil, guitar legend Michael Sembello, and many others Traces Stevie's personal and musical development through the decades, from the early 1960s R&B of "Fingertips" to the social and political themes of "Living for the City" and other 1970s classics, through periods of musical and personal confusion, uncertainty, and, later, renewal Read Signed, Sealed, and Delivered to explore the life and work of one of pop music's most compelling masters of invention.
The Everly Brothers—aka Don and Phil to fans with an intimate appreciation for them—seemed to exist almost as an apparition. Emerging within the formative era for young Baby Boomers during the blandly regimented ‘50s, they were a ubiquitous presence, clad in snug suits and skinny ties, hair neatly Brylcreemed, never raising their voices when they sang. The two prim-looking country boys with dark, curiously penetrating eyes and perfectly merged, honey-dipped harmonies, were oddly but comfortably settled as sentimental, soothing, sometimes lovelorn voices of a still-uncharted cultural turf. Magnificent as the duo was, they have until now never received a definitive biography. In Crying in the Rain: The Perfect Harmony and Imperfect Lives Of the Everly Brothers, the details, small and great, roll along on the mighty “Mississippi,” in near novel-like fashion, revealing facts drawn from exhaustive research and first-hand interviews that trace the character and influences of these hardy but flawed men who grew from teenagers to old men before our eyes. Mark Ribowsky’s authoritative book serves as a fitting companion to an unforgettable collection of songs—heard on countless albums, and covered literally thousands of times—whose recording was a long time gone but that will never be forgotten.
“Black men could finally stand up and be men because here's Black Moses; he's the epitome of Black masculinity. Chains that once represented bondage and slavery now can be a sign of power and strength and sexuality and virility.” —Isaac Hayes Within the stoned soul picnic of Black music icons in the ’60s and ’70s, only one could bill himself without a blush as Moses, demanding liberation for Black men with his notions of life and self—Isaac Lee Hayes Jr., the beautifully sheen, shaded, and chain-spangled acolyte of cool, whose high-toned “lounge music” and proto-rap was soul’s highest order—heard on twenty-two albums and selling millions of records. Hayes’s stunning self-portraits, his obsessive pleas about love, sex, and guilt bathed in lush orchestral flights and soul-stirring bass lines, drove other soul men like Barry White to libidinous license. But Hayes, who called himself a “renegade,” was a man of many parts. While he thrived on soulful remakes of pop standards, his biggest coup was writing and producing the epic soundtrack to Shaft, memorializing the “black private dick” as a “complicated man,” as coolly mean and amoral as any white private eye. This new musical and cultural coda delivered Hayes the first Oscar ever won by a Black musician, as well as the Grammy for Best Song. Yet, few know Hayes’s remarkable achievements. In this compelling buffet of sight and sound, acclaimed music biographer Mark Ribowsky—who has authored illuminating portraits of such luminaries as Stevie Wonder, Little Richard, and Otis Redding—gallops through the many stages of Hayes’s daring and daunting life, starting with Hayes’s difficult childhood in which his mother died young and his father abandoned him. Ribowsky then takes readers through Hayes’s rise at Memphis’s legendary soul factory, Stax Records, first as a piano player on Otis Redding sessions then as a songwriter and producer teamed with David Porter. Tuned to the context of soul music history, he created crossover smashes like Sam & Dave's “Soul Man,” “Hold on I'm Comin’,” and “I Thank You,” making soul a semi-religion of Black pride, imagination, and joyful emotion. Hayes’s subsequent career as a solo artist featured studio methods and out-of-the-box ideas that paved the way for soul to occupy the top of the album charts alongside white rock albums. But his prime years ended prematurely, both as a consequence of Stax’s red ink and his own self-destructive tendencies. In the ’90s he claimed he had finally found himself, as a minion of Scientology. But Scientology would cost him the gig that had revived him—the cartoon voice of the naively cool “Chef” on South Park—after he became embroiled in controversy when South Park’s creators parodied Scientology in an episode that caused the cult’s leaders to order him to quit the show. Although Hayes was honored by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, the brouhaha came as his seemingly perfect body finally broke down. He died in 2008 at age sixty-eight, too soon for a soul titan. But if only greatness can establish permanence in the cellular structure of music, Isaac Hayes long ago qualified. His influence will last for as long as there is music to be heard. And when we hear him in that music, we will by rote say, “We can dig it.”
The story of America’s most sacred and carefully constructed football dynasty is revealed in this unflinching family portrait. For generations, American athletes have enjoyed the ever-escalating celebrity lavished upon them when they combine on-the-field talent with off-the field charisma, but never before have we seen as transformative a sports dynasty as the Mannings: a bloodline of strong arms, Southern values, and savvy business instincts—each man compelling in his own right, made whole by family. But how, in just fifty years, did this private trio achieve football immortality? A gripping and definitive account, In the Name of the Father traces Archie, Peyton, and Eli’s roots from red-clay Mississippi to the bright lights of the Super Bowl to reveal the truth of their grit and dedication, their inherent ability, and the drama they endured behind closed doors. As New York Times Notable biographer Mark Ribowsky meticulously chronicles, the road to football stardom was not paved smoothly for patriarch Archie. The most celebrated and beloved athlete to emerge from tiny Drew, Mississippi, Archie lost his father to suicide during his heyday at Ole Miss. Then, despite his playing through the pain, a string of surgeries prematurely ended a storied NFL career, most memorably spent with the New Orleans Saints. Similar savior-like expectations were passed to Archie’s eldest, Cooper, the most gifted of his brood, but the shocking discovery of a spinal condition prevented Cooper from ever playing a single snap of college ball. Luckily, Archie had been raising all three of his sons to love the gridiron, throwing deep balls to them off the front porch, and there were two more heir apparents in the wings. Raised watching dusty old game films in the family den, Peyton was swiftly hailed as a generational talent, his record-breaking tenure at Tennessee paving a clear path to the NFL. Winning Super Bowls with both the Indianapolis Colts and the Denver Broncos, he was able to overcome a debilitating neck injury—after barely being able to hold a football—to eclipse Archie in football success. It was Peyton who would first pair his football cachet with capitalism, selecting commercials and appearances to show off his humor and expand the now-ubiquitous Manning brand into mainstream popular culture. And finally there was quiet Eli, with an arm and a career to match his big brother’s but a reserved and enigmatic affect all his own. The good-boy who followed his father to Ole Miss, Eli entered the NFL even more carefully managed then his brother was, forcing a trade when the lackluster San Diego Chargers selected him with the first pick in the draft. Even with two dramatic Super Bowl wins with the New York Giants, Eli’s lows have been catastrophic, and he has never been quite the media darling his brother is. But even as their football careers wind down, the power of the Manning name only grows. Drawing on new interviews and research, Ribowsky reveals a family of transcendent talent and intense loyalty dedicated to maintaining an all-American façade that has, on occasion, shown cracks. From the family’s past steeped in problematic parts of Southern identity, to locker-room scandal turned lawsuit, to flashes of fraternal jealousy, Ribowsky leaves no stone unturned. Rich in gridiron dramatics and familial intrigue, In the Name of the Father is a quintessentially American saga of a multifaceted lineage that has forever changed the game.
Mark Ribowsky has written one king hell of a book about one king hell of a band. Buy that man a drink!" —Mick Wall, author of When Giants Walked the Earth This book tells the intimate story of how a band of lost souls and self-destructive misfits clawed their way to the very top of the rock'n'roll peak, writing and performing as if beneficiaries of a deal with the devil—a deal fulfilled by a tragic fall from the sky. The rudderless genius behind their ascent was a man named Ronnie Van Zant, who guided their five-year run and evolved not just a new country/rock idiom but a new Confederacy. Whiskey Bottles and Brand-New Cars is based on interviews with surviving band members and others who watched them. It gives a new perspective to a history of stage fights, motel-room destructions, cunning business deals, and brilliant studio productions, offering a greater appreciation for a band that, in the aftermath of its last plane ride, has sadly descended into self-caricature as the sort of lowbrow guns-'n'-God cliché that Ronnie Van Zant wanted to chuck from around his neck. No other book on Southern rock has ever captured the "Free Bird"–like sweep and significance of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Mark Ribowsky has written twelve books, including widely praised biographies of Tom Landry, Howard Cosell, Phil Spector, and Satchel Paige. He has also contributed extensively to magazines including Playboy, Penthouse, and High Times. He lives in Boca Raton, Florida.
Describes the life of one of the most colorful figures in American sports history and offers a behind-the-scenes look at "Monday Night Football" and the commercialization of sports based on interviews with colleagues and athletes.
In 1970 a scraggly, antiheroic young man from North Carolina by way of Massachusetts began presenting a comforting new sound, a kind never heard before. Within a year, when young ears sought a new sound, there was "Fire and Rain" and "You've Got a Friend," and a new Southern California-fed branch of pop music. Taylor was its reluctant leader. Remarkably, Taylor has survived: his 2015 release, Before This World, edged out Taylor Swift and went to #1 on the charts. Today he is in better physical and probably mental condition than during the whirlwind when he influenced music so heavily, the decade when magazines and newspapers printed feverish stories about his gawky hunkiness, his love affair with Joni Mitchell, his glittery marriage to Carly Simon, his endlessly carried-out heroin habit, and sometimes even his music. Despite it all, Taylor has become the nearest thing to rock royalty in America. Based on fresh interviews with musicians, producers, record company people, and music journalists, as well as previously published interviews, reviews, and profiles, Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines is the definitive biography of an elusive superstar.
The unauthorized biography of the NFL's most controversial owner presents information culled from interviews with more than one hundred people to describe Davis' childhood, coaching years, ownership of the Raiders, and struggles with Pete Rozelle
Mark Ribowsky, the widely acclaimed biographer of "Satchel Paige," pulls no punches in his portrait of this magnificent, troubled athlete. Ribowsky shows Gibson's dark side, but he also enhances Gibson's historical status even as he separates fact from fiction by examining the truth behind his legendary performances. "Josh Gibson" is the most complete, thorough, and authoritative account of the life of black ball's greatest hitter, and one of its most important stars.
Spanning seven decades, the notorious loss of Super Bowl III, and an historic undefeated season with the Dolphins, Shula is the definitive biography of a coaching legend. Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1997, Don Shula remains the winningest coach of all time with 347 career victories and the only undefeated season in NFL history. But before he became the architect of the Dolphins dynasty, Shula was a hardworking kid selling fish on the banks of Lake Erie, the eldest of six children born during the Depression to Hungarian immigrant parents. As acclaimed sports biographer Mark Ribowsky shows, Shula met serious resistance at home when he asked to play high school football, but when his parents finally relented, they discovered that their son, though perhaps short on the physical gifts of the truly blessed, had an unmatched mind for the game’s strategy and a stomach for its brutality. With rugged determination, the jut-jawed Shula started as a defensive back in the 1950s, later beginning his thirty-two-year coaching career as the then-youngest coach ever with the Baltimore Colts. The Colts had several successful years, but Shula never quite recovered from the historic loss to the upstart New York Jets in Super Bowl III, and when a lucrative job opened in Miami, he took his talents to South Beach, where he led the Dolphins to the first perfect season in NFL history. Tracing Shula’s singular rise from his blue-collar origins to his glory days in the Miami heat, Ribowsky reveals a man of grit and charisma who never lost sight of a simple creed: “All I’ve ever done is roll up my sleeves, figure out what to do, and start doing it.”
There is no more thrilling moment in the game of baseball than the seconds before the ball flies out of the park, never to be seen again. As Greg Maddux famously said, chicks dig 'em, and men fantasize about hitting them. Now, The Complete History of the Home Run told decade by decade, traces this ultimate macho symbol. Mark Ribowsky looks at how the big hit evolved from a rarity to centerpiece because of Babe Ruth's prowess. Baseball fans will also learn how the home run has been mythologized, written about, and discussed in the media, baseball literature, and in bars all across the county. Featured are such epic swings as: -- Ruth's #60, Roger Maris's #61, Mark McGwire's #70, Barry Bonds's #73, Hank Aaron's K -- Ted Williams's All-Star Game Blast off Rip Sewell; -- Bobby Thomson's Shot Heard Around the World; -- Mickey Mantle's 565-footer in Washington; -- Bill Mazeroski's and Joe Carter's Series-ender; -- Reggie Jackson's Series trio; -- The Tino/Jeter/Brosius trinity.Including commentary on the men who hit these long balls -- Willie Mays, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds, and Ted Williams -- the book also brings out the facts and statistics. Readers will find out the truth behind Ruth's Called Shot, Josh Gibson's alleged blast out of Yankee Stadium, who had the best-ever power season, the myth of the lively ball era, the science of the home run, and why yesterday's hits will always be better than today's.
Jesus had a special place in His heart for those who were sick, disfigured by disease, or threatened by death. God's compassion for all His children is revealed in the human touch of Jesus Christ. Jesus touched many both physically and spiritually, breaking through the diseases that made them outcasts from society. Scripture tells of many acts of healing done by Jesus. Scripture also tells of the disciples in ministry to the sick. A pattern and guide has been laid out in Scripture for Christians to follow. Ministry to the Sick and Dying leads the reader through the Biblical basis for this ministry. Ministry to the Sick and Dying also gives practical tips for those ministering spiritually to the sick. Readers will learn how to plan a hospital visit that will include a spiritual assessment and pointers on how to talk to the patient. Ministry to the Sick and Dying is a valuable tool for pastors, elders, deacons, Sunday school teachers and laity involved in this ministry. Information is given on diseases, such as AIDS/HIV and Cancer. The book also has a wealth of information on end-of-life issues and final decisions.
For over 50 years or until 1947 when Jackie Robinson smashed the major leagues' color barrier the only ball fields where an African American could play organized baseball were the tarnished diamonds of the Negro leagues. In the first exhaustive history of the Negro leagues, readers learn why much of black culture once centered on "blackball". of photos.
A biography of track star Michael Johnson interviews those who know him best to present the story of his success, discussing his feud with Carl Lewis, his struggle to survive in big money track and field, and the way he has repeatedly overcome adversity.
“An eloquent, honest tribute to a sports genius.” —Publishers Weekly, Best 100 Books of 2013 As the coach during professional football’s most storied era, Tom Landry transformed the gridiron from a no-holds-barred battlefield to the highly-technical chess match it is today. With his trademark fedora and stoic facade, he was a man of faith and few words, for twenty-nine years guiding “America’s Team” from laughingstock to well-oiled machine, with an unprecedented twenty consecutive winning seasons and two Super Bowl titles. Now, more than a decade after Landry’s death, acclaimed biographer Mark Ribowsky takes a fresh look at this misunderstood legend, telling us as much about our country’s obsession with football as about Landry himself, the likes of whom we’ll never see again.
“Brilliant . . . entertaining . . . a thought-provoking portrayal of the multi-faceted Howard Cosell in all his glory and enmity.”—Don Ohlmeyer, Wall Street Journal Howard Cosell’s colorful bombast, fearless reporting, and courageous stance on civil rights made him one of the most recognizable and controversial figures in American sports history. “Telling it like it is,” he covered nearly every major sports story for three decades, from the travails of Muhammad Ali to the tragedy at the Munich Olympics. Now, two decades after his death, this deeply misunderstood sports legend has finally gotten the “definitive” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) and revelatory biography he so much deserves. With more than forty interviews, Mark Ribowsky has brilliantly presented Cosell’s endless complexities in the “first thoroughly researched and effectively framed biography of Cosell and his times” (Huffington Post).
There is no more thrilling moment in the game of baseball than the seconds before the ball flies out of the park, never to be seen again. As Greg Maddux famously said, chicks dig 'em, and men fantasize about hitting them. Now, The Complete History of the Home Run told decade by decade, traces this ultimate macho symbol. Mark Ribowsky looks at how the big hit evolved from a rarity to centerpiece because of Babe Ruth's prowess. Baseball fans will also learn how the home run has been mythologized, written about, and discussed in the media, baseball literature, and in bars all across the county. Featured are such epic swings as: -- Ruth's #60, Roger Maris's #61, Mark McGwire's #70, Barry Bonds's #73, Hank Aaron's K -- Ted Williams's All-Star Game Blast off Rip Sewell; -- Bobby Thomson's Shot Heard Around the World; -- Mickey Mantle's 565-footer in Washington; -- Bill Mazeroski's and Joe Carter's Series-ender; -- Reggie Jackson's Series trio; -- The Tino/Jeter/Brosius trinity.Including commentary on the men who hit these long balls -- Willie Mays, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds, and Ted Williams -- the book also brings out the facts and statistics. Readers will find out the truth behind Ruth's Called Shot, Josh Gibson's alleged blast out of Yankee Stadium, who had the best-ever power season, the myth of the lively ball era, the science of the home run, and why yesterday's hits will always be better than today's.
The Supremes is a sprawling tale of unforgettable music, cutthroat ambition, and heartbreaking betrayal. Mark Ribowsky explodes Dreamgirl fantasies by taking the reader behind the closed doors of Motown to witness the rise of group leader Diana Ross, the creation of timeless classics like “Where Did Our Love Go?,” and the dramatic power struggles within Detroit's fabled music factory. Drawing on firsthand, intimate recollections from knowledgeable sources such as the Temptations's Otis Williams and other Motown contemporaries—many never before interviewed—The Supremes is “a comprehensive look at the tumultuous relationships within the Supremes as well as among others at the Motown label” (Library Journal).
Few growing up in the aftermath of World War II will ever forget the horrifying reports that Nazi concentration camp doctors had removed the skin of prisoners to makes common, everyday lampshades. In The Lampshade, bestselling journalist Mark Jacobson tells the story of how he came into possession of one of these awful objects, and of his search to establish the origin, and larger meaning, of what can only be described as an icon of terror. Jacobson’s mind-bending historical, moral, and philosophical journey into the recent past and his own soul begins in Hurricane Katrina–ravaged New Orleans. It is only months after the storm, with America’s most romantic city still in tatters, when Skip Henderson, an old friend of Jacobson’s, purchases an item at a rummage sale: a very strange looking and oddly textured lampshade. When he asks what it’s made of, the seller, a man covered with jailhouse tattoos, replies, “That’s made from the skin of Jews.” The price: $35. A few days later, Henderson sends the lampshade to Jacobson, saying, “You’re the journalist, you find out what it is.” The lampshade couldn’t possibly be real, could it? But it is. DNA analysis proves it. This revelation sends Jacobson halfway around the world, to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, where the lampshades were supposedly made on the order of the infamous “Bitch of Buchenwald,” Ilse Koch. From the time he grew up in Queens, New York, in the 1950s, Jacobson has heard stories about the human skin lampshade and knew it to be the ultimate symbol of Nazi cruelty. Now he has one of these things in his house with a DNA report to prove it, and almost everything he finds out about it is contradictory, mysterious, shot through with legend and specious information. Through interviews with forensic experts, famous Holocaust scholars (and deniers), Buchenwald survivors and liberators, and New Orleans thieves and cops, Jacobson gradually comes to see the lampshade as a ghostly illuminator of his own existential status as a Jew, and to understand exactly what that means in the context of human responsibility. One question looms as his search goes on: what to do with the lampshade—this unsettling thing that used to be someone? It is a difficult dilemma to be sure, but far from the last one, since once a lampshade of human skin enters your life, it is very, very hard to forget.
A brilliant, lively account of the Black Renaissance that burst forth in Pittsburgh from the 1920s through the 1950s—“Smoketown will appeal to anybody interested in black history and anybody who loves a good story…terrific, eminently readable…fascinating” (The Washington Post). Today black Pittsburgh is known as the setting for August Wilson’s famed plays about noble, but doomed, working-class citizens. But this community once had an impact on American history that rivaled the far larger black worlds of Harlem and Chicago. It published the most widely read black newspaper in the country, urging black voters to switch from the Republican to the Democratic Party, and then rallying black support for World War II. It fielded two of the greatest baseball teams of the Negro Leagues and introduced Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Pittsburgh was the childhood home of jazz pioneers Billy Strayhorn, Billy Eckstine, Earl Hines, Mary Lou Williams, and Erroll Garner; Hall of Fame slugger Josh Gibson—and August Wilson himself. Some of the most glittering figures of the era were changed forever by the time they spent in the city, from Joe Louis and Satchel Paige to Duke Ellington and Lena Horne. Mark Whitaker’s Smoketown is a “rewarding trip to a forgotten special place and time” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). It depicts how ambitious Southern migrants were drawn to a steel-making city on a strategic river junction; how they were shaped by its schools and a spirit of commerce with roots in the Gilded Age; and how their world was eventually destroyed by industrial decline and urban renewal. “Smoketown brilliantly offers us a chance to see this other Black Renaissance and spend time with the many luminaries who sparked it…It’s thanks to such a gifted storyteller as Whitaker that this forgotten chapter of American history can finally be told in all its vibrancy and glory” (The New York Times Book Review).
No other sport can begin to compare to the rich history and statistical record of baseball. It is part of what makes the game so alluring. In “Moments in Baseball History,” Mark R. Brewer examines twenty-two memorable games and the player at the center of that game. It should prove a feast for baseball fans.
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