Harper Barnes

At the time of that 2012 election, Claire McCaskill and her campaign were circumspect about the motive behind taking out ads during the Republican primary accusing Akin of being too conservative for Missouri, but she lays it all out in her very readable, and revealing, political memoir.

Stanley Crouch gives us the best biography yet of Charlie Parker, the first jazz musician to let the saxophone lead the way, and the seminal musician who could make his horn sound “sweet,” yet “devoid of pity.”