Page by Page: Book Reviews

Mocked as an Italian, disappointed by his Catholicism, physically unprepossessing, rock and roll offered Felix Cavaliere the charisma of revolution. And revolution is always about how the odd get even.

David Chrisinger analyzes Pyle’s writing and looks at it through a modern lens by visiting some of the key battle sites in his engaging and fast-paced book ‘The Soldier’s Truth: Ernie Pyle and the Story of World War II.’ This is not a full-scale biography, but rather a deep dive into the most important part of Pyle’s life.

Through the personal experiences of recurring characters, MacCambridge covers more or less chronologically how, during the ’70s, sports turned the corner on four cornerstone issues.

Unlike most McCartney biographies, which seem to have little to say about the man’s actual music output, The McCartney Legacy focuses on how Paul went about constructing and recording his work, giving an invaluable history that helps illuminate how he re-conceptualized his art in the wake of the Beatles’ break-up.

Although Game may lack the scandal and drama of other basketball autobiographies, it is an important story that allows readers to appreciate Hill’s unique basketball skills and accomplishments as well as the ways he successfully navigates the often-contested worlds of Duke and the NBA.

At this moment, it feels more necessary than ever for fans and scholars of the game to draw longer lineages of women’s participation in football, a contribution that Frankie De La Cretaz and Lyndsey D’Archangelo offer in Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women’s Football League.

Hollis not only documents the history of the poem’s production and this moment in time–he allows himself, for better and for worse, to get swept up in the drama.

Three rich histories give us the lived experiences of persons negotiating a racialized class system. These new narratives are instructive because Black Americans, despite class being violently raced in the United States, have had robust internal conversations within their own walls about what life as men and women, entrepreneurs, professionals, and essential workers mean in democratic conversation one to another.

This story reminds the reader of what is possible when groups of people who are separated by oceans, continents, and lived experiences share a love for the same sport.

All of the men profiled in Ron Cooper’s book have been trained to be Santa, have been taught how to talk to children, to put nervous children at ease, and to make misbehaving children less truculent. They have been taught how to deal with difficult or awkward requests or wishes. It takes some dedication to be Santa. Maybe we all need to take a bit of instruction at a Santa school.