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Bad Bet on the Bayou: The Rise of Gambling in Louisiana and the Fall of Governor Edwin Edwards |
“Louisiana is rich in outrageous stories and colorful characters. It is notably poor in the realm of political ethics,” writes Bridges, an investigative journalist who covered the state’s legalization of gambling in the ’90s for the Times-Picayune of New Orleans. Bridges chronicles the eye-popping story of greed and corruption that led to the flamboyant three-term governor’s criminal conviction in 2000 on 17 counts of racketeering, extortion and money laundering. (Edwards remains free, pending an appeal.) Among the cast of high-profile characters are Las Vegas kingpins, New York mobsters and former San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. |
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Inside Pitch: Life in Professional Baseball |
The author played in the minor leagues in the ’60s, then switched to an academic career in anthropology and left baseball behind till his son joined Little League. He musters both skill sets to offer an in-depth look at the “life cycle” of players, having spent the 1991-1995 seasons riding along on road trips and hanging out with teams in ballparks across the country. |
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Snow Mountain Passage |
Author of six previous novels and numerous other works on California, Houston retells the tragedy of the Donner Party pioneers stranded in the Sierra Nevada in the winter of 1846. The story centers on the renegade hero James Frazier Reed and imagined “trail notes” written 75 years later by his daughter Patty. Houston happens to live in the Santa Cruz house where she spent her last years. |
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Surrendering to Marriage: Husbands, Wives, and Other Imperfections |
What makes a successful marriage? To find out, the author, a journalist, engaged spouses (and ex-es) of all stripes in tell-all conversations, many reported verbatim. Krasnow concludes that married life is certain to be hell at times, yet almost always more fulfilling than affairs, separation or divorce. If there’s even a shred of love left, she urges unhappy couples, work on it. |
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The Courtship of Maria Rivera Peña by Daniel A. Olivas, '81 Silver Lake Publishing, 2000 $14.95 (fiction). |
Based loosely on the author’s grandparents, this novella traces the relationship of Beto and Maria, both Mexican immigrants, from their first encounter at an L.A. pan dulce stand through marriage, children and a life tinged with poignancy. The couple’s bittersweet story is told against a backdrop of simply drawn but evocative scenes and characters in Los Angeles from the ’30s through the postwar period. |
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Math Coach: A Parent's Guide to Helping Children Succeed in Math by W.A. Wickelgren and ingrid Wickelgren, '88 Berkley Books, 2001 $14 (education). |
This is a primer for parents who want to help their kids master math but may not know how to start. The father-daughter team (he was a cognitive psychologist, she is a science writer) covers areas of simple arithmetic through basic algebra, with lively tips and tactics. |
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Living Silence: Burma Under Military Rule by Christina Fink, '86 Zed Books, 2001 $19.95 (Southeast Asia/current affairs). |
The author, an anthropologist, conducted extensive interviews inside and outside Burma with students, soldiers, religious figures, artists and political prisoners to portray life under a brutal military dictatorship that has survived for nearly 40 years. She provides a political history as well as a study of the regime’s methods and their psychological effects on the Burmese people. |
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Kind Hearts: Self-Esteem and the Challenges of Aging James Frush, '53 Starhill Press, 2000 $15.95 (health/psychology). |
Frush calls on his 40 years of experience as a gerontologist and psychotherapist—and his own recent milestones of retirement and heart surgery—to shed light on why some people take the vicissitudes of aging in stride and others don’t. Self-esteem, Frush argues, makes all the difference, and he offers thought-provoking suggestions to the elderly and their families on how to achieve it. |
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The Speed of Light |
This first novel by the Berkeley-based poet portrays three people—a brother and sister and her housekeeper—struggling with family tragedies long kept secret. It is the Holocaust that haunts Julian and Paula Perel; Sola must live with the memory of a Central American massacre. The story is told through alternating first-person narratives by the three. As their secrets unravel, each comes to realize that sharing pain brings release. |
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