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Gossip: The Untrivial Pursuit - by Joseph Epstein

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/29/2011

ISBN-13: 9780618721948
ISBN-10: 0618721940

From the author of eponymous books on friendship and snobbery comes an incisive exploration of another cultural practice we're all familiar with -- gossip. Defining it as an unavoidable but perhaps necessary human enterprise (which unsurprisingly has evolved to new levels in the Internet age), author Joseph Epstein also explores the ways that gossip has negatively impacted politics and journalism -- and how it can bring people together (and all too frequently tear them apart). "Amusing and serious in equal measures" (Kirkus Reviews), Gossip is an entertaining and educational mix of history, reporting, and personal anecdote.

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The Last Sultan: The Life and Times of Ahmet Ertegun - by Robert Greenfield

Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/08/2011

ISBN-13: 9781416558385
ISBN-10: 1416558381

You may never have heard of him, but if you listen to popular music at all, you'll no doubt have benefited from Ahmet Ertegun's influence. The co-founder of Atlantic Records, Ertegun worked with musicians like Ruth Brown, Big Joe Turner, Ray Charles, Sonny and Cher, and Eric Clapton. He also took Atlantic Records from small and independent to huge and profitable as he capitalized on his ability to spot and promote new kinds of music. In this biography, based on more than 100 interviews and Ertegun's own personal papers, author Robert Greenfield covers Ertegun's love of music, lengthy (and wide-ranging) career, and the huge influence he wrought in finding and promoting talented musicians.

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Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York that Changed Music Forever - by Will Hermes

Publisher: Faber and Faber
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/08/2011

ISBN-13: 9780865479807
ISBN-10: 0865479801

The 1970s were big for the music scene in New York City, despite high crime and the city's near-bankruptcy. Rolling Stone senior critic Will Hermes argues that the years 1973 to 1977 in particular saw explosions in creativity: though punk was born, the seeds of hip-hop were also sown during these years, and minimalism, thanks to people like Philip Glass, was legitimized. From Grandmaster Flash to Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, and Miles Davis, and on to the leading names of lesser-known genres, this far-ranging history of music in the '70s is "revelatory" (Entertainment Weekly).

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A Natural History of the Piano: From Mozart to Modern Jazz, and Everything in Between - by Stuart Isacoff

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/15/2011

ISBN-13: 9780307266378
ISBN-10: 0307266370

Founder of the magazine Piano Today, Stuart Isacoff offers a "big slice of heaven for piano-lovers" (Booklist) in this historical tribute to the instrument. There's a little bit of everything here, starting with an explanation of how Mozart made the piano fashionable. Isacoff also suggests a rubric for categorizing great pianists (they're either combustibles, alchemists, rhythmitizers, or melodists) and discusses Russian vs. German "schools" of piano-playing, in addition to exploring the history of the instrument itself. Sidebars -- which consist of contributions from pianists like Billy Joel, among others, as well discourses on related topics -- help make this an engaging, informative read.

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Howard Cosell: The Man, the Myth, and the Transformation of American Sports - by Mark Ribowsky

Publisher: W.W. Norton
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/14/2011

ISBN-13: 9780393080179
ISBN-10: 039308017X

Love him or loathe him, Howard Cosell was one of the most recognizable, colorful figures in American sports history, found all over radio and TV during the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, and party to much of the commercialization of sports. This biography, based on interviews with colleagues and athletes, offers not only a look at the divisive man himself, but also a behind-the-scenes peek at his years with Monday Night Football. From Cosell's relationship with Muhammad Ali to his sometimes abrasive personality, biographer Mark Ribowsky covers it all in this "complex, full-bodied portrait" (Booklist).

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Focus on: Fan Mania

Fanatic: Ten Things All Sports Fans Should Do Before They Die - by Jim Gorant

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/04/2007

ISBN-13: 9780618612987
ISBN-10: 061861298X

Writer Jim Gorant has always been an ardent sports fan -- though until a conversation at the Masters he'd never really thought about what might be on the ultimate sports fan's list of events to see live. But that conversation stuck with him, and in February 2005, he kicked off a more than year-long extravaganza of sports events with the Eagles-Patriots Super Bowl game. Other events included the Daytona 500, the Kentucky Derby, Wimbledon, and the Final Four, but no matter the sport, what Gorant excels at is explaining what sports really mean to fans. For another take on the inner life of sports fans (this time specifically those loyal to losing teams), try Joe Queenan's True Believers.

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Fever Pitch - by Nick Hornby

Publisher: Riverhead Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 03/01/1998

ISBN-13: 9781573226882
ISBN-10: 1573226882

Bestselling novelist Nick Hornby loves soccer -- though, please, it's football to him. His memoir, therefore -- which, like NPR host Scott Simon's Home and Away, addresses the impact that sports can have on a young man -- traces a series of games witnessed by Hornby and played by the English soccer team Arsenal from 1968 to 1991. From his first game, Hornby was immediately, irrevocably, entirely obsessed. In Fever Pitch, Hornby shares the particulars of each game -- as well as the pomp and circumstance of terraced seats, football specials (trains that ferry fans to and from matches), and Arsenal chants -- and explores how it related to his life as a child, a teen, and a young adult.

Sunday Money: Speed! Lust! Madness! Death! A Hot Lap Around America with NASCAR - by Jeff MacGregor; photographs by Olya Evanitsky

Publisher: Harper Perennial
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/01/2006

ISBN-13: 9780060094720
ISBN-10: 0060094729

If you have no idea why NASCAR is so popular, this colorful year-in-the-life account is the book for you. (If you love NASCAR, you might be extremely jealous.) During the 2002 season, Sports Illustrated contributor Jeff MacGregor and his wife attended nearly every race -- it took their savings and a 26-foot RV that traveled 48,000 miles in 11 months to do so, but by the end of their odyssey they'd met revered drivers and wacky fans, camped out in Wal-mart parking lots and grandstands, and picked up a fair amount of NASCAR lore and advice ("Go big, baby, or don't go"). Check out Sunday Money for the good -- and the bad -- of a sports behemoth.

First Chapter

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