Growing technology and affluence, rock n roll, baseball, and muscle carsall told through the youth and early adult years of a small-town Montana boy and war veteran. This is a history of the glorious 50s and 60s in America. It is a history also of politicians, the indecency of segregation and war, and the struggle for racial equality and peace. A history of two great nations. Intertwined is the unique history of Vietnam and the Vietnamese long struggle for independence. It is a rendering also of the unique culture of Vietnam with fascinating stories of emperors within the walls of a Forbidden City. Included in the book is a review of the relationship of two nationsone mighty and one resistantultimately entangled in a catastrophic war. Nearly fifty-nine thousand Americans lost to family,friends, wives, and lovers. More than two million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians perished in a war that could not be won.

The Baseball Mysteries: Challenging Puzzles for Logical Detectives is a book of baseball puzzles, logical baseball puzzles. To jump in, all you need is logic and a casual fan’s knowledge of the game. The puzzles are solved by reasoning from the rules of the game and a few facts. The logic in the puzzles is like legal reasoning. A solution must argue from evidence (the facts) and law (the rules). Unlike legal arguments, however, a solution must reach an unassailable conclusion. There are many puzzle books. But there’s nothing remotely like this book. The puzzles here, while rigorously deductive, are firmly attached to actual events, to struggles that are reported in the papers every day. The puzzles offer a unique and scintillating connection between abstract logic and gritty reality. Actually, this book offers the reader an unlimited number of puzzles. Once you’ve solved a few of the challenges here, every boxscore you see in the papers or online is a new puzzle! It can be anywhere from simple, to complex, to impossible. For anyone who enjoys logical puzzles For anyone interested in legal reasoning For anyone who loves the game of baseball. Jerry Butters has a BA in mathematics from Oberlin College, and an MS in mathematics and a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago. He taught mathematics for two years at Mindanao State University in the Philippines as a Peace Corps volunteer. He taught economics for five years at Princeton University. For most of his career, he worked on consumer protection cases and policy issues at the Federal Trade Commission. In his retirement, he has become a piano teacher and performer. He enjoys hobbies ranging from reading Chinese to practicing Taiji. This book is an outgrowth of another of his hobbies - his love of designing and solving puzzles of all sorts. Jim Henle has a BA in mathematics from Dartmouth College and a PhD from M.I.T. He taught for two years at U. P. Baguio in the Philippines as a Peace Corps volunteer, two years at a middle school as alternative service, and 42 years at Smith College. His research is primarily in logic and set theory, with additional papers in geometry, graph theory, number theory, games, economics, and music. He edited columns for The Mathematical Intelligencer. He authored or co-authored five books. His most recent book, The Proof and the Pudding, compares mathematics and gastronomy. He has collaborated with Jerry on puzzle papers and chamber music concerts.

Bombshell is a feminist nuclear thriller set twenty-five years after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, in which an alienated young Russian woman born in its shadow undertakes a road trip across the U.S., waging a guerrilla war against the nuclear industry and leaving in her wake a trail of destruction and assassinations. Obsessed with would-be Warhol assassin Valerie Solanas, Varyushka Cash recreates her atomic past through escalating violence and her one true goal: an assault on the Indian Point nuclear plant on the bank of the Hudson River. All along she is relentlessly pursued by the CIA, eager to capture Varyushka on charges of domestic terrorism. The cat-and-mouse chase leads to a final showdown in a decimated and irradiated New York, there on the cusp of a frightening new future. The initial draft of Bombshell was completed five months before the Fukushima catastrophe, written from the author’s morbid suspicion that the twenty-fifth anniversary of catastrophe at Chernobyl, Pripyat, and beyond would be marked by an echo in the present, shadowed by the real threat present in our unguarded and deteriorating nuclear facilities. Bombshell is a combustible and commercial step forward by one of our most creative and intellectual writers today.

Greg Proops is a comedian best known for starring on the hit improv-comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway? and for his popular podcast "The Smartest Man in the World." But he is also a fountain of historical knowledge, a spring of pop-culture non-sequiturs, and a generally charming know-it-all. The Smartest Book in the World, based on his podcast, is a rollicking reference guide to the most essential areas of knowledge in the Proopsonian universe, from the noteworthy names of the ancient world and baseball, to the movies you must see and the albums you must spin.--From publisher description.

‘Bobby called. He’s coming to California. He wants to see me.’ Drawing on secret police files, Marilyn Monroe's private diary and never before published first-hand testimony, this book proves that Robert Kennedy was directly responsible for her death. It details the legendary star's tumultuous personal involvement with him and his brother, President John Kennedy, and how they sought to silence her. The new evidence and testimony is provided by Mike Rothmiller who, as a detective of the Organized Crime Intelligence Division (OCID) of the LAPD, had direct personal access to hundreds of secret LAPD files on exactly what happened at Marilyn Monroe’s Californian home on August 5, 1962. With his training and investigator’s knowledge, Rothmiller used that secret information to get to the heart of the matter, to the people who were there the night Marilyn died – two of whom played major roles in the cover-up – and the wider conspiracy to protect the Kennedys at all costs. There will be those with doubts, but to them, the lawman – who directed international intelligence operations targeting organized crime – says the printed, forensic and oral evidence are totally convincing. He insists: ‘If I presented my evidence in any court of law, I’d get a conviction.’

Private Investigator Liz Talbot thinks she's seen another ghost when she meets Calista McQueen. She's the spitting image of Marilyn Monroe. Born exactly fifty years after the iconic bombshell, Calista's life is a déjà vu of Hollywood tragedy. And with the anniversary of Marilyn's death looming, Calista fears she's next in line for a tragic finale. As Liz investigates, suspicious characters swarm around Calista like mosquitoes on a sultry Lowcountry evening: her certifiable mother, a fake aunt, her manipulative psychoanalyst, her peculiar housekeeper, and an obsessed ex-husband. Liz digs in to find a motive for murder, but she's besieged with distractions. Her ex has marriage and babies on his mind and her all-too-sexy partner engages in a campaign of repeat seduction. With the heat index approaching triple digits, Liz races to uncover a diabolical murder plot in time to save not only Calista's life, but also her own.

More than any other sport, baseball has developed its own niche in America's culture and psyche. Some researchers spend years on detailed statistical analyses of minute parts of the game, while others wax poetic about its players and plays. Many trace the beginnings of the civil rights movement in part to the Major Leagues' decision to integrate, and the words and phrases of the game (for example, pinch-hitter and out in left field) have become common in our everyday language. From AARON, HENRY onward, this book covers all of what might be called the cultural aspects of baseball (as opposed to the number-rich statistical information so widely available elsewhere). Biographical sketches of all Hall of Fame players, owners, executives and umpires, as well as many of the sportswriters and broadcasters who have won the Spink and Frick awards, join entries for teams, owners, commissioners and league presidents. Advertising, agents, drafts, illegal substances, minor leagues, oldest players, perfect games, retired uniform numbers, superstitions, tripleheaders, and youngest players are among the thousands of entries herein. Most entries open with a topical quote and conclude with a brief bibliography of sources for further research. The whole work is exhaustively indexed and includes 119 photographs.

In the winter of 1956, Phillip Hoose was a gawky, uncoordinated 9-year-old boy just moved to a new town-Speedway, Indiana-and trying to fit into a new school and circle of friends. Baseball was his passion, even though he was terrible at it and constantly shamed by his lack of ability. But he had one thing going for him that his classmates could never have-his second cousin was a pitcher for the New York Yankees. Don Larsen wasn't a star, but he was in the Yankees' rotation. And on October 8, 1956, he pitched perhaps the greatest game that has ever been pitched: a perfect game (27 batters up, 27 out) against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series. It forever changed Phil's life. Perfect, Once Removed, recalls with pitch-perfect clarity the angst and jubilation of Phil Hoose's 9th year. To be published on the 50th anniversary of The Perfect Game, it will be one of the best baseball books of 2006.

The world's last freelance detective, Zach Johnson, must find the assassin who murdered Sexy Sprocket and two other members of the World Council. His investigation leads him to the Moon-and to a tall, sensuous, blue-haired beauty named Lea who possesses psychic powers, and powerful ambitions...

So much more than he bargained for! His Unexpected Twins by Carrie Nichols Firefighter Liam McBride is back in Loon Lake for the summer. Ellie Harding, his sister’s childhood friend—and cancer survivor—is perfectly willing to shelve her dreams of a forever family while they have a fling. But then they find out she’s pregnant—with twins! Are they on the path toward happiness? Or a collision course toward heartbreak? Detective Barelli’s Legendary Triplets by Melissa Senate Blame it on the spiked punch, or on the legend of Wedlock Creek Chapel. But Norah Ingalls is now Detective Reed Barelli’s wife. The lawman certainly didn’t intend to marry the gorgeous mom of three infant babies; an instant family wasn’t in his plans. Yet just walking away was unimaginable…