The Mosquito Bowl

The Mosquito Bowl
Author: Buzz Bissinger
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 585
Release: 2022-09-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0062879944

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Instant New York Times Bestseller · Winner of the General Wallace M. Greene Jr. Award from the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation “Buzz Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights is an American classic. With The Mosquito Bowl, he is back with a true story even more colorful and profound. This book too is destined to become a classic. I devoured it.” — John Grisham An extraordinary, untold story of the Second World War in the vein of Unbroken and The Boys in the Boat, from the author of Friday Night Lights and Three Nights in August. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, college football was at the height of its popularity. As the nation geared up for total war, one branch of the service dominated the aspirations of college football stars: the United States Marine Corps. Which is why, on Christmas Eve of 1944, when the 4th and 29th Marine regiments found themselves in the middle of the Pacific Ocean training for what would be the bloodiest battle of the war – the invasion of Okinawa—their ranks included one of the greatest pools of football talent ever assembled: Former All Americans, captains from Wisconsin and Brown and Notre Dame, and nearly twenty men who were either drafted or would ultimately play in the NFL. When the trash-talking between the 4th and 29th over who had the better football team reached a fever pitch, it was decided: The two regiments would play each other in a football game as close to the real thing as you could get in the dirt and coral of Guadalcanal. The bruising and bloody game that followed became known as “The Mosquito Bowl.” Within a matter of months, 15 of the 65 players in “The Mosquito Bowl” would be killed at Okinawa, by far the largest number of American athletes ever to die in a single battle. The Mosquito Bowl is the story of these brave and beautiful young men, those who survived and those who did not. It is the story of the families and the landscape that shaped them. It is a story of a far more innocent time in both college athletics and the life of the country, and of the loss of that innocence. Writing with the style and rigor that won him a Pulitzer Prize and have made several of his books modern classics, Buzz Bissinger takes us from the playing fields of America’s campuses where boys played at being Marines, to the final time they were allowed to still be boys on that field of dirt and coral, to the darkest and deadliest days that followed at Okinawa.

3 Nights in August

3 Nights in August
Author: Buzz Bissinger
Publisher: HMH
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2006-04-04
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0547526717

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This inside view with the Cardinals’ Tony La Russa by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Friday Night Lights “should appeal to any baseball fan” (Publishers Weekly). A Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year “Plenty of books have taken us inside baseball, but August takes us directly inside players’ heads.” —Entertainment Weekly 3 Nights in August captures the strategic and emotional complexities of baseball’s quintessential form: the three-game series. As the St. Louis Cardinals battle their archrival, the Chicago Cubs, we watch from the dugout through the eyes of legendary Tony La Russa, considered by many to be the greatest manager of the modern era. In his thirty-three years of managing, La Russa won three World Series titles and was named Manager of the Year a record five times. He now stands as the third-winningest manager in the history of baseball. A great leader, La Russa built his success on the conviction that ball games are won not only by the numbers but also by the hearts and minds of those who play. Drawing on unprecedented access to a major league skipper and his team, Buzz Bissinger portrays baseball with a revelatory intimacy that offers many surprisingly tactical insights—and furthers the debate on major league managerial style and strategy in his provocative afterword. “Superb . . . Will be devoured by hard-core strategists.” —The New York Times Book Review

The Classic Mantle

The Classic Mantle
Author: Buzz Bissinger
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2012-10-15
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1613124171

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Filled with stunning photos, this book by the #1 New York Times–bestselling sportswriter tells the story of Mickey Mantle’s legendary career. Mickey Mantle has long been considered one of baseball's most memorable figures—playing his entire eighteen-year baseball career for the New York Yankees (1951-68), winning three American League MVP titles, playing in twenty All-Star games, and winning seven World Series. Today, decades after his retirement, he still holds six World Series records, including most home runs (18). Buzz Bissinger, Pulitzer Prize winner and acclaimed author of Friday Night Lights and Three Nights in August, goes beyond the statistics to bring Mantle to life, and striking photographs by Marvin E. Newman make this book a fitting tribute to Mantle’s career and his lasting impact on the sport of baseball.

Fields of Battle

Fields of Battle
Author: Brian Curtis
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2016-09-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1250059585

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"In the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the 1942 Rose Bowl was moved from Pasadena to Duke University out of fear of further Japanese attacks on the West Coast. Shortly after this unforgettable game, many of the players and coaches left their respective colleges, entered the military, and went on to serve around the world in famous battlegrounds, from Iwo Jima and Okinawa to Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, where fate and destiny would bring them back together on faraway battlefields, fighting on the same team. Fields of Battle is a powerful story that sheds light on a little-known slice of American history where World War II and football intersect. Author Brian Curtis captures in gripping detail an intimate account of the teamwork, grit, and determination that took place on both the football and battle fields"--

Most Honorable Son

Most Honorable Son
Author: Gregg Jones
Publisher: Citadel Press
Total Pages: 551
Release: 2024-07-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 0806542950

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The first comprehensive biography of unjustly forgotten war hero Ben Kuroki, a Japanese American farm boy from Nebraska who flew fifty-eight combat missions, fighting the Axis powers during World War II and battled racism, injustice, and prejudice on the home front. Ben Kuroki was a twenty-four-year-old Japanese American farm boy whose heritage was never a problem in remote Nebraska—until Pearl Harbor. Among the millions of Americans who flocked to military stations to enlist, Ben wanted to avenge the attack, reclaim his family honor, and prove his patriotism. But as anti-Japanese sentiment soared, Ben had to fight to be allowed to fight for America. And fight he did. As a gunner on Army Air Forces bombers, Ben flew fifty-eight missions spanning three combat theaters: Europe, North America, and the Pacific, including the climactic B-29 firebombing campaign against Japan that culminated with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He flew some of the war’s boldest and bloodiest air missions and lived to tell about it. In between his tours in Europe and the Pacific, he challenged FDR’s shameful incarceration of more than one hundred thousand people of Japanese ancestry in America, and he would be credited by some with setting in motion the debate that reversed a grave national dishonor. In the euphoric wake of America’s victory, the decorated war hero used his national platform to carry out what he called his “fifty-ninth mission,” urging his fellow Americans to do more to eliminate bigotry and racism at home. Told in full for the first time, and long overdue, Ben’s extraordinary story is a quintessentially American one of patriotism, principle, perseverance, and courage. It’s about being in the vanguard of history, the bonding of a band of brothers united in a just cause, a timeless and unflinching account of racial bigotry, and one man’s transcendent sense of belonging—in war, in peace, abroad, and at home.

Father's Day

Father's Day
Author: Buzz Bissinger
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2012
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0547816561

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The author recounts a father-son road trip during which he gained insight into the worldviews, challenges, and talents of his socially challenged savant son, Zach.

The Immortals

The Immortals
Author: Steven T. Collis
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-05-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781629728483

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During World War II, on January 29, 1943, the SS Dorchester and a small convoy sailed the perilous route from Newfoundland to the Army Command Base in Greenland. Four chaplains were assigned to the Dorchester with more than 900 men on board. Alexander Goode, a Jewish rabbi; John Washington, a Catholic priest; George Fox, a Methodist minister; and Clark Poling, a Baptist minister, all offered comfort, reassurances, and prayers with a warning from the captain that a German submarine was hunting their convoy. The Nazi U-boat captain, Karl-Jurg Wachter, had been stalking the Americans for days. When bad weather separated the Dorchester from the other convoy ships, Wachter was finally in a position to strike. Just past midnight, on February 3, just hours from their destination, the Dorchester was torpedoed and sank, throwing its passengers into the frigid waters and creating the worst single loss of an American personnel convoy during WWII. Many of the survivors credit the four chaplains with saving their lives. Those chaplains would become known as "The Immortals" for their heroism in making the ultimate sacrifice. With no thought of themselves, they calmly helped men to safety through the chaos of their badly damaged ship, searched for spare life jackets for those without--eventually giving away their own life jackets and encouraging men in the freezing waters. The celebrated story of the Immortals is now joined for the first time in print by the largely untold story of another hero of the sinking of the Dorchester: Charles Walter Davis Jr. was a young Black petty officer aboard a Coast Guard cutter traveling with the convoy who bravely dived into the glacial water over and over again, even with hypothermia setting in, to try to rescue the men the chaplains had first helped and inspired to never give up. Thoroughly researched and told in an engrossing non-fiction narrative, the book alternates between accounts told from the perspective of the Nazi U-boat captain and his crew, and the hunted--the men of the American convoy. Using his expertise as an attorney specializing in religious freedom and constitutional law, the author, Steven T. Collis, also paints a thought-provoking portrait of religious life in America during wartime and how American views of faith affected the chaplains and the men they served. Page-turning and inspiring, The Immortals explores the power of faith and religious conviction and powerfully narrates the lives of five heroic men who believed in something greater than themselves, living lives of service and sacrifice for their country and their fellow man.

Buzz Books 2022: Spring/Summer

Buzz Books 2022: Spring/Summer
Author:
Publisher: Publishers Lunch
Total Pages: 1099
Release: 2022-01-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1948586479

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Buzz Books 2022: Spring/Summer is the 20th (!) volume in our popular sampler series. As always, Buzz Books presents passionate readers with an insider’s look at the buzziest books due out this season. Such major bestselling authors as Geraldine Brooks, Sloane Crosley, Chris Pavone, Emma Straub, and Adriana Trigiani are featured, along with literary greats Abdulrazak Gurnah (our first Nobel Prize in Literature winner), NoViolet Bulawayo, Mohsin Hamid, and Marianne Wiggins. Other sure-to-be readers’ favorites are by Denny Bryce, Karne Joy Fowler, Jane Green, plus 14 more. Buzz Books has had a particularly stellar track record with highlighting the most talented, exciting and diverse debut authors, and this edition is no exception. Co-creator of the Emmy-winning series How I Met Your Mother, Carter Bays’ first novel is featured, along with Nishant Batsha, Jumi Bello, Melissa Chadburn, and Sopan Deb, and 13 other debut writers. Our nonfiction selections cover such fascinating subjects as a symbolic World War 11 Marine Corps football game by Pulitzer-Prize winner Buzz Bissinger; a literary memoir of recovery from opioid addiction; a true crime story; and a primer on brain health. Be sure to look out for Buzz Books 2022: Fall/Winter, coming in May.

12 Seconds of Silence

12 Seconds of Silence
Author: Jamie Holmes
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2020
Genre: History
ISBN: 1328460126

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The riveting story of the American scientists, tinkerers, and nerds who solved one of the biggest puzzles of World War II--and developed one of the most powerful weapons of the war 12 Seconds of Silence is the remarkable, lost story of how a ragtag group of American scientists overcame one of the toughest problems of World War II: shooting things out of the sky. Working in a secretive organization known as Section T, a team of physicists, engineers, and everyday Joes and Janes took on a devilish challenge. To help the Allies knock airplanes out of the air, they created one of the world's first "smart weapons." Against overwhelming odds and in a race against time, mustering every scrap of resource, ingenuity, and insight, the scientists of Section T would eventually save countless lives, rescue the city of London from the onslaught of a Nazi superweapon, and help bring about the Axis defeat. A holy grail sought after by Allied and Axis powers alike, their unlikely innovation ranks with the atomic bomb as one of the most revolutionary technologies of the Second World War. Until now, their tale was largely untold. For fans of Erik Larson and Ben Macintyre, set amidst the fog of espionage, dueling spies, and the dawn of an age when science would determine the fate of the world,12 Seconds of Silence is a tribute to the extraordinary wartime mobilization of American science and the ultimate can-do story.

A Prayer for the City

A Prayer for the City
Author: Buzz Bissinger
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2015-04-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1101969911

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From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Friday Night Lights, the heart-wrenching and hilarious true story of an American city on its knees and a man who will do anything to save it. A Prayer for the City is acclaimed journalist Buzz Bissinger's true epic of Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell, an utterly unique, unorthodox, and idiosyncratic leader willing to go to any length for the sake of his city: take unions head on, personally lobby President Clinton to save 10,000 defense jobs, or wrestle Smiley the Pig on Hot Dog Day—all the while bearing in mind the eternal fickleness of constituents whose favor may hinge on a missed garbage pick-up or an overzealous meter maid. It is also the story of citizens in crisis: a woman fighting ceaselessly to give her great-grandchildren a better life, a father of six who may lose his job at the Navy Shipyard, and a policy analyst whose experiences as a crime victim tempt her to abandon her job and ideals. "Fascinating, humane" (The New Yorker) and alive with detail and insight, A Prayer for the City describes the rare combination of political courage and optimism that may be the only hope for America's urban centers.