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This intelligent and somewhat angry autobiography gives a candid look at baseball from the view of an umpire. Readers learn about seldom-reported areas as relations between players and umpires, how officials take command on the field, the coolie wages paid to minor-league umpires (and many players), and the loneliness that umpires experience from being on the road for months at a time. Mr. Pallone also tries to settle scores with the baseball establishment for having fired him, and with certain pro-union umpires that harassed him for having crossed the picket line during the bitter 1979 umpire's strike. But this book is also about Pallone's sexual identity, which he hid lest he get fired… Read more
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This remarkable firsthand account of life in Chicago's troubled public housing is well worth reading. Armed with a free tape recorder, teenagers Lealan Jones and Lloyd Newman went on assignment for National Public Radio at age 13 in 1993 and again in 1996. Jones and Newman interviewed relatives, neighbors, friends and each other about life in the notorious Ida B. Wells public housing. Readers sense the tragedy and hopelessness of life in the projects, as well as the hope and sense of community that also exists. Jones and Newman also report on the aftermath of the tragic killing of Eric Morse, a 5-year old who was thrown from a 14th floor window (for refusing to steal) in a crime that… Read more
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Author Richard Wright (1908-60) was a master of description, and he captures the feel of Chicago and our often cold-shouldered society in this bitter 1940 classic. It's the story of Bigger Thomas, a self-loathing young black man that accidentally kills a white coed, and then kills again in an effort to evade detection. Bigger is hardly sympathetic, but his tragic hand is forced in part by racism. It's as if the author is saying, "Your injustices helped create Bigger Thomas!" Wright's gripping (if contrived) treatment of Bigger's trial indicts such peripheral characters as Mr. Dalton, a supposedly decent man that funds Negro charities - but only after fleecing blacks in the rental… Read more
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