On My Radar:

Texas Jack: America's First Cowboy Star
by Matthew Kerns
TwoDot
Hardcover


From the publisher's website:

Texas Jack: America’s First Cowboy Star is a biography of John B. “Texas Jack” Omohundro, the first well-known cowboy in America. A Confederate scout and spy from Virginia, Jack left for Texas within weeks of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. In Texas, he became first a cowboy and then a trail boss, jobs that would inform the rest of his life. Jack lead cattle on the Chisholm and Goodnight-Loving trails to New Mexico, California, Kansas and Nebraska. In 1868 he met James B. “Wild Bill” Hickok in Kansas and then William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody in Nebraska at the end of the first major cattle drive to North Platte. Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill became friends, and soon the scout and the cowboy became the subjects of a series of dime novels written by Ned Buntline.

On My Radar:

All You Need Is Ears: The Inside Personal Story of the Genius Who Created the Beatles
by George Martin with Jeremy Hornsby
St. Martin's Griffin
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

"George," he said, "I don't know if you'd be interested, but there's a chap who's come in with a tape of a group he runs. They haven't got a recording contract, and I wonder if you'd like to see him and listen to what he's got?"

"Certainly," I said, "I'm willing to listen to anything. Ask him to come and see me."

"OK, I will. His name's Brian Epstein . . . "

George Martin spotted the Beatles' talent, and recorded and produced The Fab Four from the start right through to The Beatles Anthology. Often called “the fifth Beatle,” Martin not only produced but also arranged some of the band’s most iconic and distinctive songs, including “Yesterday.” In this witty and charming autobiography, Martin describes exactly what it was like to work in the studio with the Beatles—from their first audition (and his decision to scrap Pete Best on drums) to the wild experimentation of Sgt. Pepper, complete with sound effects, animal noises, and full orchestras in evening dress at the direct request of Paul McCartney.

All You Need Is Ears is an intimate insider’s look at the most important pop group of all time, and how they made the music that changed the world: it’s an inimitable look at the Beatles’ creative process, and at the interplay of genius and practical improvisation that gave them their sound. It’s an indispensable read for Beatle lovers and anyone interested in how the world of popular music really works.

On My Radar:

The Spy in Moscow Station: A Counterspy's Hunt for a Deadly Cold War Threat
by Eric Haseltine
St. Martin's Press
Trade Paperback


From the publisher's website:

In the late 1970s, the National Security Agency still did not officially exist—those in the know referred to it dryly as the No Such Agency. So why, when NSA engineer Charles Gandy filed for a visa to visit Moscow, did the Russian Foreign Ministry assert with confidence that he was a spy?

Outsmarting honey traps and encroaching deep enough into enemy territory to perform complicated technical investigations, Gandy accomplished his mission in Russia, but discovered more than State and CIA wanted him to know.

Eric Haseltine's The Spy in Moscow Station tells of a time when—much like today—Russian spycraft had proven itself far beyond the best technology the U.S. had to offer. The perils of American arrogance mixed with bureaucratic infighting left the country unspeakably vulnerable to ultra-sophisticated Russian electronic surveillance and espionage.

This is the true story of unorthodox, underdog intelligence officers who fought an uphill battle against their own government to prove that the KGB had pulled off the most devastating penetration of U.S. national security in history. If you think "The Americans" isn't riveting enough, you'll love this toe-curling nonfiction thriller.

In My TBR Stack:

Life's Not Yoga, or is it? Finding Love in the Chaos of Life
by Jacqui Burnett
Sophie Blue Press
Trade Paperback


From the book publicity:

She was born into a perfect family, but by age 16 Jacqui Burnett wants to kill her father.

Decades later Jacqui believes she's left her turbulent past and the trauma of multiple near-death experiences behind her.

On the surface, she has everything she’s ever dreamed of – a solid education, success, and a wonderful husband.

What Jacqui doesn’t know is that she’s about to lose everything.

She was about to step into a board meeting but instead she slid from her office chair and cowered under her desk, sobbing. As managing director, she was meant to announce a year of outstanding results; instead, she was paralysed.’

In a desperate search for answers, Jacqui travels to America. Alone in the Rocky Mountains, her life starts unravelling and the truth of her chaotic childhood begins to emerge.

Amidst confused attempts to find love and meaning, Jacqui has to face death one more time, along with an avalanche of unexpected obstacles, before rising from the ashes to heal.

In My TBR Stack:

How to Astronaut: An Insider's Guide to Leaving Planet Earth
by Terry Virts
Workman Publishing
Hardcover


From the publisher's website:

Ride shotgun on a trip to space with astronaut Terry Virts. A born storyteller with a gift for the surprising turn of phrase and eye for the perfect you-are-there details, he captures all the highs, lows, humor, and wonder of an experience few will ever know firsthand. Featuring stories covering survival training, space shuttle emergencies, bad bosses, the art of putting on a spacesuit, time travel, and much more!

On My Radar:

He Started It: A Novel

by Samantha Downing
Berkley 
Trade Paperback


From the publisher's website:

Beth, Portia, and Eddie Morgan haven’t all been together in years. And for very good reasons—we’ll get to those later. But when their wealthy grandfather dies and leaves a cryptic final message in his wake, the siblings and their respective partners must come together for a cross-country road trip to fulfill his final wish and—more importantly—secure their inheritance.

But time with your family can be tough. It is for everyone.

It’s even harder when you’re all keeping secrets and trying to forget a memory, a missing person, an act of revenge, the man in the black truck who won’t stop following your car—and especially when at least one of you is a killer and there’s a body in the trunk. Just to name a few reason

But money is a powerful motivator. It is for everyone.

On My Radar:

The Man Who Lived Underground
by Richard Wright
Library of America
Hardcover



From the publisher's website:

Fred Daniels, a Black man, is picked up by the police after a brutal double murder and tortured until he confesses to a crime he did not commit. After signing a confession, he escapes from custody and flees into the city’s sewer system.

This is the devastating premise of this scorching novel, a never-before-seen masterpiece by Richard Wright. Written between his landmark books Native Son (1940) and Black Boy (1945), at the height of his creative powers, it would see publication in Wright’s lifetime only in drastically condensed and truncated form, and ultimately be included in the posthumous short story collection Eight Men (1961). Now, for the first time, by special arrangement with the author’s estate, the full text of the work that meant more to Wright than any other (“I have never written anything in my life that stemmed more from sheer inspiration”) is published in the form that he intended, complete with his companion essay, “Memories of My Grandmother.” Malcolm Wright, the author’s grandson, contributes an afterword.

Now in Paperback:

Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America
by Sarah Kendzior
Flatiron Books
Trade Paperback



From the publisher's website:

The story of Donald Trump’s rise to power is the story of a buried American history – buried because people in power liked it that way. It was visible without being seen, influential without being named, ubiquitous without being overt.

Sarah Kendzior’s Hiding in Plain Sight pulls back the veil on a history spanning decades, a history of an American autocrat in the making. In doing so, she reveals the inherent fragility of American democracy – how our continual loss of freedom, the rise of consolidated corruption, and the secrets behind a burgeoning autocratic United States have been hiding in plain sight for decades.

In Kendzior’s signature and celebrated style, she expertly outlines Trump’s meteoric rise from the 1980s until today, interlinking key moments of his life with the degradation of the American political system and the continual erosion of our civil liberties by foreign powers. Kendzior also offers a never-before-seen look at her lifelong tendency to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – living in New York through 9/11 and in St. Louis during the Ferguson uprising, and researching media and authoritarianism when Trump emerged using the same tactics as the post-Soviet dictatorships she had long studied.

It is a terrible feeling to sense a threat coming, but it is worse when we let apathy, doubt, and fear prevent us from preparing ourselves. Hiding in Plain Sight confronts the injustice we have too long ignored because the truth is the only way forward.

In My TBR Stack:

Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America's First Frontier
by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin
St. Martin's Press
Hardcover



From the publisher's website:

It is the mid-eighteenth century, and in the 13 colonies founded by Great Britain, anxious colonists desperate to conquer and settle North America’s “First Frontier” beyond the Appalachian Mountains commence a series of bloody battles. These violent conflicts are waged against the Native American tribes whose lands they covet, the French, and finally against the mother country itself in an American Revolution destined to reverberate around the world.

This is the setting of Blood and Treasure, and the guide to this epic narrative is America’s first and arguably greatest pathfinder, Daniel Boone—not the coonskin cap-wearing caricature of popular culture but the flesh-and-blood frontiersman and Revolutionary War hero whose explorations into the forested frontier beyond the great mountains would become the stuff of legend. Now, thanks to painstaking research by two award-winning authors, the story of the brutal birth of the United States is told through the eyes of both the ordinary and larger-than-life men and women, white and red, who witnessed it.

This fast-paced and fiery narrative, fueled by contemporary diaries and journals, newspaper reports, and eyewitness accounts, is a stirring chronicle of the conflict over America’s “First Frontier” that places the reader at the center of this remarkable epoch and its gripping tales of courage and sacrifice.

On My Radar:

The Captain and Me: On and Off the Field with Thurman Munson
by Ron Blomberg and Dan Epstein
Triumph Books
Hardcover



From the publisher's website:

The deeply personal story of a friendship between two teammates, and of a human bond which ultimately transcends the game itself. As back-to-back No. 1 draft picks for the New York Yankees, Ron Blomberg and Thurman Munson made for an odd couple. One was a good-looking, gregarious kid from Atlanta who cheerfully talked anyone's ear off at the slightest provocation; the other was a dumpy, grumpy dude from the Midwest rust belt who was about as fond of making idle chit-chat as he was of shaving. 

 Despite the surface differences, the two men would form a close attachment as they ignited a youth movement with the 1970s Yankees. Now, over 40 years after Munson's shocking death in a plane crash at age 32, Blomberg opens up to author Dan Epstein about the beloved Yankees captain in an extraordinary memoir that reaches far beyond baseball. 

By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, The Captain & Me shares tales of clubhouse hijinks during the infamous Bronx Zoo era, adventures on the road, and even rubbing shoulders with mobsters. Blomberg also offers a fascinating glimpse into baseball history, including the first-ever strike and lockout, the escalation of the Yankees–Red Sox rivalry, and the start of full-scale free agency. This illuminating remembrance of Munson is filled with untold stories about his analytical-yet-hard-nosed approach to baseball, as well as his kindness and generosity off the field.

On My Radar:

Girl, 11
A Novel of Suspense
by Amy Suiter Clarke
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Hardcover



From the publisher's website:

Elle Castillo once trained as a social worker, supporting young victims of violent crime. Now she hosts a popular true crime podcast that focuses on cold cases of missing and abducted children.

After four seasons of successfully solving these cases in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, Elle decides to tackle her white whale: The Countdown Killer. Twenty years ago, TCK was terrorizing the community, kidnapping and ritualistically murdering three girls over seven days, each a year younger than the last. Then, after he took his eleven-year-old victim, the pattern—and the murders—abruptly stopped. No one has ever known why.

When Elle follows up on a listener tip only to discover the man’s dead body, she feels at fault. Then, within days, a child is abducted—a young girl who seems to fit suspiciously into the TCK sequence halted decades before. While media and law enforcement long ago concluded that TCK had suicided, Elle has never believed TCK was dead. She had hoped her investigation would lay that suspicion to rest, but her podcast seems instead to be inciting new victims.

In My TBR Stack:

From Ashes to Song
by Hilary Hauck
Milford House Press
Trade Paperback



From the publisher's website:

Italy, 1911.

Pietro’s life on the family vineyard is idyllic. He has at last captured the melody of the grape harvest on his clarinet and can’t wait to share his composition with his grandfather, but before he can play, news arrives of a deadly disease sweeping the countryside. They have no choice but to burn the vineyard to stop its spread. The loss is too much for Pietro’s grandfather, and by morning Pietro has lost two of the most precious things in his life—his grandfather and the vineyard. All he has left is his music, but a disastrous performance at his grandfather’s funeral suggests that music, too, is now beyond his reach.


Adrift with grief, Pietro seeks a new start in America. He goes to work in a Pennsylvania coal mine where his musician’s hands blister and his days are spent in the muffled silence of underground.

When the beautiful voice and gentle heart of a friend’s wife stirs a new song in him, Pietro at last encounters a glimmer of hope. From a respectful distance and without catching the attention of her husband, Pietro draws on Assunta for inspiration and soon his gift for music returns. But when grief strikes in Assunta’s life, Pietro is to blame. When Prohibition steals Pietro’s last pleasure, he has to do something before Assunta’s grief consumes them both.

Inspired by true events, From Ashes to Song is a story of unconventional love, hope, and the extraordinary gifts brought to America by ordinary people in the great wave of immigration.

On My Radar:

The Cruise
A Mystery Novel
by Davis MacDonald
Trade Paperback



From the book publicity:

The Judge and Katy vacation on what’s meant to be a relaxing cruise to Hawaii when one of their fellow passengers has a deadly accident. As the number of accidents rises, becoming statistically impossible, the Judge must weave his way through the animosities of a fractured family business and suspicious shipboard guests as he seeks out answers. The closer he is to the truth the more he puts himself in the path of a deadly force determined to stay hidden. As the ship is blown off course into the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, business partners become adversaries, family becomes theenemy, old lovers become bitter, and polite facades drop to expose rivalry, jealousy, greed and hate. The judge must wade through it all to reveal the underlying violence in humanity. Follow the Judge as he risks his life unlocking secrets and uncovering the truth on THE CRUISE.