Entertainment & Sports Book Reviews

LARA by Anna Pasternak
BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
Released: Jan. 24, 2017

"A sympathetic portrait of a woman who saw her lover in the same 'heroic light' as he saw himself."
A British journalist investigates her great-uncle's love affair. Read full book review >
BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
Released: Jan. 24, 2017

"An illuminating look at racial strife and TV history."
Memoir, history, and biography meld in this account of the creation of a famed civil rights documentary. Read full book review >

ARTHUR AND SHERLOCK by Michael Sims
BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
Released: Jan. 24, 2017

"Even the most learned of Baker Street Irregulars will enjoy Sims' look at the making of Sherlock Holmes."
Those were the footprints of a gigantic…forensic scientist! Read full book review >
BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
Released: Jan. 24, 2017

"A heartwarmingly inspirational tale."
A former magazine editor tells the story of how, at the height of the Great Depression, her great-uncle trained a group of young women from rural Oklahoma to become college basketball stars. Read full book review >
LONG SHOT by Craig Hodges
BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
Released: Jan. 24, 2017

"A skillfully told, affecting memoir of sports and social activism."
A former professional basketball player looks back on his life on and off the court, with an emphasis on how his outspokenness regarding racial discrimination led to his unofficial banishment from the NBA. Read full book review >

CULTURE AS WEAPON by Nato Thompson
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS
Released: Jan. 17, 2017

"A precisely written critique of cultural manipulation in our daily lives."
How persuasive cultural mechanisms are encoded in broader social structures, from high art to war-planning. Read full book review >
BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
Released: Jan. 10, 2017

"While writing about the first lady, most of these perceptive essayists are also writing about themselves and their country, showing the shifts in perception and possibility that she has helped inspire."
A collection of essays that genuflect before a first lady like no other. Read full book review >
HOME AND AWAY by Karl Ove Knausgaard
ENTERTAINMENT & SPORTS
Released: Jan. 10, 2017

"Though the correspondence is mostly about soccer, it is also about so much more."
An epistolary exploration of soccer and life. Read full book review >
MYTHOMANIA by Peter Conrad
ENTERTAINMENT & SPORTS
Released: Jan. 10, 2017

"If you're a fan of Barthes and of the Umberto Eco of How to Travel with a Salmon, you'll likely enjoy this modest, minor, but entertaining rejoinder."
A deft updating of Parisian semiotics and midcentury cultural criticism for our own time. Read full book review >
EVERYBODY CURSES, I SWEAR! by Carrie Keagan
BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
Released: Jan. 10, 2017

"Though her approach might be a 'shock to the system' for some, it will be crass and tedious to many."
The career arc of a TV personality who has "made a career and an art form out of swearing." Read full book review >
BOP APOCALYPSE by Martin Torgoff
BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
Released: Jan. 10, 2017

"A textured story of human hope and hopelessness, of artistry that blossomed in the most daunting and, in some cases, demeaning circumstances."
A comprehensive and compassionate account of the intersections of jazz, race, and drugs in mid-20th-century America. Read full book review >
I HATE EVERYONE, EXCEPT YOU by Clinton Kelly
BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
Released: Jan. 10, 2017

"A thoroughly light and entertaining memoir."
Fashion maven Kelly (Freakin' Fabulous on a Budget, 2013, etc.) is more booster than basher in this collection of mostly autobiographical essays about his life on- and off-screen. Read full book review >
Kirkus Interview
Clinton Kelly
January 9, 2017

Bestselling author and television host Clinton Kelly’s memoir I Hate Everyone Except You is a candid, deliciously snarky collection of essays about his journey from awkward kid to slightly-less-awkward adult. Clinton Kelly is probably best known for teaching women how to make their butts look smaller. But in I Hate Everyone, Except You, he reveals some heretofore-unknown secrets about himself, like that he’s a finicky connoisseur of 1980s pornography, a disillusioned critic of New Jersey’s premier water parks, and perhaps the world’s least enthused high-school commencement speaker. Whether he’s throwing his baby sister in the air to jumpstart her cheerleading career or heroically rescuing his best friend from death by mud bath, Clinton leaps life’s social hurdles with aplomb. With his signature wit, he shares his unique ability to navigate the stickiest of situations, like deciding whether it’s acceptable to eat chicken wings with a fork on live television (spoiler: it’s not). “A thoroughly light and entertaining memoir,” our critic writes. View video >