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REELING IN RUSSIA

AN ANGLER'S JOURNEY

A quiet, evocative ramble through the Russian countryside by a former Philadelphia Inquirer Moscow bureau chief, who had made it his quest to fly-fish from the White Sea to Kamchatka and visit every Stalinist labor camp along the way. Montaigne shucked his newspaperman’s job to do a little fishing. He had fallen for Russia wholesale, wanted to get to know its heartland and its backwaters. To break the ice with locals, he would cast his line upon their waters, for Russians are smitten with fishing. And he does fish up a storm—casting for Solovetsky trout in narrow canals built by 15th-century monks, trying to entice the near-mythical Siberian taimen to bite his streamer, wading for steelhead in Kamchatka, and praying for Atlantic salmon in the rivers of the Kola Peninsula—mostly without success; rather, what he catches is a host of brief encounters with folks who live thereabouts. They share with him their feelings about life after communism—which range from lousy to a belief they they are in a land full of opportunity, with a large amount of corruption, decay, organized crime, and bootlegging in between. But what makes this book such a soulful affair, what gives it its warmth, is that everyone Montaigne chances upon shares their meager hoard with him, without hesitation. Sausage and bread are always pulled out, perhaps a fish soup, and always vodka, which flows through the story as wide and deep as the Volga. Montaigne’s Russians have not just a canny knack for surviving in an anarchy masquerading as a democracy, they have an enviable talent for living with brio. And if there is a Russian penchant for fatalism, it’s thrown into sharp relief as Montaigne describes his forays to the most remote gulag outposts, relicts that exude to this day an unearthly grimness. The very stuff of footloose travel—strange companions, confounding situations, unexpected moments of fear and eye-popping wonder—told with a journalist’s eye for detail. (Author tour)

Pub Date: June 30, 1998

ISBN: 0-312-18595-2

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1998

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WHEN THE GAME WAS OURS

Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.

NBA legends Bird and Johnson, fierce rivals during their playing days, team up on a mutual career retrospective.

With megastars LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and international superstars like China’s Yao Ming pushing it to ever-greater heights of popularity today, it’s difficult to imagine the NBA in 1979, when financial problems, drug scandals and racial issues threatened to destroy the fledgling league. Fortunately, that year marked the coming of two young saviors—one a flashy, charismatic African-American and the other a cocky, blond, self-described “hick.” Arriving fresh off a showdown in the NCAA championship game in which Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans defeated Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores—still the highest-rated college basketball game ever—the duo changed the course of history not just for the league, but the sport itself. While the pair’s on-court accomplishments have been exhaustively chronicled, the narrative hook here is unprecedented insight and commentary from the stars themselves on their unique relationship, a compelling mixture of bitter rivalry and mutual admiration. This snapshot of their respective careers delves with varying degrees of depth into the lives of each man and their on- and off-court achievements, including the historic championship games between Johnson’s Lakers and Bird’s Celtics, their trailblazing endorsement deals and Johnson’s stunning announcement in 1991 that he had tested positive for HIV. Ironically, this nostalgic chronicle about the two men who, along with Michael Jordan, turned more fans onto NBA basketball than any other players, will likely appeal primarily to a narrow cross-section of readers: Bird/Magic fans and hardcore hoop-heads.

Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.

Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-547-22547-0

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2009

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BACK FROM THE DEAD

One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.

A basketball legend reflects on his life in the game and a life lived in the “nightmare of endlessly repetitive and constant pain, agony, and guilt.”

Walton (Nothing but Net, 1994, etc.) begins this memoir on the floor—literally: “I have been living on the floor for most of the last two and a half years, unable to move.” In 2008, he suffered a catastrophic spinal collapse. “My spine will no longer hold me,” he writes. Thirty-seven orthopedic injuries, stemming from the fact that he had malformed feet, led to an endless string of stress fractures. As he notes, Walton is “the most injured athlete in the history of sports.” Over the years, he had ground his lower extremities “down to dust.” Walton’s memoir is two interwoven stories. The first is about his lifelong love of basketball, the second, his lifelong battle with injuries and pain. He had his first operation when he was 14, for a knee hurt in a basketball game. As he chronicles his distinguished career in the game, from high school to college to the NBA, he punctuates that story with a parallel one that chronicles at each juncture the injuries he suffered and overcame until he could no longer play, eventually turning to a successful broadcasting career (which helped his stuttering problem). Thanks to successful experimental spinal fusion surgery, he’s now pain-free. And then there’s the music he loves, especially the Grateful Dead’s; it accompanies both stories like a soundtrack playing off in the distance. Walton tends to get long-winded at times, but that won’t be news to anyone who watches his broadcasts, and those who have been afflicted with lifelong injuries will find the book uplifting and inspirational. Basketball fans will relish Walton’s acumen and insights into the game as well as his stories about players, coaches (especially John Wooden), and games, all told in Walton’s fervent, witty style.

One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.

Pub Date: March 8, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-4767-1686-2

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016

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