An informative if sometimes dense read for curious sports fans.
Japan’s national pastime.
Fitts, the author of several books about Japanese baseball, takes a close look at the inner workings of Nippon Professional Baseball through first-person accounts from players, front-office personnel, data analysts, business executives, and, engagingly, one of the urikos (“beer girls”) who lug hefty kegs through the stands: “When I poured a drink, I always smiled,” she said. “At night, after the games, my face usually hurt from smiling.” While the oral history format usually allows for a more personal approach, it’s hampered here, as the author acknowledges in his introduction, by the propensity of team owners to limit direct access to the players and staff and attempt to control the message. The result, while detailed, comes across at times more like a “just the facts” approach than Moneyball, where the different strands were pulled together for a compelling narrative. Nevertheless, the author offers a clear picture of a thriving subculture that most American readers likely know little about, apart from passing familiarity with transplanted superstars like the Dodgers’ celebrated two-way player, Shohei Ohtani. Differences in the way the game is played are front and center. The Japanese prefer small ball—getting runners on base, bunts, steals, and moving things along—over Major League Baseball’s listless power game. Cheerleading is also hugely popular. When Saori Ogure, director of the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighter Girls, choreographed the viral “Fox Dance,” even players joined the fun. Former MLB manager Bobby Valentine, looking back at his time heading the Chiba Lotte Marines, said, “They knew how to play the game. They just needed someone to let them know that they knew how to play the game.”
An informative if sometimes dense read for curious sports fans.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781496244079
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Univ. of Nebraska
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.
A future basketball Hall of Famer’s rosy outlook.
Curry is that rare athlete who looks like he gets joy from what he does. There’s no doubt that the Golden State Warriors point guard is a competitor—he’s led his team to four championships—but he plays the game with nonchalance and exuberance. That ease, he says, “only comes from discipline.” He practices hard enough—he’s altered the sport by mastering the three-point shot—so that he achieves a “kind of freedom.” In that “flow state,” he says, “I can let joy and creativity take over. I block out all distractions, even the person guarding me. He can wave his arms and call me every name in the book, but I just smile and wait as the solution to the problem—how to get the ball into the basket—presents itself.” Curry shares this approach to his craft in a stylish collection that mixes life lessons with sharp photographs and archival images. His dad, Dell, played in the NBA for 16 years, and Curry learned much from his father and mother: “My parents were extremely strict about me and my little brother Seth not going to my pops’s games on school nights.” Curry’s mother, Sonya, who founded the Montessori elementary school that Curry attended in North Carolina, emphasized the importance not just of learning but of playing. Her influence helped Curry and his wife, Ayesha, create a nonprofit foundation: Eat. Learn. Play. He writes that “making reading fun is the key to unlocking a kid’s ability to be successful in their academic journeys.” The book also has valuable pointers for ballers—and those hoping to hit the court. “Plant those arches—knees bent behind those 10 toes pointing at the hoop, hips squared with your shoulders—and draw your power up so you explode off the ground and rise into your shot.” Sounds easy, right?
“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780593597293
Page Count: 432
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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