Over a year I wrote more than forty letters to my seventeen-year-old son. They are short reflections on topics ranging from the familiar to the social and political. Topics that are part and parcel of both the daily lives of adults and young people in contemporary society. I am not looking to indoctrinate but rather to share points of view and sincere reflexion for considering part of our reality with a more critical and reflective viewpoint. The book, which originated as something special and private between a father and son, is aimed at both young people and adults who wish to go beyond the superficiality and haste of our times. Readers will find in it an opportunity to reflect a little more on the "platitudes" that we often take for granted.

Rare photos and heartfelt letters from fans of San Francisco 49ers hero Dwight Clark Featuring essays by Edward J. DeBartolo Jr., Ronnie Lott, Joe Montana, Brian Murphy, and Kelly Clark, Letters to 87 offers rare photos and heartfelt letters from fans of San Francisco 49ers hero Dwight Clark. Football fans will always remember "The Catch" as the moment a dynasty was born. When Dwight Clark received the touchdown pass that sent the 49ers to their first Super Bowl in 1982, an indelible moment was etched into the history of the NFL. Later, as Clark battled ALS, he and sportswriter Matt Maiocco put out a call to fans, asking them to share their memories of this moment. The letters that Clark and Maiocco received tell the story of how the man who wore number 87 brought together a city and a franchise through his sincerity, his loyalty, and his spirit for life and the game. All royalties will go the the Golden Heart Fund, a nonprofit arm of the 49ers that helps support former 49er players. Find out more at www.lettersto87.com.

Four letters dated Omaha, August 22, 1868; Cheyenne, September 27 [1868], Rocky Mountains, Wyoming, November 18, 1868; and Atlantic, Sweetwater Mines, June 27 [1869?]; with a fifth letter from his wife, Lydia (Crosby) Cleveland to her sister, Salt Lake City, February 23, 1873 (4 p. A.L.S. 21 cm.). Viewpoint of an Easterner on Omaha and Nebraska; travel by Union Pacific to Cheyenne; work for contractor in railhead towns; character of the Wyoming towns in 1868; and Atlantic City during the mining boom of 1869. Wife's 1873 letter from Salt Lake City describes in meticulous detail a Mormon funeral, with some description of Brigham Young's wives and children.

Torture is an open secret in Chicago. Nobody in power wants to acknowledge this grim reality, but everyone knows it happens—and that the torturers are the police. Three to five new claims are submitted to the Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission of Illinois each week. Four hundred cases are currently pending investigation. Between 1972 and 1991, at least 125 black suspects were tortured by Chicago police officers working under former Police Commander Jon Burge. As the more recent revelations from the Homan Square “black site” show, that brutal period is far from a historical anomaly. For more than fifty years, police officers who took an oath to protect and serve have instead beaten, electrocuted, suffocated, and raped hundreds—perhaps thousands—of Chicago residents. In The Torture Letters, Laurence Ralph chronicles the history of torture in Chicago, the burgeoning activist movement against police violence, and the American public’s complicity in perpetuating torture at home and abroad. Engaging with a long tradition of epistolary meditations on racism in the United States, from James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time to Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me, Ralph offers in this book a collection of open letters written to protesters, victims, students, and others. Through these moving, questing, enraged letters, Ralph bears witness to police violence that began in Burge’s Area Two and follows the city’s networks of torture to the global War on Terror. From Vietnam to Geneva to Guantanamo Bay—Ralph’s story extends as far as the legacy of American imperialism. Combining insights from fourteen years of research on torture with testimonies of victims of police violence, retired officers, lawyers, and protesters, this is a powerful indictment of police violence and a fierce challenge to all Americans to demand an end to the systems that support it. With compassion and careful skill, Ralph uncovers the tangled connections among law enforcement, the political machine, and the courts in Chicago, amplifying the voices of torture victims who are still with us—and lending a voice to those long deceased.