Discover how All-Star Bradley Beal used his family support to make it to the NBA. In this short biography, we look at how at the influence of his family, especially his mother, helped develop his smooth game. This pocketbook-sized paperback is perfect for a quick read on the train or at home.

Probably three of the top 5 basketball players today. Take a look into the most enigmatic, yet hard-working, figure of the NBA, Kawhi Leonard. In this biography, we follow how the quiet Leonard has survived personal tragedy to continue to work his way up to become one of the best players of his generation. We also check out NBA superstar James Harden's rise to the top of the game - and see how this kid from Compton remained focused on basketball, avoiding any negative pitfalls. We trace Harden's early years to his MVP season in the NBA, and how his future could be decided by his past... Additionally, we take a personal insight into the career of premier NBA player, Kevin Durant. We view his rise to the NBA from college and high school. From Seat Pleasant, Maryland, Durant has worked hard to become one of the best players in the NBA.

This "part memoir, part sports story" (Wall Street Journal) from the New York Times bestselling author of The Big Bam chronicles the clash of NBA titans over seven riveting games—Celtics versus Lakers, Russell versus Chamberlain—covered by one young reporter. Welcome to the 1969 NBA Finals! They don’t set up any better than this. The greatest basketball player of all time - Bill Russell - and his juggernaut Boston Celtics, winners of ten (ten!) of the previous twelve NBA championships, squeak through one more playoff run and land in the Finals again. Russell’s opponent? The fearsome 7’1” next-generation superstar, Wilt Chamberlain, recently traded to the LA Lakers to form the league’s first dream team. Bill Russell and John Havlicek versus Chamberlain, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. The 1969 Celtics are at the end of their dominance. The 1969 Lakers are unstoppable. Add to the mix one newly minted reporter. Covering the epic series is a wide-eyed young sports writer named Leigh Montville. Years before becoming an award-winning legend himself at The Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated, twenty-four-year-old Montville is ordered by his editor at the Globe to get on a plane to L.A. (first time!) to write about his luminous heroes, the biggest of big men. What follows is a raucous, colorful, joyous account of one of the greatest seven-game series in NBA history. Set against a backdrop of the late sixties, Montville’s reporting and recollections transport readers to a singular time – with rampant racial tension on the streets and on the court, with the emergence of a still relatively small league on its way to becoming a billion-dollar industry, and to an era when newspaper journalism and the written word served as the crucial lifeline between sports and sports fans. And there was basketball – seven breathtaking, see-saw games, highlight-reel moments from an unprecedented cast of future Hall of Famers (including player-coach Russell as the first-ever black head coach in the NBA), coast-to-coast travels and the clack-clack-clack of typewriter keys racing against tight deadlines. Tall Men, Short Shorts is a masterpiece of sports journalism with a charming touch of personal memoir. Leigh Montville has crafted his most entertaining book yet, richly enshrining luminous players and moments in a unique American time.

Walt Disney, Brad Pitt, Jack Dorsey, Payne Stewart. Josephine Baker. Samuel Clemens. George Washington Carver. What do these icons have in common? They were all raised in the Show-Me State. This second edition of Missouri Legends brings renowned politicians, authors, artists, athletes, performers, and historical figures to life. The book profiles more than 200 famous Missourians with dozens of new entries. Each profile includes a brief account of their formative years in Missouri and how they became legendary. With the second edition, readers will learn even more about the historically significant (Jesse James, Gen. John J. Pershing, Laura Ingalls Wilder), major politicians (Harry S Truman, Jack Danforth, Bill Bradley), groundbreaking artists (Scott Joplin, Thomas Hart Benton, T.S. Eliot), business innovators (Dale Carnegie, Sam Walton, J.C. Penney), sports legends (Yogi Berra, Albert Pujols, Grant Wistrom), iconic entertainers (Redd Foxx, Steve McQueen, Sheryl Crow) and world-famous leaders in science, technology, broadcasting, and other fields. From the smallest towns to the big cities, there are legends all around us. This book is a celebration of our Show-Me State heroes who have made an impact on the world... and it all started in Missouri.

Before Palm Pilots and iPods, PCs and laptops, the term "computer" referred to the people who did scientific calculations by hand. These workers were neither calculating geniuses nor idiot savants but knowledgeable people who, in other circumstances, might have become scientists in their own right. When Computers Were Human represents the first in-depth account of this little-known, 200-year epoch in the history of science and technology. Beginning with the story of his own grandmother, who was trained as a human computer, David Alan Grier provides a poignant introduction to the wider world of women and men who did the hard computational labor of science. His grandmother's casual remark, "I wish I'd used my calculus," hinted at a career deferred and an education forgotten, a secret life unappreciated; like many highly educated women of her generation, she studied to become a human computer because nothing else would offer her a place in the scientific world. The book begins with the return of Halley's comet in 1758 and the effort of three French astronomers to compute its orbit. It ends four cycles later, with a UNIVAC electronic computer projecting the 1986 orbit. In between, Grier tells us about the surveyors of the French Revolution, describes the calculating machines of Charles Babbage, and guides the reader through the Great Depression to marvel at the giant computing room of the Works Progress Administration. When Computers Were Human is the sad but lyrical story of workers who gladly did the hard labor of research calculation in the hope that they might be part of the scientific community. In the end, they were rewarded by a new electronic machine that took the place and the name of those who were, once, the computers.

An award-winning author tells the stories of the audacious American politicians, military commanders, and business executives who took it upon themselves to depose monarchs, presidents, and prime ministers of other countries with disastrous long-term consequences.