Fiction:  THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)  YA Literature: STILL LIFE WITH TORNADO by A.S. King (Dutton Books for Young Readers)   Congratulations to our authors, their editors and publishers. All winners will be honored at the NAIBA Conference Awards Banquet on Saturday, October 7, in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The NAIBA book awards recognizes authors who were born or live in the Atlantic states, and/or a book whose story takes place in the region. To view a complete list of the NAIBA Books of the Year winners, click here.

attendees. This podcast featured the store’s co-owner, Chris Morrow; Grisham’s longtime agent and editor, David Gernert; and fellow Penguin Random House author Jodi Picoult.  To access the “Book Tour with John Grisham” podcasts via the Apple iTunes store, click here.   Future podcast episodes will include such authors as Greg Iles, Harlan Coben, Ron Rash, Lisa Scottoline, Ann Patchett, Jon Meachem, Clyde Edgerton, and David Grann, as well as book reviewer Janet Maslin of the New York Times, recorded at such bookstores are RJ Julia in Madison, CT; Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, NC; Malaprop’s in Asheville, NC; Square Books in Oxford, MS; Lemuri Books in Jackson, MS; and Politics & Prose in Washington, DC. Below, at Northshire Bookstore, Grisham addresses a question, and is pictured with Doubleday’s Suzanne Herz, John Pitts, and Todd Doughty.    Podcast spoiler alert: There’s a lot of dishing about bookselling, publishing, Hollywood, and the writing life, as well as fun interaction with the audience.

landmark diary, actress Meryl Streep taped a moving video message, sharing with viewers how Anne Frank’s values have shaped her own, including holding on to hope when the world has entered dark times. Ms. Streep recorded this video at the New York offices of Penguin Random House, the publisher of the diary in the United States.  Our ongoing commitment to Ms. Frank’s diary began when Doubleday published the first English translation in 1952.  In subsequent years, Bantam, Anchor and Doubleday again have also released updated and expanded paperback and hardcover editions of the book. A timeless story discovered by each new generation, THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL stands without peer. For young readers and adults, the book continues to bring to life this young woman, who for a time survived the worst horrors the modern world had seen — and who remained triumphantly and heartbreakingly human throughout her ordeal.

recognizable, Sendak is the wild card, with his art and such books as Where the Wild Things Are more renowned than his name. Here are compelling commentaries about each of these new biographies: STING LIKE A BEE: Muhammad Ali vs the United States of America, 1966-1971 by Leigh Montville (Doubleday, 5/16) Author Leigh Montville: “I’m only 18 months younger than Ali, so I dealt with the draft and Vietnam when he did, got married when he did, lived through the same headlines he did. I also covered five of his fights later in his career, so I had a small history with a bunch of the characters involved in his story. There was an easy familiarity with the subject matter from the start.  This is a slice of time book, not a biography. It is a commentary on how we lived during the sixties as much as what happened in Ali’s life. The issues around him then resonate in our country today, probably louder than ever when you look at Black Lives Matter and the Muslim bans and the military adventurism and the right-leaning government in Washington. Would the Muhammad Ali of 1966 have trouble in 2017? Ali was Colin Kapernick expanded by a multiple of ten. Did Colin Kapernick have trouble?” ERNEST HEMINGWAY by Mary V. Dearborn (Knopf, 5/16) Victoria Wilson, VP & Editor, Alfred A. Knopf: “Mary Dearborn’s life of Hemingway goes beyond the standard-brands portrait of the macho, hyper-charismatic figure whose celebrated exploits and adventures became associated with his lean true prose. She draws on newly available materials, among them, the so-called ‘Cuban accession’—the vast collection of papers Hemingway left behind when he fled Cuba in 1961; his complete FBI file; the newly opened files of the KGB; the letters and papers of his sister, and his mistress, as well as the previously ignored and voluminous wealth of papers of his mother, Grace Hemingway, opera singer and painter whose revealing and startling life of shattered rules and convention, and whose insistence on her own artistic expression—against all odds—give us a nuanced and illuminating, rich portrait of Hemingway, the man, and the writer. “In many aspects, Hemingway’s is the quintessential twentieth-century American story . . . a cautionary tale of how things look from the outside, as compared to the life being lived from within; a story of the accumulation of vast amounts of money and fame, adulation and legend and the withering away of discipline and talent and art . . . the story of Hemingway’s life has the feel about it of a Citizen Kane . . . a large story, a giant of a personality, the hidden demons, the hardcore values left behind; and the ‘rosebud’ of it all—the carefree Hemingway childhood that carried him along until ‘everything went to hell,’ as Hemingway said, and it all blew up . . .” OTIS REDDING: An Unfinished Life by Jonathan Gould (Crown Archetype, 5/16) Crown Senior Editor Matthew Inman: “While Otis Redding made music that has long served as the gold standard of 1960s soul, an aura of myth and mystery has always surrounded his life, which was tragically cut short at the height of his career by a plane crash in December 1967. Nearly a decade in the making, Jonathan Gould’s OTIS REDDING: An Unfinished Life draws on exhaustive research, the cooperation of the Redding family, and previously unavailable sources to finally present the first complete portrait of the King of Soul.  Published to coincide with 50th anniversary of Otis Redding’s legendary performance at the Monterey Pop Festival, this definitive biography is both a revealing look at a brilliant artist lost too soon and a provocative exploration of the tangled history of race and music in America.” THERE’S A MYSTERY THERE: The Primal Vision of Maurice Sendak by Jonathan Cott (Doubleday, 5/16) Gerry Howard, VP & Executive Editor, Doubleday: “Polymath and master interviewer Jonathan Cott first interviewed Maurice Sendak in 1976 for Rolling Stone, just at the time when Outside Over There, the concluding and by far the strangest volume of a trilogy that began with Where The Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen, was gestating. Over the course of their wide-ranging and revelatory conversation about his life, work, and the fantasies and obsessions that drove his creative process, they focused on many of the themes and images that would appear in the new book five years later. Drawing on that interview, THERE’S A MYSTERY THERE is a profound examination of the inner workings of a complicated genius’s torments and inspirations that ranges over the entirety of his work and his formative life experiences, and uses Outside Over There, brilliantly and originally, as the key to understanding just what made this extravagantly talented man tick.

legendary Casey Stengel to the memoir by All-Star Atlanta Braves third baseman Chipper Jones to St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Matheny’s “Manifesto.” Batter up! THE CUBS WAY: The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse by Tom Verducci (Crown Archetype, 3/28) It took 108 years, but it really happened. The Chicago Cubs are once again World Series champions.  How did a team composed of unknown, young players and supposedly washed-up veterans come together to break the Curse of the Billy Goat?  With inside access and reporting, Sports Illustrated senior baseball writer and FOX Sports analyst Tom Verducci reveals how Theo Epstein and Joe Maddon built, led, and inspired the Chicago Cubs team that broke the longest championship drought in sports, chronicling their epic journey to become World Series champions. THE CUBS WAY takes readers behind the scenes, chronicling how key players like Rizzo, Russell, Lester, and Arrieta were deftly brought into the organization by Epstein and coached by Maddon to outperform expectations. Together, Epstein and Maddon proved that clubhouse culture is as important as on-base-percentage, and that intangible components like personality, vibe, and positive energy are necessary for a team to perform to their fullest potential. Twice named National Sportswriter of the Year and co-writer of The Yankee Years with Joe Torre, Verducci, chronicles the Cubs’ playoff run that culminated in an instant classic Game Seven. He also takes a broader look at the history of baseball in Chicago and the almost supernatural element to the team’s repeated losses that kept fans suffering, but also served to strengthen their loyalty. CASEY STENGEL: Baseball’s Greatest Character by Marty Appel (Doubleday, 3/28) For more than five glorious decades, Charles Dillon “Casey” Stengel was the undisputed, quirky, hilarious, and beloved face of baseball – and along the way he revolutionized the role of manager while winning a spectacular ten pennants and seven World Series Championships.   As a player, Stengel’s contemporaries included Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, and Christy Mathewson . . . and he was the only person in history to wear the uniforms of all four New York teams: the Dodgers, Giants, Yankees, and Mets.  As a legendary manager, he formed indelible, complicated relationships with Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Billy Martin. But for a man who spent so much of his life in the limelight – an astounding fifty-five years in professional baseball — Stengel remains an enigma.  Acclaimed New York Yankees’ historian and bestselling author Marty Appel digs into Casey Stengel’s quirks and foibles, unearthing a tremendous trove of baseball stories, perspective, and history. Weaving in never-before-published family documents, Appel creates an intimate portrait of a private man who was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966 and named “Baseball’s Greatest Character” by MLB Network’s Prime 9. THE MATHENY MANIFESTO: A Young Manager’s Old School Views on Success in Sports and Life by Mike Matheny (Three Rivers Press, 3/28) Now in paperback, and featuring a new foreword by the author, St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Matheny’s New York Times-bestselling manifesto addresses about what parents, coaches, and athletes get wrong about sports; what we can do better; and how sports can teach eight keys to success in sports and life. Matheny was just forty-one, without professional managerial experience and looking for a next step after a successful career as a Major League catcher, when he succeeded the legendary Tony La Russa as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals in 2012. While Matheny has enjoyed immediate success, leading the Cards to the postseason four times in his first four years  — a Major League record –  people have noticed something else about his life, something not measured in day-to-day results. Instead, it’s based on a frankly worded letter he wrote to the parents of a Little League team he coached, a cry for change that became an Internet sensation and eventually a “manifesto.” In THE MATHENY MANIFESTO, he builds on his original letter by first diagnosing the problem at the heart of youth sports – it starts with parents and coaches – and then by offering a hopeful path forward. Along the way, he uses stories from his small-town childhood as well as his career as a player, coach, and manager, to explore eight keys to success: leadership, confidence, teamwork, faith, class, character, toughness, and humility. BALLPLAYER by Chipper Jones (Dutton, 4/4) Before Chipper Jones became an eight-time All-Star who amassed Hall of Fame-worthy statistics during a nineteen-year career with the Atlanta Braves as the team’s third baseman and one of the greatest switch-hitters in baseball history, he was just a country kid from small town Pierson, Florida.  A kid who grew up playing baseball in the backyard with his dad dreaming that one day he’d be a major league ballplayer. With candor and astonishing recall, Jones tells the story of his rise to the MLB ranks and what it took to stay with one organization his entire career in an era of booming free agency. His journey begins with learning the art of switch-hitting and takes off after the Braves made him the number one overall pick in the 1990 draft, setting him on course to become the linchpin of their lineup at the height of their fourteen-straight division-title run. BALLPLAYER takes readers into the clubhouse of the Braves’ extraordinary dynasty, from the climax of the World Series championship in 1995 to the last-gasp division win by the 2005 “Baby Braves,” all the while sharing pitch-by-pitch dissections of clashes at the plate with some of the all-time great starters, such as Clemens and Johnson, as well as closers such as Wagner and Papelbon. He delves into his relationships with Bobby Cox and his famous Braves brothers—Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, among them—and opponents from Cal Ripken Jr. to Barry Bonds. The National League MVP also opens up about his overnight rise to superstardom and the personal pitfalls that came with fame; his spirited rivalry with the New York Mets; his reflections on baseball in the modern era—outrageous money, steroids, and all—and his special last season in 2012. MY CUBS: A Love Story by Scott Simon (Blue Rider Press, 4/11) This is Scott Simon’s personal, heartfelt reflections on his beloved Chicago Cubs, replete with club lore, memorable anecdotes, frenetic fandom, and wise, adoring intimacy that have made the world champion Cubbies baseball’s most tortured—and now triumphant—franchise. No metaphor is necessary; the Chicago Cubs have been the living example of disappointment and failure for more than a century—until now. The Cubs’ 2016 World Series win marked the end of a 108-year drought in the team’s history, and Game 7 will forever be remembered as one of the most thrilling, monumental moments in sports history. For Simon, host of NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday and a lifelong Cubs fan, it was a moment he never thought he’d live to see. MY CUBS chronicles Simon’s adolescence in Chicago as a die-hard fan to tell the story of the relationship between the team and the neighborhood and city, and how the condition of “Cubness” has both charmed and haunted the lives of so many fans. From theories and curses to jinxes and myths, Simon chronicles how a team of “loveable losers” inspired such fervor and dedication from their fans, and how their 2016 win transcended sports to become an underdog narrative for the whole nation.