Ohio’s Craft Beers celebrates the variety of craft brewing in Ohio, offers appreciations of its quality, and reports on the renaissance of the brewer’s art throughout the Buckeye State. Beautifully illustrated with color photographs, the book takes readers on a tour of more than 40 of Ohio’s larger and more influential breweries and provides detailed descriptions of most of the others.
C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the other Inklings met each week to read and discuss each other’s works-in-progress, offering both encouragement and blistering critique. How did these conversations shape the books they were writing? How does creative collaboration enhance individual talent? And what can we learn from their example?
In George Steinbrenner’s Pipe Dream, Bill Livingston brings to life the remarkable story of the one-season wonder Pipers and their unlikely national championship. Drawing on personal interviews and extensive research, he introduces readers to the personalities that surrounded the organization, including John McLendon, the first African American head coach in any professional sport; Jerry Lucas, one of college basketball’s greatest players; Dick Barnett, the best player on the team and the driving force for their ABL championship; the extravagantly talented prodigy Connie Hawkins; and Jack Adams, the Pipers’ captain, who was traded in midseason in a fit of pique on Steinbrenner’s part.
Famous Buckeyes are recognized by practically everyone. They range from presidents and inventors to aviators and astronauts. But other important Ohioans have been unfairly forgotten over the years. To find them, the authors of Unforgettable Ohioans dug beneath the layer of well-known names to discover a cache of remarkable individuals whose lives had significant national or international impact. They won’t show up on the top-ten list of most famous Ohioans, but their stories are nonetheless intriguing and important.
The San Francisco 49ers are among the most dynamic franchises, not only in the National Football League but in all of professional sports. They have won five Super Bowl titles and have produced some of football’s most dynamic players in Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, and Ronnie Lott, all of whom were coached by Bill Walsh, one of the game’s most innovative thinkers.
Best-selling baseball author Mike Shannon brings to bear his expertise on the Reds in selecting and profiling the forty Reds who best fit the definition of “legend.” From the Wright Brothers and Edd Roush to Johnny Vander Meer and Ted Kluszewski, from Frank Robinson and Pete Rose to Barry Larkin and Joey Votto—athletes who by their stellar play, unique personalities, and uncommon achievements have made themselves unforgettable—they are all here in Cincinnati Reds Legends. Shannon encapsulates the greatness of each player in deft vignettes that are remarkable as much for their insight as their interest. Even veteran Reds fans will get to know and appreciate these legends better through the book’s lively and informative text.
Major League Baseball occupies a special place in the hearts of Americans. The sound of the umpire yelling “play ball” is as familiar as the sight of the Stars and Stripes, and generations of sports fans spend summer nights staying up late to watch games. In The Baseball Stadium Insider, author Matt Lupica offers baseball fans an unprecedented guide to the stadiums that are home to their favorite sport.
By the 1980s Batiuk’s talent for character- and story-driven work comes into its own. Harry L. Dinkle, the World’s Greatest Band Director and Funky’s first breakout character, is still marching along happily. He makes the first of two visits to the Tournament of Roses Parade, and his ego grows even larger. Harry proves a good match for the sitcom style of writing into which Batiuk’s work on Funky is developing, and Crazy Harry thrives as the repository for the more outré ideas and situations. Whether it is living in his locker and playing frozen pizzas on his stereo, battling the Eliminator at Space Invaders, announcing that he is an air guitar player, or inviting Carl Sagan and ET to the Star Trek Convention that he and the school computer would host, Crazy becomes Funky Winkerbean’s natural-born outlier. Meanwhile, Les Moore continues his angst-filled journey as the leader of the school’s out crowd. He’s still at his machine-gun-fortified hall monitor’s post, trying to avoid getting beaten up by Bull Bushka, and generally dealing with school life as best he can.
In this third volume, award-winning cartoonist Tom Batiuk continues to chronicle the lives of a group of students from the fictitious Westview High School. Funky Winkerbean fans are introduced to a host of new characters, including black cheerleader Junebug Jones; Melinda Budd, Holly Budd’s ambitious stage mother; Jerome the drum major; Nancy the school librarian; Ron the tennis pro; Irma, Rita Righton’s tennis partner; Channel One reporters Brenda Harpy and Minnie Cameron; talk show host John Darling; news anchor Charlie Lord; Phil the Forecaster; and program director Reed Roberts. Batiuk also features a troupe of inanimate forms achieving sentience, such as talking trees, clouds, school desks,video games, and a talking tennis ball machine that goes on to play at Wimbledon.
In 2001 The Kent State University Press published James Jessen Badal’s In the Wake of the Butcher: Cleveland’s Torso Murders—the first book to examine the horrific series of unsolved dismemberment murders that terrorized the Kingsbury Run neighborhood from 1934 to 1938. Through his access to a wealth of previously unavailable material, Badal was able to present a far more detailed and accurate picture of the battle between Cleveland safety director Eliot Ness and the unidentified killer who avoided both detection and apprehension.
