AT THE LIBRARY
New items are available at the Hancock County Public Library.
The following items are available at the Hancock County Public Library, 900 W. McKenzie Road. For more information on the library’s collection or to reserve a title, visit hcplibrary.org.
{span style=”text-decoration: underline;”}Adult Fiction{/span}
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“Precious You,” by Helen Monks Takhar
To Katherine, 24-year-old Lily Lunt is a typical “snowflake.” It seems like the privileged, politically correct millennial will do whatever she can to make it big as a writer, including leveraging her family’s connections. To Lily, Katherine Ross, a career woman in her early 40s, is a holdover from another era: clueless, old-fashioned and perfectly happy to build her success on the backs of her unpaid interns. When Lily is hired as the new intern at the magazine where Katherine is editor-in-chief, her arrival threatens the foundation of the self-serving atmosphere that Katherine has built. She finds herself drawn to Lily, who seems to be a cruel reminder of the beauty and potential she once had — things Lily uses against Katherine as she begins to undermine her, sabotaging her work and turning the magazine’s new publisher against her. Is Katherine being paranoid? Or is Lily seeking to systematically destroy her life? As Katherine tries to fight back, a toxic generational divide turns explosive and long-buried secrets are exposed — with consequences for both.
{span style=”text-decoration: underline;”}Adult Nonfiction{/span}
“The City Game: Triumph, Scandal, and a Legendary Basketball Team,” by Matthew Goodman
The 1949-50 City College Beavers were extraordinary by every measure. New York’s City College was a tuition-free, merit-based college in Harlem known far more for its intellectual achievements and political radicalism than its athletic prowess. Only two years after Jackie Robinson broke the Major League Baseball color barrier — at a time when the National Basketball Association was still segregated — every single member of the Beavers was either Jewish or African American. But under the guidance of the player-turned-coach Nat Holman, this unheralded group of city kids would stun the basketball world by becoming the only team in history to win the NIT and NCAA tournaments in the same year. The team proved to be extraordinary in another way as well. During the following season, all of the team’s starting five were arrested by New York City detectives, charged with conspiring with gamblers to shave points. Almost overnight these beloved heroes turned into fallen idols. The story centers on two teammates and close friends, Eddie Roman and Floyd Layne, one white, one black, each caught up in the scandal, each searching for a path to personal redemption. Though banned from the NBA, Layne continued to devote himself to basketball, teaching the game to young people in his Bronx neighborhood and, ultimately, with Roman’s help, finding another kind of triumph that no one could have anticipated. Drawing on interviews with the surviving members of the championship team, author Matthew Goodman has created a portrait of an era of smoke-filled arenas and Borscht Belt hotels, when college basketball was far more popular than the professional game. It was a time when gangsters controlled illegal sports betting, the police were on their payroll, and everyone, it seemed, was getting rich—except for the young men who actually played the games.
