Stan Musial
An American Life
by George Vecsey (Ballantine)
Here in the land of Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle, St. Louis Cardinal Hall of Famer Stan Musial doesn’t get much notice. But in sports columnist Vecsey’s new bio, he shows us why Stan the Man deserves attention. “When I was a Brooklyn Dodger fan as a kid,” Vecsey tells Required Reading, “Musial would hit a double and come up smiling. He was the only player who would hit .450 against my team and I could root for him.” Vecsey adds that Musial bridged several eras of baseball, and that helped make him special.
The Ralph Steadman Book of Dogs
by Ralph Steadman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Many people know Steadman’s work with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson — he illustrated “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” Now, the British artist has gone to the dogs, again. This is his fourth dog collection; one was called “A Leg in the Wind.” Steadman, speaking from his home in Kent, England, tells us he used to have a dog — Flop, a black-and-white Welch border collie. “She was utterly faithful and slightly idiosyncratic,” he says. As for his late pal Thompson, Steadman says, “He didn’t dislike dogs. [But] he had pheasants and peacocks in his balcony.”
I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive
by Steve Earle (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
At 56, Earle is enjoying his own renaissance. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter is in the cast of HBO’s “Treme” and he has just released another fine album, along with this, his first novel, which shares the same title. In Earle’s tale, the ghost of Hank Williams haunts Doc Ebersole, the MD who may have given Williams a fatal morphine dose. The down-and-out Doc is transformed for the better when a young Mexican, Graciela, arrives. It’s a redemption story with Earle’s lyrical prose.
Tabloid City
by Pete Hamill (Little, Brown and Company)
Erstwhile newspaperman Hamill writes what he knows — New York City. In his newest novel, he gives us “murder at a good address,” a “stop the presses” order at the city’s last afternoon tabloid (that was The Post until it switched to mornings), a sketchy hedge-fund manager, extremists and immigrants. The fast-paced story travels from the Upper East Side to the Chelsea Hotel to a Brooklyn tenement and more, with an NYPD detective and an ambitious reporter as guides.
The Inner Pulse
by Marc Siegel (Wiley)
When the author, an internist and professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, goes New Age-y in his treatise on inner pulse — which he describes as a sort of life force — it isn’t totally abstract. He uses himself as an example, telling of his disabling anxiety attacks shortly after getting married and becoming a new father. He goes on to cite examples of patients he’s treated, who have recovered thanks to a strong inner spirit. While he’s not sold on “alternative medicines,” Siegel seems to advocate a combo holistic/traditional approach to ailments.