Spanning two centuries of one extraordinary family, and researched over a year the author spent living in Berlin, visiting dusty archives and meeting long-lost relatives, Endpapers tells the captivating story of the renowned German-American publisher Kurt Wolff and his son Niko. Kurt Wolff, the author's grandfather, was born in Bonn into a highly cultured and successful German-Jewish family, whose ancestors included converts to Christianity, including one notorious for participating in a duel that led to bloody antisemitic riots. Kurt found renown as a publisher at twenty-three, setting up his own firm and publishing Franz Kafka, Joseph Roth, Heinrich Mann, and other writers whose books would be burned by the Nazis. Fleeing Germany in 1933, a day after the Reichstag fire, Kurt and his wife Helen sought refuge in France, Italy, and ultimately New York. There they founded Pantheon Books, which would soon take its own place in literary history with publication of Nobel...

From the street game to March Madness to Jordan and LeBron, the greatest writing about the grit, grace, and glory of basketballMade in America, basketball is a sport that stirs a national passion, reaching fever pitch during the NCAA's March Madness and the NBA Finals. Masterfully assembled by longtime Sports Illustratedwriter Alexander Wolff, Basketball spans eight decades to bring together a dream team of writers as awe-inspiring and endlessly inventive as the game itself. Here are in-depth profiles of the legends of the hardcourt—Russell, Kareem, Bird, Jordan, and LeBron—and storied franchises such as the Knicks and Celtics, along with dazzling portraits of the flash and sizzle of playground ball and more personal reflections on the game by some of America's finest writers, among them Donald Hall, John Edgar Wideman, and Pat Conroy. Highlights include James Naismith recalling how he invented the game that would go on to conquer the world;...

From the street game to March Madness to Jordan and LeBron, the greatest writing about the grit, grace, and glory of basketballMade in America, basketball is a sport that stirs a national passion, reaching fever pitch during the NCAA's March Madness and the NBA Finals. Masterfully assembled by longtime Sports Illustratedwriter Alexander Wolff, Basketball spans eight decades to bring together a dream team of writers as awe-inspiring and endlessly inventive as the game itself. Here are in-depth profiles of the legends of the hardcourt—Russell, Kareem, Bird, Jordan, and LeBron—and storied franchises such as the Knicks and Celtics, along with dazzling portraits of the flash and sizzle of playground ball and more personal reflections on the game by some of America's finest writers, among them Donald Hall, John Edgar Wideman, and Pat Conroy. Highlights include James Naismith recalling how he invented the game that would go on to conquer the world;...