Agent Palmer

“On the evening of July 25, 1965, Bob Dylan took the stage at Newport Folk Festival, backed by an electric band, and roared into his new rock hit, Like a Rolling Stone. The audience of committed folk purists and political activists who had hailed him as their acoustic prophet reacted with a mix of shock, booing, and scattered cheers.

It was the shot heard round the world—Dylan’s declaration of musical independence, the end of the folk revival, and the birth of rock as the voice of a generation—and one of the defining moments in twentieth-century music.”

Pete Conrad’s biography is not a cookie-cutter story. Then again, there was nothing cookie-cutter about him. He was, as his headstone implies, “An Original.” Co-written by his second wife Nancy Conrad and Howard A. Klausner, the writer of Space Cowboys, this biography is presented cinematically, but it would have been a thrilling ride anyway.

Honestly, if ever you needed proof that you can have fun and enjoy a serious job with a smile on your face, then Pete Conrad is exhibit A for astronauts.

Baseball is a Funny Game by Joe Garagiola is not about a baseball star. It’s hardly about the fundamentals of the game or its many statistics. It is simply the story of baseball told by an average catcher who bounced around the National League for a while who can tell stories with the best of them.

This book is baseball as it was and as it is, because the more things change the more they stay the same. America’s game is no exception.