A letter written by a seriously ill middle aged man facing the end of his life is found in a safety deposit box after he passes away. The document, immediately thought to be Jack Quinns last will and testament, sends his oldest friend on a quest to find his birth parents, his adoption only revealed to him shortly before he died. The search for the identity of the decedents birth parents takes Mark Purchell, a man who has been Quinns friend for over forty years, from his hometown of Ottawa to a small town on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. Along the way, Purchell encounters and is assisted by a number of intriguing characters, including a seedy but well-meaning neighbour, a stern librarian, a retired police officer, members of the clergy, a newspaper editor, a haughty hotel maitre d and a spirited waitress named Elaine. His investigation of The Hidden History of Jack Quinn eventually leads to a newspaper archive and a surprising answer to a departed friends last request.

The careers of pitchers Jack Quinn and Howard Ehmke began in the Deadball Era and peaked in the 1920s. They were teammates for many years, with both the cellar-dwelling Boston Red Sox and later with the world champion Philadelphia Athletics, managed by Connie Mack. As far back as 1912, when he was just twenty-nine, Quinn was told he was too old to play and on the downward side of his career. Because of his determination, work ethic, outlook on life, and physical conditioning, however, he continued to excel. In his midthirties, then his late thirties, and even into his forties, he overcame the naysayers. At age forty-six he became the oldest pitcher to start a World Series game. When Quinn finally retired in 1933 at fifty, the “Methuselah of the Mound” owned numerous longevity records, some of which he holds to this day. Ehmke, meanwhile, battled arm trouble and poor health through much of his career. Like Quinn, he was dismissed by the experts and from many teams, only to return and excel. He overcame his physical problems by developing new pitches and pitching motions and capped his career with a stunning performance in Game One of the 1929 World Series against the Chicago Cubs, which still ranks among baseball’s most memorable games. Connie Mack described it as his greatest day in baseball. Comeback Pitchers is the inspirational story of these two great pitchers with intertwining careers who were repeatedly considered washed up and too old but kept defying the odds and thrilling fans long after most pitchers would have retired.

No institution is as critically important to America's security. No American institution is as controversial. And, after the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court, no institution is as powerful. Yet until now, no book has presented the full story of the FBI from its beginnings in 1908 to the present... The Bureau The Secret History of the FBI Based on exclusive interviews-including the first interview with Robert Mueller since his nomination as director-The Bureau reveals why the FBI was unprepared for the attacks of September 11 and how the FBI is combating terrorism today. The book answers such questions as: Why did the FBI know nothing useful about al-Qaeda before September 11? What is really behind the FBI's more aggressive investigative approaches that have raised civil liberties concerns? What does the FBI think of improvements in airline security? How safe does the FBI think America really is? An Award-winning investigative reporter and New York Times bestselling author of Inside the White House, Ronald Kessler answers these questions and presents the definitive history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Bureau reveals startling new information-from J. Edgar Hoover's blackmailing of Congress to the investigation of the September 11th attacks.

A tribute to the larger than life story of a hockey icon and hero. The hockey world mourned when Pat Quinn died in November 2014. Tough guys sobbed. Networks carried montages of Quinn's rugged hits, his steely-eyed glare, and his famous victories. Quinn made a few enemies over the years, but there was no one who didn't respect the tough working-class kid who had fought his way to the very top of the hockey world. He had butted heads with superstars, with management, and with the league itself. And he had also succeeded at every level, finishing his journeyman's career as the captain of an NHL team, then quickly emerged as one of the best coaches in the league. He gathered executive titles like hockey cards, and done things his own way, picking up a law degree along the way. He was brash, dour, and abrasive--and people loved him for his alloy of pugnacity and flair, his three-piece suits and cigars, his Churchillian heft and his scowl. In the end, the player who would never even have dreamed of being inducted into the Hall of Fame was the chair of the Hall's selection committee. That is Quinn's story: an underdog who succeeded so completely that his legacy has become the standard by which others are judged. Told by bestselling author Dan Robson, and supported by the Quinn family and network of friends, Quinn is the definitive account of one of the game's biggest personalities and most storied lives.

The first history of the deaccession of objects from museum collections that defends deaccession as an essential component of museum practice. Museums often stir controversy when they deaccession works—formally remove objects from permanent collections—with some critics accusing them of betraying civic virtue and the public trust. In fact, Martin Gammon argues in Deaccessioning and Its Discontents, deaccession has been an essential component of the museum experiment for centuries. Gammon offers the first critical history of deaccessioning by museums from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century, and exposes the hyperbolic extremes of “deaccession denial”—the assumption that deaccession is always wrong—and “deaccession apology”—when museums justify deaccession by finding some fault in the object—as symptoms of the same misunderstanding of the role of deaccessions in proper museum practice. He chronicles a series of deaccession events in Britain and the United States that range from the disastrous to the beneficial, and proposes a typology of principles to guide future deaccessions. Gammon describes the liquidation of the British Royal Collections after Charles I's execution—when masterworks were used as barter to pay the king's unpaid bills—as establishing a precedent for future deaccessions. He recounts, among other episodes, U.S. Civil War veterans who tried to reclaim their severed limbs from museum displays; the 1972 “Hoving affair,” when the Metropolitan Museum of Art sold a number of works to pay for a Velázquez portrait; and Brandeis University's decision (later reversed) to close its Rose Art Museum and sell its entire collection of contemporary art. An appendix provides the first extensive listing of notable deaccessions since the seventeenth century. Gammon ultimately argues that vibrant museums must evolve, embracing change, loss, and reinvention.

The first major comprehensive treatment of urban revitalization in 35 years. Examines the federal government's relationship with urban America from the Truman through the Clinton administrations. Provides a telling critique of how, in the long run, government turned a blind eye to the fate of cities.

THE ULTIMATE BASEBALL BOOK has more than lived up to its name. Spanning the complete history of the sport from the fledgling leagues in the late 1870s to the powerhouses of the 1990s and revealing in the process what a remarkable effect baseball has had on our collective experience, this is THE book for any and all baseball fans, certain to grace coffee and bedside tables alike. Designed with that wonderful nostalgia that the sport itself so often evokes, THE ULTIMATE BASEBALL BOOK combines timeless images with a sweeping narrative history as well as essays on various idols and icons by such heavy hitters as Red Smith, Wilfrid Sheed, Roy Blount, Jr., Tom Wicker, and Geoge Will. This new edition covers baseball through the nineties, the decade when home run records fell and the sport reclaimed its hold on America, and celebrates the national game in ultimate style.

Focusing on W.B. Yeats's ideal of mutual support between the arts and on the cultural production of the Yeats circle members, Karen Brown explores the artistic relationships and outcome of Yeats's vision in five case studies. In so doing, the author makes use of primary materials and fresh archival evidence, and delves into a variety of media, including embroidery, print, illustration, theatre, costume design, poetry, and painting.