Deconstructing Sammy
by Matt Birkbeck
Harper Collins, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY  10022

Sammy Davis Jr. lived a storied life. Adored by millions over a six-decade-long career, he was considered an entertainment icon and a national treasure. But despite lifetime earnings that topped $50 million, Sammy died in 1990 near bankruptcy. His estate was declared insolvent, and there was no possibility of it ever using Sammy's name or likeness again. It was as if Sammy had never existed. Years later his wife, Altovise, a once-vivacious woman and heir to one of the greatest entertainment legacies of the twentieth century, was living in poverty, and with nowhere else to go, she turned to a former federal prosecutor, Albert "Sonny" Murray, to make one last attempt to resolve Sammy's debts, restore his estate, and revive his legacy. For seven years Sonny probed Sammy's life to understand how someone of great notoriety and wealth could have lost everything, and in the process he came to understand Sammy as a man whose complexity makes for a riveting work of celebrity biography as cultural history.

Trading Dreams at Midnight
by Diane McKinney-Whetstone
Harper Collins, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY  10022

Fifteen-year-old Neena and her younger sister, Tish, are certain their mother will return, flush with the promise of a new man. But Freeda's disappearance on the cold February morning in 1984 soon stretches from days to months and from months to years. Raised by their stern grandmother Nan, the two sisters quickly learn to look after themselves, fiercely reinventing their lives in the wake of Freeda's absence. Two decades later, at age thirty-six, Neena has moved away from Philadelphia and supports herself by blackmailing married men. When one of her stings goes terribly wrong, she decides to return to her childhood home. Unable to face her grandmother, Neena attempts to pull one last hustle on a prominent local lawyer. But when she learns that her younger sister has been hospitalized with pregnancy complications, she must decide how to come to terms with the woman who raised her. Reunited, Neena, Tish, and Nan each confronts her own memories of the past, and together reveal their dreams for the future.

The Boy in the Box
by David Stout
Globe Pequot Press, 246 Goose Lane, P.O. Box 480, Guilford, CT  06437

On February 25, 1957, the nude, badly bruised body of a young boy was found in a cardboard box in trash-strewn woods of north Philadelphia. Posters of the “Boy in the Box” soon dotted the city and police stations nationwide—to no avail. In November 1998 the remains were exhumed for DNA analysis, and the boy was reburied as “America’s Unknown Child.”  “The Boy in the Box” is the first book to examine America’s most famous unsolved case of child murder—one that led to the “Stranger Danger” child safety campaign and a Law & Order episode. Featuring never-before-seen photos, it examines half a century of shocking and mysterious events surrounding the discovery of the body. David Stout presents a timeline interwoven with flashbacks, theories, media reports, first-hand interviews, and urban myths—taking us back to the year America lost its innocence forever.

David Stout, a veteran journalist with the New York Times, is currently a reporter for the paper’s Washington, DC bureau.  He is the author of “Night of the Devil” and three novels, including the Edgar Award-winning mystery “Carolina Skeletons”.  He lives in Washington, DC.

The Drillmaster of Valley Forge
by Paul Lockart
Harper Collins, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY  10022-5299

The image of the Baron de Steuben training Washington's ragged, demoralized troops in the snow at Valley Forge is part of the iconography of our Revolutionary heritage, but most history fans know little more about this fascinating figure.  Author Paul Lockhart, an expert in European military history, explains the significance of Steuben's military experience in Europe. Steeped in the traditions of the Prussian army of Frederick the Great—the most ruthlessly effective in Europe—he taught the soldiers of the Continental Army how to fight like Europeans. His guiding hand shaped the army that triumphed over the British at Monmouth, Stony Point, and Yorktown. And his influence did not end with the Revolution. Steuben was instrumental in creating West Point, and in writing the "Blue Book"—the first official regulations of the American army. His principles have guided the American armed forces to this day.

Digging in the City of Brotherly Love
by Rebecca Yamin
Yale University Press, P.O. Box 209040, New Haven, CT  06520-9040

Beneath the modern city of Philadelphia lie countless clues to its history and the lives of residents long forgotten. “Digging in the City of Brotherly Love” explores eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Philadelphia through the findings of archaeological excavations, sharing with readers the excitement of digging into the past and reconstructing the lives of earlier inhabitants of the city. Urban archaeologist Rebecca Yamin describes the major excavations that have been undertaken since 1992 as part of the redevelopment of Independence Mall and surrounding areas, explaining how archaeologists gather and use raw data to learn more about the ordinary people whose lives were never recorded in history books. Yamin focuses primarily on these unknown citizens—an accountant in the first Treasury Department, a coachmaker whose clients were politicians doing business at the State House, an African American founder of St. Thomas’s African Episcopal Church, and others—to present a portrait of old Philadelphia. She also discusses political aspects of archaeology today—who supports particular projects and why, and what has been lost to bulldozers and heedlessness.

Resurrecting Allegheny City
by Lisa Miles
Lisamilesviolin.com

Pre-empted for PIAA State High School Football Championships

TBA

Life, Liberty, and The Mummers
by E.A. Kennedy
Temple University Press, 1601 N. Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA  19122

The Mummers Parade is like no other parade in the world. With 10,000 wildly-costumed participants stepping out every New Year's Day in South Philadelphia, it is one of the most spectacular annual parades in the U.S. “Life, Liberty, and The Mummers” is a "family portrait" of the parade. It presents, in pictures and in words, the flamboyantly-attired Mummers and reveals the everyday, working-class people beneath the outrageous garb. Photographer E. A. Kennedy spent four years documenting the Mummers and their parade. He has personally selected the striking images included here-more than 150 in all-and he has written an engaging history of the Parade itself. For all its glitz, the Mummers Parade remains a folk parade. This is the story of the folks behind the parade.

True Crime: Pennsylvania
By Patricia Martinelli
Stackpole Books, 5067 Ritter Road, Mechanicsburg, PA  17055  

The history of criminal offense in Pennsylvania is documented in this book, beginning with a general survey of crime in the state and then focusing on its headline cases. Included are Philadelphia and Pittsburgh mob activities, the 20-year hunt for killer Ira Einhorn, the murder of Philadelphia-area schoolteacher Susan Reinert, the Freeman teenagers in Allentown who stabbed their parents to death, and the tragic shootings at the Nickel Mines Amish school.

Patricia Martinelli is a freelance writer who lives in southern New Jersey. She is the author of True Crime: New Jersey, Haunted Delaware, and coauthor with Charles A. Stansfield Jr. of Haunted New Jersey.

Pre-empted for PA State Farm Show Coverage

TBA

TBA

Pre-empted for Football Game of the Week

The Debden Warbirds
By Frank Speer
Schiffer Publishing, 4880 Lower Valley Road, Rte. 372, Atglen, PA  19310

The P-51 Mustangs of the 4th Fighter Group were the first to escort bombers over Berlin during World War II, the first to escort bombers from England to Russia, and at war's end ranked first in the number of enemy aircraft destroyed (over 1,000). The Debden Warbirds describes in detail the everyday workings of this record setting fighter group, from their Eagle Squadron beginnings in Hurricanes and Spitfires, to their unprecedented triumphs in Thunderbolts and Mustangs. This authentic account, gleaned from the Squadron and Tower Diaries, is enhanced by dozens of combat reports and personal accounts from pilots and crews whose day-to-day encounters are faithfully recorded.

Pre-empted for PIAA High School Girls Soccer Championship

Heirloom: Notes From An Accidental Tomato Farmer
By Tim Stark
Broadway Books (Random House), 1745 Broadway, New York, NY  10019

Fourteen years ago, Tim Stark was living in Brooklyn, working days as a management consultant, and writing unpublished short stories by night. One evening, chancing upon a Dumpster full of discarded lumber, he carried the lumber home and built a germination rack for thousands of heirloom tomato seedlings. His crop soon outgrew the brownstone in which it had sprouted, forcing him to cart the seedlings to his family’s farm in Pennsylvania, where they were transplanted into the ground by hand. When favorable weather brought in a bumper crop, Tim hauled his unusual tomatoes to New York City’s Union Square Greenmarket, at a time when the tomato was unanimously red. The rest is history. Today, Eckerton Hill Farm does a booming trade in heirloom tomatoes and obscure chile peppers. Tim’s tomatoes are featured on the menus of New York City’s most demanding chefs and have even made the cover of Gourmet magazine.

The Devil in Dover
By Lauri Lebo
The New Press, 38 Greene Street, New York, NY  10013

In December 2004, following the Dover area school board’s decision to teach intelligent design in ninth-grade biology classrooms, eleven parents sued, sparking a federal constitutional challenge. Lauri Lebo, a small-town reporter who covered the trial, knows not just the legal case and science, but the people on all sides of the divisive battle.  In The Devil in Dover, Lebo traces the compelling backstory of this pivotal case described by some as a perfect storm of religious intolerance, First Amendment violations, and an assault on American science education. In a community divided across unexpected lines, the so-called activist judge, a George Bush–appointed Republican, eventually condemned the school board’s decision as one of “breathtaking inanity.”

Lauri Lebo has been a journalist for twenty years. As part of an investigative reporting team, she helped solve two civil rights-era murders. As the York Daily Record’s education reporter, she covered intelligent design’s First Amendment battle. The winner of numerous state and national awards, she lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Home to Roost
By Bob Sheasley
St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY  10010-7848

Each day, Bob Sheasley leaves Lilyfield Farm and heads into the city. And each day, he brings along a basket of eggs for his coworkers at The Philadelphia Inquirer. Depending on the breed of hen, these eggs may be white, green, rose, blue, or as brown as chocolate. And they are all deliciously fresh, a taste of the rural way of life that people have enjoyed for millennia, one in which chickens have played a supporting role for nearly as long.  In Home to Roost, Sheasley tells of the intertwined relationship between humans and chickens. He delves into where chickens came from, what their DNA tells us about our kinship, how we’ve treated our feathered fellow travelers, and the roads we’re crossing together. This is a story of agriculture and human migration, of folk medicine and technology, of how we dreamed of the good life, threw it away, and want it back.

Pre-empted for PIAA State High School Football Championships

Trading Dreams at Midnight
by Diane McKinney-Whetstone
Harper Collins, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY  10022

Fifteen-year-old Neena and her younger sister, Tish, are certain their mother will return, flush with the promise of a new man. But Freeda's disappearance on the cold February morning in 1984 soon stretches from days to months and from months to years. Raised by their stern grandmother Nan, the two sisters quickly learn to look after themselves, fiercely reinventing their lives in the wake of Freeda's absence. Two decades later, at age thirty-six, Neena has moved away from Philadelphia and supports herself by blackmailing married men. When one of her stings goes terribly wrong, she decides to return to her childhood home. Unable to face her grandmother, Neena attempts to pull one last hustle on a prominent local lawyer. But when she learns that her younger sister has been hospitalized with pregnancy complications, she must decide how to come to terms with the woman who raised her. Reunited, Neena, Tish, and Nan each confronts her own memories of the past, and together reveal their dreams for the future.

The Boy in the Box
by David Stout
Globe Pequot Press, 246 Goose Lane, P.O. Box 480, Guilford, CT  06437

On February 25, 1957, the nude, badly bruised body of a young boy was found in a cardboard box in trash-strewn woods of north Philadelphia. Posters of the “Boy in the Box” soon dotted the city and police stations nationwide—to no avail. In November 1998 the remains were exhumed for DNA analysis, and the boy was reburied as “America’s Unknown Child.”  “The Boy in the Box” is the first book to examine America’s most famous unsolved case of child murder—one that led to the “Stranger Danger” child safety campaign and a Law & Order episode. Featuring never-before-seen photos, it examines half a century of shocking and mysterious events surrounding the discovery of the body. David Stout presents a timeline interwoven with flashbacks, theories, media reports, first-hand interviews, and urban myths—taking us back to the year America lost its innocence forever.

David Stout, a veteran journalist with the New York Times, is currently a reporter for the paper’s Washington, DC bureau.  He is the author of “Night of the Devil” and three novels, including the Edgar Award-winning mystery “Carolina Skeletons”.  He lives in Washington, DC.

Digging in the City of Brotherly Love
by Rebecca Yamin
Yale University Press, P.O. Box 209040, New Haven, CT  06520-9040

Beneath the modern city of Philadelphia lie countless clues to its history and the lives of residents long forgotten. “Digging in the City of Brotherly Love” explores eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Philadelphia through the findings of archaeological excavations, sharing with readers the excitement of digging into the past and reconstructing the lives of earlier inhabitants of the city. Urban archaeologist Rebecca Yamin describes the major excavations that have been undertaken since 1992 as part of the redevelopment of Independence Mall and surrounding areas, explaining how archaeologists gather and use raw data to learn more about the ordinary people whose lives were never recorded in history books. Yamin focuses primarily on these unknown citizens—an accountant in the first Treasury Department, a coachmaker whose clients were politicians doing business at the State House, an African American founder of St. Thomas’s African Episcopal Church, and others—to present a portrait of old Philadelphia. She also discusses political aspects of archaeology today—who supports particular projects and why, and what has been lost to bulldozers and heedlessness.

Pre-empted for PA State Farm Show Coverage

TBA

TBA

TBA