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 Featuring hour-long interviews with authors and editors of Pennsylvania-related books


Check the PA Books archives here.


August
(Schedule Subject To Change)

1st	"I Walked With Giants" Author: Jimmy Heath Temple University Press, 306 University Services Bldg, Philadelphia, PA 19122-6099 Composer of more than 100 jazz pieces, three-time Grammy nominee, and performer on more than 125 albums, saxophonist Jimmy Heath has earned a place of honor in the history of jazz. Over his long career, Heath knew many jazz giants, such as Charlie Parker, and played with other innovators, including John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and especially Dizzy Gillespie. Along the way, Heath won both their respect and their friendship. In his autobiography, the legendary Heath creates a “dialogue” with musicians and family members. As in jazz, where improvisation by one performer prompts another to riff on the same theme, I Walked with Giants juxtaposes Heath’s account of his life and career with recollections from jazz giants about life on the road and making music on the world’s stages. His memories of playing with his equally legendary brothers, Percy and Albert (aka “Tootie”), dovetail with their recollections. Heath reminisces about a South Philadelphia home filled with music and a close-knit family that hosted musicians performing in the city’s then thriving jazz scene. Milt Jackson recalls, “I went to their house for dinner. . . . Jimmy’s father put Charlie Parker records on and told everybody that we had to be quiet till dinner because he had Bird on. . . . When I [went] to Philly, I’d always go to their house.” Jimmy Heath, an NEA Jazz Master, is widely recognized as one of the greats in jazz. A saxophonist, composer, arranger, and educator, Heath grew up in Philadelphia with his renowned brothers, Percy, the longtime bassist with the Modern Jazz Quartet, and Albert (“Tootie”), a highly respected drummer. The three formed the Heath Brothers Band in the ’70s. Jimmy Heath directed the Jazz Studies master’s degree program in performance at Queens College (CUNY).
8th	"Pittsburgh: A New Portrait" Author: Franklin Toker Sports Publishing, 804 North Neil Street, Champaign, Il, 61820 The Pittsburgh Pirates have one of the most storied histories in baseball history. “The Pittsburgh Pirates Encyclopedia” captures these stories of the individuals and the collective teams that thrilled the Steel City for 115 years. The book breaks down the team with a year-by-year synopsis of the club, biographies of over 180 of the most memorable Pirates through the ages, as well as a look at each manager, owner, general manager, and announcer. David Finoli graduated from Duquesne University and is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research. He is the author of “For the Good of the Country” and has written for Pittsburgh Magazine and Baseballspot.org. Bill Ranier is also a Duquesne University graduate and member of the Society for American Baseball Research. He received his master’s degree in social work from the University of Pittsburgh, and is employed as a therapist for Mercy Behavioral Health.
15th	"Uncommon Wisdom" Author: John Castaldo and Lawrence Levitt Roadale Press, 400 South 10th Street, Emmaus, PA 18098 The debate over health care reform promises to rage on long after the current legislation is resolved. In all of the political rhetoric and contentious back ad forth about tax structure and the future of HMO’s, it is easy to forget about the human dimension of medicine. In “Uncommon Wisdom” neurologists Dr. John Castaldo and Dr. Lawrence Levitt share what they have learned in their many years as doctors, not just from tests and labs, but from years of listening to and learning from their patients. John Castaldo, MD is the chief of the division of neurology at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown PA. Lawrence Levitt, MD is senior consultant in neurology emeritus at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown, PA.
22nd	"Think Twice" Author: Lisa Scottoline St Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 Bennie Rosato looks exactly like her identical twin, Alice Connolly, but the darkness in Alice’s soul makes them two very different women. Or at least that’s what Bennie believes, until she finds herself buried alive at the hands of her twin. Meanwhile, Alice takes over Bennie’s life, impersonating her at work and even seducing her boyfriend in order to escape the deadly mess she has made of her own life. But Alice underestimates Bennie and the evil she has unleashed in her twin’s psyche, as well as Bennie’s determination to stay alive long enough to exact revenge. Bennie must face the twisted truth that she is more like her sister Alice than she could have ever imagined, and by the novel’s shocking conclusion, Bennie finds herself engaged in a war she cannot win—with herself. Lisa Scottoline is the Edgar award-winning, bestselling author of Look Again, Lady Killer, Daddy’s Girl, Dirty Blonde, and many more. She currently has twenty-five million copies of her books in print in the United States, and she is published in twenty-five countries. She lives in Pennsylvania.
29th	"The Paris of Appalachia" Author: Brian O’Neill Carnegie Mellon University Press, 5032 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15289-1021 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Brian O’Neill began writing this book several years ago, before phrases like “toxic assets” and “foreclosure tsunami” were familiar to Americans. As the cataclysmic financial events of 2008 and 2009 unfolded, and the nation’s wealth vaporized, Pittsburgh found itself in the unfamiliar position of holding fairly steady. Although those in the city experienced layoffs and pension funds imploding, Pittsburgh didn’t have the real estate crash that so many other American places endured. As O’Neill jokes, “you can’t get the hangover if you were never at the party.” Pittsburgh, he notes, has come through tougher times and it’s possible the rest of the country can learn something from us. Brian O’Neill has been a newspaper columnist in Pittsburgh for more than 20 years. He has won the Associated Press Managing Editors of Pennsylvania Award for column writing, the Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers’ Keystone Award for column writing, and regional honors. He lives on the city’s North Side with his wife and two daughters.

September
(Schedule Subject To Change)

5th	"Maps of Gettysburg" Author: Brad Gottfried Savas Beatie, P.O. Box 4527, El Dorado Hills, CA 95762 The Maps of Gettysburg plows new ground in the study of the campaign by breaking down the entire campaign in 146 detailed full page original maps. These cartographic creations bore down to the regimental level, offering students of the campaign a unique and fascinating approach to studying what may have been the climactic battle of the war. The Maps of Gettysburg offers thirty-one “action-sections” comprising the entire campaign. These include the march to and from the battlefield and virtually every significant event in between. Gottfried’s original maps enrich each map section. Keyed to each piece of cartography is detailed text about the units, personnel, movements, and combat (including quotes from eyewitnesses) that make the Gettysburg story come alive. Serious students of the battle will appreciate the extensive endnotes and will want to take this book with them on their trips to the battlefield. Bradley M. Gottfried holds a Ph.D. in Zoology from Miami University. He has worked in higher education for more than three decades as a faculty member and administrator. He is currently President of the College of Southern Maryland. An avid Civil War historian, Dr. Gottfried is the author of five books, and is currently working with Theodore Savas on a Gettysburg Campaign Encyclopedia.
12th	"Race and Renaissance" Author(s): Joe Trotter, Jared Day University of Pittsburgh Press, 3400 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 Race and Renaissance presents the first history of African American life in Pittsburgh after World War II. It examines the origins and significance of the second Great Migration, the persistence of Jim Crow into the postwar years, the second ghetto, the contemporary urban crisis, the civil rights and Black Power movements, and the Million Man and Million Woman marches, among other topics. Joe Trotter is Giant Eagle Professor of History and Social Justice, head of the history department, and director of the Center for Africanamerican Urban Studies and the Economy (CAUSE) at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the author of numerous books, including The African American Experience and River Jordan: African American Urban Life in the Ohio Valley. Jared Day is adjunct professor and research associate in the history department at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the author of Urban Castles: Tenement Housing and Landlord Activism
19th	"In the Footsteps of the Band of Brothers" Author: Larry Alexander New American Library/ Penguin Group, 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014 On the eve of the 65th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, Larry Alexander returns to the very battlefields that made Easy Company a legend. Accompanied by Easy veteran Sgt. Forrest Guth on his final tour, Alexander crosses an ocean and a continent to follow the path to victory taken by the famed Band of Brothers, exploring the living history of the places where they went into action, and revealing what makes their story so meaningful for us to this day. Larry Alexander has been a journalist and columnist for the Intelligencer Journal newspaper in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for more than a decade, winning numerous awards for excellence in journalism. He grew up on the same street in the same town as Major Dick Winters, three decades later.
26th	"Industrial Pioneers: Scranton, Pennsylvania " Author: Patrick Brown Tribute Books, P.O. Box 95, Archbald, PA 18403 During the nineteenth century, Scranton was the face of innovation, immigration, industrialization, and a rising America. Scranton was “the electric city” when electricity was the most exciting invention in the world, and a hub of technology and innovation—between 1840 and 1902, the city of Scranton changed from a lazy backwoods community to a modern industrial society with 100,000 residents. During this time, Scranton’s citizens desperately tried to adapt their thinking to keep up with the overwhelming changes around them, and in the process forged the world views that would define the twentieth century. As globalization, technology and immigration transform the United States today, this book revisits how the people the forefront of the industrial revolution moved from chaos to a new order, and how they found meaning within a rapidly changing world. Periods of total societal transformation often provide the best material for historians. The way that Scranton’s residents reimagined their value within society in response to the changes around them did not evolve in step with technological and economic progress—rather, those living through these changes slowly and painfully adapted extant modes of thinking in light of their new life circumstances. This book weaves a cohesive narrative that explains how Scranton—and America—went from the personal, egalitarian society of the early days of the republic to the rigidly institutionalized society that endures today. Patrick Brown was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He graduated Magna cum Laude from Georgetown University, where he won the Morris Medal for best senior history honors thesis. He currently teaches high school social studies in the Mississippi Delta through Teach for America.