Tommy's Honour: The Extraordinary Story of Golf's Founding Father and Son

Cook, Kevin

Biographies & Memoirs

Harper Sports

Old Tom Morris grew up a stone's throw away from golf's ancestral home at St. Andrews. After winning the Open Championship three times he became head of the Royal &amp; Ancient, the governing body of golf. His son, Young Tom, was a golfing genius who at 17 became the youngest playerto this dayto win the Open Championship. Young Tom won the Open four times in a rowan unprecedented achievementand together father and son stood as both founding figures in the world of golf and national celebrities. The sudden and unexpected deaths of Young Tom’s wife and unborn child, however, eventually lead to his tragic death at age 24, leaving Old Tom to mourn for another two decades. This is the inspiring and heart-wrenching story of the father-son team who together formed a record-breaking golfing dynasty.

Harpercollins Pub, Ltd.

The first biography of the beloved entertainer who broke the prime-time color barrier When The Flip Wilson Show debuted in 1970, black faces were still rare on television and black hosts nonexistent. Then came Flip—to instant acclaim. His show dueled Marcus Welby, M.D. for the top spot in the ratings. His characters and catchphrases fixed themselves in America’s consciousness, and he helped launch new talent, including Richard Pryor and George Carlin. But how did Clerow Wilson, a motherless Jersey City grade-school dropout, become the celebrity heralded on the cover of TIME as “TV’s First Black Superstar”? Drawing on interviews with family, friends, and celebrities, Kevin Cook offers an inspiring salute to a self-made star who fell from grace, but not before blazing a trail for generations of entertainers to come.

Flip: The Inside Story of TV's First Black Superstar

Literature & Fiction

Dramas & Plays

Plume

Capturing the spirit of a freewheeling era, this rollicking biography brings to life the gambler-hero who inspired Guys and Dolls. Born in a log cabin in the Ozarks, Alvin "Titanic" Thompson (1892-1974) traveled with his golf clubs, a .45 revolver, and a suitcase full of cash. He won and lost millions playing cards, dice, golf, pool, and dangerous games of his own invention. He killed five men and married five women, each one a teenager on her wedding day. He ruled New York's underground craps games in the 1920s and was Damon Runyon's model for slick-talking Sky Masterson. Dominating the links in the pre-PGA Tour years, Thompson may have been the greatest golfer of his time, teeing up with Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Lee Trevino, and Ray Floyd. He also traded card tricks with Houdini, conned Al Capone, lost a million to Minnesota Fats and then teamed up with Fats and won it all back. A terrific read for anyone who has ever laid a bet, Titanic Thompson recaptures the colorful times of a singular figure: America's original road gambler. 20 black-and-white illustrations

Titanic Thompson: The Man Who Bet on Everything

Sports & Outdoors

Biographies

W.W.Norton&Company

The inside story of the most colorful decade in NFL history―pro football’s raging, hormonal, hairy, druggy, immortal adolescence. Between the Immaculate Reception in 1972 and The Catch in 1982, pro football grew up. In 1972, Steelers star Franco Harris hitchhiked to practice. NFL teams roomed in skanky motels. They played on guts, painkillers, legal steroids, fury, and camaraderie. A decade later, Joe Montana’s gleamingly efficient 49ers ushered in a new era: the corporate, scripted, multibillion-dollar NFL we watch today. Kevin Cook’s rollicking chronicle of this pivotal decade draws on interviews with legendary players―Harris, Montana, Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach, Ken “Snake” Stabler―to re-create their heroics and off-field carousing. He shows coaches John Madden and Bill Walsh outsmarting rivals as Monday Night Football redefined sports’ place in American life. Celebrating the game while lamenting the physical toll it took on football’s greatest generation, Cook diagrams the NFL’s transformation from second-tier sport into national obsession. 8 pages of photographs

The Last Headbangers: NFL Football in the Rowdy, Reckless '70s―The Era that Created Modern Sports

History

At last, the true story of a crime that shocked the world. New York City, 1964. A young woman is stabbed to death on her front stoop―a murder the New York Times called “a frozen moment of dramatic, disturbing social change.” The victim, Catherine “Kitty” Genovese, became an urban martyr, butchered by a sociopathic killer in plain sight of thirty-eight neighbors who “didn’t want to get involved.” Her sensational case provoked an anxious outcry and launched a sociological theory known as the “Bystander Effect.” That’s the narrative told by the Times, movies, TV programs, and countless psychology textbooks. But as award-winning author Kevin Cook reveals, the Genovese story is just that, a story. The truth is far more compelling―and so is the victim.
Now, on the fiftieth anniversary of her murder, Cook presents the real Kitty Genovese. She was a vibrant young woman―unbeknownst to most, a lesbian―a bartender working (and dancing) her way through the colorful, fast-changing New York of the ’60s, a cultural kaleidoscope marred by the Kennedy assassination, the Cold War, and race riots. Downtown, Greenwich Village teemed with beatniks, folkies, and so-called misfits like Kitty and her lover. Kitty Genovese evokes the Village’s gay and lesbian underground with deep feeling and colorful detail.
Cook also reconstructs the crime itself, tracing the movements of Genovese’s killer, Winston Moseley, whose disturbing trial testimony made him a terrifying figure to police and citizens alike, especially after his escape from Attica State Prison.
Drawing on a trove of long-lost documents, plus new interviews with her lover and other key figures, Cook explores the enduring legacy of the case. His heartbreaking account of what really happened on the night Genovese died is the most accurate and chilling to date. 16 pages of photographs

Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime that Changed America

True Crime

An unforgettable look at how baseball families share our national pastime.
Baseball honors legacies―from cheering the home team to breaking in an old glove handed down from father to son. In The Dad Report, award-winning sportswriter Kevin Cook weaves a tapestry of uplifting stories in which fathers and sons―from the sport's superstars to Cook and his own ball-playing father―share the game.
Almost two hundred father-son pairs have played in the big leagues. Cook takes us inside the clubhouses, homes, and lives of many of the greats. Aaron Boone follows grandfather Bob, father Ray, and brother Bret to the majors―three generations of All-Stars. Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr. strive to outdo their famous dads. Michael Jordan walks away from basketball to play minor-league baseball―to fulfill his father's dream.
In visiting these legendary families, Cook discovers that ball-playing families are a lot like our own. Dan Haren regrets the long road trips that keep him from his kids. Ike Davis and his father, a former Yankee, debate whether Ike should pitch or play first base. Buddy Bell leads a generation of big-leaguers determined to open their workplace―the clubhouse―to their kids.
Framing The Dad Report is the story of Kevin Cook's own father, Art Cook, a minor-league pitcher, a loveable rogue with a wicked screwball. In Art's later years, Kevin phoned him almost every night to talk baseball. They called those nightly conversations "the Dad Report." In time, Kevin came to see that these conversations were about much more than the game. That's what this book is about: the way fathers and sons talk baseball as a way of talking about everything―courage, fear, fun, family, morality, mortality, and how it's not whether you win or lose that counts, it's how you share the game. 8 pages of photographs

The Dad Report: Fathers, Sons, and Baseball Families

Parenting & Relationships

“The ultimate hustler . . . a rollicking tale.”―Sports Illustrated This "raucous retelling of the life of a consummate gambler, grifter and quintessential American character" (Kirkus Reviews) introduces Alvin "Titanic" Thompson (1892-1974), who traveled with golf clubs, a .45 revolver, and a suitcase full of cash. A terrific read for anyone who has ever laid a bet, Titanic Thompson recaptures the colorful times of a singular figure. 20 black-and-white illustrations

The Last Headbangers: NFL Football in the Rowdy, Reckless '70s: the Era that Created Modern Sports

Football (American)

"Vividly transforms Ms. Genovese from an iconic urban martyr to a three-dimensional protagonist in a case that transformed the criminal justice system." ―Sam Roberts, New York Times
In 1964 Catherine "Kitty" Genovese was brutally stabbed to death on her front stoop in plain view of numerous witnesses. Her sensational case provoked an anxious outcry and became the stuff of urban legend. Kevin Cook’s “provocative” (Wall Street Journal) investigation upends the simple story we thought we knew. His unprecedented minute-by-minute reconstruction of the crime shatters the fable of the 38 passive witnesses―a myth perpetuated by the New York Times, movies, TV programs, and countless psychology textbooks. For the first time, Cook introduces us to a neighbor who did intervene, and he brings to life a vibrant and charismatic Kitty, working (and dancing) her way through the colorful, fast-changing New York of the ’60s. 16 pages of photographs

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cook, Kevin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Cook, Kevin

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cook, Kevin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Tommy's Honour: The Extraordinary Story of Golf's Founding Father and Son

Tommy's Honour: The Extraordinary Story of Golf's Founding Father and Son

Flip: The Inside Story of TV's First Black Superstar

Titanic Thompson: The Man Who Bet on Everything

The Last Headbangers: NFL Football in the Rowdy, Reckless '70s―The Era that Created Modern Sports

Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime that Changed America

The Dad Report: Fathers, Sons, and Baseball Families

Titanic Thompson: The Man Who Bet on Everything

The Last Headbangers: NFL Football in the Rowdy, Reckless '70s: the Era that Created Modern Sports

Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime that Changed America