A new book by Albert S.J. Tucker Jr. and Matthew W. Paxton IV with Eugene J. Dunning, recounts the exploits of Captain Bob Ford and crew of a Pan American Airways flying boat that had to circumnavigate the globe in 1941 just after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The flight was a thirty-four day ordeal. It took over 31,000 miles, 3 oceans, 5 continents, 12 nations, 22 landings, and crossed the equator 4 times. They had no airways to follow, had to use bad fuel, had no spare parts. They had engine failures, were nearly shot down, and made numerous overloaded takeoffs. With few air navigation aids, Ford was still able to employ precision celestial air navigation. Captain Ford and crew accomplished the impossible and made aviation history. Four years of research and writing, this incredible and absolutely true story of the Pacific Clipper is a tribute to the greatness of Pan Am, her crews, and is worthy of a Cecil B. De Mille epic movie!

Pacific Clipper: The Untold Story

Paxton, Matthew W.

Tucker Jr., Albert S. J.

The News-Gazette

AUTOGRAPHED COPIES NOW AVAILABLE!!!! The story line begins when a 34-year-old novice scribe arrived at The News-Gazette in the autumn of 1966, just missing football greats Jim Grabowski and Dick Butkus and basketball standout Don Freeman, and only four months ahead of the traumatic UI "slush fund." Tate's version of Illini athletics begins in that distant time, and comes to life in what were once daily columns. But it won't be told chronologically. Rather it weaves back and forth through the athletes, coaches and great rivalries, and through events that often tested the university.ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Loren Tate has covered University of Illinois sports for The News-Gazette in Champaign for more than four decades. Although he claims to be semi-retired he still produces four columns per week, and there is never any question about which side of an issue he stands on. Readers love him and readers hate him. But no matter what, they read him.

Tatelines (A compilation of Loren Tate's best columns from more than 40 years of University of Illinois sports reporting)

Sports & Outdoors

Loren Tate

Basketball

Fred Kroner's latest book chronicles the rich history of the Eastern Illinois Baseball League as it celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2010. The list of E.I. Baseball alumni who went on to bigger and better things includes a former big league manager, an umpire, and nearly a dozen major league ball players. There are stories about Dizzy Dean, Satchel Paige, and many others, plus complete standings from every year of the league's existence. Kroner, an award-winning sports reporter for The News-Gazette in Champaign-Urbana, began covering E.I. Baseball in 1975. This is his third book. His first was Citzen Pain, about NBA player Brian Cardinal, who grew up in nearby Tolono, Ill. His second book was Are You Ready, which profiled the career of Jim Sheppard, who was the public address announcer for the University of Illinois football and men's basketball teams for 22 years.

Catching Up: The Official History of the Eastern Illinois Baseball League

Fred Kroner

Baseball

Slices of Life collects the artful journalism stories done by students in the literary feature writing class of master nonfiction storyteller Walt Harrington. They are tone poems that describe and evoke the "music of ordinary life" - Rabbi Isaac Neuman remembering the good even in the Nazi death camps; Charlie High mourning the death and praising the life of his wife; Gino Baileau struggling to establish his unusual sexual identity; Chike Coleman trying to take joy in every moment of a life debilitated by disease; Bishop Morris Paul Lockett preaching to his abjectly poor congregation; Charlie Sweitzer making a beautiful chair with his hands. And the stories of many more ordinary people searching out their hopes and dreams, as they seek to find meaning in their lives.The stories grew from a collaborative effort between Mr. Harrington, a journalism professor at the Univ. of Illinois, and Champaign-Urbana's News-Gazette daily paper, which published the articles. They are in the long tradition of human interest journalism that gives readers an understanding of the anonymous people with whom they mingle daily, people who at first glance seem different from us-richer or poorer, younger or older, more educated or less, gay or straight, religious or agnostic, black or white. They remind us that beneath all of that we are much the same.An excellent companion book for journalism classes-a book that reveals the excellent work that aspiring young journalists can accomplish beyond traditional news reporting.In the words of the stories' subjects: "We didn't do nothin' big. We just liked bein' together. It was a real good life." -- Charlie High / "Ani ma'amin, ani ma'amin b'emunah sh'leimah - I believe, I believe, with perfect faith." - Rabbi Isaac Neuman / "And Lake Michigan, why do they call it a lake? It is like an ocean." - Zina Bhaia / "I do it entirely for the birds, not the people." - Cindy Eaglen

Slices of Life

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

Books by The News-Gazette

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

Pacific Clipper: The Untold Story

Tatelines (A compilation of Loren Tate's best columns from more than 40 years of University of Illinois sports reporting)

Catching Up: The Official History of the Eastern Illinois Baseball League

Slices of Life