"They were the Beatles of basketball, the Mercury Seven in sneakers. In Dream Team, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum delivers the untold story of the greatest team ever assembled: the 1992 U.S. Olympic Men's Basketball Team that captivated the world, kindled the hoop dreams of countless children around the planet, and remade the NBA into a global sensation. As a senior staff writer for Sports Illustrated, McCallum enjoyed a courtside seat for the most exciting basketball spectacle on earth, covering the Dream Team from its inception to the gold medal ceremony in Barcelona. For the duration of the Olympics, he lived with, golfed with, and--most important--drank with some of the greatest players of the NBA's Golden Age: Magic Johnson, the ebullient showman who shrugged off his recent diagnosis of HIV to become the team's unquestioned captain and leader; Michael Jordan, the transcendent talent at the height of his powers as a player--and a marketing juggernaut; and Charles Barkley, the outspoken iconoclast whose utterances on and off the court threatened to ignite an international incident. Presiding over the entire traveling circus was the Dream Team's beloved coach, Chuck Daly, whose laissez-faire approach proved instrumental in getting the most out of such disparate personalities and superstars such as Larry Bird, Patrick Ewing, and Scottie Pippen. Drawing on fresh interviews with the players, McCallum provides the definitive account of the Dream Team phenomenon. He offers a behind-the-scenes look at the controversial selection process. He takes us inside the team's Olympic suites for late-night card games and bull sessions where the players debate both the finer points of basketball and their respective places in the NBA pantheon. And he narrates a riveting possession-by-possession account of the legendary July 1992 intrasquad scrimmage that pitted the Dream Teamers against one another in what may have been the greatest pickup game--and the greatest exhibition of trash talk--in history. In the twenty years since the Dream Team first captivated the world's attention, its mystique has only grown--and so has its influence. The NBA is now flush with international stars, many of them inspired by the exuberant spirit of '92. Dream Team vividly re-creates the moment when a once-in-a-millennium group of athletes came together, outperformed the hype, and changed the future of sports--one perfectly executed fast break at a time. The Dream Team was. Michael Jordan, Guard, Chicago Bulls Magic Johnson, Guard, Los Angeles Lakers Larry Bird, Forward, Boston Celtics Charles Barkley, Forward, Phoenix Suns Chris Mullin, Forward, Golden State Warriors Scottie Pippen, Forward, Chicago Bulls John Stockton, Guard, Utah Jazz Karl Malone, Forward, Utah Jazz David Robinson, Center, San Antonio Spurs Patrick Ewing, Center, New York Knicks Christian Laettner, Forward, Duke University Clyde Drexler, Guard, Portland Trailblazers"--Provided by publisher.

Examines presidential power within the context of U.S. history and the ongoing relationships presidents and ex-presidents formed with one another.

"Details make a big difference in a small space. That's especially true in bathrooms, where fixtures add finesse and clever storage ideas help the room seem spacious"--Back cover.

How did Richard Ford's cat influence his work as a novelist? How is Chuck Close's portraiture driven by his inability to remember faces? What pivotal moment helped Rosanne Cash understand the healing power of the stage? Creativity is an elusive subject. We enjoy its fruits--movies, novels, paintings, songs--but rarely are we privy to what happens in the creative process. In Spark, journalist Julie Burstein traces the roots of some of the twenty-first century's most influential and creative thinkers, including Joyce Carol Oates, Yo-Yo Ma, David Milch, Isabel Allende, and Joshua Redman. Burstein pulls back the curtain to reveal the sources of these artists' inspiration and the processes that bring their work into being. "These artists may not change lead into gold," Burstein writes, "but they lift materials from their familiar contexts, combining, reshaping, transforming them into works of art that change the way we see the world."--From publisher description.

This is the account of the 2010 San Jose mine rescue in Chile, after one of the longest human entrapments in history. With his coveted "rescue pass," the author was permitted access far past the police perimeter. It would be seventeen long days before the miners were discovered alive and the world press descended. It would be another fifty-two days before the miners were all successfully rescued. For eight weeks, the author conducted interviews with families, rescue workers, the mine psychologist, drill operators, scientists, and the architects of the rescue operation. He reported from an improvised office on the mountainside that was the nerve center of the rescue operation, in a makeshift container. Far below, families and loved ones lived in a cluster of tents known as Camp Hope. While the men were still underground, the author interviewed them via a crude telephone; he helped send vital supplies to them via the "paloma" (pigeon). And when the first miners were rescued on October 13, he had the first media contact with the recently freed men in a series of interviews from inside the field hospital. The book reads like a thriller, toggling between the dramatic chaos below ground as the men realized that their escape routes were blocked and that their shelter held only enough rations for ten men to survive seventy-two hours; and the desperate rescue efforts aboveground, the massive campaign from the top level of the Chilean government to enlist and unite brilliant minds from around the world in the San Jose rescue effort. In never before revealed detail, the author tells a story of the improbable survival of the miners, trapped some 2,200 feet underground for sixty-nine days. He also chronicles what had to go right, an impossibly long list, to rescue them all alive. The death-defying rescue demanded endurance, ingenuity, and most of all, unified fronts above and below ground. To be sure, none of this came easily. Based on more than 110 interviews with the miners, their families, and the rescue team, this account combines an eye for detail and dialogue with the remarkable human interest story of these miners struggling to survive in a savage environment.

"When Wellington, a food-loving, garbage-eating dog, gobbles down his master's meatloaf, Honey, a sneaky cat, threatens to tell on him"--Unedited summary from book.