All In

March 1, 2021

Dragged down by cancer, kidney failure, and recurring pneumonia, Pulitzer Prize winner Bragg had his heart lifted by The Speckled Beauty--a rambunctious stray dog who also needed love. In Seeing Ghosts, a study of grief and family, journalist Chow opens with emigration from China and Hong Kong to Cuba and America and moves to her mother's death from cancer (75,000-copy first printing). From award-winning news producer and photojournalist Copaken, author of the New York Times best-selling Shutterbabe, Ladyparts contextualizes soured marriage, solo parenting, and dating while ill with the substandard treatment of women by U.S. health care. In I Left My Homework in the Hamptons, Grossberg reveals exactly what it's like to tutor the children of New York's wealthiest families (50,000-copy first printing). Author of the New York Times best-booked Ten Thousand Saints, Henderson explores a long-term marriage that has survived her husband's struggles with physical and mental illness in Everything I Have Is Yours (75,000-copy first printing). Ranging from 38 Grand Slam titles to embracing her sexual identity at age 51, King details a life lived spectacularly in All In. In Honor Bound, McGrath recounts serving as the first woman to fly a combat mission for the Marine Corps and efforts to unseat Mitch McConnell as Kentucky senator. Winner of the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, Yangon, Myanmar-born, Bangkok- and San Jos�-raised Myint's Names for Light probes silence, absence, and death over three generations of her family, defined by postcolonial struggle. In Sometimes I Trip On How Happy We Could Be, a Roxane Gay Audacious Bookclub November Pick, Perkins plumbs racism, wealth, poverty, beauty, and more from the perspective of a Southern Black woman. Qu's Made in China captures the challenges of an immigrant childhood, which included a mother so brutally demanding that Qu finally complained to New York's Office of Children and Family Services. In This Will All Be Over Soon, Saturday Night Live cast member Strong addresses grief over a close cousin's death from glioblastoma in the midst of the pandemic (75,000-copy first printing)..

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Starred review from June 14, 2021
The tennis legend faces off against on-court rivalries and off-court battles for equality in her audacious memoir. King (Pressure Is a Privilege) looks back on her years as a tennis superstar and winner of multiple Grand Slam titles in the 1960s and 1970s; her exploits leading the movement to professionalize women’s tennis with the Virginia Slims tour and win equality with men in tournament prize money; her celebrated 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” match, in which she beat chauvinist figure Bobby Rigg; and her traumatic outing after a former female lover filed a palimony lawsuit, which cost King endorsement contracts. Vivid throughout is King’s passion for the game—“I loved the drama of it... the universe of possibilities that opened up as I drew my racket back, then that split-second pause where everything hangs in the balance as you’re preparing to hit a return”—and her obsessive will to win. She also fervidly speaks on contemporary issues from trans rights—calling out the Women’s Tennis Association for its insensitive treatment of such players as Renée Richards—to gun control (“gun violence has become a human rights crisis”). The result is a lively and inspiring portrait of pressure-cooker play and political upheaval in tennis, from one of its most fascinating figures. Agent: David Black, David Black Literary.

June 1, 2021
From an early age, Billie Jean King was aware of social injustices and felt that she was put on Earth to do good. As a professional tennis player, she used her platform with superb precision to win fierce battles on and off the court for gender equality and inclusion. Here King recounts her remarkable journey from growing up in a Long Beach, California, working-class family in the 1940s to becoming a professional athlete and entrepreneur and learning to live as her authentic self. Tennis fans will devour the detailed backstories to her historic run, up to 1983, when, after 27 years, she stopped playing competitive singles after winning 39 Grand Slam singles and doubles championships. Highlights include her groundbreaking win against Bobby Riggs in the 1973 "Battle of the Sexes," and the complex love story with her ex-husband, whom she credits for making her a feminist. It is her secret of being a closeted gay woman that discloses her vulnerability and suffering, including a big reveal: she and her longtime partner, Ilana Kloss, were married by former New York City Mayor David Dinkins (a huge tennis fan). All In is a must-read about an authentic American hero, and one of the twentieth century's most consequential figures in the fight for gender equality and human rights.

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July 1, 2021
A tennis legend tells all. In a candid, vividly detailed memoir, co-authored by journalists Howard and Vollers, King (b. 1943) recounts her dazzling 30-year career, from her discovery of tennis when she was 10 to her amazing fame as the top player in the U.S., winner of 39 Grand Slam and 20 Wimbledon titles. Doing odd jobs to pay for her first racket, Billie Jean Moffitt was lucky to find encouraging coaches and sympathetic mentors who helped the determined, defiant, and ambitious young girl to hone her talents. She was frustrated, though, to find herself clearly at a disadvantage in a male-dominated sport where women were relegated to amateur status, denied endorsements and travel expenses, and awarded far less prize money than men. It was her husband, Larry King, she writes, who "made me a feminist." As her visibility increased, she became an outspoken activist against gender inequality, supporting the Equal Rights Amendment and Title IX; lobbying to change the amateur tennis system; and founding the Women's Tennis Association and the Women's Sports Foundation. "People's experience is rarely improved by sitting still in the face of injustice," she writes. King recounts highlights of some of her most notable contests: against Australian champion Margaret Smith, for example, the young Chris Evert, and especially her tense, much-hyped match against Bobby Riggs in 1973, which was attended by more than 30,000 spectators and seen on TV by more than 90 million people. She won, coming away with $100,000 in prize money and slews of endorsements. King reveals health problems, repeated surgeries, an eating disorder, and an ongoing struggle to define her sexuality. She was horrified when she was outed by a former lover who threatened to blackmail her, which forced her to recognize her latent homophobia. Now retired from playing, she actively promotes LGBTQ+ rights. A memoir bristling with energy and passion.

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