Browsing, Chapter 2
A few weeks ago, I wrote about my browsing adventures in three bookstores. I bought enough books to take me through a hard winter (or hot summer). Said winter would seem like the perfect time to read The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party by Daniel James Brown. I knew Brown's writing from his later book, the deservedly lauded The Boys in the Boat, so was pleased to find this. Brown writes, "In many ways this book began one hot October afternoon in the fall of 2006 when I drove up the Napa Valley searching for bones." He finds them at the 1907 grave of his father's uncle, who traveled with the Donner party, and starts his engrossing story via the life of party member Sarah Graves. A different western history is Jenny Forrester's lyrical memoir, Narrow River, Wide Sky. It too begins in a cemetery, in western Colorado, as she and her brother consider where to bury their mother, "Her skin of rose cream and cold, calloused hands, her warm, soft heart, a cup of tea in a coffee place."
Switching gears, I found two sports books. Playing While White: Privilege and Power On and Off the Field by Dr. David J. Leonard explores the centrality of race in sports culture. His discourse on "playing the game the right way," i.e., the "white" way, is incisive and troubling.
Mark Kingwell is a philosophy professor. In Fail Better: Why Baseball Matters, he brings his metaphysical sensibility to the game where "geometry becomes poetry." Baseball fans will relate: "Sometimes, the game means so much to me that I can't even watch it. It's too excruciating... the ridiculous difficulty of making anything happen." But "the constant renewal of tension out of pause, of action exploding from an apparent standstill, is an ever-recurring wonder." --Marilyn Dahl
You've had an interesting career, including working in publishing and as a bookseller. What did those experiences teach you about writing and publishing that you were previously unaware of, or that most authors may not know? 
Robert Moses (1888-1981) was one of the most powerful men in 20th-century New York. He was a "master builder" of the Metropolitan Area, spearheading billions of dollars in major infrastructure projects that transformed transportation in and around the city. At the height of his power, Moses simultaneously held 12 titles, including NYC Parks Commissioner--none of which were elected positions. He wielded enormous influence over city and state elected officials, and could bypass legislative bodies for funding by issuing bonds or using the millions of dollars generated through his public authority tolls. Moses's many successful projects came at the cost of mass displacements of people and the destruction of whole neighborhoods. Public backlash, political pressure and activists like 
