Free Ebook: My Life in the Negro Leagues

Posted on February 5, 2017 at 8:43 am

In honor of Black History Month, the autobiography of Negro Leagues baseball star Wilmer Fields is free for five days.

Wilmer Fields was a superstar in the Negro Leagues, back when baseball was segregated. After Jackie Robinson broke the color line (as shown in the hit film, “42”), Fields received five different offers to join white teams. But he loved the Negro Leagues and never left. After his retirement, he fought to get the Negro League players covered by Major League Baseball’s pension and health care benefits. This new edition of Fields’ memoir, with an introduction by baseball historian John Holway, features a new interview with Fields’ son, Billy, who had his own professional sports career in basketball. Fields tells the story of the “dream come true” that “allowed a black country boy” from Virginia to play the game he loved with teammates he admired and trusted. Fields tells his story, from college football to military service in WWII to hitting .427 in 1956 and being honored as one of the “Black legends of baseball” in 1990. He writes about players like the legendary Josh Gibson and Sam Hairston, who became a White Sox manager. He writes about the game itself, the qualities that make a team and the dedication that makes a world-class athlete.

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Books Race and Diversity

My eBook About Moms in Movies is FREE Until Sunday

Posted on May 7, 2014 at 1:00 am

In honor of Mother’s Day, my ebook 50 Must-See Movies: Mothers will be free on Amazon through Sunday.

No relationship is more primal, more fraught, more influential, more worried over, more nourishing when good and more devastating when bad that our connection to our mothers. Mom inspires a lot of movies in every possible category, from comedy to romance to drama to crime to animation to horror, from the lowest-budget indie to the biggest-budget prestige film. A lot of women have been nominated for Oscars for playing mothers and just about every actress over age 20 has appeared as a mother in at least one movie. From beloved Marmee in “Little Women” and Mrs. Brown in “National Velvet” to mean moms in “Now Voyager” and “Mommie Dearest.” Oscar-winnng classics and neglected gems, based on real-life like Sally Fields in “Places in the Heart” or fantasy like Dumbo’s lullabye-singing elephant mom, these are all must-see movies.

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Free This Weekend: My eBook on Must-See Movie Weddings

Posted on February 14, 2014 at 10:00 am

This weekend only: the Kindle version of my book, 50 Must-See Movies: Weddings is free! What’s your favorite movie wedding scene?

Free Book About Saving Mr. Banks — And Mary Poppins

Posted on December 11, 2013 at 3:54 pm

Walt Disney Studios is celebrating its new film about its own history with Saving Mr. Banks: The Official Multi-touch Book. Walt Disney spent 20 years trying to persuade author P.L. Travers to allow him to make a movie based on her book, “Mary Poppins.” This interactive ebook includes a foreword by Academy Award-winning composer Richard Sherman; never-before-seen correspondence between Walt Disney and P.L. Travers; rare storyboards and scripts from the Disney archives; a timeline of historic Walt Disney Studios milestones; original recordings of the Sherman Brothers performing their “Mary Poppins” hit songs; facts and profiles on the key characters in “Saving Mr. Banks”—all created by Apple’s digital book creation app, iBooks Author.

The “Saving Mr. Banks” book is available for free, exclusively on iBooks at www.iTunes.com/SavingMrBanks. Readers can watch interviews featuring the cast and filmmakers, browse extensive photo galleries and explore the original storyboards and concept art—all in full retina detail. ‘Mary Popovers’ deliver fascinating facts throughout the book.

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Behind the Scenes Books

KISS Book FREE — This Weekend Only!

Posted on January 19, 2013 at 4:00 am

Happy birthday, Paul Stanley! The KISS Starchild superstar turns 60 tomorrow and the fans get the gift! Miniver Press is making Chris Epting’s ebook All I Need to Know I Learned from KISS: Life Lessons from the Hottest Band in the Land FREE all weekend.

Author and AOL Music journalist Epting was recently interviewing rock legends KISS when it suddenly flashed before his eyes that, bizarre as it might seem, the band he had loved since childhood actually played a huge part in shaping how he looks at the world. In that instant, he decided to write about his life long journey with the band, starting out in the early 1970s when he joined the KISS Army and continuing until today. Epting takes us through the history of KISS, weaving in historic tidbits and trivia with his personal observations, while laying out the rules for living that he absorbed from “the hottest band in the land.” The book’s title of course is an homage to the 1989 bestseller by Robert Fulghum, “All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” but this story speaks to the love that many people have with that one special band or artist they followed while growing up. As Epting learned as an adult though, when it comes to your favorite band, the roots run deep – perhaps deeper than you ever imagined.

Stone Temple Pilot founder/bassist Robert DeLeo adds a heartfelt foreword and some rare sketches he drew of KISS as a youngster – back when he was in the Army, too.

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