Jump

August 1, 2021

In I Came All This Way To Meet You, New York Times best-selling author Attenberg explains that as the daughter of a traveling salesman she came by her wanderlust naturally and shows how reflecting on her early years during her travels led her to writing--and particularly her theme of troubled families (75,000-copy first printing). Award-winning actress and Food Network star Bertinelli follows up her No. 1 New York Times best-selling memoir Losing It with inspiration as she turns 60 in Enough Already (100,000-copy first printing). In High-Risk Homosexual, a memoir ranging from funny (a baby speaking an ancient Jesuit language) to heartbreaking (the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando), Gomez explains how he came to embrace his gay, Latinx identity within a culture of machismo. In This Boy We Made, Harris relates her efforts to determine what is suddenly wrong with her bouncy 22-month-old boy in a system frequently inhospitable to Black mothers and her discovery when meeting with a geneticist that she has medical issues of her own. In Admissions, James relates the complications of being a diversity recruiter for select, largely white prep schools after attending The Taft School as its first Black legacy student. Attorney, podcaster, and Extra correspondent Lindsay discusses growing up in Dallas, TX; her career in law; and why she chose to be the first Black Bachelorette on The Bachelor in Miss Me with That. Miller reveals how he made the Jump, taking Nike's Jordan Brand from a relatively modest $150 million sneaker producer to a $4.5 billion worldwide footwear and apparel phenomenon while also recalling his teenage jailtime and the nightmares from which he still suffers and arguing for criminal justice reform and greater educational opportunities for the currently or formerly imprisoned. After her mother, actress Roseanne Barr, moved the family to celebrity-soaked Hollywood from working-class Denver, using personal details from their lives there for her sitcom's storylines, the teenaged Pentland endured anxiety and eating issues and various 1980s-sanctioned self-help interventions while muttering to herself This Will Be Funny Later (evidently proved here). In Lost & Found, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker staffer Schulz explores the bittersweet reality of meeting the woman she would marry just 18 months before losing her father. Readers Rise with Vonn as she earns 82 World Cup wins, 20 World Cup titles, seven World Championship medals, and three Olympic medals to become one of the top women ski racers of all time. Raised in Albania, the last Communist country in Europe, where the final tumble of Stalin's and Hoxha's statues soon led to economic chaos, political violence, and the flight of the disillusioned, Ypi has earned the right more than most to ponder what it means to be Free.

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December 20, 2021
A Black man imprisoned for murder and other crimes has a spectacular second act as a business executive in this nervy saga of redemption. Miller—former president of the Portland Trail Blazers NBA franchise and founder of Nike’s Jordan brand—was a 16-year-old Philadelphia gang member in 1965 when he shot to death a randomly chosen, unarmed teenage boy in response to a previous gang killing. After a stint in juvenile prison, he spent his 20s selling drugs before being incarcerated for armed robbery. Miller recounts how, after getting out, he turned his life around, got an accounting degree, climbed the corporate ladder at Campbell Soup and Kraft, and did business with Michael Jordan—all the while fearing his secret criminal past might be exposed, an anxiety that gave him nightmares and migraines. Punchily coauthored by his daughter Lacy, Miller’s gritty picaresque (“I was going to walk in the door, shoot Billy in the leg, and then put the gun to his head and tell him to convince me not to kill him”) grows more sedate when he enters the boardroom and starts selling swimwear, but his street persona—brash, ruthless, determined to show no weakness—remains palpable beneath the corporate exterior. The result yields something striking and rare: an immensely gripping business memoir. Agent: David Larabell, CAA.

February 1, 2022
A searching memoir of business, professional sports, and murder. Miller, the chairman of Nike's Jordan Brand, confesses to a crime that has haunted him for nearly 60 years: As a teenage gang member on the west side of Philadelphia, he killed a member of a rival gang in an act of retaliation. That he does not name his victim has provoked controversy, and readers may wonder, if this book is an act of contrition at least in part, why he didn't do so. However, the author writes that his book has a different purpose. "The only reason for me to narrate my life is that hopefully my story can inspire...young people who are in a rough environment and all they can see is what's going on around them." There's inspiration aplenty, and if Miller made numerous missteps as a youth, which earned him prison time not just for the killing, but also for drug dealing and other crimes, he also took opportunity and ran with it. As he writes, he had the opportunity behind bars to earn college credit, and since he was good with numbers, he turned to accounting. Exuding confidence without swagger, he confessed his crimes to an early interviewer, who revoked the firm's offer letter, saying, "I can't take a chance on one of our clients coming back to me with this if something were to happen down the line." Resolved to keep his past secret thereafter, Miller rose from accountant at a Campbell Soup factory to president of the Jordan Brand, with time out to head the Portland Trail Blazers--known then as the "Jail Blazers" since many of its players had also done time. Perhaps the greatest motivational moment in the book is when Miller, jailed yet again as a youth, resolves, "I am gonna learn my way out," which he's since paid forward through educational philanthropy. A newsmaking book that deserves a hearing, though Miller could have done more to make amends.

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Starred review from January 1, 2022
After decades of living under the pressure of a secret past, Nike executive Miller shares his story of going from top student to gangster to rising businessman. Coauthor Lacy is Miller's oldest child, a testament to the focus on family that is present throughout the book. Miller avoids making excuses and placing blame outside of himself for his actions, the most tragic being the murder of a rival gang member. Never losing sight of his roots, Miller is devoted to supporting youth in challenging environments and dedicated to working for prison reform. He emphasizes the importance of education and seizing opportunities but also describes the mental, emotional, and even physical turmoil of harboring an appalling secret with the power for professional destruction. While Miller concludes that the deception was necessary to his success, he does not shy away from relating the toll that it took in his private life. Jump is engaging and troubling and delivers opportunities for self-reflection and growth both personally and professionally. Miller's story is appealing and will be a valuable addition in public and undergraduate library collections. --

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