2012 National Jewish Book Award Winner JEWISH JOCKS: AN UNORTHODOX HALL OF FAME is a timeless collection of biographical musings, sociological riffs about assimilation, first-person reflections, and, above all, great writing on some of the most influential and unexpected pioneers in the world of sports. Featuring work by today's preeminent writers, these essays explore significant Jewish athletes, coaches, broadcasters, trainers, and even team owners (in the finite universe of Jewish Jocks, they count!). Contributors include some of today's most celebrated writers covering a vast assortment of topics, including David Remnick on the biggest mouth in sports, Howard Cosell; Jonathan Safran Foer on the prodigious and pugnacious Bobby Fischer; Man Booker Prize-winner Howard Jacobson writing elegantly on Marty Reisman, America's greatest ping-pong player and the sport's ultimate showman. Deborah Lipstadt examines the continuing legacy of the Munich Massacre, the fortieth anniversary of which coincided with the 2012 London Olympics. Jane Leavy reveals why Sandy Koufax agreed to attend her daughter's bat mitzvah. And we learn how Don Lerman single-handedly thrust competitive eating into the public eye with three pounds of butter and 120 jalapeño peppers. These essays are supplemented by a cover design and illustrations throughout by Mark Ulriksen. From settlement houses to stadiums and everywhere in between, JEWISH JOCKS features men and women who do not always fit the standard athletic mold. Rather, they utilized talents long prized by a people of the book (and a people of commerce) to game these games to their advantage, in turn forcing the rest of the world to either copy their methods-or be left in their dust.

This is not merely a great book. It is an important piece of chess history, because the author Hans Kmoch visited the Rubinstein Family Home in 1933 in an effort to get the great grandmaster of chess to return to active play. When Rubinstein could not be induced to return, his family who was living in dire poverty asked Kmoch for help in raising funds. The result was an ad placed asking to finance this book on a subscription basis. The result was a book entitled "Rubinstein gewinnt : Hundert Glanzpartien des grossen Schachkunstlers. Erlautert von Hans Kmoch. Biographische Einleitung von Jacques Hannak. Verlag der Wiener Schachzeitung, Wien 1933" That book was then translated into this book. It was a direct translation. All the games are the same. I have not been able to find any changes at all, although there are no doubt a few. I have just purchased the only original copy of the 1933 book Rubinstein gewinnt left that I have been able to find after months of searching. I am reprinting it as ISBN 4871875806. Akiba Rubinstein was born on 12 December 1882 in Poland. He has long been regarded as the strongest chess player in history who never became world champion. A recent trivia quiz appeared in Chess Life Magazine: Who is the player who defeated Lasker, Capablanca and Alekhine the first time he played each of them. The answer was of course Akiba Rubinstein. Rubinstein won five tournaments in a row during the period 1912-1914. There is little doubt that he was the strongest player in the world at that time. Rubinstein's contribution to chess opening theory has been enormous. Almost every major chess opening has a Rubinstein Variation or a Rubinstein Defense. Think about it: There is no Fischer Defense, no Capablanca Defense. But there are many variations called the Rubinstein Defense or Variation. Only Steinitz has as many openings named after him, but the Steinitz Defenses are no longer played. Rubinstein far outlived all of his contemporaries. His family all survived the war. Rubinstein died on 5 March 1961 in Antwerp, Belgium at age 83. He was in good physical health until just before he died. So perhaps there was a method to his madness."

Evonne Goolagong, Cathy Freeman, Nova Peris, Lionel Rose, Artie Beetson, Polly Farmer are just a few of our Australian sporting heroes who, since the mid-1880s, have helped shape Australia's identity as a great sporting nation. They, along with 261 other individual sporting greats, are showcased here in this new edition of the Aboriginal and Islander Sports Hall of Fame. Spanning 36 sports across a period of 166 years, Black Pearls presents some of our Olympic heroes, superb sportswomen, football giants, boxing legends, lightning sprinters and more - from darts champions to world class weightlifters and woodchoppers. Black Pearls is more than a sports book. It reveals a history of inclusion and exclusion, about Aboriginal determination in the face of enormous obstacles, and resilience in overcoming remoteness, discriminatory laws, incarceration on isolated reserves, and opponents in a variety of sports arenas.