Lyons Press

03/26/2025

Register now for an exclusive author talk with Jill Dougherty, former CNN Moscow Bureau Chief and author of My Russia: What I Saw Inside the Kremlin, on May 24 at the Essex Library. Hear firsthand about her decades covering Russia, Vladimir Putin’s rise, and the unraveling of a nation she grew to love. Don’t miss this fascinating discussion!

Former CNN Moscow Bureau Chief, Jill Dougherty, will be at Essex Library to discuss her recently released book, My Russia. My Russia reveals Dougherty’s transformative journey from a Cold War–era obsession with Russia to witnessing firsthand the rise of Vladimir Putin and the unraveling of a nat...

03/18/2025

~Now Available~ FIRST WOMEN OF HOLLYWOOD by Mary Mallory

Largely created by immigrants, the film industry evolved over its first few decades thanks to the work of people outside the traditional ruling class—
immigrants, people of color, women—partly as a result of elites denigrating the fledgling field. As the moving picture industry transitioned from neophyte to powerhouse, young and ambitious rebels energized its output.

Mostly written out of history, women provided an important component for popularizing silent film and making it a financial success. Women were integral in producing entertaining films to keep up with exploding demand. Men often resented their power and success, and as the studio system took hold, women found themselves out of favor and replaced.

FIRST WOMEN OF HOLLYWOOD explores the invaluable contributions of these mostly forgotten and unacknowledged pioneers.

03/13/2025

~Now Available~ In THE 50 GREATEST PLAYERS IN CINCINNATI REDS HISTORY, sports historian Robert W. Cohen examines the careers of the fifty men who made the greatest impact on one of Major League Baseball's oldest and most iconic franchises. Biographical, anecdotal, and statistical information about each player are provided along the way, as are quotes from opposing players and former teammates and summaries of each player's greatest season, most memorable performances, and most notable achievements. Special features include photos of the fifty players and a list of twenty-five honorable mentions.

03/11/2025

Coming May 2025 - The Miniature Painter Revealed: Amalia Kussner's Gilded Age Pursuit of Fame and Fortune by Kathleen Langone

https://www.globepequot.com/9781493087099/the-miniature-painter-revealed/

03/11/2025

~Now Available~ DIAMOND DUELS: BASEBALL'S GREATEST MATCHUPS by John Nogowski

In DIAMOND DUELS, we take a magnifying glass to some of the game’s most entertaining and historic battles between hitters and pitchers, played out over breezy spring evenings, hot summer afternoons, and chilly fall evenings as the long, rumbling baseball season finally winds down. Then we look closer.

As a sport with such a rich and diverse history, baseball offers us a long and fascinating recounting of so many of those dramatic matchups— if you know where to look. There are many untold stories inside the box scores; Duke Snider slamming 19 home runs off Robin Roberts, who must have groaned every time he saw No. 4 at the plate; a starry-eyed National League star Dizzy Dean finally getting to pitch to American League folk hero Babe Ruth, winding down his career with the Boston Braves; Yankees manager Casey Stengel deciding not to start left-handed ace Wh**ey Ford in some key moments throughout Ford’s Hall of Fame career; Albert Pujols doing his best to upset those careful pregame pitching strategy sessions by going out and swatting a record 154 of his 703 career blasts in his very first at-bat of the game. DIAMOND DUELS is a book for the old and the young baseball fan, those who want to know just a little bit more about those dramatic matchups between pitcher and hitter throughout the games of our lives as well as those who want to look back, find out something they hadn’t thought of, enriching their everlasting baseball memories.

03/06/2025

~Now Available~ THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN: COLLEGE BASKETBALL'S BLUE BLOODS by Mark Mehler and Jeff Tiberii

Unveil the secrets behind college basketball’s true royalty—seven powerhouse programs that have dominated the NCAA Tournament for decades

There is a great deal more than Madness lurking within the Division 1 NCAA Basketball Tournament. There are equally strong traditions, symmetries, and even normalities that also define this annual rite of passage. And one of the most powerful of those is the perennial dominance displayed by college basketball's "Blue Bloods." These seven programs, each of which has won at least four NCAA titles, have collectively harvested 45 of the 85 championship trophies awarded since the inauguration of the tournament in 1939.

In THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, Mark Mehler and Jeff Tiberii take a close look at those magnificent seven—Kentucky, Kansas, UCLA, North Carolina, Duke, Indiana, and the University of Connecticut—examining how they have managed over multiple decades to establish themselves as American basketball royalty. While there are many commonalities among them that help explain much of their success, each program has traveled its own unique path to glory. In addition, The Magnificent Seven examines several additional basketball programs including Louisville and Villanova which have likewise made indelible marks over many years, but fall just shy of blue blood status. Call them the "light-blue bloods." All the history, ultimately leading to the fulfillment of generations of hoop dreams, comes alive in these pages.

03/04/2025

~Now Available~ DAREDEVIL AT THE WHEEL by Tony St. Clair

"An essential contribution to women’s sports history and car racing collections." —Booklist, Starred Review

On Fourth of July weekend in 1924, Marion Martins flies past some of the best race car drivers of her time and takes home two trophies from the famous North Shore racetrack in Chicago. In 1926, on the beaches of Daytona, Florida, Joan LaCosta breaks a world speed record at 145 miles per hour. But Martins and LaCosta never face one another on the close-knit circuit of early American auto racing. That’s because they are just two of the identities adopted by the elusive woman born Marion Carver. By the late 1920s, this enigmatic woman became a household name in auto racing—several household names in fact—though she’d be best known as Joan LaCosta.

Adopting and discarding personas almost as often as she changes tires, LaCosta defies death, shuns social norms, and keeps her competition in the rearview mirror. While driving as fast as she can away from a complicated past, she survives violent wrecks, race collisions, and onboard fires in front of sell-out crowds. But fame, danger, and failed relationships take their toll.

In 1929, as the Great Depression looms, LaCosta, broke and broken, commits to one last daring stunt: the attempted robbery of a Chicago high-society matron in the city’s most glamorous high rise. Coverage of the dramatic trial sells out papers from coast to coast, and after fame turns to infamy, LaCosta sheds her identity one last time and disappears from public view.

02/25/2025

~Now Available~ TRAINS FOR NATURE: RAILROADS AND THE AMERICAN LAND by Alfred Runte

Discover how America's abandoned passenger trains hold the key to preserving our nation's scenic treasures and wilderness landscapes.

In this timely and provocative work, renowned environmental historian Alfred Runte challenges our blind embrace of highways and airports, revealing how the decline of passenger rail has scarred America's legendary landscapes. From national parks to urban corridors, Runte demonstrates how modern transportation choices are destroying the very vistas we claim to cherish.

Drawing on decades of research and his experience as advisor to Ken Burns's acclaimed National Parks documentary series, Runte offers a compelling vision for reuniting transportation with conservation:
—Reveals how European nations successfully preserved their scenic landscapes through rail transportation
—Explores the hidden environmental costs of abandoning America's passenger rail system
—Demonstrates how restoring rail service could protect wilderness areas from destructive development
—Challenges conventional wisdom about "progress" in transportation policy

This expanded edition, featuring a new preface and epilogue, arrives at a critical moment as wind farms and solar installations threaten even protected wilderness areas. For anyone concerned about preserving America's natural heritage while addressing climate change, this passionate appeal for the return of passenger rail offers hope for a more sustainable and beautiful future.

02/21/2025

~Now Available~ A WOMAN OF FIRSTS by Kimberly Heckler

The extraordinary story of Margaret O’Shaughnessy Heckler offers a rare view into the behind-the-scenes world of American politics from the 1960s through the 1980s. Her career spanned five presidencies: Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan.

The daughter of Irish immigrants, Margaret Heckler represented the American dream. She served as a congresswoman, a presidential cabinet secretary, and an ambassador—all groundbreaking achievements for a woman of her era. The fiery Irish Republican (R-MA) mastered the seemingly unbeatable game of being a woman in a man’s world and a Republican in a Democratic state, becoming a champion for others against all odds.

Heckler was the only newly elected woman appointed to Congress in 1966, entering rooms where few women were invited before. Her landmark legislation, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, gave women the right to credit in their own names for the first time in American history. She also convinced presidential nominee Ronald Reagan to appoint the first woman Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor. As President Reagan’s Health and Human Services Secretary, Heckler was one of the most powerful women in America, responsible for the third-largest budget in the world. She took the lead in addressing the AIDS crisis and commissioned the Heckler Report to address racial inequities in health care. She was later appointed by Reagan as the first female ambassador to Ireland, a highly sought-after diplomatic post.

A WOMAN OF FIRSTS is a tribute to a woman who helped break the glass ceiling and fought to provide equality and justice for millions of Americans.

02/18/2025

~Available Now~ THE COUNTESS AND THE N***S by Richard Jay Hutto

As the daughter of one of America's most respected diplomats and the wife of a Prussian count, Muriel White Seherr-Thoss moved effortlessly through Europe's royal courts until the N**i shadow fell across her adopted homeland. When faced with evil, she chose resistance over privilege, leveraging her aristocratic connections to secure escape routes for Jewish families. She witnessed the Italian Fascist invasion of Albania while mentoring the future Queen Geraldine, sacrificed everything to keep her sons from being conscripted into Hitler's army, and defied the Gestapo even as they held her virtually prisoner in her own country.

From internationally recognized historian Richard Jay Hutto comes a new biography that Publishers Weekly calls "a fascinating story brought to light...an exhilarating account of principled antifascism." This narrative reveals how one woman's courage stood against the rising tide of evil and how she paid the ultimate price for her convictions.

11/26/2024

~Now Available~ HEMINGWAY'S PASSIONS: HIS WOMEN, HIS WARS, AND HIS WRITING by Nancy W. Sindelar.

Ernest Hemingway’s passion was writing, and he was inspired by a lifetime of daring adventures and encouraged by the many women in his life. He nurtured his creativity by purposely seeking dangerous situations to test his own levels of courage and to create literary heroes who displayed grace under pressure. His masculine, adventurous spirit appealed to women of all ages, including four wives and a long list of legendary actresses, and he frequently transformed the women in his life into memorable fictional characters.

In 1950, Hemingway told Marlene Dietrich that he truly loved only five women. Who were these women and why did he love them? Some of them may have included his wives—Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gellhorn, and Mary Welsh—but there were others too, among them Agnes von Kurowsky. Through quotations from his works and personal letters, as well as more than sixty photographs—many of which have not been previously published—Hemingway scholar Nancy W. Sindelar captures Hemingway’s life and romantic adventures, revealing his own feelings about his romantic relationships and the ways his experiences with women appear in his literary works.

Much has been written about Hemingway, but to date no book has linked the women he loved to his written work. The stories of Hemingway’s romantic relationships reveal not only the influence these women had on his writing but also his personal ambition, heartbreak, and literary triumphs and trials. Sindelar’s provocative analyses of Hemingway’s literature give fresh insight into the life of a legendary author, outdoorsman, adventurer, and lover.