Book Reviews

Citadel’s Griffin Skirts Disaster, Quant Godfather Fumes: Books On Aug. 7, 2007, Matthew Rothman of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. got off a red-eye flight in San Francisco and went to see a potential client.

Willie Mays, Acrobat of the Outfield, Wins Graceful Biography Willie Mays had it all: two Most Valuable Player awards, 12 Gold Gloves, 660 home runs, a place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, even an honorary doctorate from Dartmouth. He had everything -- except a first- rate biography.

Muhammad Ali, Achilles Had No Doggies in Fight: Lewis Lapham In 1966, Muhammad Ali refused to serve in the U.S. Army. “I ain’t got no quarrel with the Viet Cong,” he said. “I am not going ten thousand miles to help murder, kill and burn other people to simply help continue the domination of white slave masters over dark people.”

Immortal Tobacco Farmer Helped Cure Polio, Flew With Astronauts Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer in a “colored” hospital ward in Baltimore in 1951. She would have gone forever unnoticed by the outside world if not for the dime-sized slice of her tumor sent to a lab for research eight months earlier.

Egypt’s Gilded Teens Get Hooked on Heroin, Self-Destruct: Books Fast cars, loose women and drug highs are things most people don’t associate with Egypt, land of Pharaohs, crowded mosques and worshipers who pray in the streets.

Boulud’s $150 Burger, $2.9 Million Coffee Stump Buyers: Books If you have money to burn, three gentlemen can help.

‘Psycho’ Meets Pentagon as Two Men Talk, Drink in DeLillo Novel A Museum of Modern Art installation screens Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” at two frames per second, which is very slow. It’s called “24 Hour Psycho.”

Paulson Defends Lehman Rout, Gives Bush Primer on Hedges: Books Henry M. Paulson Jr. recalls dining with some of Wall Street’s most powerful bankers on June 26, 2007, not long before the credit bubble imploded.