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Why read it?

1 author picked The Man Who Rocked the Boat as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This forgotten masterpiece of a memoir by a prosecutor who took on corruption on the docks of New York came out in 1956, two years after that Marlon Brando classic, On the Waterfront.

William Keating, a hard-nosed, relentless, and incorruptible crime-fighter, gives an inside look at the reign of terror imposed on honest, hard-working longshoremen by the gangsters who ran their union.

Keating was by no means anti-labor – at the start of Chapter 2, he mentions that his father was an official in the United Mine Workers, and that his great-grandfather was a prominent Molly Maguire in the hard-coal…

If you love The Man Who Rocked the Boat...

Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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Child of Vanris by Nikki McCormack,

At five years old, Kasiel was found with the pointed ends of his ears cut off. Despite that brutal start, he’s lived twelve peaceful years with the man who took him in. Keeping his hair long over his mutilated ears helps him hide the fact that he is Vanrian, a…

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Almost Home by Howard Means,

Almost Home is a fictional retelling of the last great tragedy of the Civil War.

In late April 1865, almost 2,000 newly freed Union prisoners of war are packed onto the steamer Sultana, in poor repair and with a listed capacity of 376 passengers. Among them are four Indiana soldiers…

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