James Dale – författare

A moving, energetic memoir by the pioneering conductor Marin Alsop, the first woman to head major orchestras in the United States, Berlin, and elsewhere. When she was nine years old, Marin Alsop's father took her to see Leonard Bernstein conduct the New York Philharmonic. She watched the famous conductor onstage and knew that someday she would be up there too. You Can't Do That: Conducting a Life Against the Odds is the story of a stubborn young girl-raised in a music-obsessed family and exposed at an early age to the rigors of classical music training- who wouldn't quit until she stood on the podium, baton in hand; raised it; and with a downstroke, gestured to the orchestra to commence. Told using the framework of Bernstein's controversial and genre defying theatrical work Mass, Alsop moves through her life to tell her equally surprising and unlikely story of a trailblazing career. As the daughter of professional musicians, she began piano studies at age two, switched to violin at five, entered Juilliard Pre-College at seven and Yale at sixteen, and transferred to Juilliard for her bachelor's and master's degrees in violin performance. From there she went on to become the first woman to serve as the head of a major orchestra in the United States, South America, Austria, and Britain. In this moving, highly original memoir, Alsop tells the story of her steadfast pursuit of a life filled with music.

For fifteen years, sports agent Josh Luchs made illegal deals with numerous college athletes, from top-tier, nationally recognized phenoms to late-round draft picks. Flagrantly flaunting NCAA and NFL Players Association rules, he made no-interest loans to players in exchange for the promise of representation on their lucrative pro contracts. After cleaning up his act in 2003, he moved to a new agency, only to be targeted and pushed out of the business for a new violation-one he arguably did not commit. Then, in October 2010, Luchs wrote a confessional article in Sports Illustrated, telling the truth about what he did and didn''t do.

Since then he has taken on a new role: whistle-blowing, truth-telling reformer. And in telling his own story, Luchs pulls back the curtain on the real economy of college football: how agents win players legally and otherwise, the staggering sums colleges make from an unpaid workforce, the shortfalls of supposed full-ride scholarships, and the myth of a college education given to scholarship jocks. Including new information about major players and scandalized programs such as USC, Auburn, and Ohio State, this book pulls no punches. It''s a stunning and necessary read for anyone who loves the game, and the first step toward fixing a broken system.

Praise for Josh Luchs'' Sports Illustrated story:

"There are no innocents in all this-including Luchs. The difference now is Luchs isn''t claiming to be innocent." -John Feinstein, Washington Post

"[Luchs pulls] the inner workings of an oily business out of the shadows."-Pat Forde, ESPN

"A must-read."-New York Times