Crashing Through: A Story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man Who Dared to See, By Robert Kurson (Random House, $26)

Crashing Through by Robert Kurson
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Blinded at age three in a freak chemical explosion, Mike May had his sight surgically restored at age forty-five -- one of only about twenty such cases known to science. Esquire contributing editor Robert Kurson first wrote about this miracle in the National Magazine Award-winning story "Into the Light" (June 2005). Now he's published a full-length biography of May, which picks up where his profile left off. Among its interesting side roads is the science behind May's struggles with his regained sight. Because the visual center of his brain atrophied with disuse, he cannot see the way lifelong sighted people can.

Tables

An Example:

To most of us, these tabletops appear to have totally different proportions. To May, whose sense of visual perspective never developed, they appear identical. And he's right. Don't believe your eyes? Get a ruler.

MVP by James Boice

MVP, By James Boice (Scribner, $15)

The prologue of MVP, James Boice's debut novel, ran as stand-alone fiction in our October 2006 issue ("Man Enters Hotel"). It introduced the story of Gilbert Animal Marcus, a basketball star who flees Las Vegas after a woman dies (or is killed) while having sex with (or being raped by) him. Over 346 more pages, Boice fills in the rest of Marcus's compelling story: his truncated youth, an obsessive and hard-to-please father, and an indulged and extravagant young adulthood that might have turned him into the kind of guy who kills prostitutes.

I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle

I Love You, Beth Cooper, By Larry Doyle (Ecco, $20)

Larry Doyle (The Doyle Report, Man at His Best) offers a send-up of vapid young-adult fiction in his hilarious first novel. Denis Cooverman, a high school student with more pimples than friends, decides he can't graduate without expressing his considerable affection to the girl whose hair he's been smelling since he first sat behind her in biology class. So he does it during his valedictory speech, which happens to be attended by her enormous, drug-fueled boyfriend. He gets beat up a few times, is chased through town, and nearly loses an eye, but he learns something about himself. More important, he gets to cop a feel.

After Jackie by Cal Fussman

After Jackie, By Cal Fussman (ESPN Books, $25)

Rather than recounting the trials of Jackie Robinson's life, longtime What I've Learned contributor and writer at large Cal Fussman focuses on the extent of his cultural impact. By incorporating anecdotes from notable members of twentieth-century Americana, including Bill Cosby, Walter Cronkite, and Ken Burns, the book explores Robinson's perpetually swelling legacy instead of his linear life. It's a fascinating way to go about a biography. Fussman reveals Robinson's entrance into major league baseball to be bigger than sports and ultimately about more than just racial division.

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