The Book Beat's blog

March 12, 2008: Bear Stearns' chief financial officer, Sam Molinaro, presses his fingers against the side of his face, worrying about what trouble the next day will bring.

"This was the worst day of his twenty-two-year career, without a doubt," author Kate Kelly says. "We're cooked, he thought. Not only will Bear have to be sold to J.P. Morgan or some other deep-pocketed bank, but we may not even be able to open the doors tomorrow.

'Guys, I don't know what our options are here,' Molinaro finally said. "I think we're about out of options.'"

    On Oct. 25, 1986, the New York Times ran side-by-side obituaries for the scientist who discovered vitamin C and the scientist who isolated vitamin K. One was 93 years old, and the other was 92.

Early in "The Last Campaign," author Thurston Clarke describes Life magazine reporter Sylvia Wright's reaction as she spots a wedding party watching the train carrying former presidential candidate Robert Kennedy's body.

Near the end of "The Frozen Thames," a family shelters two robins to protect them from the killing cold that gripped London in the winter of 1880. When the story opens, one of the family's children is watching a robin perched on her bedpost, and he cocks his head and looks back at her.

"Somewhere downstairs the other robin is singing," author Helen Humphreys writes. "All over London, the girl thinks, all over London this very same thing is happening. Each house is a dark lantern, and each one holds the lit flicker of bird within its ribs."

Matt Bishop's pregnant wife, Marissa, surprises her husband one day with an unusual request: Find the antique cradle that my mother, Caroline, took when she abandoned me years ago.

Marissa doesn't want to know where Caroline is living or what she's doing — and she certainly doesn't want to see her mother again. But she's determined to have that cradle for her own child.

In 1950s Washington, Walter Kotlar becomes a casualty of the era's witch hunts when an ambitious congressman accuses him of being a spy. Kotlar denies it, and the hearings drag on — until the congressman's star witness plunges to her death from a hotel window. Kotlar flees the country that night and never returns, leaving his family to pick up the pieces of their lives.

Twenty years later, Kotlar's wife and son have left the past behind and settled comfortably into their new lives. Then one day, Nick Kotlar learns that his father wants to come home.

If you've spent any time at baseball games, you know that reviling the umpires —  especially if they seem to favor the other team— is a cherished part of the national pastime, like popcorn, hot dogs and warm beer.

But could the millions of baseball fans who think umpires are absurdly overpaid idiots be wrong?

The pleasure of most crime novels, even the better-than-average ones, dissipates once the mystery is solved and the bad guy is caught (or not).

But that's not the case with Joseph Kanon's 1997 novel "Los Alamos," a crime drama set in Los Alamos, N.M., during the development of the first atomic bomb.

My mother likes to say that I inherited my love of books from her, partly because she worked at the Denver Public Library until shortly before I was born.

I think my love of books does come from my mom — not so much because she worked at the DPL, but because she taught me to value the books and the riches that they hold.

Matt McCarthy played baseball on some of the worst teams in Yale history and never expected to make a living off his pitching ability.

But shortly after he graduated from Yale, McCarthy was invited to join the New York Yankees predraft workout. That led to a spot in the 2002 Major League Baseball draft, where the Anaheim Angels picked him in the 21st round. The Angels later assigned him to extended spring training and a slot on their minor-league team, the Provo (Utah) Angels.

McCarthy's professional baseball career was under way.