Fifty Years of Great Writing
50th Anniversary 1954-2004
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Fifty Years of Great Writing
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Narrated by:
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Dennis Holland
About this listen
In the half-century since its birth, as Sports Illustrated grew from a struggling start-up to America's preeminent sports magazine, one thing has remained constant: the commitment to great storytelling. That part of the magazine's mission has always been easy to define: Identify the most compelling sports stories of our time and get the best writers in the business to tell them.
This book brings together a lineup of writing talent worthy of the Hall of Fame and the classic stories they produced for Sports Illustrated over the past 50 years. Many of the writers whose work is collected here are longtime favorites of SI readers (Frank Deford, Rick Reilly, Steve Rushin, Gary Smith). Others are former SI staffers or contributors who left the fold, but not before making an indelible mark on SI's history (Dan Jenkins, Rick Telander, Mark Kram, Roy Blount Jr., William Mack). There are celebrated journalists (A. J. Liebling, Jimmy Breslin, George Plimpton), screenwriters (Budd Schulberg and Kenny Moore), renowned novelists (Thomas McGuane, Pete Dexter, Wallace Stegner, Don DeLillo), and even a couple of Nobel Prize winners in literature (William Faulkner and John Steinbeck).
The stories themselves are a mirror of our times. Included in this volume are accounts of some of the most memorable athletic feats of our era (Secretariat's Belmont victory, the Thrilla in Manila, and Bobby Thomson's Shot Heard 'Round the World). Profiles of the towering athletic figures of our time (Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain, Ted Williams and Johnny Unitas). Good guys (Yogi Berra and Harry Caray) and bad guys (Sonny Liston and Mike Tyson). The fast (Roger Bannister) and the faurious (Dick Butkus). The ridiculous (Howard Cosell) and the sublime (Josh Gibson). And the stories that simply touch our hearts and inspire us (Frank Deford's masterpiece on light-heavyweight champ Billy Conn).This is the very best of the world's best sports magazine - and it just doesn't get any better than that.
©2012 Time Inc. Home Entertainment (P)2013 Audible Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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5 out of 5 stars
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4 out of 5 stars
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The Man Behind the Myth
- By Ray on 11-12-10
By: Jane Leavy
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Pete Rose
- An American Dilemma
- By: Kostya Kennedy
- Narrated by: Ben Bartolone
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 134
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 120
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Story4 out of 5 stars 122
Pete Rose played baseball with a singular and headfirst abandon that endeared him to fans and peers, even as it riled others--a figure at once magnetic, beloved and polarizing. Rose has more base hits than anyone in history, yet he is not in the Hall of Fame. Twenty-five years ago he was banished from baseball for gambling, then ruled ineligible for Cooperstown; today, the question "Does Pete Rose belong in the Hall of Fame?" has evolved into perhaps the most provocative in sports, a layered, slippery and ever-relevant moral conundrum.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good book, not so good production.
- By david d. on 05-01-14
By: Kostya Kennedy
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Their Life's Work
- The Brotherhood of the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers
- By: Gary M. Pomerantz
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 16 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 82
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 72
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 72
The Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s won an unprecedented and unmatched four Super Bowls in six years. A dozen of those Steelers players, coaches, and executives have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and three decades later their names echo in popular memory: "Mean" Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Mike Webster, Jack Lambert, Lynn Swann, and John Stallworth.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Book
- By cap on 07-18-18
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Monsters
- The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football
- By: Rich Cohen
- Narrated by: Tom Taylorson
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 361
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 318
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 319
For Rich Cohen and millions of other fans, the 1985 Chicago Bears were more than a football team: they were the greatest football team ever - a gang of colorful nuts, dancing and pounding their way to victory. They won a Super Bowl and saved a city. It was not just that the Monsters of the Midway won but how they did it....
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5 out of 5 stars
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For any Bears fans
- By Frank S. Saltiel on 11-18-21
By: Rich Cohen
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The Big Bam
- The Life and Times of Babe Ruth
- By: Leigh Montville
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 15 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 221
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 172
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 172
Babe Ruth was more than baseball's original superstar. For 85 years, he has remained the sport's reigning titan. He has been named Athlete of the Century...more than once. But who was this large, loud, enigmatic man? In The Big Bam, Leigh Montville brings his trademark touch to this groundbreaking, revelatory portrait of the Babe.
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2 out of 5 stars
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The Big Bam
- By Alan on 06-13-06
By: Leigh Montville
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Sweetness
- The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 18 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 280
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 242
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 242
At five feet ten inches tall, running back Walter Payton was not the largest player in the NFL, but he developed a larger-than-life reputation for his strength, speed, and grit. Nicknamed “Sweetness” during his college football days, he became the NFL’s all-time leader in rushing and all-purpose yards, capturing the hearts of fans in his adopted Chicago.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Honest Accounting Of A Fascinating Life
- By RevInTampa on 08-19-15
By: Jeff Pearlman
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One Shot at Forever
- A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season
- By: Chris Ballard
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 120
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 110
In 1971, a small-town high school baseball team from rural Illinois playing with hand-me-down uniforms and peace signs on their hats defied convention and the odds. Led by an English teacher with no coaching experience, the Macon Ironmen emerged from a field of 370 teams to become the smallest school in Illinois history to make the state final, a distinction that still stands. There, sporting long hair, and warming up to "Jesus Christ Superstar", the Ironmen would play a dramatic game that would change their lives forever.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding.
- By Cartman18 on 08-02-13
By: Chris Ballard
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The Last Folk Hero
- The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 411
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 369
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 369
From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character—and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat.
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5 out of 5 stars
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If you are a sports fan and over 35 years old, you have to listen/read this. Awesome!
- By betty sammons on 06-29-23
By: Jeff Pearlman
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Twelve Mighty Orphans
- The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football
- By: Jim Dent
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 260
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 233
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Story5 out of 5 stars 231
In the 1930s and 1940s, there was nothing bigger in Texas high school football than the Masonic Home Mighty Mites - a group of orphans bound together by hardship and death. These youngsters, in spite of being outweighed by at least 30 pounds per man, were the toughest football team around. They began with nothing - not even a football - yet in a few years were playing for the state championship on the highest level of Texas football. This is a winning tribute to a courageous band of underdogs from a time when America desperately needed fresh hope and big dreams.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great story!!
- By Damian McKeon on 06-14-21
By: Jim Dent
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Molina
- The Story of the Father Who Raised an Unlikely Baseball Dynasty
- By: Bengie Molina, Joan Ryan
- Narrated by: Henry Leyva
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Story5 out of 5 stars 86
A baseball rules book. A tape measure. A lottery ticket. These were in the pocket of Bengie Molina's father when he died of a heart attack on the rutted Little League field in his Puerto Rican barrio. The items serve as thematic guideposts in Molina's beautiful memoir about his father, who, through baseball, taught his three sons about loyalty, humility, courage, and the true meaning of success.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A book about life
- By P. Griswold on 06-11-15
By: Bengie Molina, and others
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The Cost of These Dreams
- Sports Stories and Other Serious Business
- By: Wright Thompson
- Narrated by: Wright Thompson
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 459
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 403
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Story5 out of 5 stars 401
There is only one Wright Thompson. He is, as they say, famous if you know who he is: his work includes the most-read articles in the history of ESPN (and it's not even close) and has been anthologized in the Best American Sports Writing series ten times, and he counts John Grisham and Richard Ford among his ardent admirers. But to say his pieces are about sports, while true as far as it goes, is like saying Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove is a book about a cattle drive.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Just great
- By ACK on 06-02-19
By: Wright Thompson
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Arnie & Jack
- Palmer, Nicklaus, and Golf's Greatest Rivalry
- By: Ian O' Connor
- Narrated by: Alpha Trivette
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 68
Surprisingly, one of sport’s most contentious, complex, and defining clashes played out not in the boxing ring or at the line of scrimmage but on the genteel green fairways of the world’s finest golf courses. Arnie and Jack. Palmer and Nicklaus. Their 50-year duel, in both the clubhouse and the boardroom, propelled each to the status of American icon and pushed modern golf to the heights and popularity it enjoys today. Yet for all the ink that has been spilled on these two essential golf figures individually, no one has ever examined their relationship in this way.
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2 out of 5 stars
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No Match
- By Craig Black on 05-11-15
By: Ian O' Connor
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His Ownself
- A Semi-Memoir
- By: Dan Jenkins
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 68
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 60
The colorful, sentimental, funny, affectionate, cantankerous memoir by the most colorful, funniest, most cantankerous-- and probably the most revered-- sportswriter of the last fifty years. Dan Jenkins is accepted as one of the greatest (if not the greatest) golf writer of all time, wrote beloved bestselling novels and abused more corporate expense accounts than anyone who ever lived. It's a touching, laugh-out-loud tribute to the romanticism of old-time sportswriting-- and the glory days of sports.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved this book!
- By Flannery Abrahamson on 05-23-19
By: Dan Jenkins
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Pull Up a Chair
- The Vin Scully Story
- By: Curt Smith
- Narrated by: Don Leslie
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 100
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 95
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Story4 out of 5 stars 95
Since 1950, the instantly recognizable voice of Vin Scully has invited listeners to “pull up a chair” for his peerless play-by-play sports reporting. Recruited and mentored by the legendary Red Barber, Scully has narrated NBC’s Game of the Week, twelve All-Star Games, eighteen no-hitters, and twenty-five World Series, describing players from Duke Snider to Orel Hershiser to Manny Ramirez, with hundreds in between.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Almost perfect
- By steve finkelstein on 02-06-21
By: Curt Smith
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Wonder Girl
- The Magnificent Sporting Life of Babe Didrikson Zaharias
- By: Don Van Natta Jr.
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
Texas girl Babe Didrikson never tried a sport too tough and never met a hurdle too high. Despite attempts to keep women from competing, Babe achieved All-American status in basketball and won gold medals in track and field at the 1932 Olympics. Then, Babe attempted to conquer golf. One of the founders of the LPGA, Babe won more consecutive tournaments than any golfer in history. But at the height of her fame, she was diagnosed with cancer. Babe would then take her most daring step of all....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great read
- By Jajam on 01-07-18
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The Chicken Runs at Midnight
- A Daughter’s Message from Heaven That Changed a Father’s Heart and Won a World Series
- By: Tom Friend, Tim Kurkjian - foreword
- Narrated by: Ben Holland - foreword, Mark Schlicher
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 149
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 131
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Story5 out of 5 stars 131
Weaving baseball history with personal memoir, this book is one that will make you thrill to victory, believe in hope, stand up to cheer for what is good in peoples' lives. It's a powerful story of redemption and faith that reminds us that God can work in our lives even when we think it's too late to change - and sometimes he sends us signs from heaven if we only have eyes to see.
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5 out of 5 stars
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not really a sport's fan
- By virginia loranger on 09-24-20
By: Tom Friend, and others
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Dr. J Unabridged
- The Autobiography
- By: Julius Erving, Karl Taro Greenfeld
- Narrated by: Julius Erving
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 133
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 120
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 120
With his flights of improvisation around the basket and his towering afro, Julius Erving became one of the most charismatic (and revolutionary) players basketball has ever known. But while the public has long revered this cultural icon, few have ever known of the double life of Julius Erving. Dr. J traces the inner lives of the nearly perfect player and the imperfect man - and how he has come to terms with both.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I may overrate it, but I’m a hoops junkie!
- By @JWTheBlueprint on 01-29-14
By: Julius Erving, and others
What listeners say about Fifty Years of Great Writing
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- TLB
- 06-25-20
not so great
SI is so much better than this old collection of unrelated stuff. You are better off reading the current edition - even during the lock down.
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