The small mess of a mail pile that awaited me on my return home this week contained a delightful surprise: An envelope from PublicAffairs, containing a copy of T. D. Thornton's marvelous "Not by a Longshot." Coming out in paperback this April, the book is outfitted with a new cover that captures the dark uncertainties and workaday thrills of racing at a working-class track that Thornton writes about so well. If you haven't yet read this story of a season at Suffolk Downs, be sure to pick up a copy this spring. By which I mean, buy it -- although Thornton told John he supports the subversives who liberated "Not by a Longshot" from Boston bookstores, I'm guessing he wouldn't mind an occasional royalty check.

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