Last boy: Mickey Mantle and the end of America’s childhood. Jane Leavy. 2010.

Meticulously reported and elegantly written, Last Boy is a baseball tapestry that weaves together episodes from the author’s weekend with the Mick in Atlantic City, where she interviewed her hero in 1983 after he was banned from baseball, with reminiscences from friends and family. It is the story of a boy from Commerce, Oklahoma, who would lead the Yankees to seven world championships, be voted the American League’s Most Valuable Player three times, win the Triple Crown in 1956, and duel teammate Roger Maris for Babe Ruth’s home run crown in the summer of 1961 - a boy who would never grow up.