Former Sports Illustrated senior writer Pearlman (Two Writers Slinging Yang; Gunslinger podcast) vividly relates the life, times, and achievements of Bo Jackson, the only professional athlete to have been named an All Star in both baseball and football. Based on extensive research, including 720 original interviews, this book takes the reader back to 1962 when Jackson was born in racially segregated Bessemer, AL, and through his years at Auburn University, where he was twice named All-American running back and won the 1985 Heisman Trophy. That occurred after he rejected playing for the New York Yankees, an offer that came while he was still in high school, where he also excelled in football and won two state decathlon titles. The book describes the years he played baseball as a Memphis Chick, a Kansas City Royal, a Chicago White Sox, and a California Angel. He later played for the NFL's L.A. Raiders until a hip injury ended his career. Today, he says he gets his rush from raising money for the Alabama Governor's Emergency Relief Fund through his Bo Bikes Rama organization. VERDICT An excellent, well-researched biography with insights, firsthand accounts, and an extensive bibliography section. Highly recommended for all interested in sports.—Lucy Heckman

Sports journalist Pearlman (Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s) delivers an entertaining biography of star multisport athlete Bo Jackson. Jackson's one-of-a-kind athletic ability was "mythological," Pearlman writes, noting that he was capable of "things so unprecedented, so spectacular, that one must wonder if they were ever actually done at all." Jackson's "uniquely athletic" legend started during his childhood in Alabama the 1960s (a neighbor claims to have seen him throw a rock 200 yards), and Pearlman recounts how his discovery of sports changed his life, beginning with his joining Little League at age 10 (he was forbidden from playing football by his mother but defied her in ninth grade). Pearlman also details Jackson's incredible achievements, which included a Heisman Trophy in 1985 as well as his becoming the only professional athlete ever named a baseball and football All-Star (first with the Kansas City Royals in 1989, then with the L.A. Raiders in 1990) before retiring from pro sports in 1991 after a hip injury. The author's facility at rendering dramatic sports moments into prose, such as when, in 1989, Jackson made a miraculous deep outfield throw to get a speedy opposing player out at home plate (spectators witnessed him "rearing back and uncorking a flat-footed bazooka blast that soared high above shortstop Kurt Stillwell"), makes this a standout addition to biographies of hall-of-fame athletes. Jackson's fans are in for a treat. (Oct.)