Pulse: 60-Second Critic: Nonfiction: Outside the Box

NONFICTION
Outside the Box
By Lynn Sherr
(Rodale; $25.95)

Who knew? Lynn Sherr is a homegirl, though she went away to college (Wellesley) and never came back. She started her journalism career as a “Mademoiselle Girl” in 1962, got her first TV gig because she was blond, wrote books, married late, became a stepmom, became a PBS anchorwoman, moved to ABC and 20/20, was widowed by cancer, survived cancer herself. Sherr’s writing is assured and lively, and her life story more riveting than most. But for Philly folk, the primo sections are the loving tales of her dad, Reds Sherr, a hoops star at Penn and then with the SPHA Jewish pro team (“Half would come to see the Jews killed, and the other half were Jews coming to see our boys win,” one player described the fans), and of the summer camp her mom and dad ran, where she played tennis and volleyball and softball and learned “that if you lost a game, life still went on.” GRADE: A