When you come to a fork in the road, take it!

Upping the ante of such bestselling titles as It Ain't Over and The Yogi Book, When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It: Inspiration and Wisdom from One of Baseball's Greatest Heroes collects more anecdotes and bon mots from the Yankees' Hall of Fame sage, Yogi Berra. A collaboration by Berra and Dave Kaplan, who is executive director of the nonprofit Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center, a sports education facility at Montclair State University (close to Berra's home in Montclair, N.J.), the book pairs 40 classic Berra aphorisms "It's d‚j… vu all over again" and "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded" among them with Berra's glosses and expansive colloquial commentary to help readers in their own decision making. Along the way, we learn the secrets to his 50-year marriage with "Carm" (they "talk over everything") and to his three-time MVP career as a player and pennant-winning seasons as a manager. ( June 1) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

There is not a lot of baseball in this work, narrated by Berra's son Dale, though the game ultimately made possible all of the very nice things that Berra has done for his family and community. Like the book, each chapter is titled with a Yogi-ism, a famous saying of this often-quoted mangler of English phraseology. The chapter then puts the Yogi-ism into personal context, linked with experiences from an incredible 46 years in professional baseball. If there is any doubt about this former athlete's impact on our lives, consider how often both political parties mentioned, "It ain't over till it's over," after the 2000 presidential election. Charming, funny, and always real. Highly recommended. Cliff Glaviano, Bowling Green State Univ. Libs., OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.