<DIV><B>Includes a new afterword on the 2013 America’s Cup</B><BR><BR>The America’s Cup, first awarded in 1851, is the oldest trophy in international sports and one of the most hotly contested. In 2000, Larry Ellison, co-founder and billionaire CEO of Oracle Corporation, decided to run for the coveted prize and found an unlikely partner in Norbert Bajurin, a car radiator mechanic who had recently been named Commodore of the blue collar Golden Gate Yacht Club.<br><BR>Julian Guthrie’s <I>The Billionaire and the Mechanic</I> tells the incredible story of the partnership?and friendship?between Larry and Norbert, their unsuccessful runs for the Cup in 2003 and 2007, and their victory in 2010. With unparalleled access to Ellison and his team, Guthrie takes readers inside the building process of these astonishing boats and the lives of the passionate athletes who race them. She traces the bitter rivalries between Oracle and its competitors, including Swiss billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli’s Team Alinghi, throwing readers into exhilarating races from Australia to Valencia, Spain.<BR><BR><B>?Excellent. . . . The story of Mr. Ellison’s decade-long effort to win the Cup and bring it back to the U.S. under Golden Gate’s flag is worth telling, and Julian Guthrie . . . tells it well.” ?<I>The Wall Street Journal</I></B><BR></DIV>