His off speed pitch is enough to bowl a kid backward, and his fast ball is pure smoke. There isn't anything he can't throw, from sliders, change-ups, and sinkers to a mean curve ball that breaks at just the right moment. He's pitched no-hitters and perfect games. To Paul, pitching is what you live for and why you live.Lately, though, Paul hasn't been allowed to do much of anything, much less play ball. He's got leukemia, and it's put him into the hospital several times already. His parents are so worried, they've forbidden him to play the game he loves so much. They're afraid that if Paul strains himself his illness may come back a final time...and maybe even take his life.But Paul is a winner. His team needs him, and he won't give up without a fight. Paul Mather is determined to pitch every inning...to keep playing baseball, and to keep hanging tough, no matter what the odds.

    In Slap Shot Original, Dave Hanson gives readers not only a behind the scenes look at what life was like on the set during the filming of the classic movie, but also treats them to stories from the actors and players themselves.

    Turning The Tables is the first published history of the company which grew from a run-down bingo hall to become a national pay-per-view competitor... then crashed in a sea of debt. John Lister (author of Slamthology) gives an independent, objective and informative account that reveals hidden secrets and shatters common myths. From a little-known truth about ECW's most famous feud to a blow-by-blow account of what really happened in Revere, this book will give you the true story behind America's most controversial wrestling group.

    Perry Groves spent over a decade in the footballing spotlight. Sometimes he was at the top, often he was at the bottom and that's half the reason the fans loved him so much--and still do. This is the most truthful and hilarious book about professional football you will ever read. Perry Groves was the first signing by the legendary Arsenal manager George Graham, and that unmistakeable figure with his Tin-Tin haircut and cheeky grin was a player in one of the Gunners' greatest sides. Now he has decided to tell all about his rollercoaster years of booze binges, girl-chasing and gambling sprees. He's a nonstop fund of of hilarious anecdotes, recounting top-flight games played with a hangover, 125 mph motorway chases with international stars, visits to a brothel with an England World Cup hero and revealing how one drunken escapade ended with a group of internationals beting questioned over an attempted murder charge. This is a unique chance to find out what top-flight footballers really get up to off the field and how they behave when the dressing room door is closed.

    When Eddie's former caddie, "Fat Albert" Auberlain (a cross between Tiger Woods and John Daly), loses his PGA Tour card, his endorsements, and his composure after posting a twelve on a par three at the Fruit-of-the-Loom Waste Management Open, Eddie finds the sad sack on his doorstep. Fat Albert, in debt up to his eyeballs and with several needy relatives to feed, had barely been eking out a living on Tour as it was, and the pressure was threatening to make him implode altogether. Eddie takes pity on his protege but isn't quite sure what he can do, when along comes nuclear physicist Norman Standish with the most revolutionary advance in golf equipment since the double niblick-a golf ball they call Scratch. If Standish's claims are true, Eddie could make the killing of his strange and wonderful life and just possibly change the game forever. With McAllister's patented golf hustling hijinks, roller-coaster plotting, and laugh-out-loud skewering of pro sports hypocrisy, Eddie's die-hard fans and golf fiction aficionados will laugh all the way to the putting green. As Eddie himself puts it in The Foursome, "Why do you think they call the devil "Scratch"?"

    After winning a baseball game with an innovative toss of a rosin bag, he catches the interest of a chief operative of the Homeland Security's Analytic Red Cell. Employing the creative problem solving of philosophers, futurists, and Hollywood movie writers, this intelligence unit is seeking any original ideas about anticipating terrorist plots.As a recent surge of terrorist activity undermines these fresh insights, the operative banks on the notion that Will's youthful imagination, unclouded by the premise of "it can't be done," may provide the key insight they need and seeks to secretly exploit Will's unhindered "out of the box" thinking.Unaware of the magnitude of danger surrounding him, Will uncovers something he wasn't supposed to discover--a connection between a television advertisement and a master terrorist plot. Narrowly surviving, he alone foils a bombing at Wrigley Field. Uncertain about the knowledge he now holds, he has to figure out the terrorists' next target. Will just doesn't realize...it's him.

    . .'It is the final Test match of The Ashes. A nation expects, and the rest of the cricketing world is watching.Fast-paced, humorous and candid, The Test follows the battles on and off the field as stand-in England captain, James McCall, tries to get his exhausted team across the finish line. Along the way, his story becomes one of fatherhood, friendship and trusting yourself when no one else will.Nathan Leamon's love letter to Test cricket is that rare thing: a novel that captures the feel and flavour of professional sport from the inside - the good, the bad and the simply surreal.Not since J. L. Carr's classic A Season in Sinji has there been a novel that quite captures the spirit of the game.

    It was the night everything changed. It was the night Leisel died.Now, two years later, as Jared reflects on his life, he can't help but wonder at the chain reaction of choices that led him to this: a black nametag and a calling to serve as a missionary of God.It had been Leisel who had first sparked Jared's interest in the gospel. She and Rob had befriended Jared early on in his senior year of high school. But even as all of Rob's choices seem to be leading him away from the Church, all of Jared's choices were drawing him closer to it--and to Leisel. And on the night of the horrible crash, Jared finally understands how life-changing the consequences of a choice can be.

    It is a rude awakening when they are called upon for the real war. Hugely absorbing, rich and rewarding, Other Times brims with history and experience, love, sorrow and humour.

    A new tale of discovery from INTERNATIONAL BEST SELLING AUTHOR Sara Alexi. The Piano Raft is an unforgettable, heart-warming story about love, a piano and a hand-built raft that will have you enthralled, laughing and sitting on the edge of your seat as you sail (precariously) upon the rivers and canals from Yorkshire to London.Neil, a disillusioned art student, wakes to find himself drifting down a canal on a raft, accompanied by a small fluffy dog, to the sound of his girlfriend's piano being played by a stranger.Through the fog of his hangover, he tries to piece together the events of the night before which brought him to this curious and unexpected situation, and to work out what on earth to do next.The current is carrying him swiftly on towards the capital, where Kim, the piano's owner, has recently started a new life.As Neil’s journey continues, and whilst trying to conjure the courage to win Kim back, his story captures the hearts and imaginations of the country as locals in the towns he passes and national media alike follow this unlikely hero on his equally unlikely adventure.How will these extraordinary circumstances challenge and change a man whose life has been stuck in first gear, and who now needs to decide how far he will go for the woman he loves?The current is swift, and there's no turning back...

    And when she falls victim to a diabolical scheme to steal her newborn baby from her, she is not about to give up her child without a fight, even if she has to take on the wealthiest and most powerful family in the country. But is Tamara fighting against her child's own best interests? Only she can decide. And it's a decision that she — and her child — will have to live with for the rest of their lives.If you value family, if you have ever yearned for unconditional love, if you want to experience a story whose themes will resonate long after you have turned the last page, then you will want to read this book.

    In fact, he now spends his days crashing funerals for the free food and insight into the Great Beyond. Then he meets Rosamond, a nun playing hooky from the Holy Orders. Hayden is smitten the instant her heavy silver cross smacks him in the face when she leaps up to do the wave at a ball game. Luckily, Rosamond has picked the right person to teach her how to live . . . and to love—because nobody does both better than Hayden MacBride.However, Rosamond’s years in the convent have not prepared her for the oddball characters of Hayden’s world. There’s his ever-fretful, vigilant daughter, Diana, the “Dutchess o’ the Sidelong Glance”; his sweet grandson Joey, struggling to break free of his mother’s overprotective embrace; Hayden’s bagpipe-blowing cronies; the Greyfriars Gang; neighbor Bobbie Anne, a “working girl” full of good advice and tender mercies; and Hank, the sexy architect contemplating the priesthood—a big mistake in Hayden’s book. For Hayden thinks that Hank should be married to his daughter and raising Joey. And he has an elaborate plan to make Hank see things his way. . . .In an uproariously funny novel of love, laughter, and one man’s final call at the riotous watering hole called life, Laura Pedersen proves that miracles are all around us—when we open our eyes and our hearts to embrace them.

     Ellie Feldman is on the way home from a business trip, looking forward to seeing her kids, when her plane is grounded on the tarmac in Hawaii. No one wants to tell her what's going on, until finally she learns of the virulent disease spreading over the globe. Now she has to find a way to get home to her family. Back at home her ex-husband, Nick Statton, thinks his problems revolve around financial hardships and helping their children as they continue to adjust to the recent divorce and going from parent to parent with shared custody. Then he discovers there's something far worse to worry about. As the nation descends into chaos around them, she must face the challenges of being out in a society falling apart, while he and their children face those of being shut in.

    When a Missouri school teacher is fired from his job, he heads to a small river to get away from his problems and the virus. It might be the best decision he ever made.

    Sometimes we tell these stories to make people laugh. Sometimes we tell them to make people think. Sometimes we tell them so we can increase the chances we'll see the other person naked.Paul Shirley's stories are about an adulthood spent all over the world: living in Spain, playing in the NBA, and having his heart (and spleen) broken. But they're also stories about growing up in small-town Kansas: triumphant spelling bees, catastrophic middle school dances, and a Sex Ed. class taught by his mother.They're funny stories. They're vulnerable stories. Most of all, they're universal stories, just as the stories we tell on dates should be.