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Two More Sleeps


Rosie Lewis - 2014
    This is the heart-breaking tale of Angell, a young girl desperately loved but inadequately cared for by her troubled mother Nicki.Abandoned and left barely clothed beneath a park bench on a freezing cold day in winter, the bewildered child is rescued by police and passed into the loving and compassionate care of the Lewis family.But when foster carer Rosie takes Angell into her home and heart, she wonders whether Angell’s mother will ever return for her daughter? Or will Angell be destined to spend the rest of her childhood in care?

Boys Among Men: How the Prep-to-Pro Generation Redefined the NBA and Sparked a Basketball Revolution


Jonathan Abrams - 2016
      When Kevin Garnett shocked the world by announcing that he would not be attending college—as young basketball prodigies were expected to do—but instead enter the 1995 NBA draft directly from high school, he blazed a trail for a generation of teenage basketball players to head straight for the pros. That trend would continue until the NBA instituted an age limit in 2005, requiring all players to attend college or another developmental program for at least one year.   Over that decade-plus period, the list of players who made that difficult leap includes some of the most celebrated players of the modern era—Garnett, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Tracy McGrady, and numerous other stars. It also includes notable “busts” who either physically or mentally proved unable to handle the transition. But for better or for worse, the face of the NBA was forever changed by the prep-to-pro generation. In compelling, masterfully crafted prose, Boys Among Men goes behind the scenes and draws on hundreds of firsthand interviews to paint insightful and engaging portraits of the most pivotal figures and events during this time. Award-winning basketball writer Jonathan Abrams has obtained remarkable access to the key players, coaches, and other movers and shakers from that time, and the result is a book packed with rare insights and never-before-published details about this chapter in NBA history. Boys Among Men is a thrilling, informative, must-read for any basketball fan.

Standalone


Paul Michael Anderson - 2020
    They are monsters. They are evil. They stalk through summer camps, abandoned hospitals, rundown schools, and isolated houses, hunting anyone foolish enough to visit these places, leaving behind carnage, terror, death, and destruction. Sometimes, there are survivors. Always, there is blood. And they do it to protect and preserve all of existence across the Multiverse.But now they are the ones being stalked and hunted, and life as we know it hangs in the balance unless they figure out a way to survive. ___PRAISE FOR PAUL MICHAEL ANDERSON"Anderson announces himself as a major talent in the dark fiction realm." - Fangoria"Anderson writes with a sure, steady hand." – Jack Ketchum, author of The Woman, The Girl Next Door, and Off Season"Paul Michael Anderson's writing doesn't feel gimmicky, but it has a pulp edge to it. Anderson's the real deal, guys." – Dead End Follies

First Marathons: Personal Encounters with the 26.2-Mile Monster


Gail Waesche Kislevitz - 1998
    Growing up in the late sixties when women's sports was called cheerleading, I had no formal training in running techniques. I just ran, pure and simple. I ran for the joy of it, the thrill of it, the escape of it. During college, I played lacrosse because there wasn't a women's track team and it seemed like the next best thing to do. But I still remained faithful to my daily run. I ran through the bitter-cold winters of Michigan during graduate school, through two pregnancies and countless other miles that seem to blend into one long life's run.I don't know when I made the transformation from running as a sport to running as part of my life. I can't separate the two. When I run, my mind and body fuse together, creating an energy source that empowers me. It is my private time, my therapy, my religion.Ultimately I had to test myself, to see just how far I could go. I wanted to train correctly, so I bought running books filled with important information: training routines, nutrition guides, stretching techniques, injury prevention, speed work, pace and performance guidelines. Everything I needed to know about the technical aspects of running a marathon, except the most important thing to me-its soul. No book took on the task of describing the feeling, the heart, the core of a marathon. What would it be like? What would I feel out there? Would I hit the mythical wall? Could the last six miles be so difficult? This was the information I craved.I spoke with friends (and strangers) who had run marathons. They answered my questions with such passion, such fever and excitement for the event that I was mesmerized. I inhaled their stories as they captured every moment of the race: the lows of utter despair and pain, the highs of inner strength. They became my role models.That was the beginning of this book. I am going to let runners speak for themselves-famous runners, unknowns, fast and slow, old and young. Through their experiences, you will feel the pain and the glory of running the marathon. Their lives h

Gods at Play: An Eyewitness Account of Great Moments in American Sports


Tom Callahan - 2020
    He takes us from Roberto Clemente clinching his 3,000th, and final, regular-season hit in Pittsburgh; to ringside for the Muhammad Ali–George Foreman fight in Zaire; and to Arthur Ashe announcing, at a news conference, that he’d tested positive for HIV. There are also little-known private moments: Joe Morgan whispering thank you to a virtually blind Jackie Robinson on the field at the 1972 World Series, or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar saying he was more interested in being a good man than in being the greatest basketball player.Brimming with colorful vignettes and enlivened by Callahan’s eye for detail, Gods at Play offers surprising portraits of the most celebrated names in sports. Roger Rosenblatt calls Callahan “the most complete sportswriter in America. He knows the most and writes the best."

Inheriting Her Ghosts


S.H. Cooper - 2021
    What awaits, however, is a dark legacy shrouded in half a century of secrets, and it doesn't take long before Eudora realizes she's not the only one to call High Hearth home.

The Pretenders


Agatha Zaza - 2020
    And face the devastating consequences.Three couples. Two exes. One day. One reckoning.In her debut novel, Agatha Zaza crafts a modern domestic tragedy simmering with betrayal and deceit.

Soul Eater


Dana Brookins - 1985
     The mansion in Pellam Woods had been shipped in, piece by piece, and reconstructed in the forest at the edge of town. The citizens of Edgar Falls wondered who would build such a grand house in their sleepy little backwater. But the house sat vacant…. THEN THE DYING BEGAN…. A mother lights her home ablaze, burning her six children alive… A young boy drowns himself in a lake.... Twelve year old Bobby Topin sensed something evil inside the house. Something that tried to crawl inside his mind. One by one, the townsfolk are falling victim to their darkest impulses. And only Bobby knows that the house where no one lives is home to a malevolent force... SOUL-EATER

Wilt, 1962: The Night of 100 Points and the Dawn of a New Era


Gary M. Pomerantz - 2005
    The game was not televised; no New York sportswriters showed up; and a fourteen-year-old local boy ran onto the court when Chamberlain scored his hundredth point, shook his hand, and then ran off with the basketball. In telling the story of this remarkable night, author Gary M. Pomerantz brings to life a lost world of American sports.In 1962, the National Basketball Association, stepchild to the college game, was searching for its identity. Its teams were mostly white, the number of black players limited by an unspoken quota. Games were played in drafty, half-filled arenas, and the players traveled on buses and trains, telling tall tales, playing cards, and sometimes reading Joyce. Into this scene stepped the unprecedented Wilt Chamberlain: strong and quick-witted, voluble and enigmatic, a seven-footer who played with a colossal will and a dancer’s grace. That strength, will, grace, and mystery were never more in focus than on March 2, 1962. Pomerantz tracked down Knicks and Philadelphia Warriors, fans, journalists, team officials, other NBA stars of the era, and basketball historians, conducting more than 250 interviews in all, to recreate in painstaking detail the game that announced the Dipper’s greatness. He brings us to Hershey, Pennsylvania, a sweet-seeming model of the gentle, homogeneous small-town America that was fast becoming anachronistic. We see the fans and players, alternately fascinated and confused by Wilt, drawn anxiously into the spectacle. Pomerantz portrays the other legendary figures in this story: the Warriors’ elegant coach Frank McGuire; the beloved, if rumpled, team owner Eddie Gottlieb; and the irreverent p.a. announcer Dave “the Zink” Zinkoff, who handed out free salamis courtside.At the heart of the book is the self-made Chamberlain, a romantic cosmopolitan who owned a nightclub in Harlem and shrugged off segregation with a bebop cool but harbored every slight deep in his psyche. March 2, 1962, presented the awesome sight of Wilt Chamberlain imposing himself on a world that would diminish him. Wilt, 1962 is not only the dramatic story of a singular basketball game but a meditation on small towns, midcentury America, and one of the most intriguing figures in the pantheon of sports heroes. Also available as a Random House AudioBookFrom the Hardcover edition.

Let Me Tell You a Story: A Lifetime in the Game


Red Auerbach - 2004
    The fiery coach is a unique personality; brash, opinionated, and unfailingly accurate. As a coach, he never stood still along the sidelines, and in retirement he remains a lively part of the game, still consulted by coaches, players, and general managers at age 86.For years, John Feinstein has met regularly with Red Auerbach and his friends, drawing out Red's life story in a raucous series of unforgettable sessions. From those smoke-and laughter-filled rooms come the colorful reports about all the players and coaches Red has worked with and played against over the years. Bob Cousy, Larry Bird, Wilt Chamberlain, Sam Jones, Bill Russell, and Michael Jordan, you name them, the basketball greats are all here.Red Auerbach's incredible experiences in sports and John Feinstein's unparalleled skill as a sports storyteller make this one of the greatest books to come out of the game of basketball.

James Hunt: The Biography


Gerald Donaldson - 1994
    Triumphing against all odds to become World Drivers' Champion with McLaren in 1976, Hunt sank into a period of decadence and depression ... only to be rejuventated as he found true love for the first time. With that came personal contentment and a renewed zest for living, so that one of the most colourful and controversial figures in Grand Prix racing is best remembered by those close to him as a fun-loving, caring man who had a genuinely uplifting presence - qualities that shine through in Gerald Donaldson's compelling and moving account of his life.

The Bad Mother


Isabelle Grey - 2013
    During a surprise visit from Australia, a long-lost aunt lets slip a family secret that unsettles her fragile world.In shock, and feeling betrayed by her whole family, Tessa confides in her ex-husband just as he reveals he has a new woman in his life.Struck unexpectedly by jealousy; balancing her own turmoil against the demands of parenting, Tessa tries to trace her birth father, with devastating results. Yet she fails to see how this is a crucial moment in her children's lives. If she gets things wrong, the consequences could be fatal.This ebook edition contains extra book club discussion questions penned by the author.

GIST: The Essence of Raising Life-Ready Kids


Michael W. Anderson - 2013
    Thinking differently can actually change our parenting dynamic.This powerful book will review and examine what the journey to adulthood entails, along with a clear look at those parenting efforts that have proven not to work over the years. “Many hours and much emotional energy are spent in parenting strategies where nothing positive is produced.”Gist is a fascinating look at many aspects of life that wouldn’t typically be associated with parenting. But, the result is a new way to think about parenting that is effective, efficient, and enjoyable. The book’s focus on life-readiness offers parents a new lens through which to see their parenting interactions and translates to an approach that eliminates many of the power struggles and ineffective patterns that can rob families of much of their joy.

Basketball: A Love Story


Jackie MacMullan - 2018
    They've talked to hundreds of legendary players, such as Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Magic Johnson, and spoken with renowned coaches, including Phil Jackson and Coach K, as well as numerous executives, commissioners, and journalists. Most impressive was the extraordinary quality of the interviews. Again and again, players spoke candidly about secrets and told stories they'd never before discussed on the record.The book that grew out of those interviews is an extraordinary project and quite possibly the most ambitious basketball book ever written. At once a definitive oral history and something far more literary and intimate, this is the never-before-told story of how basketball came to be, and about what it means to those who've given their lives to the game.

Full Moon Saturday Night


Mark Barkawitz - 2019
    millennial post-grad, who dreams of making it big in the TV & film industry. He auditions by day and tends bar at night to satiate his massive student debt, credit card payments, and rent. Until one knuckle-busting, full moon Saturday night launches his life into complete upheaval, suddenly placing him in the middle of an international drug smuggling operation and an undercover police sting, consequently ruining his reputation in Hollywood. Can Mike survive his unsolicited undercover work and cleanse his sullied reputation? Or will he end up as shark bait for double-crossing the wrong people?