Strictly Ann: The Autobiography


Ann Widdecombe - 2013
     A rare anti-hunting Tory, who campaigned for prison education and once donned a miner's overalls to go down a coal mine, Ann Widdecombe has never shied away from controversy. Her memoirs reveal a singular personality who lives life to the full. From feisty appearances on HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU to her unforgettable and star-turning performances on STRICTLY COME DANCING, Ann has earned her place in the public's affections and has been heralded as a 'national living treasure' by the GUARDIAN.

Our Country Nurse: Can East End Nurse Sarah find a new life caring for babies in the country?


Sarah Beeson - 2016
    She's barely out of the car when she's called to assist the midwife with a bride who's gone into labour in the middle of her own wedding reception. And so her adventures begin...As a health visitor Nurse Sarah is as green as grass but she puts her best foot into wellies and braves the mad dogs, killer ganders and muddy tracks of the farming community. Despite set-backs young Sarah is determined to help the mums she meets, from struggling young mothers in unmodernised farmhouses, to doyennes of the county dinner party set who slave over stuffed olive hors-d'oeuvres.Village life in 1970s isn't always quite the Good Life Sarah's been expecting; her attempts at self-sufficiency and cider making lead to drunk badgers and spirited house parties - but will it be the clergyman, the vet or the young doctor that win Sarah's heart. During her first year in Kent, Nurse Sarah Hill get stuck in - reuniting families and helping mums in the midst of community full of ancient feuds, funny little ways and just a bit of magic.

Furious George: My Forty Years Surviving NBA Divas, Clueless GMs, and Poor Shot Selection


George Karl - 2017
    In a game defined by big stakes and bigger egos, rabid fans and an unforgiving media, Karl was hired and fired a dozen times. After leading a team beset by injuries and with no superstar to its best season of all time—an achievement that earned Karl the title NBA Coach of the Year—he was dumped by the Denver Nuggets in 2013. Less than a year and a half later, Karl was at the helm of the Sacramento Kings, snarling and bellowing on the sidelines before being cut loose in May 2016.Intense, obstinate, and loud, Karl has never backed down from a confrontation, whether with management, officials, or star players, as NBA legends from Allan Iverson to Gary Payton to Carmelo Anthony to Demarcus Cousins can attest. Telling his story, Karl holds nothing back as he speaks out about the game that has defined his life, including the greed, selfishness, and ass-covering he believes are characteristic of the modern NBA player, and the rampant corruption that leads all the way to the office of the NBA commissioner, David Stern. Karl also reveals how he’s learned to deal with the personalities, the pressure, and the setbacks with a resilience he acquired from his three bouts with cancer.Raw, hard-hitting, and brutally honest, Furious George is as thrilling, unpredictable, and entertaining as the game that has defined Karl’s life.

Best Seat in the House


Spike Lee - 1998
    The first is professional basketball's metamorphosis from a fringe sport whose championship games would air tape-delayed at 11:30 p.m., after the local news had already given the scores, to become the big-money sports spectacular it is today, filled with outrageously inflated salaries and egos. The other journey is that of Shelton Jackson Lee himself, who has gone from a skinny kid playing ball on the streets of Brooklyn, sneaking into Madison Square Garden to watch his beloved Knicks, to Morehouse College and NYU film school, to being a world-renowned film director and hoops fan. The book charts Spike's artistic journey from his first college film (Super 8), called "Last Hustle in Brooklyn," and his gradual move down from the raucous, nosebleed blue seats just below the Garden's rafters, closer and closer to the on-court action until, in the year "Malcolm X" was released, Spike landed the coveted courtside seats he has today - the best seats in the house. From there, his blue-seat emotions, transplanted to within arm's reach of the action, have led to numerous confrontations with refs and opposing players - some of them public, like the notorious Reggie Miller incident - but most never before discussed. Along the way Spike takes readers on entertaining and provocative detours, including a one-on-one with that other film-directing, Brooklyn-born, Garden-inhabiting hoops fan, Woody Allen; reviews of sports movies (Spike has seen them all, and the results aren't pretty); an unusually candid and revelatory interview with Michael Jordan; and astark assessment of the role of African-American athletes both in the big business of sports and in the broader culture.

There Is No Next: NBA Legends on the Legacy of Michael Jordan


Sam Smith - 2014
    Armstrong • Marv Albert • Grant Hill • Jerry Colangelo • Bill Cartwright • Jerry Reinsdorf • Johnny Bach • Rod Thorn • Rick Barry • Kevin Loughery • David Axelrod • President Barack Obama • and many more!Written by Sam Smith—author  of the New York Times bestseller THE JORDAN RULES and recent inductee  into the NBA Hall of Fame—THERE IS NO NEXT assembles a cast of Hall-of-Famers, teammates, opponents, coaches, and others who experienced the ferocious drive and unparalleled greatness that defined Jordan’s career. Packed with previously untold stories and stunning insight into Jordan and his six championships, THERE IS NO NEXT is the last word on why there has never been, and will never be, another Michael Jordan.

Sharing the Mountain with Bigfoot: The First Year (Bigfoot Series Book 1)


Jada L Roberts - 2017
    Their wish came true when they found an old abandon farmhouse perched in the mountains. Life was good for Jada and her family, until an unknown creature started lurking around the property and terrorizing the livestock, leaving footprints around the barn and coming close to the farmhouse. Throughout the year the family would continue to hear strange yells in the night, footprints in the mud, and handprints on the windows. Sharing the Mountain with Bigfoot is a true story of one family's terrorizing encounter with an unknown creature lurking in the woods of the Appalachian Mountains. About the Author Jada L. Roberts grew up in a big city in Florida. She moved to a small town near the Appalachian Mountains when she was seventeen years old, where she met and married the man of her dreams. Nowadays, the author enjoys spending time with her first grandchild and is living far away from the Appalachian Mountains. Be sure to check out Jada L. Roberts author page for a book trailer video on this book series. amazon.com/author/jadalroberts Reach out and message the author on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jadalroberts07

Booky Wook Collection


Russell Brand - 2014
    The bloke can write. He rhapsodizes about heroin better than anyone since Jim Carroll. With the flick of his enviable pen, he can summarize childhood thus: ‘My very first utterance in life was not a single word, but a sentence. It was, ‘Don’t do that.’... Russell Brand has a compelling story." — New York Times Book ReviewThe gleeful and candid New York Times bestselling autobiography of addiction, recovery, and rise to fame from Russell Brand, star of Forgetting Sarah Marshall and one of the biggest personalities in comedy today.Picking up where he left off in My Booky Wook, movie star and comedian Russell Brand details his rapid climb to fame and fortune in a shockingly candid, resolutely funny, and unbelievably electrifying tell-all: Booky Wook 2. Brand’s performances in Arthur, Get Him to the Greek, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall have earned him a place in fans’ hearts; now, with a drop of Chelsea Handler’s Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, a dash of Tommy Lee’s Dirt, and a spoonful of Nikki Sixx’s The Heroin Diaries, Brand goes all the way—exposing the mad genius behind the audacious comic we all know (or think we know) and love (or at least, lust).

Inside the NBA Bubble: A Championship Season under Quarantine


Jared Dudley - 2021
    The tragic passing of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna. A novel coronavirus and the protests honoring George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. For Jared Dudley and the Los Angeles Lakers, the suspended 2019–2020 NBA season was, from the beginning, about more than winning basketball games. But what now?This is the year of the Bubble, a vacated Disney World, and the nearly one hundred days that 350 players and personnel from twenty-two NBA teams isolated from their friends and family, testing their patience for a dorm-style solution to America’s lost pandemic sports season—but also inspiring them. In a country violently divided by more than COVID-19, the Lakers rise to the occasion. From initial quarantine to the best basketball ever played by LeBron James and Anthony Davis to transitioning again to the real world, Jared Dudley shares his winning memories of a personal and professional victory from inside the NBA Bubble

Breaking The Chain: Drugs and Cycling - The True Story


Willy Voet - 2011
    In his car were the drugs the team needed if they were to have any chance of playing a competitive part in the 1998 Tour de France. The car was searched, he was immediately arrested and so the story that has been undermining the sport of cycling since the death of Tommy Simpson in 1967, finally broke. Imprisoned for sixteen days, sacked from the Festina team and ostracised from the sport to which he had dedicated his life, Willy Voet at last was able to tell the truth. His sensational story will change cycling forever.Cocaine, amphetamines, EPO, heroin - all these are now considered not optional but necessary, not to win but just to compete in the Tour de France. Details of how these drugs are obtained, mixed together to make cocktails, administered and concealed are all included in this graphic and uninhibited account of how drugs brought cycling to its knees.

Aces: The Last Season on the Mound with the Oakland A's Big Three -- Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, and Barry Zito


Mychael Urban - 2005
    Tim Hudson was determined to demonstrate his recovery from a recurring injury. Barry Zito had to show the world that after a ho-hum 2003, his 2002 Cy Young Award was not a fluke. Mark Mulder missed the 203 playoffs entirely with a stress fracture, but the way he saw it, he simply needed to be himself-the natural-born pitcher.Given unprecedented access to the Big Three , Mychael Urban recreates their tumultuous season through their eyes. he explores the nuts and bolts of major league pitching, examining each player's unique approach to this craft while revealing how three very different personalities cope with the demands, rewards, and challenges of sports stardom.Now with a new afterword on the 2005 seasonUrban traces the fortunes of the Big Three after Hudson was sent to Atlanta and Mulder to St. Louis, trades which held the dramatic promise of them being reunited again-as opponents-in the playoffs."Written with great color, style, humor, and grace, Aces takes readers on a captivating ride." - Mike Silver, Sports Illustrated"Mychael Urban's book is a fabulous read... This is hardly just a baseball book. It's about life, and he tremendous burden each pitcher carried while trying to lead the Oakland A's to the playoffs. I absolutely loved it." - Bob Nightengale, Senor Writer/Columnist, USA Today Sports Weekly"From the southern fried heat of Tim Hudson to Mark Mulder's cool aloofness to Barry Zito's cerebral wanderings, Urban captures the engine of Oakland's Little Engine That Could of a team with grace and aplomb." - Scott Miller, National Baseball Columnist, CBS.SportsLine.com

Lebron James: The Rise of a Star


David Lee Morgan - 2003
    He saw the exceptional play on the basketball court and the surprising poise with which LeBron has handled the pressure, the scrutiny, the criticism that arrived with the early onset of fame.The odds were against James from the start. Born in poverty to a 16-year-old single mom, without a stable home for the first decade of his life, LeBron could have become just one more scarred product of a rough childhood in the projects. Instead, he became the darling of the sports world--and he plays the part well.He was called the best high school basketball player ever. He made the cover of Sports Illustrated as a junior, was featured on national television, and signed more than $100 million in promotional contracts before the end of his senior year. It was no surprise when he became the no-doubt-about-it No. 1 pick in the NBA draft right after high school graduation.This is a story for any fan who wants to get to know LeBron better, and for anyone curious about how a high-school basketball phenom is made.

Eli Manning The Making of a Quarterback


Ralph Vacchiano - 2008
    But the drive, which also included a remarkable escape and pass completion to unheralded receiver David Tyree, was the culmination of years of promise and development. After all, champion quarterbacks aren't made overnight.With Manning, the Super Bowl MVP, as its focal point, New York Daily News Giants beat writer Ralph Vacchiano's 'Eli Manning The Making of a Quarterback' is a fascinating insider's look at the National Football League, how stars are made and crushed, and how fortunes are won and lost on the performance of one man: the quarterback. From the bold draft day trade that brought Manning to New York, through his dramatic ups and downs on and off the field, his first training camp to his last-minute heroics in Super Bowl XLII, Vacchiano takes a candid and revealing look at the people and events that made Manning's and his 2007 Giants' success one of the greatest stories in modern sports history. Complete with exclusive interviews with NFL stars, coaches, and executives and a foreword by former Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi, Vacchiano uses his unfettered access to the world champion Giants to present a true, behind-the scenes look at the quarterback and team that defied all of the experts and oddsmakers to pull off one of the most phenomenal upsets in pro football history.

Valvano: They Gave Me a Lifetime Contract, and Then They Declared Me Dead


Jim Valvano - 1991
    2 cassettes.

From Hang Time to Prime Time: Business, Entertainment, and the Birth of the Modern-Day NBA


Pete Croatto - 2020
    Far beyond simply being a sports league, the NBA has become an entertainment and pop culture juggernaut. From all kinds of team logo merchandise to officially branded video games and players crossing over into reality television, film, fashion lines, and more, there is an inseparable line between sports and entertainment. But only four decades ago, this would have been unthinkable. Featuring writing that leaps off the page with energy and wit, journalist and basketball fan Pete Croatto takes us behind the scenes to the meetings that lead to the monumental American Basketball Association–National Basketball Association merger in 1976, revolutionizing the NBA’s image. He pays homage to legendary talents including Julius “Dr. J” Erving, Magic Johnson, and Michael Jordan and reveals how two polar-opposite rookies, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, led game attendance to skyrocket and racial lines to dissolve. Croatto also dives into CBS’s personality-driven coverage of key players, as well as other cable television efforts, which launched NBA players into unprecedented celebrity status. Essential reading whether you’re a casual or longtime fan, From Hang Time to Prime Time is an enthralling and entertaining celebration of basketball history.

Walk-On: Life from the End of the Bench


Alan Williams - 2005
    Alan Williams knew nothing about being the star, but a courageous basketball player shows that one can still find success in the midst of failure. Even though Alan's career didn't result in him being a lottery pick in the first round of the NBA draft, Walk-On gives each of us something to cheer about. From the end of the bench, a firsthand view of major college basketball proves that ultimate fulfillment in life is not found in how many points we score, but in having a hope and a faith in those things in life which cannot be seen.JOIN THE FIGHT FOR CANCERJIMMY V FOUNDATION: A portion of the proceeds from Walk-On will be donated to the V Foundation, an organization helping to support cancer research. The V Foundation was founded in memory of the late Jim Valvano, former coach of NC STATE, who died years ago of cancer.