Book picks similar to
Backfield Package by Thomas J. Dygard
sports
action
character-and-values
fiction
LT: Over the Edge: Tackling Quarterbacks, Drugs, and a World Beyond Football
Lawrence Taylor - 1987
But off the field, the life of a player who enjoyed a record ten Pro Bowl appearances and led the New York Giants to two Super Bowl victories was an all-out blitz, fueled by drugs, sex, and booze, and charging at breakneck speed toward total self-destruction. This is the shocking true story of a giant's fall ... and his remarkable journey back to the world.
Christmas at Dumpster Corral
Irene Onorato - 2017
While still in mourning, her unscrupulous father resurfaces after many years’ absence and finds a way to undermine her mother’s will. Without regard for Noel’s welfare, he claims everything is rightly his, and the family lawyer can’t produce documents to prove otherwise. By invitation from her best friend, Noel makes a hard choice to leave her childhood hometown in upstate New York and journey to the friend’s house in Pensacola, Florida. Together they will try to devise a plan for Noel’s future. Fate steps in when a blinding rainstorm causes her to miss a turn, leading her to an unlikely place, and an uncertain destiny. Brought low by circumstances and struggling to make ends meet, she takes shelter in the least desirable location and accepts a graveyard-shift job. The last thing Noel is looking for is romance, but a chance meeting with a handsome, young lawyer named Liam Grant makes her reconsider. Could she accept his dinner invitations and make it through the Christmas holiday without revealing her destitute condition?
If I Don't Six
Elwood Reid - 1998
Elwood Reid first appeared on the literary stage with a powerful and bruising story called "What Salmon Know," which appeared in the March 1997 issue of GQ. Here was a writer not afraid to examine the soulful underside of the American male, or the violence that accompanies disappointed dreams. Now, in his first, extraordinary novel, Reid tells the story of Elwood Riley, a six-foot-six, 275-pound blue-collar kid whose ticket out of Cleveland is a "full ride" football scholarship to the University of Michigan.But Riley is cursed with intelligence and an awareness of the vicious inhumanity of the college football system. If Riley doesn't want to "six"--lose his scholarship or get maimed--he has to become a "fella," a pain-loving freak too nihilistic to care what he does to himself or others. And after Riley encounters the alluring, mysteriously damaged Kate, his dilemma becomes ever more painful.Elwood Reid's portrait of this world is at once blackly humorous, starkly tragic, and perfectly detailed. With deft strokes, he portrays emotionally stunted coaches who have mastered the art of humiliating and manipulating young men, groupies attracted to the fame but undone by the shocking cruelty of the players, and the athletes themselves, who grow addicted to violence, alcohol, and steroids, too caught up in the glory of playing for Big Blue to notice they are mere meat to the coaches and the university.In tough, spare, beautiful prose that should invite comparisons to the works of Thom Jones and Denis Johnson, Reid describes a place where young men damage their souls and their bodies in pursuit of a worthless glamor. This is a profound, unsettling book about a familiar yet hidden world--a Greek tragedy in cleats.
Trinity
Luke Romyn - 2016
Prepare to have your nerves shredded in this pulse-pounding race for answers. "If you love suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat, can't-put-it-down-action-packed-thrillers ... the type of book where you can't wait to get up in the morning and read more as soon as you wake up, this is the book for you!" -- Tony Kaup A young man wakes up knowing nothing other than the fact that three killers are stalking the country, and they have now set their sights on him. Chance Ripley is not ordinary. He sees things others can’t see and knows things he cannot possibly know. As time goes on, and the tangled threads of his memory begin to unravel, the brutal truth of his past slowly seeps through, and Chance learns that to remain still is to face certain death. For the visions tormenting him are no mere fantasies, no flits of his imagination sent to plague his waking hours. They are real, just as the horrors they show him are real, and if he refuses to act, more people will die, himself among them. The problem is, he can't escape; he's locked in an asylum. "As usual, Romyn doesn't give the reader much chance to breathe once the action starts... If you're still thinking about a book several weeks later, it's done its job. I absolutely recommend this one!" -- Adina
Payback Time
Carl Deuker - 2010
Through the eyes of a distinctly non-athletic protagonist—a fat high school journalist named Mitch—veteran sports novelist Deuker reveals the surprising truth behind a mysterious football player named Angel. When Angel shows up Lincoln High, he seems to have no past—or at least not one he is willing to discuss. Though Mitch gets a glimpse of Angel's incredible talent off the field, Angel rarely allows himself to shine on the field. Is he an undercover cop, wonders Mitch? Or an ineligible player? In pursuit of a killer story, Mitch decides to find out just who this player is and what he's done. In the end, the truth surprises everyone.
Hail to the Redskins: Gibbs, the Diesel, the Hogs, and the Glory Days of D.C.'s Football Dynasty
Adam Lazarus - 2015
From 1981 to 1992, Gibbs coached the franchise to three Super Bowl victories, making the team the toast of the nation’s capital, from the political elite to the inner city, and helping to define one of the sport’s legendary eras.Veteran sportswriter Adam Lazarus masterfully charts the Washington Football Team's rise from mediocrity (the franchise had never won a Super Bowl and Gibbs’s first year as head coach started with a five-game losing streak that almost cost him his job) to its stretch of four championship games in ten years. What makes their sustained success all the more remarkable, in retrospect, is that unlike the storied championship wins of Joe Montana’s 49ers and Tom Brady’s Patriots, the Washington Football Team's Super Bowl victories each featured a different starting quarterback: Joe Theismann in 1983, the franchise’s surprising first championship run; Doug Williams in 1988, a win full of meaning for a majority African American city during a tumultuous era; and Mark Rypien in 1992, capping one of the greatest seasons of all time, one that stands as Gibbs’s masterpiece.Hail to the Redskins features an epic roster of saints and sinners: hard-drinking fullback John Riggins; the dominant, blue-collar offensive linemen known as “the Hogs,” who became a cultural phenomenon; quarterbacks Williams, the first African American QB to win a Super Bowl, and Theisman, a model-handsome pitchman whose leg was brutally broken by Lawrence Taylor on Monday Night Football; gregarious defensive end Dexter Manley, who would be banned from the league for cocaine abuse; and others including the legendary speedster Darrell Green, record-breaking receiver Art Monk, rags-to-riches QB Rypien, expert general managers and talent evaluators Bobby Beathard and Charley Casserly, aristocratic owner Jack Kent Cooke, and, of course, Gibbs himself, a devout Christian who was also a ruthless competitor and one of the sport’s most adaptable and creative coaching minds.
Goodell vs. Obama: The Battle for the Future of the NFL
David Rappoccio - 2014
Damn, now I sound stupid, too." -Bomani Jones, ESPN "It's great, and I have no idea what just happened, but Jerry Jones dick exploded and that's enough for me." -Spencer Hall, SB Nation "The only parody Twitter account worth following" -Deadspin.com "This is the least influential book of anything I've ever read. I hated it." -Adolf Hitler In what is being hailed by many, probably, as the best, funniest, most gut-shittingly poignant literary work since The New Testament, PFT Commenter takes you on a realistic-fiction journey through the backdoor politics of today's NFL. Set in the 2014 offseason, Roger Goodell and President Barack Obama become locked in a mano a mano battle over the future of the Dallas Cowboys, culminating in a literal fight to the death. Starring NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Barack Obama, Mike Ditka, Joe Biden, Michael Vick, Peter King, Ron Jaworski, Dan Snyder, Robert Griffin III, Danny Woodhead, J.J. Watt, Jerry Jones, Russell Wilson, Pete Carroll, and many more of your favorite NFL stars and media personalities; "Goodell vs. Obama: The Battle for the Future of the NFL" will take you on a journey that any NFL fan is sure to love, or at least not hate. WARNING: Told through the narrative eye and screaming mouth of an uneducated internet commenter, this book is filled with grammatical errors. It was written by a someone who was raised on scorching hot sports takes, light beer, and an undying love for Roger Goodell. He cares about TELLING, not about spelling. If that's going to be a problem,, there's the door.
Wrigleyworld: A Season in Baseball's Best Neighborhood
Kevin Kaduk - 2006
But for Cubs fans, "never say die" is a way of life. And Kevin Kaduk is no exception-so much so that in a fit of loyalty to his "Lovable Losers," he quit his job as a sportswriter in Kansas City and moved back to the Windy City on a quest to find the heart and soul of what has come to be known as "Wrigleyville"-the idiosyncratic neighborhood that has sprung up around Wrigley Field." This is a rollicking adventure of baseball, blind faith, and America's pastime as it's played in America's heartland.
Hardy Boys
Spotlight Productions
Read the great reviews for these dynamic new titles. Expect more titles to come.
Kill Day
Andrew Raymond - 2021
When a routine operation ends in murder, Grant is tasked with capturing the assassin: rogue MI6 officer Henry Marlow.But as Grant leads the hunt, Marlow’s renegade mission escalates, targeting anyone who could expose his secrets. If Grant wants to stop him, he must uncover a shadowy plot that links a Saudi prince, a corrupt Interpol detective, and an infamous black ops programme.With the very future of MI6 at stake, Grant must confront Marlow in a terrifying endgame – after which nothing will be the same again.The epic journey starts here.
Cristiano Ronaldo: Champion of the World
Tom Oldfield - 2008
His dealings with the glare of the media as well as his controversial role in the 2006 World Cup Rooney incident are covered here, as well as his role in inspiring United to the Premiership title and his PFA Player of the Year and PFA Young Player of the Year double honor. Love him or hate him, this is the story of a player who always provokes a reaction.
The Warrior Groom: Texas Titans Romances
Lucy McConnell - 2018
Maia fell hard for London Wilder. She was the daughter of a woman of low standards and he was the home-town hero destined for football greatness. Their love sparked quickly and burned hot—until the night that rained heartache like a Texas hail storm. Maia hasn’t seen London in years and certainly didn’t expect to see him at a bachelor auction she hosted as part of the promotional campaign for her first animated film. She thought the years between them would protect her from his soulful brown eyes and electric touch. She was wrong. London brought to life her long-silent heart with one touch of his gentle hand. London agreed to be a last-minute substitution in the Titans’ annual bachelor auction to honor the memory of his grandfather, a military vet. He’s stunned to see the woman he let slip away calling out for the highest bidder. Maia chased after her dreams and became the superstar he always knew she could be. Under the layers of fame, designer clothes, and flashy jewelry, London can see the woman who set the rhythm of his heart and he wants a second chance. As Maia and London try to reconnect, old heartaches and old enemies rise up like demons and threaten to destroy the tenderness between them. They’ll have to face their past and their present troubles to find a future together—or say goodbye one last time. Check out these fantastic Texas Titans Romances: The Fearless Groom by Cami Checketts The Persistent Groom by Jennifer Youngblood The Tough Love Groom by Taylor Hart The Miracle Groom by Lucy McConnell The Second Chance Groom by Taylor Hart The Trustworthy Groom by Cami Checketts The Ghost Groom by Jennifer Youngblood The Forbidden Groom by Sarah Gay The Beastly Groom by Cami Checketts
Life to the Fullest: A Story About Finding Your Purpose and Following Your Heart (Sports for the Soul Book 4)
Darrin Donnelly - 2017
But how, exactly, do you find your purpose? And, once you find it, how can you be sure that it’s “safe” to follow that path in life? This book answers those two life-changing questions. Written as an inspirational fable in the style of previous Sports for the Soul books, Life to the Fullest reveals a powerful five-step process for finding your purpose while also dealing with the questions we all have about whether it’s “safe” to follow the dreams in our hearts. In a story that pays homage to the holiday classics, It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol, John Callahan is a man who has spent his life listening to his heart and following his passion as a high school football coach just like his legendary father. But his dream life is suddenly being crushed. Just days before the state championship game, John receives news that his beloved school is declaring bankruptcy and will be shutting down at the end of the year. Everything John has worked his whole life for—his team, his community, his pension—is being taken away from him. John now finds himself angry at his long-deceased father for advising him to follow his heart and he’s angry at himself for not taking “better” opportunities when they came along. When all hope seems lost, John receives a miraculous visit from his father on the eve of his team’s final game. John is given the opportunity to revisit past moments in his life and to see how things would’ve turned out differently if he had chosen more “practical” opportunities. This is a story about fathers and sons. It’s a story about faith, family, and community. Most of all, it’s a story about having the courage to follow your heart and live your true purpose. As this story plays out, you will find the answers to two of life’s most important questions: How do I find my life’s purpose and is it safe to follow that purpose once I find it?
Night Runner
Tim Bowler - 2014
Shadowy figures are following him. His parents are keeping secrets but he can't figure out why. Then his mum ends up in hospital, his dad disappears, and Zinny has to do whatever he can to save his family. Even if it means helping the very men he's been running from ...As the clock ticks, Zinny knows it's only a matter of time before someone ends up dead - and it could be him.
The Malazan Empire Series: (Night of Knives, Return of the Crimson Guard, Stonewielder, Orb Sceptre Throne, Blood and Bone, Assail)
Ian C. Esslemont - 2017
It was also prophesied that this night would witness the return of Emperor Kellanved, and there are those prepared to do anything to prevent this from happening…Ian C. Esslemont co-created the world of Malaz with his friend Steven Erikson, and Esslemont’s Novels of the Malazan Empire are set in the same world as Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen.Other Tor books by Ian C. EsslemontPath to Ascendancy Dancer’s Lament Deadhouse Landing
Other books in the world of Malaz by Steven Erikson
Malazan Book of the Fallen
Gardens of the Moon
Deadhouse Gates
Memories of Ice
House of Chains
Midnight Tides
The Bonehunters
Reaper’s Gale
Toll the Hounds
Dust of Dreams
The Crippled God
The Kharkanas Trilogy
Forge of Darkness
Fall of Light
Walk in Shadow*
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.