The Coach Fellas are known to almost all tourists who traverse the Irish countryside. Ostensibly bus drivers, they are also the tour guides who provide the crucial component in the branding of “people, place, and pace” upon which Irish heritage tourism depends. Kelli Costa’s ethnography of these highly trained and informed working class men highlights a previously ignored component of the tourism industry. She also demonstrates their importance in providing a visitor-specific vision of heritage that contrasts with the realities of contemporary economic development.

Handsome Simon is a star quarterback. Along with his best friend, Drew, he leads his team to win after win. Drew convinces Simon to find women and indulge in the life of sexual promiscuousness. However, Simon soon realizes that he would rather watch Drew perform than have a female partner. Simon tries various ways to squelch these feelings, brought upon him at an early age. He eventually decides that Drew is his soul mate and realizes there is no cure, so he sells drugs to save money for a sex change operation in order to capture his once best friend’s heart, without full disclosure of who he really is.

PIONEERS is a gymnastics fable about living each day like it's your last! Patrick Goodman is the captain of the Pioneer Gymnastics team and the best gymnast that Pioneer has ever produced; however, it will take much more from the Kennedy High senior if he is going to get his Pioneer team to Coach Jim Lowery's goal of becoming National Team Champions. Although his team has experience, it will require a leap of faith from Patrick and his teammates to raise their gymnastics to the next level in his final season as a Pioneer. Chris McClure doesn't quite fit the Pioneer mold. Since moving to Knoxville from California, he has found a difficult time fitting in with his new teammates. However, Chris has what every gymnast wants; talent, courage, and a knack for living on the edge. But, Chris also has a dark secret, one that could jeopardize the success of the Pioneers. Within the walls of Pioneer Gymnastics, seven young men shed blood, sweat, and tears, to follow their coach and their dreams as they risk their necks on a daily basis in an attempt to become the first gymnastics team from Tennessee to be crowned national champions. Although there are many roadblocks in their way, their greatest obstacles lie within themselves.

Having been on a national championship gymnastics team, Joey Johnson finds himself without a gym as his beloved Pioneers is closing, and he must move to Michigan to continue his career. But Joey finds that his level of gymnastics is a threat to those who are trying to make the Dagar’s Edge elite team. After being forced out, Joey finds himself the leader of a group of nongymnasts in his effort to get back at his former gym. Joey must not only up his own game but also push his new charges to meet the challenge.

The Federal Government-never good at long-term planning and recently coming up tragically short in near-term adaptive economic oversight-has also never been more gridlocked. Partisan politics, self interest, economic misinformation, and mindless slogans rule the day-at one of the most critical and transitional times in our history. On the other hand, advances in technology continue, the United States has an incredibly powerful industrial engine and amazing productive capacity in place, and the potential is clearly there to address all the issues listed above. The Novel 'Mandate: A Man for The Times' is an optimistic, research-intensive, character-driven, humorous, and insightful 'fantasy' of how the United States might reach its technology-fueled potential over the next twenty years. Growing up, future president Williams gets an intense, 'hands-on' education in business and economics working in his father's turbulent GM auto dealership. Williams earns a PhD in economics from Yale and works with a charismatic professor, Dr. Lester Walden, who is leading an eminent team making groundbreaking advancements in global economic modeling, simulation, and analysis. Williams also pitches for the Boston Red Sox, and becomes head of the Players Union. (MLBPA) Meanwhile, Internet marketing billionaire Don Reddy, who has earlier founded the 'Sanity Party, ' a progressive, bi-partisan, economically astute movement as an offset to the overly dogmatic and ideological 'Tea Party, ' is now making eye-opening progress in building a baseball fan's union. Williams will lead the MLBPA in complex and historic negotiations with the MLB Owner's Committee and new MLBFA, and eventually become a successful Congressman and Governor of Massachusetts. Governor Williams brings together Dr. Walden, Don Reddy, the 'Sanity Party, ' and a meticulously assembled team of the 'best and brightest' senior advisors to build a uniquely capable coalition that wins the presidency with gridlock-breaking mandate, and then brings superbly informed adaptive economic oversight to bear to finally make accelerating technological advance and globalization truly benefit the average hardworking American.

The story deals with a seven-year-old kid—Ice Cream—who has a marvelous talent. He fantasized about becoming a professional basketball free throw shooter when he becomes older in life. When young Ice Cream attended first grade elementary school, he could not stay focused on his schoolwork because his mind was always on shooting free throws all the time. While in class, he decided to use some of his clean notebook paper and ball it up to a paper ball, and he started shooting it into the trash can that was near his desk. While class was going on, three of his classmates (Fats, Range, and Deep) who were sitting near him saw Ice Cream shooting the paper balls, and they were very amazed how young Ice Cream was making those shots in the trash can. Fats, Range, and Deep decided to follow Ice Cream and did the same thing—shooting paper balls in the same trash can. They all were shooting together in class, trying not to let their teacher, Mrs. Hoops, catch them shooting the paper balls. At the same time, there were four girls in the class—Good Pass, Block, Dunk, and Set Shot—who saw Ice Cream, Fats, Range, and Deep, and the four girls loved the way the boys were shooting the paper balls, making shot after shot in the trash can. As the years went by, all eight of them became close friends, and the four girls followed Ice Cream, Fats, Range, and Deep all the time, through good times and bad times, going to practices, shooting at events, and going to local basketball courts. They all attended the same high school and college together. When Ice Cream, Fats, Range, and Deep became older adults, their dream of becoming the top four professional free throw shooters to represent the United States Olympic Free Throw Shooting tournament team came true, and they advanced to the national championship title free throw shooting game to represent their country.

Using the locale of the 9/11 tragedy, Joy Sather-Wagstaff explores the constructive role played by tourists in understanding social, political, and emotional impacts of violent events.

Comprehensive and accessible, this Companion offers a thorough investigation into both traditional and fresh topics in tourist behaviour and experience. Arranged chronologically, the chapters examine tourist experience from the very idea of a tourist visit to the aftermath of returning home.

Using the example of China’s Wutai Shan—recently designated both a UNESCO World Heritage site and a national park—Robert J. Shepherd analyzes Chinese applications of western notions of heritage management within a non-western framework. What does the concept of world heritage mean for a site practically unheard of outside of China, visited almost exclusively by Buddhist religious pilgrims? What does heritage preservation mean for a site whose intrinsic value isn’t in its historic buildings or cultural significance, but for its sacredness within the Buddhist faith? How does a society navigate these issues, particularly one where open religious expression has only recently become acceptable? These questions and more are explored in this book, perfect for students and practitioners of heritage management looking for a new perspective.

Cultural heritage is material – tangible and intangible – that signifies a culture’s history or legacy. It has become a venue for contestation, ranging in scale from protesting to violently claimed and destroyed. But who defines what is to be preserved and what is to be erased? As cultural heritage becomes increasingly significant across the world, the number of issues for critical analysis and, hopefully, mediation, arise. The issue stems from various groups: religious, ethnic, national, political, and others come together to claim, appropriate, use, exclude, or erase markers and manifestations of their own and others’ cultural heritage as a means for asserting, defending, or denying critical claims to power, land, and legitimacy. Can cultural heritage be well managed and promoted while at the same time kept within parameters so as to diminish contestation? The cases herein rage from Greece, Spain, Egypt, the UK, Syria, Zimbabwe, Italy, the Balkans, Bénin, and Central America.