A hardboiled novel about life in the American underground, from the pool halls of Portland to the cells of San Quentin. Simply one of the finest books ever written about being down on your luck. Don Carpenter’s Hard Rain Falling is a tough-as-nails account of being down and out, but never down for good—a Dostoyevskian tale of crime, punishment, and the pursuit of an ever-elusive redemption. The novel follows the adventures of Jack Levitt, an orphaned teenager living off his wits in the fleabag hotels and seedy pool halls of Portland, Oregon. Jack befriends Billy Lancing, a young black runaway and pool hustler extraordinaire. A heist gone wrong gets Jack sent to reform school, from which he emerges embittered by abuse and solitary confinement. In the meantime Billy has joined the middle class—married, fathered a son, acquired a business and a mistress. But neither Jack nor Billy can escape their troubled pasts, and they will meet again in San Quentin before their strange double drama comes to a violent and revelatory end.

A founding editor of The First Post recounts his impulsive decision to take up judo when he turned fifty, an activity he came to love and admire in spite of grueling training sessions, in an account that also describes his research into judo history and his attendance at matches between famous competitors. Original.

Annie struggles to fit in when she moves from London to the midwest. Will Roller Derby help?

Dr. Jordan Williams devotes her life to saving patients in the OR and pleasuring women in the bedroom. Jordan's new neighbor, single mom Emma, is the polar opposite. Family and fidelity mean everything to her. When Emma helps Jordan recover after a bad fall, they quickly grow closer. But neither counted on falling hard-for each other.

A collection of one hundred love poems written by teens.

365 days, 7 fights, 4 Kos, 3 decisions, 2 scandals, 1 missing ear, 1 wild yearChris Jones did not know what he was getting himself into. He looked for a sport to call his own when he was hired as a rookie reporter. He found boxing. Over the course of the year that followed, the dark trade would creep deeply inside him, set his heart pumping one minute and break it the next. Make him stare at violence and dare him not to flinch. In Falling Hard, Jones proves himself to the latest in a line of lyricists to be drawn into boxing's storied corruption plagued world. He gets dressed down by Don King, meets the troubled guy who found Evander Holyfield's ear, goes to Muhammed Ali's birthday party, and witnesses Naseem Hamed explode while Mike Tyson implodes. Falling Hard is in equal measure victory and defeat - an intoxicating mix that leaves Jones addicted to boxing's special brand of pain. Humorous, infuriating and suspenseful, this is boxing distilled to its essence by sports writing's brightest star.

"Former actress Emma Rothschild is partying in Vegas in disguise. But I'm not fooled. Five years ago, I knew that body better than my own, and I haven't forgotten a single detail--not the curve of her hip beneath my hand or the hitch in her breath when I kiss her neck. When Emma's unexpectedly left alone in Sin City, I agree to spend the weekend with her. As friends. Why not? If I can knock down the toughest guys in the NFL, I'm strong enough to keep my hands to myself, even if she is the sexiest woman I've ever met. Emma is part of my past--years so shrouded in secrets that not even my best friends know the truth about who I am. I'm a single dad now and not interested in revisiting my old ways or trying to win back the only woman I ever let close enough to break my heart. But this is Vegas, where all bets are off, and with Emma, nothing ever goes as planned ..."--Back cover.

Winner of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, this is one of the defining books of the 1970s, an experimental novel about a young journalist trying to navigate life in America. When Speedboat burst on the scene in the late ’70s it was like nothing readers had encountered before. It seemed to disregard the rules of the novel, but it wore its unconventionality with ease. Reading it was a pleasure of a new, unexpected kind. Above all, there was its voice, ambivalent, curious, wry, the voice of Jen Fain, a journalist negotiating the fraught landscape of contemporary urban America. Party guests, taxi drivers, brownstone dwellers, professors, journalists, presidents, and debutantes fill these dispatches from the world as Jen finds it. A touchstone over the years for writers as different as David Foster Wallace and Elizabeth Hardwick, Speedboat returns to enthrall a new generation of readers.

The tragic bombing of EuroTours Flight 1023 was big news. To FBI Agent Cam Daggett it was more than that. It was personal. His parents and son were on that plane. And for two years he's been after the killer who did it. All he has to go on is a name: Anthony Kort . . . and the knowledge that Kort is in the United States with a detonator no airport security can detect. HE MUST BE STOPPED. Daggett's colleagues at the Bureau and his girlfriend tell him his vendetta has become an obsession. They suggest he leave the investigation to other agents, in order to keep it objective. But having painstakingly constructed a portrait of the terrorist, Daggett believes he's now the only one with any chance of predicting Kort's next target. A novel of madness and revenge, Hard Fall begs readers to fasten their seatbelts.

After a grueling assignment with the black ops force known as the Alliance, Weston Brown is craving downtime. Instead, he's pulled into his deadliest operation, in the one place he never wanted to see again. No-nonsense and so damn hot, Lexi Turner lied to get him to her mountain clinic in Pakistan. But the threat is terrifyingly real. Lexi has been asking too many questions, drawing the wrong kind of attention. As soon as she lays eyes on West, she can tell he's quiet—yet tough—and has a rescue complex which will come in handy for going up against the world's most ruthless gunrunners. Cut off from the rest of the Alliance, Lexi and West navigate the brutal terrain and a primal sexual attraction. Sticking around has never been West's way, but now he'll use every resource to keep Lexi by his side, safe from a killer who leaves no loose ends behind.