NBA Blues is a cautionary tale that can serve as a handbook for any young athlete and their families facing the bittersweet taste of success in professional sports. Along with entertaining the reader, this book acts as a guide to help understand the pitfalls that come with financial success in professional sports. Most have a greater chance of becoming a business professional before he or she becomes a professional athlete, however, whether a young person has the talent and opportunity to become a professional athlete or a productive citizen in society, the proper guidance is necessary to maintain their success. Told in a compelling and engaging voice, this urban contemporary is creatively written with authentic characters. Although based on actual events, names and scenarios have been changed slightly to protect the innocent, and not so innocent. The message of the book is being presented in an educational and entertaining platform as author, Gerry Lancaster, renamed Gary Allen, shares his experiences while working as a personal assistant to a childhood friend who became a professional athlete. The real baller, renamed Vaughn Fisher (an Olympic Gold Medal Winner and four -time NBA All-star Player with earnings of over 100 million dollars) is the subject of the book. Vaughn was a talented athlete who attained his dream of playing professional basketball in the NBA, but the fame and fortune disappeared quickly as the thrill of making a basket was replaced by the thrill of getting a high from prescription drugs and alcohol. His story is told through the words of a friend who knew him from his humble beginnings, to the great heights of fame and back down the slippery slope of drugs, promiscuity and financial ruin. No one could tell the complete story unless they were actually there, and Gerry was.

The Red Lobster chain restaurant perched in the far corner of a run-down American mall hasn't been making its numbers and headquarters has pulled the plug. But manager Manny DeLeon still needs to navigate a tricky last shift with a near-mutinous staff and the final onslaught of hungry retirees, lunatics and office parties. All the while, he's wondering how to handle the waitress he's still in love with, what to do about his pregnant girlfriend and where to find the Christmas present that will make everything better. Stewart O'Nan has been called 'the bard of the working class', and Last Night at the Lobster is a masterclass of precision and empathy.

A biography of the British mountaineer George Mallory whose death near the summit of Everest in 1924 has become legendary.

The death of high school basketball star Rob Washington in an automobile accident affects the lives of his close friend Andy, who was driving the car, and many others in the school.

The inspiration for the Netflix film Rez Ball—produced by Lebron James The moving story of a Navajo high school basketball team, its members struggling with the everyday challenges of high school, adolescence, and family, and the great and unique obstacles facing Native Americans living on reservations. Deep in the heart of northern Arizona, in a small and isolated patch of the vast 17.5-million-acre Navajo reservation, sits Chinle High School. Here, basketball is passion, passed from grandparent to parent to child. Rez Ball is a sport for winters where dark and cold descend fast and there is little else to do but roam mesa tops, work, and wonder what the future holds. The town has 4,500 residents and the high school arena seats 7,000. Fans drive thirty, fifty, even eighty miles to see the fast-paced and highly competitive matchups that are more than just games to players and fans. Celebrated Times journalist Michael Powell brings us a narrative of triumph and hardship, a moving story about a basketball team on a Navajo reservation that shows how important sports can be to youths in struggling communities, and the transcendent magic and painful realities that confront Native Americans living on reservations. This book details his season-long immersion in the team, town, and culture, in which there were exhilarating wins, crushing losses, and conversations on long bus rides across the desert about dreams of leaving home and the fear of the same.

New York magazine was born in 1968 after a run as an insert of the New York Herald Tribune and quickly made a place for itself as the trusted resource for readers across the country. With award-winning writing and photography covering everything from politics and food to theater and fashion, the magazine's consistent mission has been to reflect back to its audience the energy and excitement of the city itself, while celebrating New York as both a place and an idea.

This fascinating book is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time. In this sense, nearly all Americans are "Albion's Seed," no matter what their ethnicity may be. The concluding section of this remarkable book explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still help to shape attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.

A classic he-said-she-said romantic comedy! This updated anniversary edition offers story-behind-the-story revelations from author Wendelin Van Draanen. The first time she saw him, she flipped. The first time he saw her, he ran. That was the second grade, but not much has changed by the seventh. Juli says: “My Bryce. Still walking around with my first kiss.” He says: “It’s been six years of strategic avoidance and social discomfort.” But in the eighth grade everything gets turned upside down: just as Bryce is thinking that there’s maybe more to Juli than meets the eye, she’s thinking that he’s not quite all he seemed. This is a classic romantic comedy of errors told in alternating chapters by two fresh, funny voices. The updated anniversary edition contains 32 pages of extra backmatter: essays from Wendelin Van Draanen on her sources of inspiration, on the making of the movie of Flipped, on why she’ll never write a sequel, and a selection of the amazing fan mail she’s received. Awards and accolades for Flipped: SLJ Top 100 Children’s Novels of all time IRA-CBC Children’s Choice IRA Teacher’s Choice Honor winner, Judy Lopez Memorial Award/WNBA Winner of the California Young Reader Medal “We flipped over this fantastic book, its gutsy girl Juli and its wise, wonderful ending.” — The Chicago Tribune “Van Draanen has another winner in this eighth-grade ‘he-said, she-said’ romance. A fast, funny, egg-cellent winner.” — SLJ, Starred review “With a charismatic leading lady kids will flip over, a compelling dynamic between the two narrators and a resonant ending, this novel is a great deal larger than the sum of its parts.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred review

A spirit-stirring debut about basketball, family, and an unlikely underdog who overcomes adversity to become a legend Basketball prodigy Jimmy “Kamikaze” Kirkus is destined for the NBA. But before he can sail off into a golden future, Jimmy must reckon with a tragic past and with a curse that has haunted his family for generations. His father had been a basketball great himself, but his dreams of stardom were traded in for a hasty marriage and parenthood. Born into a house haunted by wasted talent, alcoholism, and death, will Jimmy fall victim to the Kirkus Curse or break it once and for all? In the same vein as the wildly popular Friday Night Lights, Rules for Becoming a Legend uses sports as a lens through which to understand family, community, catastrophe, and hope. This spirit-igniting debut announces Lane as an extraordinary young writer to watch.