An inspiring portrait of the extraordinary high-school football team whose quest for perfection sustains its hometown in the heartland The football team in Smith Center, Kansas, has won sixty-seven games in a row, the nation's longest high-school winning streak. They have done so by embracing a philosophy of life taught by their legendary coach, Roger Barta: "Respect each other, then learn to love each other and together we are champions." But as they embarked on a quest for a fifth consecutive title in the fall of 2008, they faced a potentially destabilizing transition: the greatest senior class in school history had graduated, and Barta was contemplating retirement after three decades on the sidelines. In Smith Center--population: 1,931--this changing of the guard was seismic. Hours removed from the nearest city, the town revolves around "our boys" in a way that goes to the heart of what America's heartland is today. Joe Drape, a Kansas City native and an award-winning sportswriter for The New York Times, moved his family to Smith Center to discover what makes the team and the town an inspiration even to those who live hundreds of miles away. His stories of the coaches, players, and parents reveal a community fighting to hold on to a way of life that is rich in value, even as its economic fortunes decline. Drape's moving portrait of Coach Barta and the impressive young men of Smith Center is sure to take its place among the more memorable American sports stories of recent years.

Do you want to read a "feel good" story? Are you ready to be inspired? Last of the Redmen is a coming of age story about an underdog named Billy Mitaritonna from Rosedale, Queens in New York. This memoir chronicles the supportive relationship between Billy and his father Angelo, who used sports to teach life lessons. Billy went through personal setbacks as a teenager that he needed to overcome. He loved the game of basketball but was cut from the Archbishop Molloy basketball team all 4 years in high school. With the guidance of his father Angelo, he did not quit despite the odds, and played Division 3 basketball for Jim Graffam at Westbrook College in Portland, Maine. After 2 years, he moved back to Queens to take care of his family and continued his education at St. John's University. *How did Billy become a walk-on for the St. John's basketball team after never playing a minute of high school basketball? *How did he get there? *Who got him to believe in himself?*What lessons did he learn? *How did this change his life?Read Last of the Redmen to learn how Billy Mitaritonna overcame adversity to become a college basketball player and successful high school teacher and coach. Sometimes you only need one person to believe you can succeed. Billy was lucky to have several people in his life to guide him in the right direction. Last of the Redmen is a feel good story that will motivate you never to quit on your dream no matter what people say or do.

52 fictionalized episodes with men. “Simple and ingenious . . . gets at the truth of how we experience, perceive, and remember romantic encounters.” —Los Angeles Review of Books From a writer who master poet Seamus Heaney described as one “who risks much both stylistically and emotionally” comes 52 Men. Taut, spare and highly compressed autobiographical fiction for the mobile age, it is immensely funny and sexually charged. In contemporary literary miniatures from a few lines to a few pages, Manhattan-raised Elise McKnight describes the men in her life who gradually reveal her: high-profile cultural leaders, writers and celebrities, as well as the down-to-earth waiter, student and police officer. Fifty-two strange, romantic and sexual interludes and relationships spark to life and disappear in the wind, leaving the reader always asking: What is Elise’s power? What does she want and will she ever get it? Does she have a secret and if so, what is it? With surprising, sometimes shocking and moving cameos by figures from tabloids and the news: Jay Carney, Jonathan Franzen, Lou Reed, Michael Stipe; and encounters with artists, financiers, and a boxer who reads Neruda at the Turkish baths. “I’m not sure I’ve ever read a story of a life that’s both so moving and told with such breathtaking economy and precision. 52 Men gave me goose bumps again and again.” —Kurt Andersen, New York Times–bestselling author of Evil Geniuses “A haunting and haunted book . . . harsh and sweet and very funny, in spots as hard to read as it is hard to put down.” —Will Eno, playwright and author of Thom Pain (based on nothing)

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The boundaries between the real and the virtual break down in this literary SF thriller from the author of If Then and The Destructives Once, Nelson was a radical journalist, but now he works for Monad, the corporation that makes the Dr Easys, the androids which police London’s streets. They also make the Red Men, versions of real people imagined by a shadowy artificial intelligence… and they’re looking to expand the program. Nelson creates Redtown, a digital version of a suburb, where the deepest secrets and desires of its citizens can be catalogued and studied. But the project’s goals are increasingly authoritarian and potentially catastrophic. As the boundaries between Redtown and the real world break down and revolution against the Red Men is imminent, Nelson is forced to choose between the corporation and his family. File Under: Science Fiction [ Welcome to Redtown | Singularity Satire | You Are Data | Dr Easy ]

The characters in these stories "are always on the verge of disasters that emanate from the hard living they endure in the city they call 'Red Stick, '" i.e., Baton Rouge, Louisiana.--Jacket

The sleepy town of Mt. Holly, New Jersey, was more than it seemed. In the unsettled years following the Great Depression, it hosted the Secret Casino at Red Mens Hall, an underground playground that attracted Mafia bosses and players alike. Under the watchful and protective eye of author Samuel Valenza Jr.s father, the casino was a thriving den for craps, roulette, poker, and slots players. The continuing cooperation of local law enforcement was assured each Saturday morning, when Officer Bucky Squires made his pickup of payoff money held for him in Moms icebox. Growing up in this environment, the authors young life was scarred with violence, fear, hunger, betrayal, and homelessness, while his father enjoyed the high life with his powerful gangster associates. The author was just six years old when Frank Paulie Carbo, a prolific Murder, Inc. assassin, raided the casino and slaughtered his uncle, the casino handyman and goferas a warning. The murder was the beginning of the end at Red Mens Hall, which fell under intense scrutiny from the authorities. Using the narrative style of a crime novel, Valenza recalls the intimate and often dangerous days of a life lived in the shadow of the Mafia.