The curious story of the unlikely relationship between a champion boxer and a celebrated man of letters. Gene Tunney, the world heavyweight-boxing champion from 1926 to 1928, seemed an unusual companion for George Bernard Shaw, but Shaw, a world-famous playwright, found the Irish-American athlete to be "among the very few for whom I have established a warm affection." The Prizefighter and the Playwright chronicles the legendary -- but rarely documented -- relationship that formed between this celebrated odd couple. From the beginning, it seemed a strange relationship, as Tunney was 40 years younger and the men could not have occupied more different worlds. Yet it is clear that these two famous men, comfortable on the world stage, longed for friendship when they were out of the celebrity spotlight. Full of surprises and revelations about Shaw and Tunney, this handsome book is also a fascinating look at their times. Author Jay R. Tunney is the son of the famous fighter, and his book is a beautifully woven and often surprising biography of the two men. The book evolved from the acclaimed BBC radio program The Master and the Boy. Fans of George Bernard Shaw will enjoy the little-known stories in this intensely personal account that includes never-before-published images from Tunney's own family collection.

Isa Alaki is not from here. At ten years old, Isa's life in the Congolese city of Bukavu changed forever. The streets were burning. The town was mostly silent, like a ghost town, until the yelling started. At school, Isa knows he has to get home. The soldiers would be looking for his father. The sound of gunfire, the sharp smell of blood and the screams of his sister still echo in his head. Back then, he had a choice to make. Death or a gun. He picked up the gun and became a child soldier, forced to fight for the same forces that massacred his family. After years of horror, Isa escaped, and he is given a chance of freedom when he travels to Australia. He brings with him papers that grant him refugee status, the hope that he can find his brother, Moïse, and the scars of a brutal war. Here, the fighting skills Moïse taught him when he was a boy see Isa become a talented young boxer. He spends his days punching away the past, punching away the demons in his mind, literally trying to punch his way to a better life. His powerful left hook promises much, but the demons he is wrestling with have a power all their own. The question for Isa is ... will the past ever let him free? A moving debut novel that packs an emotional punch based on the critically acclaimed play by Future D. Fidel. 'Prize Fighter is a gripping read, as compelling as it is confronting. It is a testament to Fidel's craft and to the power of the human spirit.' - Books+Publishing 'Prize Fighter is a powerful and compellingly written story that operates with little adornment. It doesn't need it. More than once I felt like I had been punched in the guts - and it's been a while since a book made me sob.' Weekend Australian

Among the legendary athletes of the 1920s, the unquestioned halcyon days of sports, stands Gene Tunney, the boxer who upset Jack Dempsey in spectacular fashion, notched a 77—1 record as a prizefighter, and later avenged his sole setback (to a fearless and highly unorthodox fighter named Harry Greb). Yet within a few years of retiring from the ring, Tunney willingly receded into the background, renouncing the image of jock celebrity that became the stock in trade of so many of his contemporaries. To this day, Gene Tunney’s name is most often recognized only in conjunction with his epic “long count” second bout with Dempsey. In Tunney, the veteran journalist and author Jack Cavanaugh gives an account of the incomparable sporting milieu of the Roaring Twenties, centered around Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey, the gladiators whose two titanic clashes transfixed a nation. Cavanaugh traces Tunney’s life and career, taking us from the mean streets of Tunney’s native Greenwich Village to the Greenwich, Connecticut, home of his only love, the heiress Polly Lauder; from Parris Island to Yale University; from Tunney learning fisticuffs as a skinny kid at the knee of his longshoreman father to his reign atop boxing’s glamorous heavyweight division. Gene Tunney defied easy categorization, as a fighter and as a person. He was a sex symbol, a master of defensive boxing strategy, and the possessor of a powerful, and occasionally showy, intellect–qualities that prompted the great sportswriters of the golden age of sports to portray Tunney as “aloof.” This intelligence would later serve him well in the corporate world, as CEO of several major companies and as a patron of the arts. And while the public craved reports of bad blood between Tunney and Dempsey, the pair were, in reality, respectful ring adversaries who in retirement grew to share a sincere lifelong friendship–with Dempsey even stumping for Tunney’s son, John, during the younger Tunney’s successful run for Congress. Tunney offers a unique perspective on sports, celebrity, and popular culture in the 1920s. But more than an exciting and insightful real-life tale, replete with heads of state, irrepressible showmen, mobsters, Hollywood luminaries, and the cream of New York society, Tunney is an irresistible story of an American underdog who forever changed the way fans look at their heroes.

In 1974 in Kinshasa, Zaïre, two African American boxers were paid five million dollars apiece to fight each other. One was Muhammad Ali, the aging but irrepressible “professor of boxing.” The other was George Foreman, who was as taciturn as Ali was voluble. Observing them was Norman Mailer, a commentator of unparalleled energy, acumen, and audacity. Whether he is analyzing the fighters’ moves, interpreting their characters, or weighing their competing claims on the African and American souls, Mailer’s grasp of the titanic battle’s feints and stratagems—and his sensitivity to their deeper symbolism—makes this book a masterpiece of the literature of sport. Praise for The Fight “Exquisitely refined and attenuated . . . [a] sensitive portrait of an extraordinary athlete and man, and a pugilistic drama fully as exciting as the reality on which it is based.”—The New York Times “One of the defining texts of sports journalism. Not only does Mailer recall the violent combat with a scholar’s eye . . . he also makes the whole act of reporting seem as exciting as what’s occurring in the ring.”—GQ “Stylistically, Mailer was the greatest boxing writer of all time.”—Chuck Klosterman, Esquire “One of Mailer’s finest books.”—Louis Menand, The New Yorker Praise for Norman Mailer “[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation.”—The New York Times “A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent.”—The New Yorker “Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure.”—The Washington Post “A devastatingly alive and original creative mind.”—Life “Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance.”—The New York Review of Books “The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature . . . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James, Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each new book.”—Chicago Tribune “Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through the story like a leaf on a stream.”—The Cincinnati Post

Originally written in 1959, this is the hilariously explosive account of Youngdahl, a novelist, playwright, ex-Mormon, and father of seven. He is a frenzied man who is beginning a letter-writing campaign to escape his curiously ironic situation, and, of course, his profession. Along with Abner Klang, his not-so-literary agent who seems to have misplaced the F key on his typewriter, Youngdahl joins forces with a Mormon bishop, a TV adapter, and a prizefighter, among others, to spearhead a comic revolution.

Originally published: New York: Collier Books, 1972.

Library Journal Best Books 2011: Historical Fiction selection Finalist for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Finalist for the Canadian Authors Association Fiction Award Finalist for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award Finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize 1851. London, England. Once a well-known prize-fighter with a terrifying right fist (known as “The Hammer of Heaven”), Daniel O’Thunder has seen the light, and now the protection of the poor and the weak is his life’s work. He runs an establishment for those in need of food, shelter and counsel—a place where virtue and vice rub shoulders uneasily. But an ancient evil is stalking the streets, preying on the vulnerable souls it finds there. It is an evil that takes different forms and hides behind many faces, threatening everything Daniel loves most. Driven to desperation, Daniel responds by issuing a breathtaking challenge…to the Devil himself. Rich in humor and memorable characters, Daniel O’Thunder is a rollicking literary thriller set in the teeming slums of Dickensian London. Fast-paced and gripping, comic and tragic by turns, it is a spectacular fiction debut.

"Thornton Wilder: A Life brings readers face to face with the extraordinary man who made words come alive around the world, on the stage and on the page." —James Earl Jones, actor "Comprehensive and wisely fashioned….A splendid and long needed work." —Edward Albee, playwright Thornton Wilder—three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, creator of such enduring stage works as Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and beloved novels like Bridge of San Luis Ray and Theophilus North—was much more than a pivotal figure in twentieth century American theater and literature. He was a world-traveler, a student, a teacher, a soldier, an actor, a son, a brother, and a complex, intensely private man who kept his personal life a secret. In Thornton Wilder: A Life, author Penelope Niven pulls back the curtain to present a fascinating, three-dimensional portrait one of America's greatest playwrights, novelists, and literary icons.

I Am My Own Wife is the winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. From the Obie Award-winning author of Quills comes this acclaimed one-man show, which explores the astonishing true story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. A transvestite and celebrated antiques dealer who successfully navigated the two most oppressive regimes of the past century-the Nazis and the Communists--while openly gay and defiantly in drag, von Mahlsdorf was both hailed as a cultural hero and accused of colluding with the Stasi. In an attempt to discern the truth about Charlotte, Doug Wright has written "at once a vivid portrait of Germany in the second half of the twentieth century, a morally complex tale about what it can take to be a survivor, and an intriguing meditation on everything from the obsession with collecting to the passage of time" (Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times).

THE STORY: This intense work was commissioned by the Edinburgh International Festival, where it received its world premiere. Two people who once had a passionate affair meet again fifteen years later. Ray is confronted with his past when Una arrive