"Bringing to bear a background in sociology and a firsthand understanding of being married to the NFL, O'Toole is uniquely qualified to report from behind pro football's doors. Part insider tell-all, part sociological study, her book is packed with candid, on-the-spot accounts of NFL life, providing a rare glimpse into the often hidden world behind the game."--BOOK JACKET.
Dave Meggyesy had been an outside linebacker with the St. Louis Cardinals for seven years when he quit at the height of his career to tell about the dehumanizing side of the game?about the fraud and the payoffs, the racism, drug abuse, and incredible violence. The original publication of Out of Their League shocked readers and provoked the outraged response that rocked the sports world in the 1970s. But his memoir is also a moving description of a man who struggled for social justice and personal liberation. Meggyesy has continued this journey and remains an active champion for players? rights through his work with the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA). He provides a preface for this Bison Books edition.
Essential reading for soccer fans as the 2022 World Cup approaches, this lively and lyrical book is "an ideal guide to the world's most popular sport" (Simon Kuper, coauthor of Soccernomics). Soccer is not only the world's most popular game; it's also one of the most widely shared forms of global culture. The Language of the Game is a passionate and engaging introduction to soccer's history, tactics, and human drama. Profiling soccer's full cast of characters—goalies and position players, referees and managers, commentators and fans—historian and soccer scholar Laurent Dubois describes how the game's low scores, relentless motion, and spectacular individual performances combine to turn each match into a unique and unpredictable story. He also shows how soccer's global reach makes it an unparalleled theater for nationalism, international conflict, and human interconnectedness, with close attention to both men's and women's soccer. Filled with perceptive insights and stories both legendary and little known, The Language of the Game is a rewarding read for anyone seeking to understand soccer better—newcomers and passionate followers alike.
Ancient Greece: A place where the gods hold mortal life cheap, mere playthings to amuse, delight, and abuse at their will. But those puny mortals are not wholly devoid of power and at the core of their fabulous city-states lies the Labyrinth, where they can shape the powers of the heavens to their own design. When Theseus entered the Labyrinth and came away with the prize of freedom and his beloved Adrianne, Mistress of the Labyrinth, his future seemed assured... Until he abandoned her for the unforgivable sin of bearing him only a daughter, and the world seemed to change. From that day forward, all the Labyrinths in the ancient world started to decay. It slowly became clear that power was fading from the city-states. Was it the natural decline that comes to all cultures or was it because the power of the Labyrinth had been corrupted by a woman spurned? A hundred years pass--Troy has fallen and the Trojans are a scattered and humbled people. The warrior Brutus is of the line of kings and gods. He wears the golden kingship bands of Troy proudly--but they are his only mementos of a former glory, for he is a man without a country and is left little else but pride and a memory of the latent power that he could wield if but given a chance. When he receives a god-sent vision of a distant shore where he can rebuild the ancient kingdom, he will move heaven and earth to reach his destiny. Ever eastward he is drawn, to a lovely and mystical green land that offers him a haven--and a dream of power and conquest. Nothing will deter him... not even the entreaties of the young princess whom he took as his wife and bedded against her will. First her hatred--and now her love--torment and bind him. She is the only one who realizes the danger he is stepping into, and she will do anything to save him... and his son, whom she carries in her womb. For in the mists of Albion there lies a woman of power--a woman who has used her siren call to cloud Brutus's mind and has her own reasons for luring the warrior to these lush shores.... She is the long-descended granddaughter of Adrianne, and she has in her heart a hatred that has been passed down for generations. Her plans for Brutus will enact a revenge that could destroy the gods themselves. s20If Brutus makes the journey successfully, it will be the next step in the Game of the Labyrinth and might start a complicated contest of wills that could span centuries.... At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
The Blizzard is a quarterly football publication, put together by a cooperative of journalists and authors, its main aim to provide a platform for top-class writers from across the globe to enjoy the space and the freedom to write what they like about the football stories that matter to them. Contents of Issue Fifteen ----------------------- The North-East ----------------------- * Jonathan Wilson, A Sentimental Journey - In a world of superclubs, what’s the point of the ordinary teams? * George Caulkin, The Great Betrayal - Mike Ashley and the cheapening of the Newcastle dream * Harry Pearson, The Van Basten of Hartlepool - Adam Boyd and the glory of a flickering talent * Michael Walker, Bob Paisley and the Red Kennedys - The north-eastern influence that underlay Liverpool’s period of domination ------------------ Strikers ------------------ * Dominic Bliss, A Season in Turin - Denis Law remembers his year playing in Serie A * Jim Davies and Juan Felipe Rubio, The Lost Weekend - Spending two days on Faustino Asprilla’s Colombian ranch * Thierry Marchand and Philippe Auclair, A Game for Individuals - Thierry Henry reflects on how football has changed in his 20 years at the top ------------------------------- Davids and Goliaths ------------------------------- * Luke Alfred, The Boys who never Grew Up - South Africa are African football’s greatest underachievers. What’s gone wrong? * Robin Bairner, When FFP Goes Wrong - Luzenac’s promotion to the French second flight should have been a joyous fair-story but it killed the club * Will Unwin, Defying the Odds - How tiny Eibar have taken their place in the Spanish top flight * Paul Watson, Fifa’s Exiles - For Pacific islands, football development can be a haphazard and fragile process ------------- Theory ------------- * Nicholas Blincoe, The Roundhead’s Paradox - Tony Pulis and the conflicted character of British Puritanism * Amy Lawrence, Wengerball - Arsène Wenger, the Invincibles and the transformation of Arsenal’s philosophy * Jonny Singer, The Archduke and the Offside Law - Did the First World War lead to the most significant ever change to the Laws of the Game? * Marti Pararnu, Pep Talk - How Guardiola inspired Bayern Munich before the Super Cup shoot-out against Chelsea ----------------------------------- The Sense of an Ending ----------------------------------- * Ewan MacKenna, Fallen Eagle - The death of the former Nigeria striker Rashidi Yekini remains shrouded in mystery. * Alessandro Mastrolucca, Bergamini - 25 years ago the Cosenza midfielder Denis Bergamini was run over by a truck. Was it murder? --------------- Fiction --------------- * Iain Macintosh, Quantum of Bobby - Spinning through time and space, Bobby Manager finds himself at Roy Keane’s Sunderland ------------------------ Greatest Games ------------------------ * Scott Murray, Liverpool 3 Newcastle United 0 - FA Cup final, Wembley Stadium, London, 4 May 1974 ------------------ Eight Bells ------------------ * Rob Smyth, Dethronings - A selection of champions who surrendered their titles in decisive fashion
Chicken Soup for the Soul: Married Life! will inspire and delight readers with its entertaining and heartwarming stories about fun, family, and wedded bliss. Marriage is a wonderful institution, and in this fresh collection of stories, husbands and wives share their personal, funny, and quirky stories from the trenches. Whether newly married or married for years and years, readers will find laughter and inspiration in these 101 stories of love, romance, fun, and making it work.
Detective Lilly Bruce has to work hard to prove herself in the good old boy's club known as Brook Ridge Homicide. But when a handsome football player ends up smack dab in the middle of a high-profile case, will Lilly follow the evidence, or trust her heart... A full-length romance story with HEA ending.
Virgin Island is a romantic fiction, which represents a book within a book. Two passengers a male and a female meet on board a plane flying from the Lungi International Airport in Freetown, Sierra Leone to London and then from London to China. The female passenger is eager to share the romantic novel Virgin Island with someone. Luckily, she succeeds in luring the male passenger into listening to her read the whole book throughout their flight until they reach their destination. Virgin Island revolves around two main characters. They are a handsome and generous British Colonial District Commissioner of Virgin Island, named Teddy Bear and a young indigenous diva, Lucy, affectionately known as the Queen of Virgin Island. After years of rollercoaster life, the DC finally finds the love of his life in Lucy on this most beautiful and popular island in the Southern region of Sierra Leone. In less than a year, unbelievably, the couple marry marked by a display of wealth, pomp and pageant but their relationship suffers frustration due to anxieties and worries over childbearing setbacks. Amidst all the drama, independence comes to Sierra Leone; DC Teddy Bears period of engagement on Virgin Island is over. The anxiety and drama escalates. Will the DC take Lucy with him to England or not? The story ends happily when the couple eventually leave for England. Naturally as the two passengers enjoy the book throughout their flight, they too, like the two main characters in the book are fated. Will they too fall in love on their journey or when they get to their destination in China? If it happens, is it by chance, did fate intervene? This is the climax of Virgin Island.
Zhenhui Liang, Weiguo Chen and Xu Zhang have done a great service to the study of oral epic poetry by translating Adil Jumaturdu’s and Tokon Isak’s detailed and comprehensive biography of Jusup Mamay (1918-2014), the great Kirghiz epic singer from Xinjiang. In this book, the reader learns how this “singer of tales” acquired his impressively large epic repertoire and becomes acquainted with the Kirghiz tradition of the Manas epic and epic cycle, in particular Jusup Mamay’s version, which comprises eight generations. The authors, native Kirghiz from Xinjiang, have had close contact with the singer over many years and offer unique insights into the mind and art of an exceptional epic singer-narrator. ---- Professor Karl Reichl (studying oral epic poetry at Bonn University) The Kirghiz heroic epic Manas boasts a history of around one thousand years. In the process of its development, generation after generation of singers have passed it down today by oral tradition. Jusup Mamay, one of the epic’s master singers, or manaschi, is renowned as the only performer in the world who was able to narrate eight generations of heroes from a single Kirghiz family, the epic’s namesake Manas chief among them. After years of surveys and interviews, the authors have assembled first-hand materials about Jusup Mamay to write a critical biography detailing the singer’s monumental talents and his great efforts in learning Manas. The biography elaborates on Jusup Mamay’s geographical and cultural environment, his apprenticeships under master manaschi, his passion for learning around 230,000-line epic by heart, his two marriages, his family, the features of his unique version of Manas, his many contributions to the inheritance of Kirghiz folk culture, and his influence both within his native China and across the globe. This book is a valuable contribution to the academic literature about the Manas epic and Kirghiz culture as well.
