Sports

Set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are.

After years of trying to get back home to be closer to my daughter, I finally secured a spot on the newly expanded San Francisco Shockwaves. Juggling being the newly appointed Captain of the team and taking on full-time fatherhood to a teenager sends my life into chaos. I quickly find myself needing someone who can pick up the pieces and keep my life in order as I certainly can't do it alone.

After spending the last twenty-five years in prison, former professional wrestler "Bad Guy" Brian Hearns is willing to do anything for a second chance. Then he learns the truth about the dark circumstances that landed him behind bars, and an old acquaintance gives him the means to go back in time and set things right.

Humor is the best part of baseball. To survive a long season, the everyday schedule, and the failure that is inherent in the game people have always needed a good laugh about a ballgame from time to time. The stories in Baseball Humor: A Collection of Stories by Master Storytellers poke good fun at the struggles, ambition, greed, romance, envy, wisdom, and quirks of the players, managers, wives, and fans. Included are “The Pitcher and the Plutocrat” by P G Wodehouse, “Horseshoes” and “Alibi Ike” by Ring Lardner, “The Red-Headed Outfield” and “The Rube” by Zane Gray, and many others.

Genevieve Michaels didn’t realize how much emotional preparation she needed to do for her brother’s wedding. But when Leo Bishop walks into the bar five days before the big day, she’s reminded of exactly why she can’t stand her brother’s best friend...and exactly why she plans to steer clear of him all week.

I never asked for the spotlight, but inheriting a pro hockey team pulls me into a world of chaos. All eyes are on me now. I’m no stranger to the world of hockey, but watching from the sidelines and calling the shots are two very different things. Especially when you’re not wanted.

There has been a long-standing belief that a woman slipped into the 1951 Boston Marathon undetected and ran the race. If that could be proven it would make her the first woman to have run a marathon on American soil. She wore “red,” as claimed by a group of Canadian runners who say they tried to bring the matter to the attention of race Director Jock Semple and other race officials. But to no avail, their story was never corroborated, and so today the “Runner in Red” remains a mystery and an urban legend.

Edna Coffman, School Board Chairperson and community icon, hires thirty-something coaches Luke Carter and Madison Danielsen with the specific directive of returning the town sports fortunes to its former championship status. The unique-to-small-town interactions are at the forefront in this tale, and clearly demonstrate the close interconnections between school, sport and community in rural small-town America.

Once in a great while a writer comes along who can truly capture the drama and passion of the life of a family. David James Duncan, author of the novel The River Why and the collection River Teeth, is just such a writer. And in The Brothers K he tells a story both striking and in its originality and poignant in its universality.

An unexpected tragedy at a community pool. A family’s unrelenting expectation of victory. The desire to gain or lose control; to make time speed up or stop; to be frighteningly, undeniably good at something. Each of the eight teenage girl boxers in this blistering debut novel has her own reasons for the sacrifices she has made to come to Reno, Nevada, to compete to be named the best in the country.

The bond that changed everything is put to its final test. It has been more than twenty years since the Kindred came to live in Rockwood. Most of the villagers have embraced the Kindred and all that they have to teach, but there are those who fear the Kindreds' influence, and so have drifted away to live as outcasts. The outcasts suffer, living as they do, but they refuse help, even from the Horse-Bonded.

When Rupert Kramer ousts him as coxswain of University’s Championship crew, Finn Sullivan’s dreams of athletic glory disappear into the murky Brisbane River. Picking himself up to pursue his passionate competitive ambitions, Finn commits to becoming a great rowing coach. But his growing achievements are upended when a tragic incident reignites his rivalry with Rupert and unearths the long-buried family secret behind his toxic relationship with his father.

A flunking Midwestern college student drops out and moves west to live the ski bum life. In the Colorado mountains he finds a group of like-minded, and sometimes degenerate, friends who show him that a ski town is the ideal place for young people to raise a middle finger to societal norms and do as they please.

In the twilight of the 19th century, as the Old West collides with the opulence of the Gilded Age, one man embarks on a journey that will redefine his life. The Gambler's Game is a captivating historical fiction saga that follows the extraordinary life of a mid-western baseball player turned high-stakes gambler. His audacious spirit leads him from the dust chocked plains to the refined ambiance of English garden parties and the allure of Belle Epoque Monte Carlo.

When I accepted my dream job across the country, my boyfriend went into planning mode, even arranging for us to live with his uncle until we could get our own place. So, imagine my surprise at the airport when he dumps me, leaving me to go to Florida alone. Armed with only an address and entry codes, I make the move without him, and am totally unprepared when I come face-to-face with my new roommate, Zayn North, professional football’s notorious, womanizing bad-boy. I do my best to keep my distance from the beastly man, but one kiss changes everything and I definitely want more.