Growing up, Robert Lipsyte was the smart-aleck fat kid, the bully magnet who went to the library instead of the ballpark. As the perpetual outsider, even into adulthood, his alienation from Jock Culture made him a rarity in the press box: the sportswriter who wasn't a sports fan. This feeling of otherness has colored Lipsyte's sports writing for fifty years, much of it spent as a columnist for the New York Times. He didn't follow particular athletes or teams; he wasn't awed by the access afforded by his press pass or his familiarity with the players in the locker room.

The experience and insight earned over a half-century infuse An Accidental Sportswriter. Going beyond the usual memoir, Lipsyte has written "a memory loop, a circular search for lost or forgotten pieces in the puzzle of a life." In telling his own story, Lipsyte grapples with American sports and society--from Mickey Mantle to Bill Simmons--arguing that Jock Culture has seeped into our business, politics, and family life, and its definitions have become the standard to measure value. Full of wisdom and an understanding of American sports that contextualizes rather than celebrates athletes, An Accidental Sportswriter is the crowning achievement of a rich career and a book that will speak to us for years to come.

A behind-the-scenes look at baseball history, as told through timeless interviews with major leaguers For fifty years, bestselling author Peter Golenbock has been interviewing some of the most fascinating figures in baseball. Their conversations are a journey back in time to the days of Ruth and Gehrig, Gehringer and Greenberg, Robinson and Reese, and Howard and Mantle, as they reflect on the sport’s greatest moments and biggest issues. In Baseball Heaven, Golenbock brings together for the first time the most historic and captivating of these conversations. The stories range from Elden Auker remembering the day Lou Gehrig told him he was sick to Albert Happy Chandler reflecting on his decision to allow Jackie Robinson into the big leagues, from Ralph Branca discussing the home run he gave up that cost the Dodgers the pennant to Del Webb talking about why he hired Casey Stengel and why he fired him. Baseball Heaven is baseball history at its very best. It pulls back the curtain on the major leagues to reveal inside stories, intimate reminiscences, and the friendships and rivalries that make baseball America’s Game.

Praise for "Along the Roaring River"

"I was so completely taken with Hao Jiang Tian's memoir that I carried it halfway around world to finish reading it. Tian let me into his world, one filled with astonishing events and candid details. He has a natural storytelling voice in finding the strange and humorous ironies that link past and present. "Along the Roaring River" is as riveting as a well-told novel."
--Amy Tan

"I have sung eight operas with Tian since his Met debut, and now I understand how the passion and strength in that beautiful voice were created in desperate and dangerous times. Tian has had a life worthy of an opera!"
--Placido Domingo

"I was deeply moved by Tian's story, how he struggled to survive in the maelstrom of Mao's China and then how he toiled to succeed as an artist in America. . . . It is no surprise that music--like it did for me--took him to a higher place, and it was thrilling to read how music fueled this young man's wild imagination and provided a passion for living."
--Quincy Jones

""Along the Roaring River" is a gripping and inspiring account of how an artist transcended the savagery of the Cultural Revolution to take his place on the world's greatest opera stages. This book reads like a suspense novel."
--Allan Miller, filmmaker, "From Mao to Mozart and Isaac Stern in China"

""Along the Roaring River" takes us through an extraordinary life filled with humor, suspense, and an operatic-sized heart. From the deprivations and chaos of China's Cultural Revolution to the excitement and glamour of opera's great stages, Tian's gripping and moving memoir spans many different worlds, discovering in each the common humanity whichbinds them together. This is a book which makes us want to sing!"
--David Henry Hwang, playwright, Tony Award winner, "M. Butterfly"

Alfred Brooks is scared. He's a highschool dropout and his grocery store job is leading nowhere. His best friend is sinking further and further into drug addiction. Some street kids are after him for something he didn't even do. So Alfred begins going to Donatelli's Gym, a boxing club in Harlem that has trained champions. There he learns it's the effort, not the win, that makes the man -- that last desperate struggle to get back on your feet when you thought you were down for the count.

What's it mean to think team? It means you don't talk team business with anybody who isn't on the team. It means whatever happens inside the team stays inside. It means you can only trust a brother Raider. Any questions?

At Nearmont High School, football stars are treated like royalty, and Matt Rydek has just ascended to the throne. He's got it all: hot girls, chill friends, plenty of juice to make him strong, and a winning team poised to go all the way. If he can keep his eye on the ball now, his future will be set. But when the team turns on one of its own, should Matt play by Raiders rules, or should he go long alone?

Tough and witty, SportsWorld is a well-known commentator's overview of the most significant form of mass culture in America-sports. It's a sweaty Oz that has grown in a century from a crucible for character to a complex of capitalism, a place where young people can find both self-fulfillment and cruel exploitation, where families can huddle in a sanctuary of entertainment and be force fed values and where cities and countries can be pillaged by greedy team owners and their paid-for politicians. But this book is not just a screed, it's a guided visit with such heroes of sports as Muhammad Ali, Billie Jean King, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Joe Namath, who the author knew well, and with some he met in passing, like Richard Nixon, who seemed never to have gotten over missing the cut in college varsity football, a major mark of manhood. We see how SportsWorld sensibilities help elect our politicians, judge our children, fight our wars, and oppress our minorities. And now featuring a new introduction by the author, SportsWorld is a book that will provide the foundation for understanding today's world of sports and the time of Trump. In the America of 2017-where the SuperBowl is worth billions, athletes are penalized or forced out of sports for political and anti-racist activism, and Title IX is constantly questioned and undermined-Robert Lipsyte's 1975 critique remains startlingly and intensely relevant.

Tough and witty, SportsWorld is a well-known commentator's overview of the most significant form of mass culture in America-sports. It's a sweaty Oz that has grown in a century from a crucible for character to a complex of capitalism, a place where young people can find both self-fulfillment and cruel exploitation, where families can huddle in a sanctuary of entertainment and be force fed values and where cities and countries can be pillaged by greedy team owners and their paid-for politicians. But this book is not just a screed, it's a guided visit with such heroes of sports as Muhammad Ali, Billie Jean King, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Joe Namath, who the author knew well, and with some he met in passing, like Richard Nixon, who seemed never to have gotten over missing the cut in college varsity football, a major mark of manhood. We see how SportsWorld sensibilities help elect our politicians, judge our children, fight our wars, and oppress our minorities. Newly introduced, SportsWorld is a book that will provide the foundation for understanding today's world of sports and the time of Trump. In the America of 2017-where the SuperBowl is worth billions, athletes are penalized or forced out of sports for political and anti-racist activism, and Title IX is constantly questioned and undermined-Robert Lipsyte's 1975 critique remains startlingly and intensely relevant.

No summer vacation could be less promising than Bobby Mark's.

Bobby Marks hates hot weather. It's the time when most people are happy to take off their heavy jackets and long pants. But for Bobby, who can't even button the waist of his jeans or reach over his belly to touch his toes, spending the summer at Rumson Lake is pure torture.

This particular summer promises to be worse than usual. His mom and dad can't stop fighting. His best friend, Joanie, goes home to New York City unexpectedly and won't tell him why. Dr. Kahn, the rich, stingy estate owner who hires him to manage the lawn, is trying to work Bobby to death before he can earn a single dime. And the local guy who worked for Dr. Kahn last summer is lurking around every corner, itching for a chance to catch Bobby alone, to pay him back for stealing the job.

But there's more to Bobby Marks than his two hundred pounds. He's about to find out just how terrifying and eshilarating, how dangerous and wonderful, one fat summer can be.

Tom is a smart, talented loner with a chip on his shoulder and a big secret: an imaginary twin on another planet. Eddie is Tom's opposite, a friendly, athletic kid who always looks on the good side. Tom worries sometimes: does confiding in Eddie mean he's nuts? The truth is even crazier than that. Eddie and his planet are just as real as Tom and his Earth, but fifty-some years in the past. And the twins are caught up in an alien master plan that might just mean Earth--both Earths--will be destroyed. Switching places and identities, "slipping" between planets and across decades, a desperate escape, and the unraveling of deeper secrets leave Tom and Eddie aware of the danger they're facing and the tools they can use to overcome it.

In "Body Politic," David Shields looks at contemporary America and its mythology through the lens of professional and college sports. The result is an unusually insightful and provocative book about an empire in denial. Shields relentlessly examines the way we tell our sports stories (both fictional and nonfictional), considers the kinds of athletes we choose as heroes, and delineates the lessons and values we glean from sports. He explores the intricate and telling relationships between players and coaches, black and white players, immigrant and native players, male and female players, players and broadcasters, players and fans, and players and advertisers. In the process, he shows us the stories we Americans tell ourselves about the kind of people we believe ourselves to be.

A fight for his people.

Sonny Bear, the Tomahawk Kid, has a championship left hook. But his boxing career's going nowhere, and he's ready to hang it up.

Then his manager, tough ex-cop Alfred Brooks, and his "writer," college boy Martin Malcolm Witherspoon, scheme Sonny into a glitzy Las Vegas match. Suddenly he's everybody's darling and headed for Hollywood stardom.

But fame isn't all it's cracked up to be, and Sonny needs to make the fight of his life to decide where he really belongs.

In any race, there are drivers. At the front of the pack, there are racers.

In the final laps, it's the racer who moves his car through the sweet spot, picks off the competition, and drives through a hole to win.

In Kyle's family, his older brother, Kris, has always been the racer, born and bred to it, like his father and grandfather and great-grandfather before him. And that's just fine with Kyle; he's got other things to do. Now Kris is out of commission, injured, and Kyle has no choice but to drive. Does he want to drive just long enough to keep Kris's seat warm, or does he want to race--and win?