Though Charles Portis is best known for his fiction writing, he is also a prolific essayist, travel writer, and newspaper reporter. Collected here in "Escape Velocity," edited by Jay Jennings, is his "miscellany" -- journalism, short fiction, memoir, and even the play "Delray's New Moon," published for the first time in this volume. Portis covers topics as varied as the civil rights movement, road tripping in Baja, and Elvis' s visits to his aging mother for publications such as the "New York Herald Tribune" and "Saturday Evening Post." Fans of Portis's droll Southern humor and quirky characters will be thrilled at this new addition to his library, and those not yet familiar with his work will find a great introduction to him here. Also included are tributes by accomplished authors including Donna Tartt and Ron Rosenbaum.

In 2007, as the fiftieth anniversary of the fight to integrate Little Rock Central High School approached, veteran sportswriter and native son of Little Rock Jay Jennings returned to his hometown to take the pulse of the city and the school. He found a compelling story in Central High's football team, where Black and white students toiled under longtime coach Bernie Cox, whose philosophy of discipline and responsibility and punishing brand of physical football had led the team to win seven state championships. Carry the Rock tells the story of the dramatic ups and downs of a high school football season and reveals a city struggling with its legacy of racial discrimination and the complex issues of contemporary segregation. In the season Jennings masterfully chronicles, Cox finds his ideas sorely tested in his attempts to unify the team, and the result is an account brimming with humor, compassion, frustration, and honesty. What Friday Night Lights did for small-town Texas, Carry the Rock does for the urban South and for any place like Little Rock where sports, race, and community intersect.

The only book of its kind, Tennis and the Meaning of Life is a resplendent collection of the best fiction (and poetry!) written about this extraordinary sport/obsession. The stories are hilarious and sad, whimsical and philosophical, lyrical and profane - and thoroughly saturated with the art of the game. Fathers play against sons. Business partners attempt mutual destruction by tennis. An amateur challenges the local pro. Humbert Humbert rhapsodizes about Lolita's heartbreakingly beautiful game. Tennis is played by telegraph. Tennis saves a life or two. The metaphysics of tennis balls is debated. Lovers cavort in a commingling of tennis and desire.