The mountains, that is where the greatest battles of the Tour de France are fought, where champions are made and where some of the toughest are defeated. It's where men like Christophe, Coppi, Bahamontes, Merckx, and Armstrong have shown their mettle. And it was where British cyclist Tommy Simpson died. This beautifully illustrated book looks at the scenic beauty of the mountain stages and at the men who have competed on them throughout the 100-year history of the Tour. This book replaces in our list a previously announced title on the same subject by Peter Leissl, which was cancelled (1-892495-48-1).

Of all the great cycling champions, Jacques Anquetil - the first man to win the Tour de France five times - remains the most mysterious. A prodigy, he burst upon the racing scene at the age of 18, defeating the world's best in the Grand Prix des Nations. From that moment on, insists Pierre Chany, 'he no longer belonged to himself'. Yet, perhaps more than any of cycling's legends, he managed to protect his private life from public gaze. Outwardly confident, and yet profoundly shy; rational and calculating, and yet superstitious and haunted by fear of death, Anquetil was an enigma. He defied the conventional picture of a racing cyclist: elegant on or off the bicycle, winning seemed to come too effortlessly; and he was too fond of the good life that his successes enabled him to enjoy. The French public did not really know what to make of him. 'His courage defied imagination, but nobody noticed because his style was so perfect,' said his manager, Raphael Geminiani. His domination of the 1961 Tour de France, which he led from first day to last, earned him the title 'Master Jacques', but was greeted by boos and whistles. It was only as he neared retirement that Anquetil finally received the acclaim his achievements deserved. In this, the first full-length English book about Jacques Anquetil, Richard Yates explores the enigma of this great French rider. Richard Yates is an English cycling historian who has lived for many years in France; he is the author of several books about French cycling.

In Young Hearts Crying, Yates movingly portrays a man and a woman from their courtship and marriage in the 1950s to their divorce in the 70s, chronicling their heartbreaking attempts to reach their highest ambitions. Michael Davenport dreams of being a poet after returning home from World War II Europe, and at first he and his new wife Lucy enjoy their life together. But as the decades pass and the success of others creates an oppressive fear of failure in both Michael and Lucy, their once bright future gives way to a life of adultery and isolation. With empathy and grace, Yates creates a poignant novel of the desires and disasters of a tragic, hopeful couple.

Richard Yates was acclaimed as one of the most powerful, compassionate and accomplished writers of America's post-war generation. Whether addressing the smothered desire of suburban housewives, the white-collar despair of Manhattan office workers or the heartbreak of a single mother with artistic pretensions, Yates ruthlessly examines the hopes and disappointments of ordinary people with empathy and humour.

In this classic novel Richard Yates, hailed as a preeminent chronicler of the American condition and author of the acclaimed "Revolutionary Road, " weaves a masterful, unflinching tale of two families brought together by chance, desperation, and desire.
Evan Shepard was born with good looks, bad luck, and a love for the open ro But it was on one such drive, with his father from rural Long Island into lower Manhattan, that Evan's life would be changed forever. When their car breaks down on a Greenwich Village street, Evan's father presses a random doorbell, looking for a telephone. Within hours, two families--sharing equally complex and addled histories--will come together. There will be flirtation. There will be a marriage. There will be a child, a new home... But as Evan moves further into the uncharted land of manhood, as the women and men around him come into focus, he faces roads not taken and a journey not made--in Richard Yates' haunting exploration of human restlessness, family secrets, and a future shaped by them both.

Hailed as a masterpiece from its first publication, Revolutionary Road is the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a bright young couple who are bored by the banalities of suburban life and long to be extraordinary. With heartbreaking compassion and clarity, Richard Yates shows how Frank and April's decision to change their lives for the better leads to betrayal and tragedy.

Robert Prentice has spent all his life attempting to escape his mother's stifling presence. His mother, Alice, for her part, struggles with her own demons as she attempts to realize her dreams of prosperity and success as a sculptor.
As Robert goes off to fight in Europe, hoping to become his own man, Richard Yates portrays a soldier in the depths of war striving to live up to his heroic ideals. With haunting clarity, Yates crafts an unforgettable portrait of two people who cannot help but hope for more even as life challenges them both.

William Grove is a nervous teenager trying to fit in at his new boarding school. Jack Draper is a teacher whose wife is cheating on him with one of his colleagues. Edith Stone is the daughter of the English master who falls in love with the most popular boy in school. Their stories twine together in the claustrophobic confines of the small community of Dorset Academy. And them comes Pearl Harbor and suddenly they are faced with larger issues than the day-to-day problems and politics of school life.

Robert Prentice is 18. His mother Alice Prentice is 53. Both are damaged souls: Robert by war, Alice by thwarted dreams of prosperity.

When the Shepards' car breaks down in pre-War New York City, a chain of events is set in motion that will transform the lives of the beautiful but stupid Evan Shepard, his doomed lover Rachel, and both their families. Fated to play out the mistakes of their parents, Evan and Rachel quickly discover the betrayal behind the dream, and desperately try every avenue of escape, only to find that all paths lead back to the small Long Island coastal town of Cold Spring Harbor, and to each other. But if there is no better chronicler than Yates of the quiet tragedy of thwarted suburban lives, Cold Spring Harbor is a testament to the absolute necessity of dreaming; for Yates's protagonists, hope may be all there is.

In The Easter Parade, first published in 1976, we meet sisters Sarah and Emily Grimes when they are still the children of divorced parents. We observe the sisters over four decades, watching them grow into two very different women. Sarah is stable and stalwart, settling into an unhappy marriage. Emily is precocious and independent, struggling with one unsatisfactory love affair after another. Richard Yates's classic novel is about how both women struggle to overcome their tarnished family's past, and how both finally reach for some semblance of renewal.

Richard Yates, who died in 1992, is today ranked by many readers, scholars, and critics alongside such titans of modern American ficiton as Updike, Roth, Irving, Vonnegut, and Mailer.

In this work, he offers a spare and autumnal novel about a New England prep school. At once a meditation on the twilight of youth and an examination of America's entry into World War II, A Good School tells the stories of William Grove, the quiet boy who becomes an editor of the school newspaper; Jack Draper, a crippled chemistry teacher; and Edith Stone, the schoolmaster's young daughter, who falls in love with most celebrated boy in the class of 1943.

Three classic works--including the virtuosic "Revolutionary Road, "soon to be a major motion picture--that exemplify the remarkable gifts of this great American master.

Richard Yates's first novel, "Revolutionary Road "is the unforgettable portrait of a marriage built on dreams that tragically never come to fruition. In "The Easter Parade, "he tells the story of two sisters whose parents' divorce overshadows their entire lives. And in the stories in "Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, "we witness men and women striving for better lives amid discouragement and disillusion.
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

First published in 1962, a year after Revolutionary Road, this sublime collection of stories seems even more powerful today. Out of the lives of Manhattan office workers, a cab driver seeking immortality, frustrated would-be novelists, suburban men and their yearning, neglected women, Richard Yates creates a haunting mosaic of the 1950s, the era when the American dream was finally coming true - and just beginning to ring a little hollow.