Showing results by narrator "L.J. Ganser" in All Categories

The college basketball scandals of 1951 were to basketball what the 1919 Black Sox scandals were to baseball - a loss of innocence, after which the game would be permanently tarnished, its relationship to power and big money firmly established. In Scandals of '51, Charley Rosen identifies all the major figures - including players, coaches, gangsters, clergymen, politicians - that made up the elaborate network that controlled the outcomes to many games or protected those who did so.

The 19th addition of this annual anthology exhibits a collection of short fiction from award-winning Southern authors and rising stars including Edward P. Jones and Silas House. Each story’s derivation is explained in an illuminating note from the author following the rich and entertaining tales.

Like lots of college grads, Daniel Seddiqui was having a hard time finding a job. But despite more than 40 rejections, he knew opportunities had to exist. So he set out on an extraordinary quest: 50 jobs in 50 states in 50 weeks. And not just any jobs; he chose professions that reflected the culture and economy of each state, working as everything from a cheesemaker in Wisconsin, a border patrol agent in Arizona, and a meatpacker in Kansas to a lobsterman in Maine, a surfing instructor in Hawaii, and more.

In the New York Times best seller Becoming China’s Bitch, Peter Kiernan presents an unflinching manifesto in which he explores five factors that have sustained our national paralysis, then uncovers the 10 challenges that pose the greatest threat to the future of America. Presented from a fresh yet informative Centrist perspective, these ten impending catastrophes include our semi-conscious dependency on China, our lack of a centrally coordinated intelligence effort, and more.

In The Futures, Emily Lambert, senior writer at Forbes magazine, tells us the rich and dramatic history of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade, which together comprised the original, most bustling futures market in the world. She details the emergence of the futures business as a kind of meeting place for gamblers and farmers and its subsequent transformation into a sophisticated electronic market where contracts are traded at lightning-fast speeds.

Two years ago, Wilson left his old boss alive in exchange for a clean slate, keeping up his end of the bargain and staying off the grid. Then, thousands of miles from the city he once escaped, a man comes calling on Wilson with a gun in hand and a woman in his trunk. Wilson is pulled back into his old life as a grinder, working under the radar to quietly find out who is responsible for a dangerous mobster's missing nephews - and this time all bets are off.

At the time of his death, Ulysses S. Grant was the most famous person in America, considered by most citizens to be equal in stature to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Yet today his monuments are rarely visited, his military reputation is overshadowed by that of Robert E. Lee, and his presidency is permanently mired at the bottom of historical rankings.

One hungry Tuesday afternoon Jimmy Zangwow’s stomach rumbles. He just has to have some milk and a chocolaty Moon Pie. But his mother says, "Of course not" and sends him outside to play. In the backyard, Jimmy climbs aboard the secret project he has been building: a junk jumbilee jalopy.

Kate McCall's husband has been killed by her teenage son, Luke, in a tragic bow-hunting accident. In the aftermath, Jack, a charismatic but troubled ex-con from Kate's past, shows up. When Luke takes off on his own for their rural cabin, Kate and Jack follow, but they're not the only ones hot on his heels. Two-time losers Teddy and Celeste, along with hitman DeJuan, are all looking to cash in on the money left to Kate.

Critically acclaimed children’s author Jonah Winter reimagines a true story from 1987. The small Long Island town of Islip has a big problem - 3,168 tons of garbage and no place to put it! So workers pile the smelly refuse on a large barge, hire a tug boat, and send the stuff south to find a final resting place. But as the barge travels from North Carolina to New Orleans and from Mexico to Belize - nobody wants Islip’s rotting mountain of garbage.

When she is attacked by a nasty fairy, Clemency Pogue remembers a lesson from Peter Pan. "I don't believe in fairies!" she shouts, seven times before the creature finally drops dead. But then a hobgoblin appears and gives Clemency the bad news. Seven fairies have died, and most of them were good. Now it's up to Clemency to travel the world and make things right.

Eagle Blue follows the Fort Yukon Eagles, winners of six regional championships in a row, through the course of an entire 28-game season, from their first day of practice in late November to the Alaska State Championship Tournament in March. With insight, frankness, and compassion, Michael D’Orso climbs into the lives of these 14 boys, their families, and their coach, shadowing them through an Arctic winter of 50-below-zero temperatures and near-round-the-clock darkness as the Eagles crisscross Alaska in pursuit of their - and their village’s - dream.

Thomas McGuane's high-spirited and fiercely lyrical new novel chronicles the fall and rise of Frank Copenhaver, a man so unhinged by his wife's departure that he finds himself ruining his business, falling in love with the wrong women, and wandering the lawns of his neighborhood, desperate for the merest glimpse of normalcy.

Newspaperman tells the story of how an immigrant's shy son from Queens, New York, rose to the top of his industry, powered by little more than passion, brains, and hard work. Phillips began his career working as a copyboy for the New York Herald Tribune for 16 dollars a week... and ended it as publisher of The Wall Street Journal and CEO of its parent corporation, Dow Jones & Company. The life story of Warren Phillips is the story of the American newspaper business.

A thrilling and irreverent memoir about the transformation of the advertising business from the 1980s to today. Richard Kirshenbaum was born to sell. Raised in a family of Long Island strivers, this future advertising titan was just a few years old when his grandfather first taught him that a Cadillac is more than a car, and that if you can’t have a Trinitron you might as well not watch TV. He had no connections when he came to Madison Avenue, but he possessed an outrageous sense of humor that would make him a millionaire.

In a reporting tour de force, award-winning journalist Steven Brill takes an uncompromising look at the adults who are fighting over America’s failure to educate its children and points the way to reversing that failure. Brill not only takes us inside their roller-coaster battles, he also concludes with a surprising prescription for what it will take from both sides to put the American dream back in America’s schools.

Alex Rodriguez is the highest-paid player in the history of baseball, a once-in-a-generation talent who was poised to break many of the sport's most hallowed records. But his reputation changed drastically in February 2009 when Selena Roberts broke the news in Sports Illustrated that A-Rod had used performance-enhancing drugs during his 2003 MVP season with the Texas Rangers.

To paraphrase Don Draper's character on the hit show Mad Men, "What do people want?" What is the new American psyche, and how do America's shrewdest marketers tap it? Drawing from dozens of disciplines, the internationally acclaimed marketing expert Harry Beckwith answers these questions with some surprising, even startling, truths and discoveries about what motivates us.

In this fresh and funny second book of acclaimed author J. T. Petty's series, it's up to Clemency Pogue to save the land of Make-Believe and all its creatures. For Kennethurchin to complete the change from human to hobgoblin, his proxy made of clay and named Inky must completely dissolve. If not, the land of Make-Believe will disappear forever. But Inky won't dissolve anytime soon, since he rarely bathes.

The dead have risen, and they are hungry. They are tough, they are lethal, and they are everywhere. Savage packs of the undead wander the world, feeding on the living. And they are getting stronger... In Brattleboro, Vermont, John Mason and his beautiful young wife Sara believe that family can survive anything. When the apocalypse arrives they pack food, clothing, and weapons, then hit the road with their dog seeking refuge in the mountains of John's youth.