Beano Cook was an American sports media icon, an original character known for his wit and his one-liners, his eccentric personality, his encyclopedic knowledge of college football history, and his distinctive voice, which the writer Tom Callahan said sounded like "a plumbing fixture gargling Drano." That voice, which captivated countless college football fans for decades, narrates Cook's posthumously published biography, "Haven't They Suffered Enough?" Written with friend and author John D. Lukacs, the book is equal parts op-ed piece, history lesson and stand-up comedy routine. Employing the same colorful style as a storyteller he exhibited on the air as a college football commentator for ABC Sports and ESPN, Cook holds court, regaling readers with stories and recollections from his childhood through his extraordinary sixty-year professional career in sports, public relations and network television. That career started at Cook's alma mater, the University of Pittsburgh, where he served as the school's maverick athletics publicist from 1956 to 1966. It was at Pitt that Cook was anointed, by New York sportswriter Dan Parker, "the greatest publicity man since Barnum - and, on second thought, Bailey, too." From 1966 to 1974, Cook worked as NCAA press director for ABC Sports and held a similar position at CBS Sports from 1977 to 1982. Cook also served stints as a sportswriter for the St. Petersburg Times, as a publicist for the Mutual Broadcasting System, and spent one year out of sports as a social worker with the domestic Peace Corps, Volunteers in Service to America, aka. VISTA. The book serves as an all-access pass to the world of college athletics and the golden era of network television sports, with Cook taking the reader into broadcast booths, production trucks, pressboxes, and long-gone watering holes. Such an unconventional life requires a unconventional storytelling approach, which Cook takes with special, standalone chapters on subjects such as sports betting, plus one moving section that serves as a love letter from the lifelong bachelor to the true love of his life, the game of college football. As one of the defining voices in the history of the sport, he ranks his all-time greatest teams, plays, players, coaches, fight songs and traditions, and recounts never-before-told stories about the personalities and contests that made college football America's national passion. A first-hand witness to some of the most memorable events in sports history, Cook relives epic contests such as the 1960 World Series, the 1969 Texas-Arkansas "Big Shootout," countless college football bowl games and classic "Games of the Century." Cook tells it like it is, like it was and even how it will be, with several special predictions regarding the future of the sports and media. He recounts in remarkable detail his unique perspective of the 1974 NFL season, which he spent doing PR for the Miami Dolphins, his pivotal role in the rise of ESPN in the mid-1980s, and recalls special relationships with television executive Roone Arledge, broadcaster Howard Cosell and Pittsburgh sports personality Bob Prince. The book features an ensemble cast of famous athletes, actors, coaches, writers, broadcasters, team owners, television executives, media personalities and politicians such as Red Smith, Robert F. Kennedy, Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder, Mary Tyler Moore, Muhammad Ali, Myron Cope, Dan Jenkins, Dr. Jonas Salk, Richard Nixon, Bill Russell, Pete Rozelle, Paul Hornung, Keith Jackson, Lindsey Nelson, Colonel Harlan Sanders, Phyllis George, Don Shula, Joe Paterno, Joe Robbie, Jack Whitaker, James Michener and many others. "Haven't They Suffered Enough?" is an educational, entertaining read full of laughs, history and nostalgia, an uncensored, unconventional and unbelievable memoir from one of the most unforgettable names in sports and media histo

Accessible, universal, and poignant, The Grieving Widow and Other Fables is a brief snippet into the collective works of Phoenix J. Coultons poetry and prose. Chosen from a collection of just over two thousand pieces with topics spanning love, loss, depression, war, addiction, and abstract nightmares that range from dark tones to the odd tongue-in-cheek moment.

Long–listed for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence * A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice "Here in Berlin is one of the most interesting new works of fiction I've read . . . The voices are remarkably distinct, and even with their linguistic mannerisms . . . mark them out as separate people . . . [This novel] is simply very, very good." —The New York Times Book Review Here in Berlin is a portrait of a city through snapshots, an excavation of the stories and ghosts of contemporary Berlin—its complex, troubled past still pulsing in the air as it was during World War II. Critically acclaimed novelist Cristina García brings the people of this famed city to life, their stories bristling with regret, desire, and longing. An unnamed Visitor travels to Berlin with a camera looking for reckonings of her own. The city itself is a character—vibrant and postapocalyptic, flat and featureless except for its rivers, its lakes, its legions of bicyclists. Here in Berlin she encounters a people's history: the Cuban teen taken as a POW on a German submarine only to return home to a family who doesn’t believe him; the young Jewish scholar hidden in a sarcophagus until safe passage to England is found; the female lawyer haunted by a childhood of deprivation in the bombed–out suburbs of Berlin who still defends those accused of war crimes; a young nurse with a checkered past who joins the Reich at a medical facility more intent to dispense with the wounded than to heal them; and the son of a zookeeper at the Berlin Zoo, fighting to keep the animals safe from both war and an increasingly starving populace. A meditation on war and mystery, this an exciting new work by one of our most gifted novelists, one that seeks to align the stories of the past with the stories of the future. "Garcia’s new novel is ingeniously structured, veering from poignant to shocking . . . Here in Berlin has echoes of W.G. Sebald, but its vivid, surprising images of wartime Berlin are Garcia’s own." —BBC Culture, 1 of the 10 Best Books of 2017

Alton Davis had reached the pinnacle of success as the National Basketball Association’s leading superstar. When his Step-Sister is mistakenly shot dead by a DEA agent during a drug raid, Davis finds himself thrust into the role of leader against the drug war. He aligns with his pastor, the racially divisive Reverend McGinnis to seek justice. A trial ensues against the DEA which grips the nation as protests and rallies are staged across the nation. On the other side, an ambitious drug czar, John White is unapologetic as he heads up Operation Door-to-Door, a nation wide militant drug investigation. Alton Davis is caught between challenging authority or remaining silent to appease his sponsors. Through this struggle, he earns the title of the Chosen One.

The content of this book was inspired by God. The very words of this book are taken from different translations of the Holy Bible. This book was written to inspire and encourage God's people to have a real relationship with Him by taking one day at a time. Seeing Him and His goodness in our daily lives through His creation, His signs and wonders, and most of all His love and compassionate nature. God doesn't want us to worry about the future or try to figure Him out as a future God. He just wants us to come to know and love Him day by day.

Between Heaven and Earth is a contemporary love story that combines tragedy, companionship and divine intervention resulting in a powerful, moving and ultimately uplifting confirmation of what it means to be human. It is a poignant reminder of how the impact of death and grief affects people differently and how love and commitment can heal even the most broken of hearts. Teddy and Mona Goodson are childhood sweethearts. They are shattered to discover that she is seriously ill. Teddy becomes so absorbed in caring for his wife that he begins to neglect the needs of their son, Guy. Teddy therefore decides to engage the services of a child therapist, Dana Weston, who unbeknown to him, falls victim to her own catastrophe and heartbreak. When Guy is later diagnosed with Leukemia, the pain and grief intensify to the point where the powers-that-be on high seem to be conspiring against them. What follows is a complex interplay of relationships, memories, and synchronicity, touching, and in equal measures, both tragic and heart-warming, which reaches an emotionally charged and inspirational finale. When the human spirit is most tested, just when it seems all is lost, heaven and earth come together in a most profound way.