Muscling in on New Worlds brings together a dynamic new collection of studies that approach sport as a window into Jewish identity formation in the Americas. Articles address football/soccer, yoga, boxing, and other sports as crucial points of Jewish interaction with other communities and as vehicles for reconciling the legacy of immigration and Jewish distinctiveness in new world national and regional contexts.

They said it couldn't be done ... all the myriad worlds which have been sought out and explored through more than 500 television episodes and nine Star Trek movies, mapped, illustrated and brought to life in the pages of a comprehensive Star Trek atlas. From the comparatively crowded space of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, home to Earth and Vulcan, Bajor and Betazed, the Cardassian Union and the Romulan and Klingon Empires; to the distant Gamma Quadrant controlled by the Dominion; to the far reaches of the Delta Quadrant, home space of the Borg, where of Federation explorers only the crew of the USS Voyager has ever been; NEW WORLDS, NEW CIVILIZATIONS catalogues peoples and planets from all four corners of the galaxy. Ever wondered where the blue-skinned Bolians originated from? Or what it is like on the permanently frozen homeworld of the bloodless Breen? From the first world that the first away team landed on under the command of Christopher Pike in the original pilot episode 'The Cage' (a world that has been off-limits to the Federation ever since), to the world of the Ba'ku as seen in 'Star Trek: Insurrection', all these and many more are described and depicted in all their fascinating detail by a team of star-studded contributors. Produced in the finest tradition of bestselling Star Trek illustrated reference from Pocket Books such as The Art of Star Trek and Where No Man Has Gone Before, NEW WORLDS, NEW CIVILIZATIONS will be an essential addition to every Trekker's shelves.

A new kind of fitness book: a celebration of muscle; an exploration of muscle; and a regime for building muscle."Muscle", devised and produced by the editorial team of Men's Health magazine, explains and illustrates how your muscles operate:- shows you how your muscles are built systemically and how hormonal factors contribute to muscle growth;- tells you the truth about muscle-building possibilities;- presents total muscle-building programmes;- and demonstrates workouts that work wonders.This stunning book is packed from cover to cover with beautiful, hard-body photographs that blur the boundaries between art and reference.

At age 26, scrawny, Oxford-educated Samuel Fussell entered a YMCA gym in New York to escape the terrors of big city life. Four years and 80 lbs. of firm, bulging muscle later, he was competing for bodybuilding titles in the "Iron Mecca" of Southern California-so weak from intense training and starvation he could barely walk. MUSCLE is the harrowing, often hilarious chronicle of Fussell's divine obsession, his search for identity in a bizarre, eccentric world of "health fascists," "gym bunnies" and "muscleheads"-and his devout, single-minded acceptance of illness, pain, nausea, and steroid-induced rage in his quest for the holy grail of physical perfection.

Bodybuilding is the wildest, wierdest sport in the world, but it's more than just a sport. It's a whole way of life for the supermen who scale its Olympian heights. Muscle is a journey through a land of giants, men for whom life is given meaning by the pursuit of the perfect pec and who worship at the shrine of Schwartzenegger. Jon Hotten has a 40-inch chest and 12-inch arms. Undaunted, he fights his unpromising genetics to hitch up with the bodybuilding circus, hanging out with the stars and legends, the casualties, gym rats and iron junkies. As his forbidding subjects open up, he discovers a story of unregulated excess, chemical mayhem and hard-won glory, a story for anyone who's ever looked in the mirror and wanted more...

This is the story of the "Saginaw Kid," lightweight world champion George Henry Lavigne, who held the top spot from 1896 to 1899. Raised in the bawdy lumber towns of Michigan, the "Kid" cut his fistic teeth fighting bare-knuckle matches against the best men of the camps. Just as Lavigne was making his professional debut in 1886, the Queensberry Rules, featuring gloved fists and timed rounds, were transforming boxing as it fought its way to legitimacy and legality. The saga is a rollicking ride from the Kid's birth in 1869 to his defeat of "Iron Man" Dick Burge of England for the world lightweight title in 1896. The story pulls no punches, following Lavigne's booze-fueled decline, a dozen arrests, a foray to Paris to conduct a boxing school, trips to the insane asylum and ultimately his death at age 58 in 1928 in Detroit. Meticulously researched and featuring dozens of photos and quotes from original correspondence, the book deftly mixes genealogy, history, culture, and sport, showcasing boxing's early beginnings and providing an entertaining account of the life of "Kid" Lavigne, one of the era's most popular and accomplished pugilists. Lauren Chouinard's passion for the subject shines through clearly.

LONGLISTED FOR THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FIRST BOOK AWARDIn a hard-boiled city of crooks, grifts and rackets lurk a pair of toughs: Box and _____. They're the kind of men capable of extracting apologies and reparations, of teaching you a chilling lesson. They seldom think twice, and ask very few questions.Until one night over the poker table, they encounter a pulp writer with wild ideas and an unscrupulous private detective, leading them into what is either a classic mystery, a senseless maze of corpses, or an inextricable fever dream . . .Drunk on cinematic and literary influence, Muscle is a slice of noir fiction in collapse, a ceaselessly imaginative story of violence, boredom and madness.