The incredible truth behind the legend of George Connelly Hailed as the greatest Scottish talent of his generation, George Connelly made 254 appearances for Celtic and played in the Scotland team that qualified for the 1974 World Cup Finals. But at the age of 26 he walked away from football and the promise of a glittering career. So, what went wrong? George Connelly had a rare talent. He could pass long or short with unerring accuracy, could entertain crowds with his keepie-uppie skills and seemed to have the world at his feet. But with a troubled private life and the pressures of stardom weighing on his shoulders, the man behind the laidback exterior was falling apart. In Celtic's Lost Legend, George Connelly tells the remarkable story of why he walked away from his dreams and from the team he loved. Here, at last, he answers the question that has intrigued football fans for more than forty years. Whatever became of George Connelly?

Many American legends have Celtic origins. Each chapter in this fascinating book presents a Celtic myth and a similar American one. Celtic immigrants brought these legends to all regions of the U.S. Old-world mythology morphs into New World folklore. Curran recounts America's oldest legends and traces their origins to the Celtic mythology of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, presenting a similar old-world tale alongside each American version. Once transported to America, the original Celtic tales evolved to assimilate the new population's geographic, social, and religious customs, weaving their way into the fabric of American folk history.

This sets the ancient tales of gods and heroes in the context of the burgeoning interest among spiritual seekers of all persuasions in the ancient celtic mythical and legendary traditions.

From award-winning Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy, an “entertaining” (The Wall Street Journal) and nostalgia-filled retelling of the 1980s Boston Celtics’ glory years, which featured the sublime play of NBA legend Larry Bird. Today the NBA is a vast global franchise—a billion-dollar industry seen by millions of fans in the United States and abroad. But it wasn’t always this successful. Before primetime ESPN coverage, lucrative branding deals like Air Jordans, and $40 million annual player salaries, there was the NBA of the 1970s and 1980s—when basketball was still an up-and-coming sport featuring old school beat reporters and players who wore Converse All-Stars. Enter Dan Shaughnessy, then the beat reporter for The Boston Globe who covered the Boston Celtics every day from 1982 to 1986. It was a time when reporters travelled with professional teams—flying the same commercial airlines, riding the same buses, and staying in the same hotels. Shaughnessy knew the athletes as real people, losing free throw bets to Larry Bird, being gifted cheap cigars by the iconic coach Red Auerbach, and having his one-year-old daughter Sarah passed from player to player on a flight from Logan to Detroit Metro. Drawing on unprecedented access and personal experiences that would not be possible for any reporter today, Shaughnessy takes us inside the legendary Larry Bird-led Celtics teams, capturing the camaraderie as they dominated the NBA. Fans can witness the cockiness of Larry Bird (who once walked into an All-Star Weekend locker room, announced that he was going to win the three-point contest, and did); the ageless athleticism of Robert Parish; the shooting skills of Kevin McHale; the fierce, self-sacrificing play of Bill Walton; and the playful humor of players like Danny Ainge, Cedric “Cornbread” Maxwell, and M.L. Carr. For any fan who longs to return—for just a few hours—to those magical years when the Boston Garden rocked and the winner’s circle was mostly colored Boston Green, Wish It Lasted Forever is a masterful tribute to “the Celtics from 1982–1986 [that] is so good even fervent Celtics haters will have trouble putting it down” (New York Post).

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The NBA according to The Sports Guy—now updated with fresh takes on LeBron, the Celtics, and more! Foreword by Malcom Gladwell • “The work of a true fan . . . it might just represent the next phase of sports commentary.”—The Atlantic Bill Simmons, the wildly opinionated and thoroughly entertaining basketball addict known to millions as ESPN’s The Sports Guy, has written the definitive book on the past, present, and future of the NBA. From the age-old question of who actually won the rivalry between Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain to the one about which team was truly the best of all time, Simmons opens—and then closes, once and for all—every major pro basketball debate. Then he takes it further by completely reevaluating not only how NBA Hall of Fame inductees should be chosen but how the institution must be reshaped from the ground up, the result being the Pyramid: Simmons’s one-of-a-kind five-level shrine to the ninety-six greatest players in the history of pro basketball. And ultimately he takes fans to the heart of it all, as he uses a conversation with one NBA great to uncover that coveted thing: The Secret of Basketball. Comprehensive, authoritative, controversial, hilarious, and impossible to put down (even for Celtic-haters), The Book of Basketball offers every hardwood fan a courtside seat beside the game’s finest, funniest, and fiercest chronicler.

A fresh and revealing look at the stories at the heart of Celtic mythology, exploring their cultural impact throughout history up to the present day. The Celtic Myths That Shape the Way We Think explores a fascinating question: how do myths that were deeply embedded in the customs and beliefs of their original culture find themselves retold and reinterpreted across the world, centuries or even millennia later? Focusing on the myths that have had the greatest cultural impact, Mark Williams reveals the lasting influence of Celtic mythology, from medieval literature to the modern fantasy genre. An elegantly written retelling, Williams captures the splendor of the original myths while also delving deeper into the history of their meanings, offering readers an intelligent and engaging take on these powerful stories. Beautiful illustrations of the artworks these myths have inspired over the centuries are presented in a color plates section and in black and white within the text. Ten chapters recount the myths and explore the lasting influence of legendary figures, including King Arthur, the Celtic figure who paradoxically became the archetypal English national hero; the Irish and Scottish hero Finn MacCool, who as “Fingal” caught the imagination of Napoleon Bonaparte, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Felix Mendelssohn; and the Welsh mythical figure Blodeuwedd, magically created from flowers of the oak, who inspired W. B. Yeats. Williams’s mythological expertise and captivating writing style make this volume essential reading for anyone seeking a greater appreciation of the myths that have shaped our artistic and literary canons and continue to inspire today.

Reproduction of the original: Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race by Thomas William Rolleston