A treasury of 88 true tales of superstitions and rituals in sports, surrounding some of the best professional and amateur athletes in the world Book jacket.

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"David Storey is a writer who genuinely extends the territory of drama" (Guardian) The Changing Room: "It's about exactly what it is: Storey offers us, with an unforced tenderness, the shifting moods of everyday experience...the scene is busy, purposeful and exhilerating. You'd never imagine realism could be this theatrical...The Changing Room takes you into its world in a way few plays achieve." (Independent on Sunday)

A history of the 1947 disaster that rocked a segregated Texas boomtown and revealed disturbing negligence by the private sector and the US government. First published in 2003, City on Fire is a gripping, intimate account of the explosions of two ships loaded with ammonium nitrate fertilizer that demolished Texas City, Texas, in April 1947, in one of the most catastrophic disasters in American history. “Remarkable. . . . A terrific nonfiction work that has the narrative force of an adventure novel.” —Washington Post “[Among] the greatest life-or-death tales ever told.” —Esquire “City on Fire will stand on its own as one of the finest books ever written about Texas.” —Texas Observer “Incendiary reading. . . . A harrowing mosaic about a blaze during a time of racial divisions and environmental plundering…evocatively told. . . . The book vividly details the carnage as well as some acts of heroism and selflessness.” —Publishers Weekly “Riveting . . . Reminiscent of New York City’s rise from the askes after September 11, the chronicle of Texas City’s devastation and resurrection will strike a chord with contemporary readers.” —Booklist “History at its best, at once thrilling and illuminating. The story of ambition, hubris, tragedy, and bravery . . . is as timeless today in all of America as it was back in Texas more than half a century ago.” —David Maraniss, author of Barack Obama: The Story

Readers have the chance to meet the Pittsburgh Penguins, one of the wildest, wackiest, most wonderful sports franchises that ever waddled its way across North America. If Penguins fans are not shedding tears of sadness, they are crying for joy or simply laughing so hard they cannot stop. No franchise has survived more near-death experiences than this one, which twice went bankrupt and many times escaped the threat of relocation. In 1975, things were so tough that players had their postgame oranges taken away. Nevertheless, they have persevered. Known across the league as lovable losers for its first 24 years, the team began the climb to the top in the 1990s, winning the Stanley Cup twice in that decade and again in 2009 and 2016. In Tales from the Pittsburgh Penguins Locker Room, sportswriter Joe Starkey takes fans inside the locker rooms, onto the team buses (including the one defenseman Bryan “Bugsy” Watson hijacked), and behind the personalities that have shaped Penguins hockey since 1967.

It is the story of one young man's struggle for faith in a culture of corruption, his descent into despair and violence and his redemption within the tenets of a secret society that was created in the dungeons of "Castel St Angelo" (Rome, Italy) seven hundred years ago. It is the story of a serial killer, of a tortured psycho-killer and of a striver after truth who is inducted into an ancient order to become one of the legendary Mortal Archangels. A Catholic parish in present-day California is plagued by a serial killer who disguises himself as the Pope and slays pedophile priests. Is he a homicidal maniac or is he actually fulfilling the Ascension Protocols of an ancient organization of the faithful? The answer lies in Gill Stillwell’s story, the San Simone parish file clerk who dons the Papal garb and rubber mask and rains vengeance down on the corrupt clergy. It is a story that is also told through the violent and parallel struggle of a young boy in 1400 Rome who began the ancient Order of Octavius to battle corruption. These two stories collide in present-day San Simone with the arrival of the mysterious Father Argus, an envoy from the Vatican. But is Father Argus trying to stop Gil or recruit him? The ultimate answer is only revealed in the aftermath of the Pope's final bloody telekinetic assault, a supernatural blood bath that leaves a trail of guilty bodies in its wake.