* The story of the "Negro Speed King" and the African American racing car circuit* Chronicles the tragedies and triumphs of a dedicated group of individuals who overcame tremendous odds to chase their dreams

Building on the tradition of Little Bee, Chris Cleave again writes with elegance, humor, and passion about friendship, marriage, parenthood, tragedy, and redemption. What would you sacrifice for the people you love? KATE AND ZOE met at nineteen when they both made the cut for the national training program in track cycling—a sport that demands intense focus, blinding exertion, and unwavering commitment. They are built to exploit the barest physical and psychological edge over equally skilled rivals, all of whom are fighting for the last one tenth of a second that separates triumph from despair. Now at thirty-two, the women are facing their last and biggest race: the 2012 Olympics. Each wants desperately to win gold, and each has more than a medal to lose. Kate is the more naturally gifted, but the demands of her life have a tendency to slow her down. Her eight-year-old daughter Sophie dreams of the Death Star and of battling alongside the Rebels as evil white blood cells ravage her personal galaxy—she is fighting a recurrence of the leukemia that nearly killed her three years ago. Sophie doesn’t want to stand in the way of her mum’s Olympic dreams, but each day the dark forces of the universe seem to be massing against her. Devoted and self-sacrificing Kate knows her daughter is fragile, but at the height of her last frenzied months of training, might she be blind to the most terrible prognosis? Intense, aloof Zoe has always hovered on the periphery of real human companionship, and her compulsive need to win at any cost has more than once threatened her friendship with Kate—and her own sanity. Will she allow her obsession, and the advantage she has over a harried, anguished mother, to sever the bond they have shared for more than a decade? Echoing the adrenaline-fueled rush of a race around the Velodrome track, Gold is a triumph of superbly paced, heart-in-throat storytelling. With great humanity and glorious prose, Chris Cleave examines the values that lie at the heart of our most intimate relationships, and the choices we make when lives are at stake and everything is on the line.

The harrowing, triumphant tale of a cyclist's journey to Olympic victory and the price he paid to achieve greatness. Marty Nothstein, one of the greatest cyclists of all time, arrived at the 1996 Olympic Games a heavy favorite. In the match sprint at the Atlanta Olympics, an event akin to prizefighting on a bicycle, he raced around a banked, oval track. Nothstein lost by a hair's width on the finish line and vowed to win the gold at the next Olympics, saying, "I didn't come here for a silver medal." In The Price of Gold, Marty Nothstein eloquently and honestly tracks his journey to the games in Sydney and the events that molded him into the world's fastest man on a bicycle—from his tough-love upbringing in a blue-collar, split home, to the "borderline outlaw" cast of cycling characters who helped guide him through the ranks. "I had to become the worst, to become the best," Nothstein says of the single-minded determination that turned him into a veritable monster on his bike, but often forced him to neglect his own family. Sure to become a sports classic, this book will be published in time for the 2012 Olympics, when the world's eyes are trained on London and international conversation will turn to the question of what it takes to win the gold.

Mr. Prospector showed early brilliance as a speedster on the racetrack, but nothing could have prepared the horse racing world for the spectacular progenitor he would become. By the time of his death at age 29 in 1999, Mr. Prospector had led the U.S. sire list twice (with his sons and daughters earning more than $16 million) and had led the broodmare sire list twice. He has since led the broodmare sire list seven more times. He sired 2000 Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus, who sold for $4 million as a yearling and was syndicated for stud duty for $70 million. Respected pedigree expert Avalyn Hunter looks at Mr. Prospector and his incredible impact on the American Thoroughbred.

Robin Oakley brings alive the colourful world of those who ride and train jumping horses. With elegant production and gripping images, Sixty Years of Jump Racing chronicles the social and economic changes which have brought the sport's ups and downs-like the development of sponsorships and syndicate ownership, the near loss of the Grand National, the growing domination of the Cheltenham Festival and the growth of all-weather racing to meet the bookies' demands for betting shop fodder. Pace and colour is provided by stories of the horses who have been taken to the heart of racing crowds, like the Irish-trained hurdler Istabraq and Best Mate, the three-times winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup for England. Famous rivalries and memorable races are re-lived and key victories revisited in portraits of and interviews with the owners, jockeys and trainers who have dominated the sport. The emphasis will be largely on the past fifty years-from Arkle to Tony McCoy-but a significant introduction by Edward Gillespie encapsulates the past history of what was previously known as 'National Hunt Racing' and sets the stories in context.