Colin Stein is a man of firsts. The first player ever to persuade the Rangers board to sign off a six-figure transfer fee, he scored a hat-trick on his first appearance for the club and became the first Scotland international to score in five consecutive appearances for the national side. Now, for the first time, Stein tells the remarkable story of his career for both club and country, charting the highs and lows of a tumultuous life in football.

The start of the 2011–12 season should have marked the dawn of a bold and brave era for Rangers Football Club, as new owner Craig Whyte accepted the keys to Ibrox from Sir David Murray. But football became a sideshow during Whyte’s first campaign as tax rows, court action and the plunge into administration hogged the headlines in one of the most dramatic seasons Rangers have ever seen. With unique insights from those inside the game and within the club during its darkest hours, For Richer, For Poorer charts the tumultuous tenure of Whyte, examines in detail David Murray’s own time in the owner’s chair and puts the Charles Green bid for control in the spotlight. Murray took a white-knuckle ride on football’s roller-coaster. He savoured the thrills of unbeatable highs, leading the club to the famous nine in-a-row sequence of championships, and suffered agonising lows as the world’s financial markets crashed and the club struggled to cope with mounting debts. The colourful businessman also changed the face of Scottish football, breaking down religious barriers and spending millions to attract world-class stars. Whyte spoke of grand plans to restore stability to the club, but ultimately became the man who led Rangers into the hands of the administrators. Green was the man chosen to repair the damage and put a proud institution back on track, charged with opening a new chapter in the club's rich history. For Richer, For Poorer puts events at Ibrox under the microscope to reveal the untold story of an incredible period in Rangers history.

A literary scholar explains how eighteenth-century novels were manufactured, sold, bought, owned, collected, and read alongside Protestant religious texts. As the novel developed into a mature genre, it had to distinguish itself from these similar-looking books and become what we now call “literature.” Literary scholars have explained the rise of the Anglophone novel using a range of tools, from Ian Watt’s theories to James Watt’s inventions. Contrary to established narratives, When Novels Were Books reveals that the genre beloved of so many readers today was not born secular, national, middle-class, or female. For the first three centuries of their history, novels came into readers’ hands primarily as printed sheets ordered into a codex bound along one edge between boards or paper wrappers. Consequently, they shared some formal features of other codices, such as almanacs and Protestant religious books produced by the same printers. Novels are often mistakenly credited for developing a formal feature (“character”) that was in fact incubated in religious books. The novel did not emerge all at once: it had to differentiate itself from the goods with which it was in competition. Though it was written for sequential reading, the early novel’s main technology for dissemination was the codex, a platform designed for random access. This peculiar circumstance led to the genre’s insistence on continuous, cover-to-cover reading even as the “media platform” it used encouraged readers to dip in and out at will and read discontinuously. Jordan Alexander Stein traces this tangled history, showing how the physical format of the book shaped the stories that were fit to print.

Rangers In London is the story of the nine matches between 1960 and 1971 when Britain and the World’s most domestically successful football club with the greatest and most fervent support travelled south from Glasgow to the Capital city. Almost every game seems to have thrown up something amazing or special. From the first European Cup tie played in London to a match described by the legendary and equally reticent Spurs manager, Bill Nicholson as the greatest game on earth. Alex Ferguson’s Rangers debut at Arsenal, QPR’s Rodney Marsh assaulting two players on the pitch and a teenager whisked from work in Glasgow in the morning to play in goal against a team of internationals and a world cup winner in the evening at Tottenham. And we best not forget Rangers appearances at Chelsea for the man they called Chopper either and at Highbury for a gentleman who at his peak was quite possibly the best goalkeeper in Europe. And much more… Unashamedly nostalgic and so many great stories, histories and characters to recall, celebrate and write about. In a more modest way, we try to chart the development of football at Ibrox and in London, on and off the field at a time when football was beginning to become more sophisticated, commercial and international. There’s a bit of sociology too, as we look at the emergence of football hooliganism, skinheadism and wider societal cultures in and around football at that time. Does what go around, come around with a slightly different twist? I’ll let the reader decide. But I hope you’ll enjoy taking in these matches with me, and get the same pleasure as the devoted thousands and perhaps you were one, who ‘followed on’ to London with Rangers. Win, lose or draw.

On 21 May this year, Hibs made history by winning the Scottish Cup for the first time since 1902. It was a time of celebration when the supporters revelled in their victory and remembered the great heroes of the club. Eric Stevenson is one of those great heroes. When he was inducted into the Hibs Hall of Fame at Easter Road in 2012, Stevenson declared, 'This means everything to me. My uncle founded the Bonnyrigg Hibs supporters club in 1949–50 and I started going to games when I was seven'. This book traces Stevenson's fanatical interest in the club from a very young age, his time as a left-winger wearing the number eleven green and white jersey in the '60s, and the well-deserved recognition that he has gained today. Throughout his career, Stevenson also played for Hearts and Ayr United, but this story shows that ultimately he is truly Hibs Through and Through.

In The Great and the Good, Ireland's leading football pundit and legend of the game John Giles looks back on more than fifty years of football, at developments in the game from the post-War period to the present day, the great players who drove it forward, the visionary managers and their teams, and the age-old question of what makes a player good and what makes one great. From his earliest days, John Giles can recall pondering the subject. 'You'd hear about certain 'great' players, such as Stanley Matthews, but no one would ever explain why they were great. And it's a thing that has always frustrated me: trying to define what makes a player great, and what separates the great from the good.' Now the man himself brings us the answers and celebrates the great ones, from Stanley Matthews, Tom Finney, Dave Mackay, John Charles, Johnny Haynes and Jimmy Greaves to Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, John Robertson, Diego Maradona, Marco van Basten, Lionel Messi, Paul Scholes and many more. It will include a section on Irish players including detailed analysis of such greats as Roy Keane, Liam Brady and Paul McGrath. And, finally, Giles names the player he considers the greatest of them all.

Fitba (football, soccer) is truly the world's game. It evokes the deepest emotions in the millions who play and watch it in almost every corner and culture around our globe. So where does this passion come from? Some of it is certainly inherent in genes, especially in respect of playing ability. However millions who have never played at any serious level are amongst the most fanatical of all. Like most addictions it is something formed by steady consumption over a prolonged period. Alcohol, nicotine and cocaine have much more obvious routes to our bloodstream but I firmly believe that soccer can get there too. It can ultimately provide such an overwhelming sensation of joy that the brain craves repetition of that euphoria, even if it may have to wait thirty years or more between very brief highs. Here's a true life story which provides a detailed insight into the environment and twists of fate which contrive to addict one Scottish boy and sustain that addiction even when he moves to America. They have soccer in America? Oh yeah, more than you can imagine.