At the center of The Hooligan’s Return is the author himself, always an outcast, on a bleak lifelong journey through Nazism and communism to exile in America. But while Norman Manea’s book is in many ways a memoir, it is also a deeply imaginative work, traversing time and place, life and literature, dream and reality, past and present. Autobiographical events merge with historic elements, always connecting the individual with the collective destiny. Manea speaks of the bloodiest time of the twentieth century and of the emergence afterward of a global, competitive, and sometimes cynical modern society. Both a harrowing memoir and an ambitious epic project, The Hooligan’s Return achieves a subtle internal harmony as anxiety evolves into a delicate irony and a burlesque fantasy. Beautifully written and brilliantly conceived, this is the work of a writer with an acute understanding of the vast human potential for both evil and kindness, obedience and integrity.

Do not panic. Lord Thistlebottom's Book of Pitfalls and How to Survive Them has taught Roxie Warbler how to handle all sorts of situations. If Roxie's ever lost in the desert, or buried in an avalanche, or caught in a dust storm, she knows just what to do. But Lord Thistlebottom has no advice to help Roxie deal with Helvetia's Hooligans, the meanest band of bullies in school. Then Roxie finds herself stranded on a deserted island with not only the Hooligans but also a pair of crooks on the lam, and her survival skills may just save the day -- and turn the Hooligans into surprising allies.

They have names like Barmy Bernie, Daft Donald, and Steamin' Sammy. They like lager (in huge quantities), the Queen, football clubs (especially Manchester United), and themselves. Their dislike encompasses the rest of the known universe, and England's soccer thugs express it in ways that range from mere vandalism to riots that terrorize entire cities. Now Bill Buford, editor of the prestigious journal Granta, enters this alternate society and records both its savageries and its sinister allure with the social imagination of a George Orwell and the raw personal engagement of a Hunter Thompson.

We've all got two families: the one we're born with, and the one we choose ourselves. Heiko hasn't finished high school. His father is an alcoholic. His mother left. His housemate organizes illegal dogfights. He works in his uncle's gym, one frequented by bikers and skinheads. He definitely isn't one of society's winners, but he has his chosen family, the pack of soccer hooligans he's grown up with. His uncle is the leader, and gradually Heiko has risen in the ranks, until he's recognized in the stands of his home team and beyond the stadium walls, where, after the game, he and his gang represent their city in brutal organized brawls with hooligans from other localities. Philipp Winkler's stunning, widely acclaimed novel won the prize for best debut and was a finalist for the most prestigious German book award. It offers an intimate, devastating portrait of working-class, post-industrial urban life on the fringes and a universal story about masculinity in the twenty-first century, with a protagonist whose fear of being left behind has driven him to extremes. Narrated with lyrical authenticity by Heiko himself, it captures the desperation and violence that permeate his world, along with the yearning for brotherhood.

From the late Eighties onwards, one football gang dominated the hooligan world. Older, harder and better organised than their foes, they travelled everywhere and feared no-one. After one spectacular street victory, vanquished rivals gave them the name that became a byword for soccer violence: The Men In Black. Manchester United's hooligan mob had long caused mayhem, but in 1989 their hardcore was the target of a massive undercover police investigation, codenamed Operation Mars. It focused on the most infamous of the firm's members, including its `general', Tony O'Neill, and led to more than thirty arrests. But when the trial collapsed, the firm returned to the fray, wiser, more cunning and more ruthless than ever. They went on to defend their fearsome reputation against the toughest outfits in Britain: the Soul Crew, the Zulu Warriors, the Boro Frontline and the ICF. And they were never defeated. Covering the crucial period 1988-2005, The Men In Black recounts these stories and many more, told by those who were there, those who were involved in the hand-to-hand, close quarter battles and notably, the man police called Target Kilo: Tony O'Neill.

Laugh out loud stories about adventurous boys, strict nuns, summer baseball, camp outs, visits to Grandmas, young love, drive-in movies and wild hooligans. Everyone, especially people who ate TV dinners and didn't tell their parents where they were going, will enjoy this book.

"One of the finest writers the LDS Church has yet produced has now turned his talent to his own growing-up years. Entertaining, wise—and it's even true." —Orson Scott Card In the days before sunscreen, soccer practice, MTV, and Amber Alerts, boys roamed freely in the American West—fishing, hunting, hiking, pausing to skinny-dip in river or pond. Douglas Thayer was such a boy, and in this poignant, often humorous memoir, he depicts his Utah Valley boyhood during the Great Depression and World War II. Known in some circles as a Mormon Hemingway, Thayer has created a richly detailed work that shares cultural DNA with Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and William Golding's Lord of the Flies. His narrative at once prosaic and poetic, Thayer captures nostalgia for a simpler time, along with boyhood's universal yearnings, pleasures, and mysteries.