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  A Comrade Lost and Found - A...

  Jan Wong

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  A “suspenseful, elegantly written” account of the author’s return to China after thirty years to search for the woman she betrayed to the authorities (Publishers Weekly, starred review). In the early 1970s, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, Jan Wong traveled from Canada to Beijing University—where she would become one of only two Westerners permitted to study. One day a fellow student, Yin Luoyi, asked for her help getting to the United States.   Wong, then a starry-eyed Maoist from Montreal, immediately reported her to the authorities, and shortly thereafter Yin disappeared. Thirty-three years later, hoping to make amends, Wong revisits the Chinese capital to search for the person who has haunted her conscience. At the very least, she wants to discover whether Yin survived.   But Wong finds the new Beijing bewildering. Phone numbers, addresses, and even names change with startling frequency. In a society determined to bury the past, Yin Luoyi will be hard to find. As Wong traces her way from one former comrade to the next, she unearths not only the fate of the woman she betrayed but the strange and dramatic transformation of contemporary China. In this memoir, she tells how her journey rekindled all of her love for—and disillusionment with—her ancestral land.   “Gone is the semirural capital where the author’s ‘revolutionary’ course of study included bouts of hard labor and ‘self criticism’ sessions. In its place are eight-lane expressways lit up ‘like Christmas trees,’ shiny skyscrapers and the largest shopping mall in the world. Wong is a gifted storyteller, and hers is a deeply personal and richly detailed eyewitness account of China’s journey to glossy modernity.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

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  The Racetrack Gangs - Four...

  Dick Kirby

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  “So if you’re a fan of Peaky Blinders and want to read the true stories behind those characters and tales . . . this is the book for you.” —Britain’s Gangland Magazine 
   
  Between the two World Wars, there was a dramatic upsurge of violence as rival criminal gangs vied for rich pickings from bookmakers at racetracks throughout England. 
   
  With ready access to cash, “bookies” were a magnet for mobsters’ blackmailing demands. Refusal to pay resulted in severe punishment. Their justified fears spawned a ready “protection” market. 
   
  Conflict between rival gangs were frequent and increasingly violent. Charles “Darby” Sabini with his brothers ran “The Italian Mob” who clashed with Billy Kimber and his Brummagen Hammers. 
   
  Uneasy partnerships were formed but seldom lasted. The Sabinis were friendly with the Cortesi family until a rift resulted in one of the Cortesis shooting Harryboy Sabini. Other gangs such as The Titanics and The Nile Mob were ready to fill voids. As well as broken alliances, internal friction and members changing sides resulted in bloodshed on the streets, in pubs and clubs and on the courses. Public order was so threatened that the Flying Squad was tasked with the eradication of the problem and, in 1936, the celebrated Battle of Lewes Racecourse brought matters to a bloody conclusion. 
   
  This well researched and gripping account describes the vicious dramas played out in the 1920s and 1930s.

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  Through My Eyes

  Nathan Whitaker, Tim Tebow

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  The NFL legend reveals how his Christian faith, family values, and drive to succeed helped him realize his dreams in this inspiring sports memoir. 
   
  Tim Tebow tells the story of his long and difficult path to becoming a quarterback, a path that at every stage was blocked by coaches telling him he'd never make it. Yet despite the critics, he believed—not just in himself but in the plan God had laid out for him. And time after time, his determination and dedication proved his detractors wrong. 
   
  In Through My Eyes, he takes readers from his first week of Pop Warner practice to his record-setting career at University of Florida to his rookie season in Denver. Tebow goes inside the huddle on his biggest wins and most frustrating losses, showing how his triumphs and defeats helped him grown as a leader, as a person, and as a follower of Jesus Christ.  
   
  What emerges is a captivating portrait of a man whose passions demand the best from teammates, whose words inspire faith in others, and whose heart leaves everything on the field.

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  GO! The Bettenhausen Story - The...

  Carl Hungness

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  If “Top Gun: Maverick” or “Ford Versus Ferrari” kept your attention, “Go! The Bettenhausen Story” will keep you riveted. What prompts these men to climb into small spaces and propel themselves at death defying speeds? Subtitled “A Race Against A Dream,” this audiobook attempts to answer that question through the eyes of the Bettenhausen family, one of the greatest racing families in the history of the sport of automobile racing. Whether a casual or passionate racing fan, you’ll be fascinated at the closeup of the racing industry as this book chronicles its growth from the 1930s to the 1980s through the eyes of patriarch Tony Bettenhausen and his three racing sons as they conduct “A Race Against A Dream.” 
  As the author Carl Hungness writes, “It’s not the win at Indy the racers want, it’s the challenge. The way of life. It’s the feeling that can’t be conveyed until it’s experienced. What makes the breed of man they call a race car driver tick? Some respect them and others pity them. Don’t pity them; they’ve seen the consequences. They all think they’ll beat the odds. For some, driving in the race is living and everything else is just waiting. They’re more alive inside the car than out of it.” 
  A very small percentage of humans will experience the peril and thrill of the Indy 500, an annual spectacle that fuels the dreams of men and women alike seeking the thunderous adrenaline rush that the race provides. This audiobook dares to drive you close to experiencing “the aura surrounding the fervor for driving a race car.” Buckle up- it’s quite a ride.

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  Notre-Dame - the Soul of France

  Agnès Poirier

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  The profound emotion felt around the world upon seeing images of Notre-Dame in flames opens up a series of questions: Why was everyone so deeply moved? Why does Notre-Dame so clearly crystallise what our civilisation is about? What makes ‘Our Lady of Paris' the soul of a nation and a symbol of human achievement? What is it that speaks so directly to us today? In answer, Agnès Poirier turns to the defining moments in Notre-Dame's history. Beginning with the laying of the corner stone in 1163, she recounts the conversion of Henri IV to Catholicism, the coronation of Napoleon, Victor Hugo's nineteenth-century campaign to preserve the cathedral, Baron Haussmann's clearing of the streets in front of it, the Liberation in 1944, the 1950s film of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, starring Gina Lollobrigida and Anthony Quinn, and the state funeral of Charles de Gaulle, before returning to the present. The conflict over Notre-Dame's reconstruction promises to be fierce. Nothing short of a cultural war is already brewing between the wise and the daring, the sincere and the opportunist, historians and militants, the devout and secularists. It is here that Poirier reveals the deep malaise – gilet jaunes and all – at the heart of the France.“Poirier's hugely enjoyable, quick-witted and richly anecdotal book is magnifique.” THE TIMES on Left Bank

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  A Life in Movies - Stories from...

  Irwin Winkler

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  “A lively memoir . . . a first-hand work of cinema history . . . the testament of a pivotal figure in American moviemaking.” —Martin Scorsese 
   
  The list of films Irwin Winkler has produced in his more-than-fifty-year career is extraordinary: Rocky, Goodfellas, Raging Bull, De-Lovely, The Right Stuff, Creed, and The Irishman. His films have been nominated for fifty-two Academy Awards, including five movies for Best Picture, and have won twelve. 
   
  In A Life in Movies, his charming and insightful memoir, Winkler tells the stories of his career through his many films as a producer and then as a writer and director, charting the changes in Hollywood over the past decades. Winkler started in the famous William Morris mailroom and made his first film—starring Elvis—in the last days of the old studio system. Beginning in the late 1960s, and then for decades to come, he produced a string of provocative and influential films, making him one of the most critically lauded, prolific, and commercially successful producers of his era. 
   
  This is an engrossing and candid book, a beguiling exploration of what it means to be a producer, including purchasing rights, developing scripts, casting actors, managing directors, editing film, and winning awards. Filled with tales of legendary and beloved films, as well as some not-so-legendary and forgotten ones, A Life in Movies takes readers behind the scenes and into the history of Hollywood. 
   
  “Charming and anecdote packed . . . popcorn for movie nerds.” —Newsweek 
   
  “A deftly written recollection of an eventful and happy life in a precarious and, frankly, insane business; a remarkably clear-eyed look behind the scenes of moviemaking.” —Kevin Kline

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