Babyface Goes To Hollywood

He was the Darling of the Depression. At a time when the Mob ruled the prize ring, Jimmy McLarnin and his manager Pop Foster stayed out of the clutches of the gunmen. This is the story of two Irishmen who found each other on foreign shores and formed one of the great partnerships in sports – the old fairground fighter and the scrawny kid he promised to make champion of the world someday. Theirs is an epic journey that begins in County Down and ends on the star-lined pavements of Sunset Boulevard. Along the way lie murders and organised crime; Nazis, filmstars and gangsters; glamour, gang wars and Gaelic football!

Jimmy McLarnin was one of the greatest champions in boxing history. His amazing record of beating 13 world champions is unmatched. J.J. Johnston and Nick Beck have written a book that every boxing fan will enjoy. Ed O’Neill Modern Family

Benny Leonard was arguably the greatest lightweight champion of all time. With superb boxing skills and potent punching power, he fought over 200 times and suffered just five defeats. He spent his boyhood in a crime-ridden ghetto in Manhattan's Lower East Side, and was the greatest of a long line of Jewish boxers to emerge from the slums. Leonard was still only 19 when he knocked out Freddie Welsh to become world lightweight king in 1917. He defended the title eight times and retired as undefeated champion in 1925, to please the only woman he loved, his mother. But the 1929 Wall Street Crash wiped out his fortune and he was forced to make a comeback at 35. Leonard fought the best of his era: Johnny Dundee, Johnny Kilbane, Rocky Kansas, Jack Britton, Ted Kid Lewis and Lew Tendler among them. Apart from being a sublime boxer, Benny was a first-class showman who helped to put boxing on a higher plane. He died as he lived - in the ring - while refereeing a fight at age 51. This is the definitive account of his remarkable life and career.

Last Stands from the Alamo to Benghazi examines how filmmakers teach Americans about the country’s military past. Examining twenty-three representative war films and locating them in their cultural and military landscape, the authors argue that Hollywood’s view of American military history has evolved in two phases. The first phase, extending from the very beginnings of filmmaking to the Korean War, projected an essential patriotic triumphalism. The second phase, from the Korean and Vietnam Wars to the present, reflects a retreat from consensus and reflexive patriotism. In describing these phases, the authors address recurring themes such as the experience of war and combat, the image of the American war hero, race, gender, national myths, and more. With helpful film commentaries that extend the discussion through popular movie narratives, this book is essential for anyone interested in American military and film history.

Long before he became 'Hardcore Holly,' Robert Howard was a fighter. From humble beginnings to fame as an internationally known superstar, The Hardcore Truth tells the story of Bob's life including his 16 years working for Vince McMahon. In this rollercoaster tale of success and frustration, replete with missed opportunities, broken promises and a broken neck, Bob shares his uncompromising views on the present wrestling landscape with fascinating insights into the world leader in sports entertainment.

Stoney Martin is a well-known porn star whose life is filled with bright lights and photo shoots. One night when he’s helping out a friend, a thug breaks into a local diner, recognizes him, and cuts into the flesh on his face, forcing him to sink down into anonymity. While hiding out, Stoney is discovered by Hud Spencer, a fan who has worshipped him through Baby Face Magazine for years. Hud pays to have Stoney’s fixed. They slowly fall in love and stay together until Hud learns Stoney wants to use his new face to continue his career in porn. This causes a rift between them Hud can’t handle, so he walks out. They move on with their lives. Stoney gets discovered by the Prima Donna Modeling Agency, and Hud starts his own software company. But at a modeling gig, they meet up once again, and neither can deny the old feelings that resurface. Should they give their love another chance, or is it dead and gone?

From New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Hunter comes a thriller that pits former Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger against the only man who might be able to outshoot him. A marine sniper team on a mission in tribal territories on the Afghan-Pakistan border, Whiskey 2-2 is ambushed by professionals using the latest high-tech shooting gear. Badly wounded, the team’s sole survivor, Gunnery Sergeant Ray Cruz, aka “the Cruise Missile,” is determined to finish his job. He almost succeeds when a mystery blast terminates his enterprise, leaving a thirty-foot crater where a building used to be—and where Sergeant Cruz was meant to be hiding. Months pass. Ray’s target, an Afghan warlord named Ibrahim Zarzi, sometimes called “The Beheader,” becomes an American asset in the region and beyond, beloved by State, the Administration, and the Agency. He arrives in Washington for consecration as Our Man in Kabul. And that brings Ray Cruz out of hiding. Swagger, the legendary hero of seven of Hunter’s novels from Point of Impact to last year’s bestselling I, Sniper, is recruited by the FBI to stop the Cruise Missile from reaching his target. The problem is that the more Swagger learns about what happened in Zabol, the more he questions the US government’s support of Zarzi and the more he identifies with Cruz as hunter instead of prey.