Inside The Cage

Daniel is one of the most feared cage fighters in Mixed Martial Arts, closing in on greatness until an injury ruins his career. Forced back to his rural hometown with his career derailed, he slips into the criminal underworld, moonlighting as muscle for a mid-level gangster he has known since childhood. Battling a cycle of rural poverty, Daniel and his wife Sarah struggle to secure a better life for their daughter, but in this violent and unpredictable world of back-country criminals and county cops, Daniel sparks a conflict that can only be settled in blood. Written in spare, muscular prose, In the Cage penetrates the heart of what it means to endure life in the underclass, revealing the small joys found there.

In this small masterpiece of unrequited love, Henry James, as in his greatest novels, depicts a moral consciousness torn between emotional impulses and the demands of society. Working in a post office in Mayfair, a young woman is exposed to the cryptic but alluring correspondence of the social elite, and in particular, to lines written by the dashing Captain Everard. As she memorizes the messages he telegraphs, she becomes increasingly attracted to the life described to her, fixated by scandal and gossip a world apart from her ordinary existence.

First published in 1975, The Cage was a graphic novel before there was a name for the genre. Considered an early masterpiece of the genre, the Canadian cult comic has been out of print for decades. The new edition includes an introduction by Canadian comics master and Lemony Snicket collaborator Seth (Palookaville; It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken). Cryptic and disturbing, like Dave Gibbons (Watchmen) illustrating a film by Ozu, The Cage spurns narrative for atmosphere, guiding us through a series of disarrayed rooms and desolate landscapes, tracking a stuttering and circling time and a sequence of objects: headphones, inky stains, bedsheets. It's not about where we're going but how – if – we get there.

Under suspicion for a virtual break-in at Fort Knox, 17-year-old Carl Hobbes finds himself on a rendition flight for questioning by the US military. Taken to an isolated camp in the Arctic wilderness, dedicated to holding terrorists-for-hire, the boy finds all assurances about his safety blow away when one notorious detainee stages an uprising. Cut off from civilisation, and with overnight temperatures plummeting, Hobbes must decide whether his chances of survival are greater inside the cage - or out…

A man becomes entangled in a dangerous web of death and deceit in this “hallmark of classic French noir” set in 1960s Paris (The Guardian) Trouble is the last thing Albert needs. Traveling back to his childhood home on Christmas Eve to mourn his mother’s death, he finds the loneliness and nostalgia of his Parisian quartier unbearable. Until, that evening, he encounters a beautiful, seemingly innocent woman at a brasserie, and his spirits are lifted. Still, something about the woman disturbs him. Where is the father of her child? And what are those two red stains on her sleeve? When she invites him back to her apartment, Albert thinks he’s in luck. But a monstrous scene awaits them, and he finds himself lured into the darkness against his better judgment. Unravelling like a paranoid nightmare, Bird in a Cage melds existentialist drama with thrilling noir to tell the story of a man trapped in a prison of his own making.

Carl Merritt breaks the strict code of silence that surrounds The Cage to tell, with Wensley Clarkson's help, how - just months before his 16th birthday - he became the star of this most deadly of sports. fight to the death - an illegal sport that attracts some of the world's richest and most powerful people as its shadowy patrons. Carl tells how he learned to punch properly at the age of nine. He needed to use his boxing skills soon afterwards, by fighting off his stepfather, who was viciously attacking his mother. A few years later, Carl himself was attacked by a vicious youth. The physical damage done to him ruined his chance of a career as a professional boxer, and he became trapped in a cycle of violence, crime and retribution. In this account of his fight for survival, Carl tells of his 12-year career in The Cage. the most deadly opponent in the world. Now he has left this world, and is trying to live a normal life with his wife and two children. Having killed three people himself, Carl has also dealt out justice to local drug dealers and wife beaters in his role as a vigilante on the streets of the East End. Now he tells his whole story - through to when he fought his last Cage fight in Vegas and gained sweet revenge on the evil men who'd encouraged him to risk life and limb.

The most popular outdoor basketball court in New York City is half the regulation size, offers no seating, and has sidelines bounded by a chain-link fence. But the summer league on West 4th Street in Greenwich Village has developed its share of stars and has become known throughout the world for another reason: Here the only thing that matters is the game. Inside the Cage follows the West 4th Street's summer league through a single season, chronicling its legendary history along the way. From 1970s playground legend Fly Williams to NBA veteran Anthony Mason and L.A. Lakers guard Smush Parker, three generations of players have mastered their game at West 4th Street. And the Cage itself -- located in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in America and frequented by men from the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Harlem -- proves that talent can flourish even in the most unlikely places.