My Friend Ben And The Big Race

Chip and Ben are best friends. They play together every day and love to play deep-sea divers. So when Catfish challenges them to a swimming race across the pond, they say yes. But it's a long way across their pond, and is racing what they really want to do?

Did you know that babies come into the world with abilities that adults are unaware of? The Baby Gangs of Athens peels back the curtain and shows the lives of the babies who live in Athens and Athens County. We see the gangs with their alliances and rivalries that exist, especially the East Side and the West Side gangs in Athens. We watch with bated breath as they prepare for the big baby drag races held at the Athens County Fair. Adults do not know that each baby gang works toward winning the baby drag race and being proclaimed, ‘Athens County’s #1 Baby Gang’. Through rigorous training, each gang works toward putting the best team of babies into the big race. But like adults, the babies use intrigue and tricks as they maneuver to gain the upper hand. We see Baby Ben, a member of the East Side gang, being accused of crimes against puppies and kittens. Horrors! But Baby Ben, with the aid of his gang and especially his friend Jewell, may yet prevail and goodness might win the day. The gangs get together in their clubhouses and on social media using such platforms as Babybook and Babieslist. We follow their training regimen and the history of baby gangs in Athens.In fact, we learn of other baby gangs throughout Ohio and beyond. In the end, the babies race before thousands of spectators at the Fair. As each race narrows the field, the excitement builds. Betting on the babies reaches a new record and the results of each heat reaches viral proportions. Who will win the big prize of being the best baby drag racer and whose gang is proclaimed the best gang in Athens County?

Steeplechasing provides a long, colorful history of the sport and gives behind-the-scenes portraits of the horses, people, and places of the chase. From the 1800s, enjoy the reproductions of illustrations from colorful sporting journals, and enjoy the writing style of that era which was equally colorful. In more recent times, marvelous action pictures capture the excitement, beauty, and sometimes danger of the sport. Art lovers will also enjoy the color reproductions of horse portraits and race scenes by some of America's best sporting artists. Limited Edition ($175) is bound in a cloth clamshell casing.

There’s a certain kind of lost a boy feels in this world without a father. Tim felt it. I felt it. And we realized our only way out would be together. In an openhearted memoir of faith on the fringe, Roger Thompson meditates on the life and premature death of his best friend and business partner, Tim Garrety, cofounder of Skate Street Ventura. Roger and Tim’s twenty-year friendship was forged in the surf and on the streets of 1980s California. Together they hazarded countless waves and every rite of passage—from guitars to girls to God—and influenced the lives of thousands of skateboarders, musicians, surfers, and otherwise disconnected youth in the process. With unrestrained honesty and a punk-rock soundtrack, My Best Friend’s Funeral is a memoir of friendship, doubt, surfing, and the complex relationships between fathers and sons. If life has ever left you feeling abandoned—or if you simply prefer a rock show to a sermon—My Best Friend’s Funeral is a memoir you won’t want to miss, and a confirmation that you are never alone.

Howling Wolf, a Comanche warrior, watched his life's blood being pumped from his leg to the ground below. He applied pressure to the severed artery, but knew he would die within minutes. A terrible drought forces Jeb Hawkins and his family, as well as Shawnee Chief Grey Cloud and his tribe, from their land, and they guide you on a journey from Tennessee to the Colorado Territory. The trip is a long and dangerous journey where anything can happenand sometimes does.

Ben Claybourne grew up dreaming of one day breeding and racing his own thoroughbreds. On his twenty-first birthday, he struck out to prove his own merit. During the first race of the 1886 season, he met his soul mate, he was betrayed by a friend, and he discovered his colt had been compromised. Discovering the possibility that he had been duped and used by a con man, Ben took it upon himself to surreptitiously investigate. By the end of the racing season, two deaths, five races lost, and a tragic engagement shattered his world.