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The winner of the Man Booker Prize, this "expertly written, perfectly constructed" bestseller (The Guardian) is now a Starz miniseries. It is 1866, and Walter Moody has come to stake his claim in New Zealand's booming gold rush. On the stormy night of his arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of 12 local men who have met in secret to discuss a series of unexplained events: a wealthy man has vanished, a prostitute has tried to end her life, and an enormous cache of gold has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely ornate as the night sky. Richly evoking a mid-nineteenth-century world of shipping, banking, and gold rush boom and bust, The Luminaries is at once a fiendishly clever ghost story, a gripping page-turner, and a thrilling novelistic achievement. It richly confirms that Eleanor Catton is one of the brightest stars in the international literary firmament.
Chuck Hines, an All-America athlete in his younger days, enjoyed a 40-year career with the YMCA, during which he taught 15,000 children to swim and coached numerous national champions, some of whom became gold, silver, and bronze medalists in Olympic and World competition. He received recognition from the YMCA as a Distinguished Director of Physical Education; was inducted into the Western North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame; earned the Western North Carolina Humanitarian award; and carried the Olympic Torch. In this book, he recounts his YMCA adventures and explains why it is such a cherished and popular international organization.
For five years Julie Welch, a sports writer and marathon runner, edited the magazine of the Long Distance Walkers Association -a remarkably large group of people who meet up most weekends to undertake arduous walking challenges 20, 40 or 60 miles long. The highlight, (though others might well say nadir!) of the Walkers’ calendar has long since been the annual ‘Hundred’. First held in 1973, and every year since, its eclectic (but uniformly addicted) participants will walk a hundred miles, non-stop, within 48 hours – watching the sun set and rise again... twice. The annual Hundreds both beguiled and allured Julie until the sports journalist felt herself powerless to resist; she decided...
CHUCK HINES enjoyed a 40-year career with the YMCA, during which he was a strong advocate of the Olympic sport of water polo. He was a three-time All-America player, and he coached teams at three YMCAs that won national championships. His teams all started out at the beginning level, in small pools and with insufficient equipment, and fought their way to the top. This book is the story of those teams and their rags to riches achievements. The author has written two instructional texts on water polo and has served as chairman of national committees for the Amateur Athletic Union, American Swimming Coaches Association, and YMCA of the USA. He was an officer of the U.S. Olympic Water Polo Commi...
CHILDREN LOST IN TIME . . . WOUNDED HEARTS FIND HEALING TOGETHER. When Vickie Cheney and Adrian Bennett meet in Charleston, South Carolina, at the end of World War II, both are lost souls. The handsome RAF pilot and the beautiful Army nurse are haunted by memories of war. But even more tragic, each has lost a beloved child in a recent devastating fire. But are the children really gone? Even as Vickie and Adrian are drawn together in shared passion and grief, both see poignant images of the lost children in the Charleston streets. But are the sightings real, or merely figments of their grief-crazed imaginations? Why do the children always run away, and why do they appear in clothing from an e...