Book Description
Del Bonnet, a teaching pro at an obscure Florida golf resort, needs a change and needs it badly. His 50th birthday has come and gone, and the shadows of life are growing long and threatening. Bonnet gambles on personal resurrection via the PGA Seniors tour. Even with the considerable assistance of two staunch alliesa golf club named Big Luther and a caddie named DoublewideBonnet soon learns that big dreams inevitably lead to bigger complications.
Customer Reviews:
He's No Troon McAllister!.......2004-08-15
Pardon the pun, but the book is simply not up to par. The author tries TOO hard and the laughs fall flat, in my humble opinion. If you want solid golf fiction, shoot for The Green or The Foursome by McAllister.
A New and Hillarious View of the Senior Tour.......2004-03-21
This was my first outing with a Mike Shropshire book and while I don't think he rises to the Dan Jenkins catagory, this is a pretty funny and satirical look at the world of professional golf and more specifically the Senior Tour, or as someone dubbed it, Life's Greatest Mulligan.
Del Bonnet is a club pro at one of the dingier country clubs in this great country. He had once been to The Show. But, after an automobile accident with a woman who was busy distracting him from the perils of the road he was laughed off the PGA Tour (he was arrested during the golf tournament on national TV) and relegated to the backwaters of golf, teaching the rest of us how to stop slicing the ball and how to get out of sand traps.
However, there is a convergence of events that sets out to change his life. He turns 50 and a sales rep leaves a prototype driver for him to try out. It is labeled The Enola Gay. Bonnet gives the Enola Gay a secret workout and is astounded with the results. He confides his interest in the Senior Tour to his greenskeeper, Doublewide McBride and before you can say Dorothy Ridge, he volunteers to be Bonnet's caddie. After an experimental foray into a local Senior event, the Enola Gay performs like a champion, Bonnet supplies the rest and a plan is hatched to go to Q School and then on to the Senior Tour. Only one problem stands in his way. How to finance such a venture. That's where Dorothy Ridge comes in. A former Rockette, Dorothy was at one time the trophy wife of an captain of industry.By the time she has turned 70 the old gent is witless and foolish and Dorothy has been put in charge of his fortune. Bonnet approaches her with "an investment oppotunity", i.e. financing him for a year on the Senior Tour. During the investment discussion, a couple of bottles of wine (Pommard '61) are consumed and Bonnett discovers that Dottie still has a dancer's body and the sex drive of every guy's wet dreams. Dottie agrees to sign on if Del can survive Q School. She also comes up with a new name for the mystery driver. Big Luther. The subject arose when something else of Del's rose during the "interview."
From there the book takes off on a satrical trip through the Senior Tour. Team Del (Del, Doublewide and Luther) are on the trip of their lives, but others are plotting to derail his career and Big Luther. It's very entertaining, but better told in the reading of it than being spelled out here.
My wife wants to read this book.......2001-11-21
after hearing me laugh out loud numerous times. This book is funny,funny.funny. If you think Dan Jenkins is good, just wait till you read this. The language is colorful, but thats what makes the characters work. I can't believe that this is Mike Shropshire's first fiction book-I hope he writes a lot more. You will like Del Bonnet so much, you'll be sorry the story ends. Who knows-maybe Mike will do a sequel about the 2nd year on the Senior tour,and I can laugh some more.
Dan Jenkins has a worthy successor.......2001-08-26
This is a fantastic, one-of-a-kind, super funny, golf tome of the first order. The dialogue is superb, the plot moves without hesitation, and there are twists at every dogleg. I kept waiting for the book to drag but it only got better with each page. I wish I could think of enough superlatives to describe what a fun read this was. It's a classic that stays in my collection and will be read anytime I want a good laugh.
Laugh Out Loud.......2001-07-15
The Pro is one of the funniest books I have ever had the pleasure of reading. I could not put the book down!! Mike Shropshire is obviously a talented writer and I am looking forward to the publication of his next book.
Book Description
A biography of Sugar Ray Robinson-described by Muhammad Ali as "the king, my master, my idol"-and an intellectual expedition into the culture of celebrity in sports.
And in this corner, hailing from Black Bottom, Detroit by way of Harlem, with more victories than Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali combined, the greatest fighter-pound for pound-of all time: Sugar Ray Robinson.
If imitation is truly the sincerest form of flattery then there should be little doubt Sugar Ray Robinson is the greatest and most influential American boxer of all time. Fighters (and the occasional alt-rock band) have been adopting his name, and trying to imitate his inimitable fighting style for decades.
Sugar Ray Robinson transcended race and sport to become a celebrity athlete in a way that no one-white or black-had accomplished before him. From his business empire to his prized flamingo pink Cadillac, described as the Hope Diamond of Harlem, Kenneth Shropshire shows Sugar Ray was the trailblazer whom every athlete since has been trying, consciously or otherwise, to emulate.
Customer Reviews:
Past and Present come together.......2007-04-10
Being Sugar Ray...The First Celebrity Athlete, is a read that provides an examination of the life and times of Sugar Ray and a studied insight into the superstar athletes of today. Although Charles Barkley and others resist the title of role model, Sugar Ray Robinson created the mold.
Not in the sense of an athlete to be emulated by our youth, but in creating the vision for young athletes of what Celebrity entails and looks like and from whence it came. Shropshire deftly utilizes his years of experience in the sports world to bring us closer to understanding how and why today's athletes do what they do on and especially off the playing fields. More than understanding how to train to succeed in sports, the author seeks to shed some light upon the darkness of celebrity that many of today's star represent and continue to experience. It represents an intriguing guide to the inside of sports, athletes and their vulnerability to being in the spotlight that we cast upon them. A valuable addition to a sports fan library...especially for the young superstar in training!
Bro2much
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See what's free at AOL.com.
A Puzzling Pseudo-Biography.......2007-04-07
"Sugar Ray Robinson was the consummate professional, entertainer, and businessperson. How do today's athletes measure up compared to Sugar Ray Robinson?" And unfortunately for the focus of the book, author Kenneth Shropshire spends too much valuable space in the 220 pages trying to find Robinson's trifecta in the athletes of today.
For nearly 190 of those pages Shropshire takes small snippets from Robinson's life and attempts to weave comparisons & contrasts through stars like Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, Terrell Owens, Ron Artest, Randy Moss, Roger Federer, Pat Tillman, Mike Tyson, Shaq, Michael Jordan, Paul Pierce and Allen Iverson. It is oftentimes a very frustrating read as Shropshire fails to tie these loose strands together in so few pages.
And, ultimately, Shropshire questions his approach in the closing paragraph: "There is no evidence that Sugar Ray consciously led the postsegregation celebrity athlete transition. Maybe athletes today are accomplishing something unconsciously. Time will tell."
The book starts out with so much promise - chronicling Robinson's final farewell to boxing in December 1965 - and his years as an amateur fighter, with special emphasis on how he "found" his ring name and nickname. But the spotlight doesn't again fully focus on Robinson until the closing chapters of the too-often tragic boxing story of a former great champion; major financial problems to go along with severe physical debilitation from taking too many hard blows in a career lasting far too long.
I would give Shropshire the benefit of the doubt of being overly-ambitious if only somewhere in the title describes how he theorizes the evolution of Walker Smith Jr. into Sugar Ray Robinson has impacted the new generation of celebrity athletes.
"Suger Ray lived the moment," concludes Shropshire. It is too bad that Sugar Ray's moment is muddled in this book.
Book Description
Raucous, raw, and reliably remarkable, the century-old football rivalry between the state universities of Texas and Oklahoma stands as testament that hate-based relationships are the most enduring
Each year in October the fans of both schools—the crimson-clad huns from OU and the burnt orange barbarians from UT—invade Dallas for a weekend of high-octane hell-raising and reveling in an athletic contest proving that elephants, tigers, and acrobats are not necessary to stage the greatest show on earth. And the football's not bad, either.
Runnin' with the Big Dogs details the outlandish and colorful saga of this ferociously entertaining football confrontation. This is the story of pride, heroics, hopes, dreams, and prodigious four-day hangovers. As acclaimed author Mike Shropshire makes clear, the Longhorns-Sooners confrontation is rougher than playing Russian roulette with a shotgun.
Built on the passionate fury of their fans (in this case fully earning the term's origin—"fanatics"), the Texas-Oklahoma spectacle is a production line for national champions, Heisman Trophy winners, NFL All-Pros, and some of the most storied coaches in the history of the sport, from Bud Wilkinson and Darrell Royal to Mack Brown and Bob Stoops. The rivalry has produced some of the most memorable football contests ever, though it matters not whether the teams are ranked—every year is a battle royal. As for the people who come to witness the event, Dallas County's top law enforcement official said, "You watch those lunatics and wonder what drives a person to carry on like a crazy destructive madman." That's why Shropshire is convinced that Texas-OU football fans are the best in the country, and the players and coaches are driven to manic extremes to give them performances to remember.
The great players, the great games, and the great stories of the wildest weekends in sports—Runnin' with the Big Dogs captures it all.
Customer Reviews:
History of Longhorn vrs OU.......2007-03-08
Wonderful read, got for a gift and he has loved reading all about the history, says it is very neat to learn where it all began!
An Okie Perspective on the Red River Shootouts...The Truth is Still Out There.......2007-01-03
As an OU Alumni, who "was there" at more Sooner Red River victories in the "Switzer and Stoops Eras" than covered in the book, my recommendation is that "Runnin with the Big Dogs" should be renamed "Fightin with the Gladiators"! Shropshire numerous attempts at home spun humor often fall incomplete(not up to par with Dan Rather and certainly not Will Rogers). The book has the same familar style of Texan "truthiness" to it that we're use to hearing from another Longhorn Fan who lives in the White House. The author is clearly biased toward the Longhorn side of the barbed wire fence (otherwise he would have mentioned Oklahoma's victory in a real "Red River War" in a long standing border dispute between Oklahoma and Texas in 1931 with Oklahoma National Guardsmen standing down the Texas Rangers). The one subject covered extensively that I enjoyed was on former OU Player Joe Don Looney. It brought back memories attending football games with my Dad in the early 60s when Looney was star halfback at the UCLA of the Southwest (University of Cameron Lawton Area).
Been There, Done That, Gotta Lotta T-shirts .......2006-10-29
Dallas, TEXAS, denizen Mike Shropshire, former drinkin' buddy of Joe Don Looney, claims to have written a balanced look at "the True, Unvarnished story of the Texas-Oklahoma Football wars." Bevo poop! Although the cover resembles a myopic blimpbasket view of the Cotton Bowl 50 yard line on gameday (1/2 crimson, ½ burnt orange,) the book starts with a long, lugubrious re-celebration of the 2005 Longhorn National Championship in Pasedena. Their first in 35 years. [Hoopla. Hoopla. yawn. yawn.] Shropshire forgets to mention that during this long Longhorn dry spell, the Sooners cruised the Sooner schooner to 4 more (1974, 1975, 1985, 2000.)
At times wallowing in egregious generalizations - like the hallucination that all Sooners were cheering FOR the Longhorns in the Rose Bowl (Dude! My favorite football teams are the Sooners, Da Bears, whoever is playing UT at the time and whoever is playing Oregon (Duckin' corrupt cheatin' - karma gotta get `em!) once the book settles into its purpose, it does live up to its titular hype. Shropshire's premise, supported with aplomb and humour, is that both program's goal is to beat the other in the annual contest - that they frequently happen to have to amass enough talent to beat everybody else in the country in the process is just gravy on the grits.
There are some photos in the middle - more would be better, and color (to see the beautiful crimson and cream) would be best. And it has an index - how else to locate the shy, quiet, blushing Boz?
/TundraVision, Amazon Reviewer, former annual Adolphus resident, Commerce & Cotton Bowl Survivor, urging everyone to watch TV's bright "Friday Night Lights" before the dullards at NBC prematurely end its season.
A book Sooners and Horns can appreciate.......2006-09-05
Don't get misled by that nasty orange dustcover, this is a fun and rowdy read for both Sooner and Horn fans as well as for anyone who wants to get a taste of the most colorful sports rivalry in America. Shropshire's witty essays give insight into the culture of both locker rooms and include some stories that even diehard fans will not have heard. Don't read this book in bed--my wife finally got tired of being awakened by my laughter and took refuge in the guestroom. Two corrections for the author: 1)it was OU President George Lynn Cross, not President Bill Banowsky, who first told the regents that "he wanted to build a university that the football team could be proud of" and 2)it is the Oklahoma-Texas rivalry, not the Texas-Oklahoma rivalry.
Average customer rating:
- Romance and Pignapping!
- A Great Book!
- Very Funny
- Very good!
- A 11 year old reader from U.S.A.
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Pigs Have Wings
P. G. Wodehouse
Manufacturer: Overlook Hardcover
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Uncle Fred in the Springtime (A Blandings Story)
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Blandings Castle
ASIN: 1585670596
Release Date: 2000-05-04 |
Book Description
On the 25th anniversary of Wodehouse's death, booksellers and readers will be cheered to find the finest editions available of his classic novels--the first in a series of his best known works--by one of the greatest English comic writers of our time.
Fans devoted to the master of comic fiction P. G. Wodehouse are legion. He represents an antic high point in the world of farce and social satire. Best known for the creation of two fictional worlds based on Blandings Castle and the Wooster-Jeeves gentleman-valet duo, Wodehouse is appreciated the world over for his exceedingly clever and comically savvy send-ups of the idle rich in Edwardian England.
Pigs Have Wings takes us to Blandings Castle, where a romantic comedy unfolds alongside the intrigue of the Fat Pig competition in Shropshire.
With each volume edited and reset and printed on Scottish cream-wove, acid-free paper, sewn and bound in cloth, these novels are elegant additions to any Wodehouse fan's library.
Customer Reviews:
Romance and Pignapping!.......2004-11-04
P.G. Wodehouse was the 20th century's answer to William Shakespeare reproduced as musical comedy. In Pigs Have Wings, Mr. Wodehouse produced one of his very best efforts.
As usual, the themes involve a satire of romantic love, miscommunications between the sexes, the vapid interests of the titled class, and the silliness of people in general.
As the book opens, Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth finds himself faced with a threat to the supremacy of his pig, Empress of Blandings, in the Fat Pigs class at the Shropshire Agricultural Show. Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, Bart, of Matchingham Hall, had already hired away Clarence's pig handler, George Cyril Wellbeloved . . . and Clarence is sure that some new skullduggery will soon follow. As the story develops, we find that it's all too true. Soon both pig camps are doing their best to knobble the other man's pig. With everyone else having a bet on the outcome, many other people are soon engaged in trying to sabotage one pig or the other. It's the most pignapping fun caper you can imagine!
In the background, we have all sorts of people who've become engaged to totally unsuitable people on the rebound from slights they feel from the one they really love. P.G. Wodehouse does a yeoman effort of returning all of those twisted loves to the proper party. The plot will keep you constantly chuckling throughout.
There are quite a few books based on the Empress of Blandings. So if you enjoy this one, go on to the others in the series.
A Great Book!.......2004-06-24
Wodehouse, master of words that he is, shows his wit to be in top form in this wonderfully funny story of Blandings castle. As usual, Lord Emsworth is a bit dazed and obsessing about his pig (now hoping that she'll win first in her division for the third year running at the local agricultural show) and the guests at Blandings are falling hopelessly in love with one another. This is a great book for both those new to Wodehouse and those who have enjoyed his other works. I highly recommend it.
Very Funny.......2002-08-16
In typical Wodehouse fashion, this is a comical story with many hilarious twists and turns. I found myself laughing aloud in many places. Simply put, if you like Wodehouse and especially the Blandings Castle series, you like this book. It is one of the later "chronicles" of Blandings Castle, but it would be a good read for anyone--even those unfamiliar with Lord Emsworth. This is a great book, and author, for those who enjoy light, comical novels.
Very good!.......2001-09-17
A great and entertaining read. I highly recommend it. It's one of P.G. Wodehouse's best in my opinion. Life at Blandings castle
is like paradise!
A 11 year old reader from U.S.A........2001-02-27
Pigs have wings is one of the best books I have read, because it so funny. The way the characters are many times spaced out and the way they act on their stupidity, mostly the way P.G. Wodehouse makes fun of characters. Pigs have wings, is about competition between two pigs for the fattest pig class. They try to steal each other's pig, and the Empress (the name of the hero's pig) has been the winner of this class for two years in a row. All this is tied with some knotted yet silly love relationships. But the way Wodehouse makes fun of it is so funny that you will laugh untill tears start pouring down.
Book Description
The legendary Charles C. "Cash and Carry" Pyle, considered by most to be the first sports agent, negotiated a $3,000-per-game contract for Red Grange to play professional football for the Chicago Bears in 1933. Today, salaries in the tens of millions of dollars are commonplace, and instead of theatrical promoters and impresarios, professionally trained businessmen and lawyers dominate the business. Successful sports agents are comfortable with high finance and intense competition for the right to represent talented players, and the most respected agents are those who can deal with the pressures of high-stakes negotiations in an honest fashion. But whereas rules and penalties govern the playing field, there are far fewer restrictions on agents. Incidents of agents manipulating athletes, ranging from investment scams to outright theft of a player's money, are far too commonplace, and there is growing consensus for reform.
In The Business of Sports Agents, Kenneth L. Shropshire and Timothy Davis, experts in the fields of sports business and law, examine the history of the sports agent business and the rules and laws developed to regulate the profession. They also consider recommendations for reform, including uniform laws that would apply to all agents, redefining amateurism in college sports (a point Shropshire and Davis suggest may be essential to rooting out corruption), and stiffening requirements for licensing agents.
Whether an aspiring sports agent, a lawyer, an athlete seeking an agent, or someone simply interested in understanding the world of sports representation, the reader will find in The Business of Sports Agents the most comprehensive overview of the industry as well as a straightforward analysis of its problems and the proposed solutions.
Customer Reviews:
Good book.......2005-03-01
This book explains the basics of how to become a sports agent. If you are looking for more info, I would also recommend you check out these useful sites: http://www.all-sports-agents-directory.com, http://www.become-a-sports-agent.com, and http://www.allsportsdirectory.net.
A Great Book about American Sports Representation.......2003-10-09
I just wanted to refute the review below. It must be for another book. This book has nothing to do with British sports or soccer. It deals with American sports--basketball, baseball, and football--and discusses both the history and problems of sports representation. As earlier reviews recommend, it is a 'must read' for anyone aspiring to be a sports agent.
Better for Britons.......2003-09-30
This book is interesting, yet focuses primarily on sports business in the UK, and particularly in regard to dealings with soccer clubs. But in terms of applicability to the US market, it's mostly interesting only as a tangential reference.
A Must Read for Future Sports Agents.......2002-11-08
This is require reading for our online Sports Agent Course.
Dr. G. Lynn Lashbrook
SportsManagementU
A MUST READ FOR FUTURE SPORTS AGENTS!.......2002-11-06
This book is a must read for anyone considering becoming a sports agent. The authors understand the industry and the issues it faces in the future. It is our primary textbook for our online Professional Athlete Management Course.
Dr. G. Lynn Lashbrook
President
SportsManagementU
Average customer rating:
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A Shropshire Lad
A E Houseman
Manufacturer: Illustrated Editions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GDH144 |
Average customer rating:
- My favorite book of poetry
- Simple, yet mature poetry
- A Clock Ticks Like Thunder
- The Cycle of Life as told by A.E. Housman...
- ghost-like remembrances of forgotten way of life.
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A Shropshire Lad (Dover Thrift Editions)
A. E. Housman
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
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ASIN: 0486264688 |
Book Description
Authoritative edition of one of the enduring classics of English poetry — 63 poems on the nature of friendship, the passing of youth, the vanity of dreams, other human concerns. Long prized by literary scholars for their perfection of form and feeling, and loved by generations of readers for simplicity, sensitivity, direct emotional appeal.
Customer Reviews:
My favorite book of poetry.......2005-03-15
I bought this book of poetry because of a recommendation from a close author friend of mine. Since I bought "A shropshire lad," I have read it three times, highlighted my favorites and enjoyed every verse.
The great thing about Housman is that his rhyme scheme seems effortless. Whereas other poets seem to struggle and adjust a story to fit the rhyme, Housman's poems flow naturally and are lyrical. The subjects of his poems are very royal and I enjoy them a great deal.
If you are looking to enjoy some poetry that isn't hard to understand and is among the best ever written, I hihgly recommend "A Shropshire Lad."
Simple, yet mature poetry.......2003-07-19
As with most high school students, I was required to read and analyze "To An Athlete Dying Young." Its simple structure, elementary language and subject matter to which I could relate all made it one of my favorite poems at the time. Now, years later, it remains very interesting and drew me into A Shropshire Lad. I was curious to see the other material Housman published and was thrilled to find that all of his work shared similar attractive qualities. His poetry is accessible to even the most novice poetry readers (like myself) and clearly expresses complicated thoughts with beatiful language. Housman's empasis on the brevity of life, death and war are not happy topics, but they are realistic and it is valuable to consider his concise thoughts. I think this book, which essentially follows the life cycle, is full of fascinating poetry that anyone will enjoy, no matter what level you wish to analyze the material. It is a terrific collection.
A Clock Ticks Like Thunder.......2003-04-12
...in A. E. Housman's "A Shropshire Lad." He is obsessed with death and the brevity of time. He is determined to wring meaning out of a teen soldier's blood-soaked shirt, to bring beauty out of tragedy.
Poets' critical reputations move up and down like a sine curve. Given the increasingly unread status of poetry, however, one would think that Housman's rep would be on the upswing, since he presents his ideas with clear language, pleasant rhyme, simple trochaic or iambic meter, archetypal imagery, and intense emotion; his is among the most plain and accessible poetry a major author has ever crafted, a boon to the genre at a time it's largely being ignored.
Still, people tend to read Housman wrong. They claim he's either promoting or deriding war. In fact, he's doing neither; war is simply an unfortunate fact of life for Housman. People must confuse him for Wilfred Owen, who actually does fulminate against war or Rudyard Kipling, who actually does promote it.
... Even the lovely rural setting of the poems, which in another book he refers to as "the land of lost content," suggests the rapture and freedom of boyhood is being mourned as it passes. Battle death is often a stand-in here for the death of innocence. War is only slightly more awful toward the body than time itself. War is only Housman's metaphor; love is his objective.
The Cycle of Life as told by A.E. Housman..........2003-01-02
This review refers to the Dover Thrift Edition Paperback of "A Shropshire Lad"....
Without getting too analytical of the poetry itself or the meaning of Housman's works,as I am not a poet myself, I will say that I throughly enjoyed this edition of "A Shropshire Lad". Although Housman's words at times may seem a bit like the antedote to exhilaration, he seems to speak from the heart and wisely about the cycle of life. The never ending scheme of things.The seasons and the earth changing year by year. Young men falling in love, going off to war, coming home wounded, dead, or finding their loves no longer want them. It brought to mind for me, the song by Peter, Paul and Mary "Where Have All The Flowers Gone".
Although these words were first published well over 100 years ago, I found there is still meaning in his words.Many of the lines in this book I found to still be quoted today. For example in poem LVI-"The Day of Battle", he ponders this:
"Comrade, if to turn and fly
Made a soldier never die,
Fly I would, for who would not?
Tis sure no pleasure to be shot
But since the man that runs away
Lives to die another day,
And cowards' funerals, when they come,
Are not wept so well at home,........."
This Dover Thrift Edition is a great value for the price. It contains all sixty-three original poems of "A Shropshire Lad" including XIX-"To An Athlete Dying Young"(which you've heard if you have seen the film "Out of Africa"). It has an index with notes on the text which will clarify some of the names and places Housman uses that might be of geographic or historical value to the reader, and also has an index of the first lines, helpful in finding a specific poem. It's a small lightweight book you can easily throw in your purse, briefcase or even a large pocket, that you can pull out to read while you have time to kill or while traveling. It's something to add to your cart when you need just a little bit more to put you into that free-shipping catagory!
Dover Thrift has many of these little books of great literary works, I plan on adding more to my collection....enjoy....Laurie
ghost-like remembrances of forgotten way of life........2001-10-17
the title of 'A Shropshire Lad' indicates both rural specificity and human universality, and it is in the gap between the two that the poems' tension and tragedy lie. they evoke a timeless pastoral world, of streams, plains and roses; of ploughing, carousing and love-making; of villages, churches and football; all belonging to the unchanging cycle of the seasons. In this context man as a type, as a member of a community, is eternal also, not least in the folk idiom in which Housman's classical clarity is decaptively cloaked.
as an individual, however, the 'lad' is insubstantial, doomed to leave or die as rural life continues unchanging without him. Many of the poems are narrated by exiles or ghosts, crushed to find the old routine the same as if they had never existed - the phantom of 'Is my team ploughing?' discovers even his grieving sweetheart now warm in his interlocutor's bed; he of 'Bredon Hill' plans his wedding, only to attend his own funeral.
Housman uses a direct and simple vocabulary and metre with devastating resonances, the very music of the poetry at once rooted in the eternal communal land and yet indicative of sadness and loss. Written in 1896, the irony of death and change in the never-ending countryside was doubled by the reality that the countryside was changing, that the centuries-old lifestyles were being encroached on by industry and modernity - what seemed to be inviolable itself becomes obsolete. in hindsight, a third, poignant irony is added - within 20 years of publication, these lads would be sent to the slaughter in World War One, as previsioned in 'On the idle hill of summer'. One of Housman's greatest admirers, the composer George Butterworth, who wrote two song-cycles based on these beautiful poems, would be one such victim.
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Yours to Love: Words of Wisdom from Your New Baby
Marie Shropshire
Manufacturer: CSS Publishing Company
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ASIN: 0788007181 |
Book Description
Bill Parcells was living in self-imposed exile from the National Football League sidelines. The Tuna had earned living-legend status after coaching the Giants, Patriots, and Jets from the skid-row district of the NFL and transforming those teams into champions. The final weeks of the 2002 season found Parcells working as an analyst at the ESPN studios. His heart aching, Parcells was like a televangelist with no cripples to heal. The Tuna urgently yearned for another lost cause.
In Dallas, Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones -- described by author Mike Shropshire as "a man involved in a heroic struggle to overcome what had been diagnosed as a terminal face-lift" -- was suffering through sleepless nights. Although his once-proud pro football powerhouse traveled beneath a banner that read "America's Team," it had suffered three straight 5#150;11 seasons. This team was so sick, it had bedsores.
After a clandestine meeting aboard Jones's private jet, parked at a New Jersey airport, Parcells agreed to abandon his East Coast roots and travel south to restore life to the Cowboys. The Tuna and Jones needed each other in the worst kind of way, so a shotgun wedding was performed. The pundits of the national media joined hands and shouted, "Parcells and Jones can't stand each other! They're too set in their ways! It'll never work!"
As usual, the pundits were wrong. With Parcells the ultimate motivator and so-called Jock Whisperer applying his craft, Dallas rolled to a 10#150;6 regular-season record and shocked the NFL by making the playoffs. When the Tuna Went Down to Texas details the saga of how this unlikely partnership of men "too brittle for tango lessons, but not yet blind enough for assisted living" amazed the sports world and serves as absolute proof that while the truth is not always stranger than fiction, it's usually a lot funnier.
Download Description
"E-Book Extra: Parcells in a Nutshell
Bill Parcells was living in self-imposed exile from the National Football League sidelines. The Tuna had earned living-legend status after coaching the Giants, Patriots, and Jets from the skid-row district of the NFL and transforming those teams into champions. The final weeks of the 2002 season found Parcells working as an analyst at the ESPN studios. His heart aching, Parcells was like a televangelist with no cripples to heal. The Tuna urgently yearned for another lost cause.
In Dallas, Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones -- described by author Mike Shropshire as ""a man involved in a heroic struggle to overcome what had been diagnosed as a terminal face-lift"" -- was suffering through sleepless nights. Although his once-proud pro football powerhouse traveled beneath a banner that read ""America's Team,"" it had suffered three straight 5-11 seasons. This team was so sick, it had bedsores.
After a clandestine meeting aboard Jones's private jet, parked at a New Jersey airport, Parcells agreed to abandon his East Coast roots and travel south to restore life to the Cowboys. The Tuna and Jones needed each other in the worst kind of way, so a shotgun wedding was performed. The pundits of the national media joined hands and shouted, ""Parcells and Jones can't stand each other! They're too set in their ways! It'll never work!""
As usual, the pundits were wrong. With Parcells the ultimate motivator and so-called Jock Whisperer applying his craft, Dallas rolled to a 10-6 regular-season record and shocked the NFL by making the playoffs.
When the Tuna Went Down to Texas details the saga of how this unlikely partnership of men ""too brittle for tango lessons, but not yet blind enough for assisted living"" amazed the sports world and serves as absolute proof that while the truth is not always stranger than fiction, it's usually a lot funnier.
"
Customer Reviews:
A fumble.......2005-06-25
This book has too many problems to be inducted into the Ring of Honor. Here are just a few. First, this book has unacceptable factual errors(see A. Keller's review). Second the author believes the season opener will make or break the season. The 1993 Dallas Cowboys(one of the top three teams of all time) lost their first two games of the season. Equally as great, the 1981 San Francisco 49ers lost their opener. The author must believe that Jerry Jones died at the Alamo. I don't see what he had to gain by criticizing Randy Galloway's(a frequent Jones critic) choice in the 1972 presidential election. Horrible foul.
Very Entertaining.......2005-01-15
Being from New York and now living in Dallas I was glad when the Cowboys hired Bill Parcells. I knew he was a good coach and it made following the Cowboys, after three 5-11 seasons, a little bit more compelling. I had read and enjoyed Shropshire's Seasons in Hell (about the original Texas Rangers) and when this book came out I decided to give it a try. I hoped this book would be as good and I wasn't disappointed.
I think it is possibly the most entertaining sports book I have read. Parts of it are laugh out load hilarious. It is not "ground breaking" as Moneyball or Ball Four but it makes no pretensions to be. If you are a purist looking for an in depth scholarly study of the nuances of football coaching strategy, or a play by play recap of the 2003-2004 season there are probably better, more boring, books out there.
Read this book if you are a fan of football, Bill Parcells, the Cowboys or you want to have a good laugh. There are a lot of good behind the scenes stories about players, coaches, and owners here that you didn't read in the newspaper. The writing style is unique and if you read Seasons in Hell you know what I mean. I think it's a better read than Seasons because the subject matter is more topical.
Interesting Subject, Horrible Writing.......2004-11-19
Let me preface this review by stating that I'm as die-hard a Dallas Cowboys fan as you'll ever meet on this Earth. I have read just about everything ever written about the Cowboys and their various coaches over the years. So naturally, I was very excited when I saw this book in the bookstore and immediately bought it. By the time I finished reading it three days later, I was very disappointed.
The author seems to be trying way too hard to sound like a good writer. His sentences are way too flowery, and he always goes for the 38-word description rather than the 3-word description. For example, in the chapter discussing the Cowboys' exciting overtime win against the Giants on Monday Night Football, rather than giving us a one-paragraph introduction briefly describing the emergence of MNF and then immediately segueing into a description of this particular MNF game, the author rambles on for 8 pages giving us way more detail on the early days of MNF than we could ever want. I was reading the book because I wanted to read about the 2003 Dallas Cowboys and Bill Parcells, not because I wanted a history lesson regarding how MNF came to be.
The author also makes a great deal of factual mistakes in the book that any die-hard fan (or maybe just one as obsessive about the Cowboys as I am) would pick up. For example, the writer informs his readers that the Cowboys of the 1990s won Super Bowls 29, 30, and 32, when in fact they won Super Bowls 27, 28, and 30. Also, he describes how Terrell Owens danced on the star at Texas Stadium, then came back the very next year to torch Dwayne Goodrich for the game-winning touchdown, when in fact Dallas got revenge on Owens the year after he danced on the star, beating the 49ers handily and holding Owens scoreless. The now-infamous "Campo-Coslet decide to punt, Dwayne Goodrich and Tony Dixon get torched" game was TWO year after the star incident, NOT the very next year. The Dallas Cowboys and all their fans took great pride in getting their revenge on Terrell Owens the year after the star incident, and this author denies that it even happened.
In general, the book is a collection of some "behind-the-scenes" stories that anyone who closely follows the Cowboys would already know, excerpts lifted from a MUCH better Bill Parcells book ("The Final Season"), and some all-too-brief recaps of the games played last year buried amongst pages and pages of trivial crap that the author threw in to make his writing sound more flowery.
Overall, this book is about two things that interest me greatly (the Dallas Cowboys and Bill Parcells), but this author manages to sap all the life out of it and write a book that is tedious for even the most die-hard fan. Where is the insider information? The information in this book could be obtained simply by going to the Cowboys' website. Where are all the witty Parcells coach-speak quips? Parcells is FAMOUS for hilarious remarks. Where are they? The only thing saving this book from a one-star or ZERO-star rating is that it's about the Dallas Cowboys. A better author would have produced a MUCH better book. I got the feeling that this author wrote this book without ever having an actual conversation with Bill Parcells. If you're a Bill Parcells fan, you'll prefer to read "The Final Season." It is actually written BY Bill Parcells and contains more of his wit and his wealth of football knowledge than this book does.
This book deserved a better author.
Humorous look at the building and rebuilding of a franchise.......2004-09-17
Reading is often a solitary and silent pastime. Occasionally the solitude may be interrupted by a desire to share a humorous line with someone within earshot. Sometimes, the reader laughing out loud can break the silence generally present when reading. While reading WHEN THE TUNA WENT DOWN TO TEXAS: How Bill Parcells Led the Cowboys Back to the Promised Land, by Mike Shropshire, this reader had numerous moments of laughing out loud and savoring classic comments by the author in hopes of remembering those lines for future use.
In the mid-90s the Dallas Cowboys were a football juggernaut, destroying opponents on a weekly basis. Dynasties end for many reasons. To some degree the Cowboys' reign ended because new rules were put in place that limited the ability of franchises to string championship seasons together. Salary caps and free agency, now an essential part of the NFL player agreement, make it far more difficult for a team to build and maintain the foundation of players that allow a team to continually repeat winning seasons. But free agency and salary caps were not the only reasons for the downfall of the Cowboys. Several cracks in the foundation of the empire were self-inflicted. The story of the Cowboys' road to mediocrity began with a star player and two precious little hookers.
The star player was wide receiver Michael Irvin, whose liaison with working girls led to a felony drug possession charge. Even a celebrity such as Irvin faced danger in the Texas criminal justice system. As a former prosecutor in Dallas observed to Shropshire, "I don't really know the facts of this particular case, but if the prosecution can get a couple of Lutherans on the jury, then Irvin will get a maximum sentence." The criminal prosecution destroyed the franchise. Former Green Bay Packer star Jerry Kramer observed, "Whenever I see the Cowboys on TV, I don't know who to root for --- the defense or the prosecution. No, this will never be America's Team, if it is then woe for America."
The man in charge of the Cowboys during their trip from the top of the heap to the bottom was Jerry Jones, an Arkansas businessman described by many as coming across "like the banjo picker in Deliverance." Shropshire interviewed Jones for Sports Illustrated immediately after the purchase of the franchise and the two men shared grudging respect. Jones was actively involved in every aspect of running the Cowboys. If allowed by the NFL he would have considered coaching the team, but that wish was not to be approved. Instead, he hired coaches that he could control. As long as the Cowboys had great talent, total control was successful. But as the talent level of America's team declined, the need for an outstanding coach grew. Before the Parcells era would commence, Jones hired Dave Campo. As Shropshire observes, "the Dave Campo regime shortly became a living-color illustration of what happens when the Peter Principle collides head-on with Murphy's Law. Since Campo was universally hailed as a 'nice guy,' he could also serve as exhibit A to the Leo Durocher doctrine --- the one that mandates where nice guys will inevitably finish." After a losing season in 2002, Dave Campo was fired.
Enter Bill Parcells. Football fans were stunned. Sports Illustrated voiced the opinion of the country: "Are You Kidding Me?" But it was no joke. Jones gave Parcells full and free reign to run the team, and the future Hall of Fame inductee did not disappoint his owner. WHEN THE TUNA WENT DOWN TO TEXAS gives the football fanatic an outline for building or rebuilding a franchise. Start with a head coach who remembers every crucial play that cost him a game during his coaching career as well as the assistant coach who designed and called the play. When the opportunity presents itself, hire that innovative assistant coach for your new team. Next, find a few quality players as a foundation for the team. Parcells believed strongly in the "80-20" theory that goes with any successful organization. Under that rule, the 20 percent of the workforce that's the most talented always generates 80 percent of the positive results. For the woeful Cowboys, even that 20 percent was a difficult task.
Parcells persevered. Somehow he led the Cowboys to the playoffs in that first year. Shropshire chronicles the season, some games in detail, others in passing. Fanatical fans may find WHEN THE TUNA WENT DOWN TO TEXAS light on statistics and fantasy football minutiae. Most fans will enjoy this book for what it is: an irreverent and humorous look at the game of football and three of its icons --- a franchise, an owner and the Tuna.
--- Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman
Funny and Revealing--"The Jock Whisperer" and the Cowboys.......2004-09-10
I live in Dallas, and I've followed the Cowboys for many, many years. I'm a big fan--and I loved reading this book. Why? Because it tells the truth, and even though the truth sometimes hurts, in this book it only hurts when your sides are aching from laughing so much. Shropshire, who is just about the funniest sports writer around--Don Imus called his earlier book Seasons in Hell "the single funniest sports book I have ever read"--doesn't pull any punches here. He lives in Dallas too, and he knows these guys. He gives us juicy behind-the-scenes anecdotes (how he got these I'll never know--must have had a mole in the Cowboys' locker room) as well as all the standard stuff, and Shropshire's style makes it a great read. AND FUNNY--if you can read the last sentence in this book (it's X-rated) and not smile and want to read the rest, you're a stronger man than I.
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