Only the Strong Survive: The Odyssey of Allen Iverson

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Part sports star, part antihero, part hip-hop icon, Allen Iverson has managed to cross over into the mainstream of American culture -- without compromise. Defiantly tattooed, with his hair in cornrows, the six-foot Philadelphia 76ers point guard is one of the most recognizable and controversial stars of the sports world. His meteoric rise from a troubled childhood in the ghetto to NBA superstardom has been marked by five straight playoff appearances, including a finals berth in 2001 and an MVP award. From his rap sheet to his rap album, fans and journalists alike hound his every move. But never before has a biographer presented a full portrait of this complicated and intensely private star -- a man whose loyalty to his family, the streets, and his friends trumps any other concern. Filled with exclusive interview material and unprecedented access to many of Iverson's inner circle, Only the Strong Survive is the first in-depth look at the truth behind this newly minted legend.

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books - Lana Floyd - Fort Payne, AL, USA
I don't really remember this purchase, but think I gifted it to a 3rd party, maybe a high school. Amazon service and delivery were good as usual.

An Aran Keening

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"An Aran Keening stands as a celebration of pungent wildness."—Patricia Craig, London Times Literary Supplement

In November 1968, at the age of twenty-two, Andrew McNeillie left his job and his girlfriend in Wales and traveled to Inishmore, one of the isolated Aran Islands off the Atlantic coast of Ireland. He was not a tourist; he stayed eleven months on Inishmore, living alone in a tiny house. An Aran Keening is a limpidly written memoir of that time, a celebration of the island and its people, a lament for a way of life that was infused with a deep sadness then and has vanished altogether now.

An Aran Keening tells of a time before electricity and landing strips, a time of real poverty for many. Island life was, in both mind and body, more stark and more dramatic then; it stood much closer to the candle- and horse-powered nineteenth century than to the digital twenty-first. McNeillie fished and trapped for his food—his accounts of his methods are among the most dazzling passages in the book—and writes with great love, but without a trace of romanticism, about the natural world of Aran. With extraordinary sensitivity and subtlety, this gifted writer recounts the awkward but ultimately enriching interactions between his youthful self and the people of Inishmore. An Aran Keening commemorates both the immortality of youth, in all its courage, folly, and quick tenderness of heart, and the passing of a world.

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