Showing results by publisher "HarperCollins Publishers Limited" in Sports

Harry Flashman: the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown's schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross, has three main talents - horsemanship, facility with foreign languages, and fornication. A reluctant military hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the 19th century despite trying his utmost to escape them all.

In the spirit of Flashman, and in the inimitable George MacDonald Fraser style, comes a rousing story of prize fighting in the 19th century. Reissued in a stunning new package, Black Ajax will attract a new generation of fans. When Captain Buck Flashman sees the black boxer catch a fly in midflight, he realizes that he is in the presence of speed such as the prize ring has never seen.

Harry Flashman - the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown’s schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross - has three main talents: horsemanship, facility with foreign languages, and fornication. A reluctant military hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the 19th century, despite trying his utmost to escape them all. Expelled from Rugby for drunkenness, and none too welcome at home after seducing his father’s mistress, the young Flashman embarks on a military career with Lord Cardigan’s Hussars.

Harry Flashman: the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown's schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross, has three main talents - horsemanship, facility with foreign languages and fornication. A reluctant military hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the nineteenth century despite trying his utmost to escape them all. Flashman, soldier, duellist, lover, imposter, coward, cad, and hero triumphs in this first installment of The Flashman Papers.

A wonderful, warm novel from a major new American voice. In The Art of Fielding, we see young men who know that their four years on the baseball diamond at Westish College are all that remain of their sporting careers. Only their preternaturally gifted fielder, Henry Skrimshander, seems to have the chance to keep his dream – and theirs, vicariously – alive, until a routine throw goes disastrously off course, and the fates of five people are upended.

Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in Africa. It is no ordinary juggernaut. Longer than a football pitch, weighing 550 tons and moving at just five miles per hour, its job - and that of troubleshooter Neil Mannix - is to move a giant transformer across an oil-rich African state. But when Nyala erupts in civil war, Mannix’s juggernaut is at the centre of the conflict - a target of ambush and threat, with no way to run and nowhere to hide....

An American myth and a contemporary portrait of the scars of the past that run through a family and of our desperate need to escape our history, to subsume it with pleasure - or to rise above it with glory. Hellsmouth, a wilful thoroughbred filly, has the legacy of a family riding on her. The Forges: one of the oldest and proudest families in Kentucky; descended from the first settlers to brave the Wilderness Road; as mythic as the history of the South itself; and now, first-time horse breeders.

There is something about the boy. When he is angry, clouds darken. When he cries, rivers burst their banks. And when he touches a basketball, deities want courtside seats. Half Nigerian mortal, half Grecian god: Demi is the Half-God of Rainfall. His mother, Modupe, looks on with a mixture of pride and worry. From close encounters, she knows that gods are just like men: the same fragile egos, the same subsequent fury, the same sense of entitlement to the bodies of mortals. The gods will one day tire of sports fans, their fickle allegiances and their prayers to Demi.

In the fight against the French, a treaty with the Sultan of Pulo Prabang, a piratical Malay state, may prove decisive. Captain Jack Aubrey and ship’s surgeon Stephen Maturin, along with a hand-picked crew, must survive the dangers of the high forties and convey a diplomatic envoy to ensure this key alliance, but dangers, both natural and man-made, will dog their every move.

With rumours of peace running rampant, Captain Jack Aubrey chances his luck on the stock exchange. However, when his plans go awry, Marshalsea prison awaits. Can Stephen Maturin rescue his friend from a politically motivated trial and the enormity of being stricken from the Navy Lists? When the world has turned its back against you, friendship is all.

'Love me, love my game,' says professional tennis player Willy Novinsky at 23. Tennis has been Willy's one love - until she meets the uncannily confident Eric Oberdorf. Low-ranked but untested, Eric, too, aims to make his mark on the international tennis circuit. They marry. But their life together soon grows poisoned by full-tilt competition over which spouse can rise to the top first. Willy discovers that her perfect partner may also prove her most devastating opponent.

In the Republic of the True America, it's always hunting season. Riveting action, intense romance, and gripping emotion make this fast-paced adventure a standout debut. After a radiation blast burned most of the Earth to a crisp, the new government established settlement camps for the survivors. At one such camp, Book and the other "LTs" are eager to graduate as part of the Rite. Until they learn the dark truth: "LTs" doesn't stand for lieutenants but for Less Thans, feared by society and raised to be hunted for sport.

A dark and socially provocative Southern-fried comedy about four UC Berkeley students who stage a dramatic protest during a Civil War reenactment - a fierce, funny, tragic work from a bold new writer. Born and raised in the heart of old Dixie, D'aron Davenport is a small-town fish floundering in the depths of a large, hyperliberal pond of UC Berkeley. Everything changes in his American history class, when D'aron lets slip that his hometown hosts an annual Civil War reenactment.

Meet Stephen Florida: college student, amateur wrestler, visionary, outsider. Entering senior year, his sights are set on the championships. Every practice, every match, is a step closer to greatness yet also a step further from reality. Profane, manic and tipping into the uncanny, this is Florida's chronicle of loneliness, obsession, and the drive to leave a mark.

For Sol and Liz, competition is everything. On the road or in the lab, it’s all on the line. As a young professional cyclist in the Tour de France and a geneticist on the brink of a major discovery, success looks within reach for them both - if only they can reach out and grab it. But everything comes at a cost, whether that’s starting a family or doping to keep up with the team, and soon the worlds of drugs, cycling and family will collide, and they will be forced to decide whether the price of accomplishment is something they can afford.