This book is about Edward Ted Ray who was born in the village of Gorey, on the east coast of the island of Jersey near Grouville, which was the nursery of many famous golfers, including the legendary Harry Vardon. Ted was one of the biggest stars in professional golf, considered a mighty driver of the golf ball and a prince of putters. He won the Open Championship in 1912, the US Open in 1920, and many other prestigious tournaments in Great Britain and mainland Europe. He played for Great Britain against the USA in 1921 at Gleneagles and in 1926 at Wentworth. He was the player captain of the Great Britain team in the first ever Ryder Cup match of 1927. Ted would also represent England against Scotland on nine occasions in their annual team matches, as well as Englands nonplaying captain in the 1930s. Ted Ray toured the USA, along with Harry Vardon, in 1913 and 1920 to promote and popularize golf in the Americas. He, like many of the greats of the game, is one of the forgotten men of golf. The book endeavors to spotlight a golfer who is now a distant memory and one that has inexplicably never been inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

This book is about Edward Ted Ray who was born in the village of Gorey on the east coast of the Island of Jersey near Grouville, which was the nursery of many famous golfers, including the legendary Harry Vardon. He was one of the biggest stars in professional golf, considered a mighty driver of the golf ball and a prince of putters. Ted won the Open Championship in 1912, the US Open in 1920 and many other prestige tournaments in Great Britain and mainland Europe. He played for Great Britain against the USA in 1921 at Gleneagles and in 1926 at Wentworth. He was the player captain of the Great Britain team in the first ever Ryder Cup match of 1927. Ted would also represent England against Scotland on nine occasions in their annual team matches, as well as Englands non-playing captain in the 1930s. Ted Ray toured the USA, along with Harry Vardon, in 1913 and 1920 to promote and popularize golf in the Americas. He, like many of the greats of the game, is one of the forgotten men of golf. The book endeavors to spot light a golfer who is now a distant memory, and one that has inexplicably never been inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

STRONGThe first ever narrative biography of a towering figure in British comedy Les Dawson, more than any other comedian, spoke for the phlegmatic, pessimistic British way of life. A Northern lad who climbed out of the slums thanks to an uncommonly brilliant mind, he was always the underdog, but his bark was funnier and more incisive than many comics who claimed to bite. Married twice in real life, he had a third wife in his comic world—a fictional ogre built from spare parts left by fleeing Nazis at the end of World War II—and an equally frightening mother-in-law. He was down to earth, yet given to eloquent, absurd flights of fancy. He was endlessly generous with his time, but slow to buy a round of drinks. He was a mass of contradictions. In short, he was human, he was genuine, and that's why audiences loved him. This is his story.

THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED is the story of Francis Ouimet and Harry Vardon, who in pursuit of their passion for a game that captivated them as children, broke down rigid social barriers that made their sport accessible to everyone on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond, positioning golf as one of the most widely played games in the world. Ouimet and Vardon were two men from different generations and vastly different corners of the world whose lives, unbeknownst to them at the time, bore remarkable similarities, setting them on parallel paths that led with a kind of fated inevitability to their epic battle at Brookline years in the future. This collision resulted in the big bang' that gave rise to the sport of golf as we know it today. For Mark Frost, Francis Ouimet and Harry Vardon represent everything that's right about sports in general and sportsmen in particular; gentlemen, champions, teachers, leaders, and each in their own quiet way, heroes. In THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED, Frost attempts to create penetrating studies of both of these men, along with over dozens of the game's seminal figures, within the dramatic framework offered by the tournament when they finally met, one of the most thrilling sports events in history, the 1913 U.S. Open.

A story of the famed Thomas Jefferson Beale ciphers that has been aired on national TV by the news media, various programs, and can be reviewed on the Internet is given renewed attention. Three sets of numbers are in the code, and until recent years, only paper number 2 had been deciphered. However, a new story emerges in the deciphered papers 1 and 3. It is the journal of Gilbert Bean, a young Scottish minister living in Bedford County, Pennsylvania. Mystery Beneath the Baneberry Bush is the story of this frontier and enterprising Bean family based on the journal. During the American Revolution, Gilbert Bean served in the Rawlings Regiment under Capt. Thomas Beal, founder of Cumberland, Maryland. Gilbert, Beau he was often called, made an effort to destroy all his personal public records, but his records from the National Archives state that he deserted. Did he desert the very cause that he was fighting for? Why was it necessary to code his journal? What is the strange “ark” Bet Bean stole from a British boat? Is there a treasure trove in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, more precious than silver and gold that will shock America?

"A powerful, revealing story of hope, love, justice, and the power of reading by a man who spent thirty years on death row for a crime he didn't commit"--