Outdoors Memoirs

Legendary cricket broadcaster Henry Blofeld takes the listener on a journey from A-Z through the world of cricket. In his trademark charming style, Blowers goes through the alphabet, explaining some of the puzzling cricket terminology and regaling his favourite anecdotes from his 50 years in the sport, covering the most important moments in the sport's history as well as the most entertaining and amusing.

Fed up with teenage life in the suburbs, Jaimal Yogis ran off to Hawaii with little more than a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and enough cash for a surfboard. His journey is a coming-of-age saga that takes him from communes to monasteries, from the warm Pacific to the icy New York shore. Equal parts spiritual memoir and surfer's tale, this is a chronicle of finding meditative focus in the barrel of a wave and eternal truth in the great, salty blue.

Beloved German cyclist Jens Voigt isn't a superstar in the traditional sense of the word. Although he won three stages of the Tour de France - and wore the yellow jersey twice - Voigt never claimed an overall victory. He became a star because he embodies qualities that go beyond winning and losing: sacrifice, selflessness, reliability, and devotion. European and American crowds were drawn to his aggressive riding style, outgoing nature, and refreshing realness.

In Pat Riley: The Inspiring Life and Leadership Lessons of One of Basketball’s Greatest Coaches, you will learn the inspirational story of one of the greatest basketball coaches and executives ever, Pat Riley. Whether it was as a player, coach, or executive, Pat Riley has created a huge legacy for himself with all the franchises of which he has been a part. Since 1995, he has led the Miami Heat organization.

Touching on family, forgiveness, sport, and making peace with tragedy, this narrative captures the lives of two unlikely friends from very different backgrounds. Dan Snyder was not a sure thing in professional hockey, but defied expectations by playing for both the minor league's Chicago Wolves and the NHL's Atlanta Thrashers. Dany Heatley, on the other hand, had been tapped for success from the start as a college star and high draft pick.

Hockey fans get a look into the life and times - both on and off the ice - of legendary eight-time Stanley Cup winner Red Kelly.

Before agents and TV mega-rights ushered in multi-millionaire players, footballers’ wages were capped, with even the game's biggest names earning barely more than a plumber or electrician. Footballing legends shared a bond of borderline penury with the crowds they entertained on Saturday afternoons, on pitches that were far away from the pristine lawns of the modern era. Instead of the sports cars driven by today's top players, the stars of yesteryear travelled to matches on public transport and returned to homes as modest as those of their supporters.

"I can lick any son of a bitch in the world." So boasted John L. Sullivan, the first modern heavyweight boxing champion of the world, a man who was the gold standard of American sports for more than a decade and the first athlete to earn more than a million dollars. He had a big ego, a big mouth, and even bigger appetites. His womanizing, drunken escapades, and chronic police-blotter presence were godsends to a burgeoning newspaper industry.

When Kevin Garnett shocked the world by announcing that he would not be attending college - as young basketball prodigies were expected to do - but instead would enter the 1995 NBA draft directly from high school, he blazed a trail for a generation of teenage basketball players to head straight for the pros. That trend would continue until the NBA instituted an age limit in 2005, requiring all players to attend college or another developmental program for at least one year.

Since 1950, the instantly recognizable voice of Vin Scully has invited listeners to “pull up a chair” for his peerless play-by-play sports reporting. Recruited and mentored by the legendary Red Barber, Scully has narrated NBC’s Game of the Week, twelve All-Star Games, eighteen no-hitters, and twenty-five World Series, describing players from Duke Snider to Orel Hershiser to Manny Ramirez, with hundreds in between.

Alex is the most up-to-date biography of Sir Alex Ferguson, the most decorated manager in British football history. Find out how he recovered from his brain surgery in 2018, why he appointed David Moyes as his successor, how livid he was when Moyes was sacked 10 months later, what he thought of Louis van Gaal’s tenure as Manchester United manager, what he thought of Jose Mourinho’s reign, and just how big a role he played in the appointment of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. This book also takes a deep dive into Alex’s relationship with the Glazer family.

More than a biography, Serena Williams: Tennis Champion, Sports Legend, and Cultural Heroine not only tells the story of her upbringing and remarkable career but also looks at Williams as a sports pioneer. Merlisa Lawrence Corbett explores Williams’ influence on cultural and political issues such as body shaming, gender equality, and racism in sports and society. Corbett also analyzes Williams’ impact on discussions of feminism, the sports celebrity, and the marketing of female athletes.

Do you think you’re the ultimate Pittsburgh Steelers superfan? Do you have a buddy who bleeds black and gold for the Steelers? Do you want to learn about the history of your favorite six-time Super Bowl champion? Even if you couldn’t answer yes to any of those questions, you will still enjoy The Ultimate Pittsburgh Steelers Trivia Book, the best book to learn about the historic Pittsburgh Steelers.

For years Geraint Thomas appeared blessed with extraordinary talent but jinxed at the greatest bike race in the world: twice an Olympic gold medallist on the track, Commonwealth champion, yet at the Tour de France a victim of crashes, bad luck and his willingness to sacrifice himself for his teammates. In the summer of 2018, that curse was blown away in spectacular fashion - from the cobbles of the north and the iconic mountain climbs of the Alps to the brutal slopes of the Pyrenees and, finally, the Champs-Elysees in Paris.

The sport of surfing has a mystique and allure that has transformed many of these icons into mythical figures. Surfer Stories brings them together in one definitive collection that will appeal to those who surf and those who don’t!

Almost a “Karate Kid” story, but this one began in 1982, when a young maintenance mechanic apprentice met an older Chinese man (Mr. Kim) in a billiard café. While 17-year old Ralph was struggling with the balls, two parties were making a bet in the background. When another customer opined that the boy had no talent at all and would come to nothing, Mr. Kim proposed a wager, betting that he could make a great player out of Ralph! The story unfolded....

Bobby Gunn has been fighting for his existence since a childhood spent living under the hand of his volatile father, and would do anything to give his seven-year-old daughter a better life—including betting on himself in the underground world of bare-knuckle boxing. In 1984, Gunn was an eleven-year-old boxer in Ontario when his father woke him in the middle of the night to fight grown men in motel parking lots for money, his old man pocketing the cash.

Dave Hahn, a local of Taos, New Mexico, is a legendary figure in mountaineering. Elite members of the climbing community have likened him to the Michael Jordan, Cal Ripkin, or Michael Phelps of the climbing world. The 2015 expedition he would lead came just one short year after the notorious Khumbu Icefall avalanche claimed the lives of 16 Sherpas. Dave and his team spent weeks honing the techniques that would help keep them alive through the Icefall and the Death Zone. None of this could have prepared them for the earthquake that shook Everest and all of their lives on April 25, 2015.

Despite the howling protests from his peers, no one's ever been more willing to spill the beans on what it's really like inside the pro cycling peloton than the sarcastic scribe Phil Gaimon. Building on the outrageous success of his hilarious 2014 debut, Pro Cycling on $10 a Day: From Fat Kid to Euro Pro, Gaimon gathers the absolute gems from his monthly Q & A feature column in VeloNews magazine into his new book, Ask a Pro.

Seventy baseball seasons ago, on a May afternoon at Yankee Stadium, Joe DiMaggio lined a hard single to left field. It was the quiet beginning to the most resonant baseball achievement of all time. Alongside the story of DiMaggio's dramatic quest, Kennedy deftly examines the peculiar nature of hitting streaks and with an incisive, modern-day perspective gets inside the number itself, as its sheer improbability heightens both the math and the magic of 56 games in a row.