Outdoors Memoirs

He's one of the most interesting American athletes in the past fifty years. Passionate, candid, iconoclastic, and gifted both on and off the court, Charles Barkley has made a lasting impact on not only the world of basketball but pop culture at large. Yet few people know the real Charles. Informed by over 370 original interviews and painstaking research, Timothy Bella's Barkley is the most comprehensive biography to date of one of the most talked about icons in the world of sports.

When we first meet the young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story, he is one of 13 children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or any of the things a child might learn in school. And he has no serious experience playing organized football.

Mountain search-and-rescue volunteer Bree Loewen's to-do list isn't quite the same as most people's. A former Mount Rainier climbing ranger and trained leader in mountain search-and-rescue, Bree shares the drama and the camaraderie of this work, as well as the challenges of trying to fit her other roles as wife and mother into what is still largely a masculine environment. In a fearless voice - disarming yet laced with dark humor - Bree guides us through intense recoveries, vivid wilderness landscapes, and the warmth she discovers in motherhood, community, and purpose.

The Oakland A's of the early 1970s were the most transformative team in baseball history. Never before had an entire organization so collectively traumatized baseball's establishment with its outlandish behavior and business decisions - or with its indisputable winning record: five straight division titles and three straight championships. The high drama that played out on the field was exceeded only by the drama in the clubhouse and front office.

Lenny McLean was one of the deadliest bareknuckle fighters Britain has ever seen. He had dear, powerful friends, but he also had terrible enemies. So much so that he had two bullet wounds in his back - each from a different attack. He was also stabbed repeatedly - always from behind. But Lenny was also a warm, big-hearted grizzly bear of a man, whose main weakness was an overwhelming desire to put the welfare of his mates ahead of his own wellbeing.

On April 25, 2015, Jim Davidson was climbing Mount Everest when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake released avalanches all around him and his team, destroying their only escape route and trapping them at nearly 20,000 feet. It was the largest earthquake in Nepal in 81 years and killed about 8,900 people. That day also became the deadliest in the history of Everest, with 18 people losing their lives on the mountain.

Wait Till Next Yearis the story of a young girl growing up in the suburbs of New York in the 1950s, when owning a single-family home on a tree-lined street meant the realization of dreams, when everyone knew everyone else on the block, and the children gathered in the streets to play from sunup to sundown. The neighborhood was equally divided among Dodger, Giant, and Yankee fans, and the corner stores were the scenes of fierce and affectionate rivalries.

Eleven-time world surfing champion, actor, and American heartthrob Kelly Slater tells his inspiring story of triumph over adversity. From Beach Blanket Bingo to Baywatch to Blue Crush, surfing has fascinated people for years, and Kelly Slater is the sport’s hottest star. He has won more world championships than any other competitor, and he continues to change peoples’ minds about what can and can’t be done on a surfboard.

The cruising tale is full of the sights and sounds, the fragrances and native customs of foreign lands, especially Central American and the Caribbean. It is a story of a leisurely sail through the Gulf of Cortez and on through Panama Canal to the Azores and England. Cruising in Seraffyn is also a carefully thought out guide to living aboard a small boat, with fun and economy as the guiding principles. Four appendices provide data that is vital for anyone comtemplating long-distance cruising.

Greg LeMond stunned the sporting world by becoming the first American to win the Tour de France in 1986, defeating French cycling legend Bernard Hinault. Nine months later, LeMond lay in a hospital bed, his career as a bicycle racer seemingly over. And yet, barely two years after this crisis, LeMond mounted a comeback. In 1989, he once again won the Tour - by a narrow margin of eight seconds. It remains the closest Tour de France in history. The Comeback chronicles the life of this great American athlete, from his roots in Nevada and California to the heights of global fame.

In Killing the Legends, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard explore the lives, legacies, and tragic deaths of three of the most famous people of the 20th century. Each experienced immense success, then failures that forced them to change; each faced the challenge of growing old in fields that privilege youth; and finally, each became isolated, cocooned by wealth but vulnerable to the demands of those in their innermost circles.

Updated and expanded for its 20th anniversary, Camp is former Disney CEO Michael Eisner's coming-of-age story about his time in camp and how the indispensable lessons he learned there continue to influence him in business and in life. Over the years, as a camper and a counselor, Michael Eisner absorbed the life lessons that come from sitting in the stern of a canoe or gathering around a campfire at night. In this deeply personal memoir, he recounts his experiences at one remarkable summer camp and examines how they helped turn him into the man he is today.

Jo Anne Normile was not supposed to keep the foal, an exuberant Thoroughbred with only a few white hairs on his reddish-brown forehead. But she fell in love with the young horse, who had literally been born into her arms. The breeder finally said she could keep the colt, whom she nicknamed "Baby" - but only if she raced him. It was difficult to take Baby away from the safety of his pasture. But Normile had made a promise.

By age twenty, at the height of the Jazz Age, Trudy Ederle was the most accomplished swimmer in the world. She’d won Olympic gold and set a host of world records. But the greatest challenge remained: the English Channel. Only a few swimmers, none of them women, had ever made the treacherous twenty-one mile crossing. Trudy’s failed first attempt seemed to confirm what many naysayers believed: No woman could possibly accomplish such a thing. In 1926, Ederle proved them wrong.

The National Football League's current dominance has obscured how professional football got its start. In The League, John Eisenberg reveals that Art Rooney, George Halas, Tim Mara, George Preston Marshall, and Bert Bell took an immense risk by investing in the professional game. At that time, the sport barely registered on the national scene. The five owners succeeded only because at critical junctures in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, each sacrificed the short-term success of his team for the longer-term good of the League.

From the backyard hockey rink to the nail-biting suspense of draft days, Karl Subban shares tales of his family's unique hockey journey. Mixing personal stories with lessons he learned as a coach and principal - lessons about goal setting, perseverance, and accomplishment - How We Did It will allow other parents, teachers, coaches, and mentors to apply the same principles as they help the young people in their lives to identify, develop, and live their dreams.

Turmoil in the Mideast convinces Glen and Julie to linger in the South Pacific, visiting primitive villages on remote islands. But hang on tight, because to finish their voyage, they must leave friendly shores and navigate through trouble in the Indian Ocean, Gulf of Aden, and the Red Sea before arriving in Europe. Full of dry wit and compelling descriptions, Julie takes the listener along for the ride of a lifetime in this sequel (book two of the Escape Series) to her previous best seller Escape from the Ordinary.

For three extraordinary seasons at Bayern Munich, Marti Perarnau was given total access around the German super club - to its players, its backroom staff, its board members and, above all, its manager, Pep Guardiola. In the follow-up to his critically acclaimed account of Guardiola's first full season at Bayern, Pep Confidential, Perarnau now lifts the lid on the Catalan's whole tenure in Bavaria.

More than any other sport, boxing has a history of being easy to rig. There are only two athletes and one or both may be induced to accept a bribe; if not the fighters, then the judges or referee might be swayed. In such inviting circumstances, the mob moved into boxing in the 1930s and profited by corrupting a sport ripe for exploitation. In Boxing and the Mob: The Notorious History of the Sweet Science, Jeffrey Sussman tells the story of the coercive and criminal underside of boxing, covering nearly the entire 20th century.

He was the most vicious, bloodthirsty, reviled villain in the history of the ring. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, he drew record crowds everywhere he went and left a trail of burned and bloody opponents in his wake. But what those legions of fans screaming for his head never knew was that The Sheik was really Eddie Farhat. The son of Arab immigrants, Farhat served his country proudly in World War II and was fulfilling the American dream. When he wasn't screaming unintelligibly and attacking his enemies, he was busy being the owner and operator of World Wide Sports.