Outdoors Memoirs

Sue Tidwell lived in awe of Africa’s extraordinary wildlife. After years spent appreciating the animals in her imagination, the tenderhearted American hated the idea of joining her husband on a big game hunting safari. And getting attacked by blood-sucking tsetse flies the moment she stepped off the plane gave no hint of the mind-blowing change of perspective in her future. With her initial animosity turning into curiosity as they breathlessly tracked dangerous beasts, Sue formed a surprising bond with their young female government-assigned game scout.

In this book, Mike recounts his personal experiences and gives his take on some of poker's legendary characters over the past 40 years. If you enjoy poker, are fascinated by the development of the game, and enjoy compelling poker, golf, and gambling adventures, then you'll love Life's a Gamble.

Anna McNuff had never run a mile without shoes on before. And yet, one British summer, she set off to run a (very) wiggly route from the Shetland Islands to London–on a mission to cover the distance of 100 marathons…in bare feet.

This 148-day journey began on Darcy Gaechter’s 35th birthday. She sold her successful outdoor adventure business, upsetting her partner and boyfriend of 12 years and getting them both fired in the process. The emotional waters that would fester and erupt on the ensuing journey were often more challenging to navigate than the mighty river itself. With blistering lips and irradiated fingernails, Darcy would tackle raging Class Five whitewater for 25 days straight, barely surviving a dynamite-filled canyon being prepared for a new hydroelectric plant.

In the Chinese calendar, 1964 was the Year of the Green Dragon. It would be a challenging and eventful year for Bruce Lee. He would broadcast his dissenting view before the first great international martial arts gathering and then defend it by facing down Chinatown's young ace kung fu practitioner in a legendary behind-closed-doors, high-noon-style showdown. The Year of the Green Dragon saw the dawn of martial arts in America and the rise of an icon.

Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell is surfer and former war reporter Chas Smith's wild and unflinching look at the high-stakes world of surfing on Oahu's North Shore - a riveting, often humorous, account of beauty, greed, danger, and crime. For two months every winter, when Pacific storms make landfall, swarms of mainlanders, Brazilians, Australians, and Europeans flock to Oahu's paradisiacal North Shore for surfing's Triple Crown competition. Smith reveals how this influx transforms a sleepy strip of coast into a lawless, violent, drug-addled, and adrenaline-soaked mecca.

In the wake of the stock-market crash and the dawn of the Great Depression, a ray of light emerged from the world of sports. In the summer of 1930, Bobby Jones, a 28-year-old amateur golfer, mounted a campaign against the record books. In four months, this natural, self-taught player conquered the British Amateur Championship, the British Open, the United States Open, and finally the United States Amateur Championship.

Learn the inspiring story of the San Antonio Spurs' legendary coach Gregg Popovich! In Gregg Popovich: The Inspiring Life and Leadership Lessons of One of Basketball's Greatest Coaches, you will learn the inspirational story of one of basketball's premier coaches, Gregg Popovich. Popovich has steered the ship for the San Antonio Spurs franchise to multiple championships and perennial playoff contention.

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.

In 2012 the Los Angeles Dodgers were bought out of bankruptcy in the most expensive sale in sports history. Los Angeles icon Magic Johnson and his partners hoped to put together a team worthy of Hollywood. By most accounts they have succeeded, if not always in the way they might have imagined.

David "Big Papi" Ortiz is a baseball icon and one of the most popular figures ever to play the game. As a key part of the Boston Red Sox for 14 years, David has helped the team win three World Series, bringing back a storied franchise from "never wins" to "always wins". He helped them upend the doubts, the naysayers, and the nonbelievers and captured the imagination of millions of fans along the way, as he launched balls into the stands again and again and again.

In The Last of His Kind, renowned adventure writer David Roberts gives readers a spellbinding history of mountain climbing in the twentieth century as told through the biography of Brad Washburn, legendary mountaineering pioneer and photographer. Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air, has praised David Roberts, saying, “Nobody alive writes better about mountaineering” - and nowhere is that truth more evident than in this breathtaking account of the life and exploits of America’s greatest mountain climber.

What happens when a burnt-out tech professional ditches the comforts of modern life and hikes 2,650 miles across the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada? A head-on collision of midlife crisis and wilderness reality, where he’s never felt more alive. Somewhere between blisters, bear poop, and resupply, it clicks. Those cryptic ideas of Zen and Taoism he skimmed almost two decades ago—about ‘simplicity’ and ‘attachment, ’ the kind most of us flag as hippie nonsense, actually started making a whole lot of sense.

The Tour de France may provide the most obvious fame and glory, but it is cycling’s one-day tests that the professional riders really prize. Toughest, longest and dirtiest of all are the so-called ‘Monuments’, the five legendary races that are the sport’s equivalent of golf’s majors or the grand slams in tennis. Milan–Sanremo, the Tour of Flanders, Paris­–Roubaix, Liège–Bastogne–Liège and the Tour of Lombardy date back more than a century, and each of them is an anomaly in modern-day sport. Peter Cossins tells the history of these extraordinary races and the riders they have immortalised.

The battle between Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns is remembered as one of the greatest fights of all time. But in the months before the two finally collided on April 15, 1985, there was a feeling in the air that boxing was in trouble.

Joey Dunlop's story is one of towering triumphs and desperate tragedies in almost equal measure. Born poor—dirt poor—with no running water, no electricity, he was the definition of the everyman hero, earning the title 'King of the Roads' in what must be considered one of the world's most extreme sports—motorcycle road racing. And as well as being voted Northern Ireland's greatest ever sportsman, he remains the most loved and most successful road racer of all time.

One of the most compelling figures ever to lace on a pair of skates, Carl Brewer was a gifted skater and stickhandler, renowned for his ability to control the pace of a game and goad opponents into costly errors. His talents made him an NHL All-Star and one of the cornerstones of a Toronto Maple Leafs dynasty. But he was also a loner playing a team game, a free spirit in an era when players were expected not to make waves. Teammates and management alike wrote him off as an eccentric, an enigma.

Pistol is more than the biography of a ballplayer. It's the stuff of classic novels: the story of a boy transformed by his father's dream and the cost of that dream. Even as Pete Maravich became Pistol Pete, a basketball icon for baby boomers, all the Maraviches paid a price. Now acclaimed author Mark Kriegel has brilliantly captured the saga of an American family: its rise, its apparent ruin, and, finally, its redemption.

A fourth-generation fisherman, Jake Anderson, grew up in the rich fishing environment of Anacortes, Washington. At age 17, Jake began salmon fishing in Bristol Bay, Alaska, and by the age of 25 he was crab fishing in the Bering Sea. Soon after, Jake became a deckhand on the F/V Northwestern and joined the popular television series Deadliest Catch. Aside from fishing, Jake has a harrowing story that has yet to be told. As an avid skateboarder, Jake aspired to become a professional until he was sidelined by injury, addiction, and homelessness.

Starting out as a talented youth riding the desert tracks of California, his reckless nature and incredible talent earned him a position in the rarefied world of professional motorcycle racing. Despite the success in his professional life, his personal life was crumbling around him - John was battling with depression and temptation, which began to threaten his career, health and marriage, ultimately bringing him to a life of alcoholism, addiction and even smuggling.