Other books that might interest you

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  Triumph - The Untold Story of...

  Jeremy Schaap

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  In 1936, against a backdrop of swastikas flying and storm troopers looming, an African American son of sharecroppers set three world records and won an unprecedented four gold medals, single-handedly crushing Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy. The story of Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympic Games is that of a high-profile athlete giving a performance that transcends sports. But it is also the intimate and complex tale of the courage of one remarkable man.Drawing on unprecedented access to the Owens family, previously unpublished interviews, and exhaustive archival research, Jeremy Schaap transports us to Nazi Germany to weave this dramatic tale. From the start, American participation in the games was controversial. A boycott, based on reports of Nazi hostility to Jews, was afoot, but it was thwarted by the president of the American Olympic Committee. At the games themselves the plots and intrigues continued: Owens was befriended by a German rival, broad jumper Luz Long, who helped Owens win the gold medal at his own expense. Two Jewish sprinters were, at the last moment, denied the chance to compete for the United States out of misguided politeness to the Nazi hosts. And a myth was born that Hitler himself had snubbed Owens.Like Neal Bascomb's The Perfect Mile and David Margolick's Beyond Glory, Triumph captures this momentous episode in sports, and world, history in a nuanced yet page-turning narrative full of drama, suspense, and color.

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  Why Football Matters - My...

  Mark Edmundson

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  Football teaches young men self-discipline and teamwork. But football celebrates violence. Football is a showcase for athletic beauty and physical excellence. But football damages young bodies and minds, sometimes permanently. Football inspires confidence and direction. But football instills cockiness, a false sense of superiority. The athlete is a noble figure with a proud lineage. The jock is America at its worst. When Mark Edmundson’s son began to play organized football, and proved to be very good at it, Edmundson had to come to terms with just what he thought about the game. Doing so took him back to his own childhood, when as a shy, soft boy growing up in a blue-collar Boston suburb in the sixties, he went out for the high school football team. Why Football Matters is the story of what happened to Edmundson when he tried to make himself into a football player. What does it mean to be a football player? At first Edmundson was hapless on the field. He was an inept player and a bad teammate. But over time, he got over his fears and he got tougher. He learned to be a better player and came to feel a part of the team, during games but also on all sorts of escapades, not all of them savory. By playing football, Edmundson became what he and his father hoped he’d be, a tougher, stronger young man, better prepared for life. But is football-instilled toughness always a good thing?  Do the character, courage, and loyalty football instills have a dark side?  Football, Edmundson found, can be full of bounties.  But it can also lead you into brutality and thoughtlessness.  So how do you get what’s best from the game and leave the worst behind?

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  Writing Landscape

  Linda Cracknell

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  Inhabiting a landscape, walking a landscape, writing a place and time. 
  Linda Cracknell is a writer of place and nature who believes in being alert, observing, and writing from the particulars of each experience. Engaging bodily with her writing, she is someone for whom getting mud on her boots, sleeping high up in the hills, or being slapped by salt water can all be part of her process. She follows Susan Sontag's advice to “Love words, agonize over sentences and pay attention to the world.”  
  In this varied collection of essays, Linda backpacks on a small island that is connected to the mainland at low tide, musing on the nineteenth-century Scottish writer whose character was shipwrecked there. She hikes the wooded mountain trail close to her home in winter snow—a place she is intimately familiar with in all weathers and seasons—and she retraces the steps of a multiday hike made almost seven decades after her parents trod the route together. She explores her inspirations, in nature and from other artists and their work.  
  Reading this collection will open your eyes to the world around you and how you can observe, take note, and later commit those notes and memories to written pieces that will evoke the place and time.

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  The Uncrowned King of Mont Blanc...

  Peter Foster

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  The Uncrowned King ofMont Blanc by Peter Foster is the story of Thomas Graham Brown: scientist, mountaineer and psychological paradox, most famous for his groundbreaking routes on the Brenva Face of Mont Blanc and his turbulent relationship with Frank Smythe.

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  The End of the Perfect 10 - The...

  Dvora Meyers

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  A “delightful and insightful” (The Wall Street Journal) account of the controversial world of gymnastics and its scoring system, which has propelled powerful and athletic American gymnasts to the top of the sport.It was the team finals of women’s gymnastics in the 2012 London Olympics and McKayla Maroney was on top of her game. The sixteen-year-old US gymnast was performing arguably the best vault of all time, launching herself unimaginably high into the air and sticking a flawless landing. But when her score came, many were baffled: 16.233. Three tenths of a point in deductions stood between her and a perfect score. But if that vault wasn’t perfection, what was?For years, gymnastics was scored on a 10.0 scale. During this era, more than 100 “perfect” scores were awarded in major international competitions. But when the 10.0 scoring system caused major judging controversies at the 2004 Olympics, international elite gymnastics made the switch to the open-ended scoring system it uses today, which values both difficulty and technical execution, making perfect scores a thing of the past—and forever altering the sport in the process.With insight, flair, and boundless love for the sport, gymnastics insider Dvora Meyers answers questions that fans have been asking since the last perfect score was handed out over twenty years ago. She reveals why successful female gymnasts like 2016 Olympics All Around medalists Simone Biles and Aly Raisman are older and more athletic than they have ever been before, how the United States became the gymnastics powerhouse it is today, and what the future of gymnastics may hold.Bolstered by dozens of exclusive interviews with professionals representing every aspect of the sport, The End of the Perfect 10 is “the Simone Biles of gymnastics books” (Slate), a captivating look at elite gymnastics’ entry into the uncharted world of imperfection—and how it has created stronger athletes than ever before.

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  Survival of Humanity Throughout...

  Martin K. Ettington

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  Many millions of species have existed in Earth’s past. What distinguishes those which survive like humanity and those who don’t survive? 
  And what is it about Man’s ability to survive which has made us the dominant mammals on Earth? 
  In this book we look at the things man has done uniquely to succeed. This includes the use of fire for all of our existence as Home Sapiens and much of our history as hominids. 
  How have we survived floods, the ice age, huge volcanos and other disasters? And what about the development of weapons which made us better able to conquer other predators and provide food in a much better way? 
  The combination of fire and weapons has given us an incredible edge in the survival of our species. Domesticated Animals and Plants also gave people a huge advantage in survival. 
  This book examines what we know about human survival over the ages and how it has led us to where we are today.

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