Other books that might interest you

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  Fans Have More Friends

  David Sikorjak, Ben Valenta,...

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  In Fans Have More Friends, sports fans, dads, and data analysts David Sikorjak and Ben Valenta argue that fandom can not only increase our sense of belonging but also serves as a powerful antidote to loneliness because sports fans experience increased social connection. What they didn't realize was how deep that connection was, the potential it carried for individual and societal wellness, or the opportunities it offered for adult friendships, making and keeping friends, and family ties. 
   
   
   
  Their theory is simple: if we want to be less lonely, we need to belong to a community or something greater than ourselves. Over the course of two years, countless in-person interviews and rigorously designed surveys, Ben Valenta and David Sikorjak have the proof that being a fan can lead to: improved social connections; stronger community ties; enhanced well-being; a greater sense of belonging; and more friends. 
   
   
   
  The common thread in all of these personal stories is friendship, community, and belonging—a feeling research can't reveal as well as stories can. Fans Have More Friends will make you think differently about sports and reminds all of us of the essential animating quality of fandom: We're in this together. Sports is not always about what's happening on the field but what's happening in the stands.

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  Movies with Balls - The Greatest...

  Rick Bryson, Kyle Bandujo

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  "Movies with Balls is equal parts fandom, analysis, and nerdiness. It's a wonderful time." —Shea Serrano, New York Times bestselling author of Movies (and Other Things) 
   
   
   
  Movies with Balls will make you want to rewatch the movies you already love, and discover gems you've never seen. Play ball! 
   
   
   
  If you're the kind of fan who cheers every single time you watch Rocky beat Drago, or remembers who said "Be the ball, Danny" and "If you build it, he will come," this is the book for you. 
   
   
   
  Movies with Balls celebrates and analyzes more than two dozen of the greatest sports films of all time, with expert play-by-play and color commentary on the movies themselves and the athleticism they portray. 
   
   
   
  You'll be transported into fictional arenas, stadiums, gyms, fields, and golf courses to relive the climactic moments from: Caddyshack; The Natural; Field of Dreams; Dodgeball; The Karate Kid; Rocky IV; The Waterboy; Bend it Like Beckham; Creed; and many more!

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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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  Rise Above - My 500 Days of...

  Steve Zakuani

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  Loss. Defeat. Hardship. Suffering. Pain. They're at the center of the experience of being human. And yet, these experiences can cripple-unless they result in strength.  When a sudden accident resulted in multiple fractures to his leg and threatened to take him out of soccer permanently, Steve Zakuani faced his biggest challenge yet. The road to his soccer success hadn't merely involved athletic challenges; in the years leading up to his position with the Seattle Sounders, Zakuani had overcome an upbringing in one of London's roughest neighborhoods, battled personal apathy, and learned to not only walk but run after an accident that left doctors without hope for his future in soccer. He found renewed purpose through the influence of a mentor and, through that mentor, found his purpose in God's call on his life.  Yet his early challenges began to look small after Zakuani suffered another injury that broke his leg-and, this time, threatened his career. That injury-and the 500 days of recovery before he returned to the field-forced him to grapple with who he was when his identity in soccer and his personal goals were taken out of his hands. This book, drawn from journals written during his recovery, gives readers a raw, honest look into Zakuanis story-and coach readers how to face tragedy with a positive mindset, how to set goals that are bigger than their adversity, how to remain hopeful in their darkest moments, and how to help others in their life overcome their own adversities.  Includes a study guide to aid in personal reflection or group discussion

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  Helming to Win - How to be a...

  Nick Craig

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  Nick Craig's ground-breaking Helming to Win was published 10 years ago to great reviews: "Many sailing books can be recycles of familiar themes and ideas. Not this one! This is a highly personal and radical, fresh view of the subject area." In the following decade since it was published, Nick has won 10 World, 3 European and 20 National Championships! That's winning more championships than most of us have attended over this period. As an amateur sailor, with a senior full-time job, Nick knows how to make the most of his time on the water. Every race is recorded in his notes, every race builds on his knowledge. This new edition of Helming to Win utilises what he has learnt from those 33 championship wins (and many other less successful events), with new learning, new anecdotes, new photos and additional captions on the photo sequences to ensure the key learnings are easy to take on. This updated breakthrough book will help you make the transition from weekend racer to national champion, just as Nick has done. Covering everything from where to look and getting 'in the groove' to mental approaches and championship sailing, you will be working your way up the leaderboard in no time. Packed full of intelligent insight, brilliant top tips and engaging photo sequences, if your goal is to win then this is the book for you!

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  Cricket Ka Commonwealth - Vishwa...

  Ramachandra Guha, Ketan Mishra,...

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  When Ramachandra Guha began following the game in the early 1960s, India was utterly marginal to the world of cricket: the country still hadn't won a Test match overseas; by the time he joined the Board of Control for Cricket in India, fifty years later, India had become world cricket's sole superpower. 
  Cricket ka Commonwealth, the Hindi translation of the popular and critically acclaimed The Commonwealth of Cricket, is a first-person account of this astonishing transformation. The book traces the entire arc of cricket in India, across all levels at which the game is played: school, college, club, state, country. It presents vivid portraits of local heroes, provincial icons, and international stars. 
  Cast as a work of literature, Cricket ka Commonwealth is keenly informed by the author's scholarly training, the stories and sketches narrated against a wider canvas of social and historical change. The book blends memoir, anecdote, reportage and political critique, providing a rich, insightful and rivetingly readable account of this greatest of games as played in the country that has most energetically made this sport its own.

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