Other books that might interest you

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  Straw - Finding My Way

  John Strausbaugh, Darryl Strawberry

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  “Darryl has written a profound book on the meaning of celebrity, sports and manhood . . . a riveting and memorable account.” —David Cone 
   
  Former New York Met and Yankee slugger Darryl Strawberry has subtitled his autobiography Straw, “Finding My Way”—and his path was never easy. A National League Rookie of the Year, eight-time MLB All Star, and four-time World Series Champion, Strawberry’s baseball achievements were often overshadowed by his struggles off the field. In Straw, he tells it all: his boyhood in Crenshaw, Los Angeles; his rise to baseball superstardom; the high life and low life; his brushes with the law; his triumphant battle over cancer; his religious awakening, and his marriage to the love of his life. 
   
  “Straw is the story of a guy who had two strikes against him in the middle innings of life and hit one out of the park.” —Reggie Jackson 
   
   
   
  “Straw [has] the virtue of sincerity and of seeming profoundly felt. Its narrator emerges as a real and complex man: humble in the face of his failures, palpably hungry for redemption, and yet still capable of myopia and self-righteousness. You feel for him in a way you never did—at least I never did—when you were merely cheering and/or booing him at Shea.” —The New York Times 
   
  “If you’re looking for an interesting book about a chaotically interesting life, Straw makes for good reading.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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  Mountains of Tartary -...

  Eric Shipton

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  In Mountains of Tartary, mountaineering and explorer Eric Shipton describes his climbs and explorations in northern and central Asia, taking the reader places that most would otherwise never go and writing with humour and self-deprecation.
  During the Second World War, and up until 1951, Shipton worked as consul general in Kunming and Kashgar in China, and as a diplomat in Hungary and Persia. In Mountains of Tartary, he describes his climbs and explorations that take him from the barren steppes of central Asia, to glass-clear lakes and forested slopes. Shipton and his party enjoy varying degrees of hospitality from the local people and occasionally potentially dangerous encounters. The book details the exploits of the climbers, explorers and guides, including a hilarious drunken banquet with government officials.
  Mountains of Tartary is like a postcard from history – a must-read for any keen climber, walker or explorer.

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  Breaking Waves - Discovery...

  Emma Simpson

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  A warm, reflective and uplifting memoir about healing wounds, reclaiming a voice and discovering freedom through the open water.
  
  
  The open water. To the uninitiated, it represents the unknown, an expanse of mystery and uncertainty. But to those who brave the wild waters, it is so much more. A space to heal. A place of communion. A balm to quieten the mind, soothe the soul, and allow you to reconnect with the world and yourself.
  
  
  Emma Simpson discovered wild swimming after a period of immense pain. Lost in grief, disillusioned with life, and feeling increasingly untethered from the world, she instinctively felt the pull of the water. There she found an unexpected source of hope and strength, a profound sense of connection, and a glorious sisterhood of women - each with their own remarkable stories to tell.
  
  
  Interweaving the tales of these inspirational women with reflections on her own experiences, Emma explores themes ranging from devastating loss to birth and rebirth, and from chronic illness to body confidence. Whether describing the taste of an iceberg or a kiss from a baby whale, Breaking Waves is a love letter to womanhood and the open water. It's also a celebration of community, renewal and the power of writing your own life story. Above all else, it is a joyous celebration of going with the flow.

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  Love Game - A History of Tennis...

  Elizabeth Wilson

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  A journey through the history, culture, and mystique of tennis from “an original and provocative mind” (The Wall Street Journal). 
   
  If you’ve watched Rafael Nadal spin a forehand at 4000 rpm, Maria Sharapova arabesque out of a serve, Serena Williams utterly destroy a short ball, or Roger Federer touch a volley into an impossibly angled winner, you know how exciting tennis can be. This book reveals the long history and unique culture behind the sport. With a penchant for tennis’s inherent drama, historian Elizabeth Wilson finds its core: a psychological face-off between flamboyant personalities navigating the ebbs and flows of fortune in the confines of a 78 x 36–foot box—whether of clay, grass, or DecoTurf. 
   
  Walking the finely kempt lawns of Victorian England, she shows how tennis’s early role as a social pastime that included both men and women—and thus, lots of sexual tension—set it apart from most other sports and their dominant masculine appeal. Even today, when power and endurance are more important than ever, tennis still demands that the body behave gracefully and with finesse. In this way, Wilson shows, tennis has retained the vibrant spectacle of human drama and beauty that have always made it special, not just to sports fans but to popular culture. 
   
  Telling the stories of all the greats, from the Renshaw brothers to Novak Djokovic, and of all the advances, from wooden racquets to network television schedules, Wilson offers a tennis book like no other, keeping the court square in our sights as history is illuminated around it. 
   
  “A sporting history unlike any I’ve read—one that, in its sophistication and thoughtfulness, shows up the hollowness of most other accounts.” —Observer

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  Baseball Anecdotes

  Daniel Okrent, Steve Wulf

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  From its winners to its sinners, two bestselling sportswriters chronicle a dizzying trip through more than a century of baseball lore and legend.   Some of the stories are celebrated—from Ruth’s called shot to DiMaggio’s streak to Mays’s catch. Some of the men are titans of the game—Mantle, Williams, Koufax. But alongside those stories passed from generation to generation, Daniel Okrent and Steve Wulf have assembled tales both hard-to-believe and a pleasure to read. From the Black Sox scandal to Bill Veeck’s bizarre promotions, from its icons and iconoclasts, from the humble origins of the game to the landmark moments that made it the national pastime, Baseball Anecdotes reveals the enthralling (and often amusing) game that goes on both on the field and behind the scenes of baseball.   “A dandy introduction to the game.” —Newsweek   “A must . . . Its greatest value might be to those of us who want to pass along baseball lore to our children.” —San Jose Mercury News   “Beguiling . . . A history of the game in stories . . . Comic, tragic, controversial.” —The New York Times Book Review

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  Their Life's Work - The...

  Gary M. Pomerantz

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  The Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s won an unprecedented and unmatched four Super Bowls in six years. A dozen of those Steelers players, coaches, and executives have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and three decades later their names echo in popular memory: "Mean" Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Mike Webster, Jack Lambert, Lynn Swann, and John Stallworth. In ways exhilarating and heartbreaking, they define not only the brotherhood of sports but those elements of the game that engage tens of millions of Americans: its artistry and its brutality. 
   
   
   
  Drawing on hundreds of interviews, Their Life's Work is a richly textured story of a team and a sport, what the game gave these men, and what the game took.

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