Outdoors Memoirs

Richard Henry Dana, a law student turned sailor for health reasons, sailed in 1834 aboard the brig Pilgrim on a voyage from Boston around Cape Horn to California. Drawing from his journals, Two Years Before the Mast gives a vivid and detailed account, shrewdly observed and beautifully described, of a common sailor's wretched treatment at sea, and of a way of life virtually unknown at that time.

Mark Twight is a BANFF award-winner, an extreme climber, an extreme writer, and an extreme personality. No matter what he's doing, Mark Twight takes a definite, and often controversial , stand. Anyone who knows climbing knows Twight's name, and anyone who knows Twight's name will want to listen to this audiobook. Each story is told in Twight's taut, in-your-face style. Brand-new epilogues bring each piece full circle, providing updated information and fresh, hindsight perspectives.

Pat Summitt, the all-time winningest coach in NCAA basketball history and best-selling author of Reach for the Summitt and Raise the Roof, tells for the first time her remarkable story of victory and resilience as well as facing down her greatest challenge: early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Pat Summitt was only 21 when she became head coach of the Tennessee Vols women's basketball team. For 38 years, she has broken records, winning more games than any NCAA team in basketball history.

Evoking days gone by when coaches were respected as much for their off-court performances as for their success on the court, Wooden presents the timeless wisdom of legendary basketball coach John Wooden. In honest and telling passages about virtually every aspect of life, Coach shares his personal philosophy on family, achievement, success, and excellence. Raised on a small farm in South-Central Indiana, he offers lessons and wisdom learned throughout his career at UCLA and life as a dedicated husband, father, and teacher.

At 28,251 feet, K2 might be almost 800 feet shorter than Everest, but it’s a far harder climb. It will kill you on the way up and the way down. Mick Conefrey guides us through the early story of the legendary mountain and the extraordinary attempts that led up to its first ascent in 1954 - these are tales of riveting drama and unimaginable tragedy.

He is one of the most controversial and beloved athletes in history, a tennis legend and a volcanic, mesmerizing presence. But after reaching the top of his game - what came next? Fifteen years after his international number-one best seller You Cannot Be Serious, John McEnroe is back and ready to talk. Now the undisputed elder statesman of tennis, McEnroe has won over his critics as a brilliant commentator at the US Open, Wimbledon, and other Grand Slam tournaments.

The Big Miss is Hank Haney's candid and surprisingly insightful account of his tumultuous six-year journey with Tiger Woods, during which the supremely gifted golfer collected six major championships and rewrote golf history. Hank was one of the very few people allowed behind the curtain. He was with Tiger 110 days a year, spoke to him over 200 days a year, and stayed at his home up to 30 days a year, observing him in nearly every circumstance....

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.

Aron Ralston, an experienced twenty-seven-year-old outdoorsman, was on a days solitary hike through a remote and narrow Utah canyon when he dislodged an eight-hundred- pound boulder that crushed his right hand and wrist against the canyon wall. Emerging from the searing pain, Aron found himself completely stuck. No one knew where he was; no one was coming to rescue him. With scant water and food, and a cheap pocketknife his only tool, he eliminated his options one by one.

In 2018, the Dallas Mavericks landed the most hyped European teen prospect in basketball history—Luka Doncic, who has proven to be a generational NBA talent with a flair for sensational playmaking. But that’s only half the story. With The Wonder Boy, MacMahon takes us beyond the highlights to the madness that ensues as the Mavericks try to avoid blowing their golden opportunity.

Lou Gehrig was the Iron Horse, baseball's strongest and most determined superstar, struck down in his prime by a disease that now bears his name. But who was Lou Gehrig, really? Lou Gehrig is regarded as the greatest first baseman in baseball history. Shy and socially awkward, Gehrig was a misfit on a Yankee team that included drinkers and hell-raisers, most notably Babe Ruth.

Monty Roberts' father, a traditional horse trainer, had taught his son to dominate a horse in order to "break" it. But when he was 13, Monty made a discovery that changed his life. As he watched a mare tame a rebellious colt, Monty saw that she was speaking to it through eye and body movements. Astonished, Monty realized that he could train horses by using their language, speaking to them in ways that would form trust and understanding. Developing techniques based on what he learned from the horses around him, Monty embarked on a remarkable career - one that would bring him international fame as the real Horse Whisperer.

More than any other sports figure, Vince Lombardi transformed football into a metaphor for the American experience. The nine seasons during which he led the Green Bay Packers to five world championships is the most storied period in NFL history. Lombardi became a legend, a symbol to many of leadership, discipline, perseverance, and teamwork, and to others of an obsession with winning. Maraniss captures the myth and the man, football, God, and country in a thrilling biography that has become an American classic.

No immortal in the history of baseball retired so young, so well, or so completely as Sandy Koufax. After compiling a remarkable record from 1962 to 1966 that saw him lead the National League in ERA all five years, win three Cy Young awards, and pitch four no-hitters including a perfect game, Koufax essentially disappeared. Save for his induction into the Hall of Fame and occasional appearances at the Dodgers training camp, Koufax has remained unavailable, unassailable, and unsullied.

In the chapters of Never Sniff a Gift Fish, McManus will teach you the wisdom that is usually shared only in the close ranks of modern-day hunters and gatherers. To complete your arsenal, McManus also includes "The Hunter's Workout Guide" and a special "Family Camper's Dictionary". Exercises like the hindquarter shuffle will make you move like a hunter. And phrases like "Yip-yip-yip-Owoooooo!" will help you sound like one, too.

Even if you thought you knew everything about basketball legend Larry Bird, this audiobook is full of surprises. Bird speaks with amazing candor, offering a personal and honest look at his career with the Celtics, his experience with the ’92 Olympics Dream Team, and his transition from superstar player to respected coach. Bird offers striking revelations about his health problems and how they shaped the man and his game. He shows how the things he learned as a player formed his thinking as a coach.

From out of these mountains come many things. . . Here is a big game hunting story from the greatest hunting grounds in the world. From a time when they were wholly unknown. Yukon Territory in the 1940's was very much a frontier state with much of what the Jim Bond explored uncharted and unpenetrated except by the occasional prospector and trappers. The first sport hunter in the area, the author provided valuable documentation of how wildlife fares in a wilderness without any human interference as well as relating his exceptional hunting experiences. From Whitehorse, the largest "city" of ...

The riveting inside story of college basketball's fiercest rivalry among three coaching legends - University of North Carolina's Dean Smith, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, and North Carolina State's Jim Valvano - by the king of college basketball writers, number-one New York Times best seller John Feinstein.

Why So Serious? takes listeners on Nikola Jokic’s long, strange, and incredibly unlikely journey to becoming the heartbeat of the champion Denver Nuggets and the best basketball player on the planet. As he traces Jokic’s transformation from his humble beginnings in Sombor, Serbia, sports journalist Mike Singer captures the witty irreverence, unparalleled competitiveness, and slight mischievousness of the MVP fondly known as “The Joker.”

Batavia, New York—between Rochester and Buffalo—hosted its first professional baseball game in 1897. Despite decades of deindustrialization and evaporating middle-class jobs, the Batavia Muckdogs endured. When Major League Baseball cravenly shut them down in 2020—along with forty-one other minor league teams—the town fought back, reviving the Muckdogs as a summer league team comprised of college players.