Sporting House

On the surface, young Charles had it all: high-society parents, a place at an exclusive New York City prep school, summer vacations in the Adirondacks. But the scrawny teenager suffered from extreme anxiety thanks to a sadistic father who mired the family in bankruptcy and scandal before abandoning Charles and his mother altogether. Charles’s only source of joy was swimming. But with no one to teach him, he struggled with technique—until he caught the eye of two immigrant coaches.

The authors of the acclaimed and best-selling The Civil War, Jazz, and The War turn to another uniquely American phenomenon: baseball. Geoffrey C. Ward's and Ken Burns’s moving and fascinating history of the game goes beyond stolen bases, double plays, and home runs to demonstrate how baseball has been influenced by, and has in turn influenced, American life.

The Rip Curl Story is the remarkable tale of two young surfers who pursued an audacious dream to make a living in pursuit of the ultimate ride. The brand they built, Rip Curl, not only satisfied their own surf- and wanderlust but also inspired countless others, both fuelling and riding the wave of the global youth revolution of the late '60s. Rip Curl's mantra became 'the Search' - the chasing of new waves on distant shores - as they embraced new thrills such as skiing, snowboarding and windsurfing and aimed always to make better equipment to elevate the experience.

I was the epitome of control. Cocky. Powerful. Ruthless. Until the day Savvy King swaggered into our world. She defied me at every turn, refusing to yield to my command. Her insolence infuriated me as much as it captivated me, until the battle consumed us. She’s the perfect counterpart to my reign. Except...the ring on her finger belongs to another. People want to play politics with my life - with our lives. That is a mistake. Don't underestimate what I'll do to claim her as mine and secure my queen.

In Golden Days, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum uses these two teams - the Jerry West/Wilt Chamberlain/Elgin Baylor Lakers and the Stephen Curry/Kevin Durant/Draymond Green Warriors - to trace the dynamic history of the National Basketball Association, which for much of the last half century has marched memorably through the state of California. Tying together the two strands of McCallum's story is Hall of Famer West, the ferociously competitive Laker guard who later became one of the key architects of the Warriors.

In this collection of his finest work from such magazines as Outside and Smithsonian, Krakauer explores the subject from the unique and memorable perspective of one who has himself battled peaks like K2, Denali, Everest, and, of course, Eiger.

Mark Wolfe, a brilliant if self-thwarting technical writer, lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, Sushila, and their toddler daughter. His half-brother Geoff, born and raised in the United Kingdom, is a desperate young soccer agent. He pulls Mark across the ocean into a scheme to track down an elusive prospect known only as “Godwin”—an African teenager Geoff believes could be the next Lionel Messi.

Empowering, insightful, and psychology-driven, Beyond Beautiful is filled with proven, no-BS strategies for proactive self-care. This stylish and practical handbook takes a deep-dive into all of the factors that make it hard to feel good about yourself, and offers sage answers to tricky questions. Beyond Beautiful is a much-needed breath of fresh air that will help you live your best life, know your worth, and stop wasting any more precious energy and mental space worrying about the way you look.

The most popular sports columnist in America puts his life (and dignity) on the line in search of the most absurd sporting event on the planet. What is the stupidest sport in the world? Not content to pontificate from the sidelines, Rick Reilly set out on a global journey - with stops in Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Denmark, England, and even a maximum security prison at Angola, Louisiana - to discover the answer to this enduring question.

A lyrical account of an activity that is essential for our sanity, equilibrium, and well-being, from the author of Silence.

In A Nice Little Place on the North Side, leading columnist George Will returns to baseball with a deeply personal look at his hapless Chicago Cubs and their often beatified home, Wrigley Field, as it enters its second century. Baseball, Will argues, is full of metaphors for life, religion, and happiness, and Wrigley is considered one of its sacred spaces. But what is its true, hyperbole-free history?

Everyone knows that football is violent and dangerous. But what the players who built the NFL into a $10 billion industry didn’t know—and what the league sought to shield from them—is that no amount of padding could protect the human brain from the force generated by modern football.

Warren St. John decided to find out why people care so much about the outcomes of games they're not playing in by joining a group where the particulars of the fan psyche would show themselves in sharp relief: the caravan of hundreds of RVs that follow the Alabama Crimson Tide across the South, taking over college towns with a moveable feast of Weber grills, karaoke machines, Igloo coolers, and fast-draining liquor bottles.

In 2015, FIFA - the multibillion dollar governing body of the world's most-loved sport - was brought down by allegations of industrial-scale bribes, kickbacks, money laundering, racketeering, and tax evasion. Beginning with early morning raids in Zurich and the indictment of 27 executives by the US Department of Justice, the rottenness at the core of FIFA seemed to extend throughout all of soccer, from the decision to send the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar to lesser known cases of embezzlement from Trinidad to South Africa.

With his colorful tattoos and booming hip-hop sound track, Mike Iaconelli has turned the world of big-money competitive bass fishing upside down. In Fishing on the Edge, Iaconelli tells his own story, and it's a whopper: a Philly-born, Jersey-bred Yankee who's been stealing the spotlight from bass fishing's traditionally all-Southern anglers, attracting fans and dominating one of the fastest-growing sports in America.

In the spring of 1977 Reggie Jackson should have been on top of the world. The best player of the Oakland A's dynasty, which won three straight World Series, he was the first big-money free agent, wooed and flattered by George Steinbrenner into coming to the New York Yankees, which hadn't won a World Series since 1962. But Reggie was about to learn, as he writes in this vivid and surprising memoir, that until his initial experience on the Yankees, "I didn't know what alone meant."

Deepak Chopra has discovered the delights, and frustrations, of golf, and he is passionate about the game. Confronted by the wild ups and downs of his own play, he consulted with golf professionals and developed a new approach to the game that any golfer, from the novice to the expert, can follow. The results can be measured not only in increased enjoyment and skill, but also in greater wisdom about life beyond the 18th hole.

During one unforgettable season as a Citadel cadet, Pat Conroy becomes part of a basketball team that is ultimately destined to fail. And yet for a military kid who grew up on the move, the Bulldogs provide a sanctuary from the cold, abrasive father who dominates his life- and a crucible for becoming his own man.

If a professional referee has a perfect match, nobody says a word about it. If they have a poor one, they immediately become everyone's object of hatred, solely responsible for everything. With these conditions on his shoulders, Jonas Eriksson walked out onto the biggest and most prestigious football pitches in the world time and time again. He portrays the enormous demands placed on the elite tier of referees, how they are ostracised if they don't maintain their weight or pass extreme physical tests. For eighteen years, Jonas Eriksson was one of FIFA's top referees.

In 1958, while flying from one island to another, Audrey Sutherland sees the remote and roadless northeast side of Molokai, with its spectacular sea cliffs and waterfalls. Always an adventurer, she decides that she must find a way to explore this then inaccessible area. After much study, she determines that the best way for her to navigate these treacherous sea walls is to swim while towing an inflatable kayak. This is the story of fulfilling her dream, of planning then implementing, of launching and advancing, of retreating and reconnoitering, of challenge and success.