As a teenager in the 1990s, Katie Brown was one of climbing's first "comp kids"—a young natural who, along with her peers, redefined the image of a strong and successful climber. After climbing for less than two years, Brown won her first junior national title. The next year she became the Junior World Champion at age fourteen in Laval, France. In 1996 she won both the Rock Master—a prestigious international contest in Arco, Italy—and the esteemed X-Games. From 1996 on, Brown won every US Adult National that she entered, as well as a World Cup Title in France in 1999.

Dave Cartwright used to be good at a lot of things: good with his hands, good at solving problems, good at staying calm in a crisis. But on the heels of his third tour in Iraq, the fabric of Dave’s life has begun to unravel. Gripped by PTSD, he finds himself losing his home, his wife, his direction. Most days, his love for his seven-year-old daughter, Bella, is the only thing keeping him going. When tragedy strikes, Dave makes a dramatic decision: the two of them will flee their damaged lives, heading off the grid to live in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest.

Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a breakup, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered. Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times.

Burned-out by both her marriage and work, Liz is desperate for an escape. More than that, she craves an adventure, a total reset. So, when she plans a vacation with her three best friends, she persuades them to spend four nights camping in the stunning mountains of Norway. Following a trail that climbs through lush valleys, towering peaks, and past jewel-blue lakes, Liz is sure that the hike is just what they need. But as they stride farther from civilization, it becomes clear that the women are not the only ones looking to lose themselves in the mountains.

On January 14, 2015, Tommy Caldwell, along with his partner, Kevin Jorgeson, summited what is widely regarded as the hardest climb in history - Yosemite’s nearly vertical 3,000-foot Dawn Wall, after 19 days on the route. This engrossing memoir chronicles the journey of a boy with a fanatical mountain-guide father who was determined to instill toughness in his son to a teen whose obsessive nature drove him to the top of the sport-climbing circuit.

Prior to December 2018, no individual had ever crossed the landmass of Antarctica alone, without support and completely human powered. Yet, Colin O’Brady was determined to do just that, even if, 10 years earlier, there was doubt that he’d ever walk again normally. From the depths of a tragic accident, he fought his way back. In a quest to unlock his potential and discover what was possible, he went on to set three mountaineering world records before turning to this historic Antarctic challenge.

A middle-aged, overweight, and acrophobic newspaper editor Tom Ryan and a little dog, Atticus M. Finch, are an unlikely pair of mountaineers, but after a close friend dies of cancer, the two pay tribute to her by attempting to climb all forty-eight of New Hampshire's four-thousand-foot peaks twice in one winter. Tom and Atticus set out on an adventure of a lifetime that takes them across hundreds of miles and deep into an enchanting but dangerous winter wonderland. Little did they know that their most difficult test would lie ahead, after they returned home. Following Atticus is ultimately a story of transformation....

Set in early 1980s Poland against the violent decline of communism, a tender and passionate story of first love between two young men who eventually find themselves on opposite sides of the political divide - a stunningly poetic and heartrending literary debut for fans of Andre Aciman, Garth Greenwell, and Alan Hollinghurst.

In 1935 a young Englishman named Laurie Lee arrived in Spain. He had never been overseas. His idea was to walk through the country, earning money for food by playing his violin in bars and plazas. Nearly a century later, the book Laurie Lee wrote - As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning - inspired Alastair Humphreys. It made him fall in love with Spain - the landscapes and the spirit - and with Laurie's style of travel. Alastair dreamed of retracing Laurie Lee’s footsteps but could never get past the hurdle of being distinctly unmusical. This year, he decided to go anyway.

Already a number-one London Sunday Times best seller, Mud, Sweat, and Tears is the adrenaline-fueled autobiography of the mega-popular star of the hit survival series Man vs. Wild, adventurer Bear Grylls. A former British Special Forces commando, a man who has always sought the ultimate in dangerous challenges, Bear's true story reads like an outdoors action-and-adventure novel. But Bear's story is true - full of breathtaking escapes and remarkable exploits that would make any Jack London or H. Ryder Haggard hero proud.

When a murder rocks the isolated community of Entry Island, insomniac homicide detective Sime Mackenzie boards a light aircraft at St. Hubert airfield bound for the small, scattered chain of Madeline Islands, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, as part of an eight-officer investigation team from Montréal. Only two kilometers wide and three long, Entry Island is home to a population of just more than 100 inhabitants, the wealthiest of whom has just been discovered murdered in his home.

The perfect husband. The perfect stepson. The perfect lie? When Rachel marries dark, handsome David, everything seems to fall into place. Swept from single life in London to the beautiful Carnhallow House in Cornwall, she gains wealth, love, and an affectionate stepson, Jamie. But then Jamie's behavior changes, and Rachel's perfect life begins to unravel. He makes disturbing predictions, claiming to be haunted by the specter of his late mother - David's previous wife. Is this Jamie's way of punishing Rachel, or is he far more traumatized than she thought?

Kamzin has always dreamed of becoming one of the emperor’s royal explorers, the elite climbers tasked with mapping the wintry, mountainous empire and spying on its enemies. She knows she could be the best in the world, if only someone would give her a chance. But everything changes when the mysterious and eccentric River Shara, the greatest explorer ever known, arrives in her village and demands to hire Kamzin - not her older sister Lusha, as everyone had expected - for his next expedition.

For more than a decade, Katie Arnold chased adventure around the world, reporting on extreme athletes who performed outlandish feats - walking high lines 1,000 feet off the ground without a harness, or running 100 miles through the night. She wrote her stories by living them, until eventually life on the thin edge of risk began to seem normal. After she married, Katie and her husband vowed to raise their daughters to be adventurous, too, in the mountains and canyons of New Mexico. But when her father died of cancer, she was forced to confront her own mortality.

Nature holds the answers for Raynor and her husband, Moth. After walking 630 miles homeless along The Salt Path, the windswept and wild English coastline now feels like their home. And despite Moth's terminal diagnosis, against all medical odds, he seems revitalized in nature - outside, they discover that anything is possible. Now, life beyond The Salt Path awaits. As they return to four walls, the sense of home is illusive and returning to normality is proving difficult - until an incredible gesture by someone who reads their story changes everything.

The bestselling fitness book for men who want to gain 25-35 pounds of lean muscle and lose as much fat or more in just 3-5 hours per week—and without giving up delicious foods or doing grueling workouts. Is Bigger Leaner Stronger a body building book that can help you pack on brain-shrinking amounts of muscle in 30 days flat? No. Is it a fitness nutrition book full of dubious diet and exercise “hacks” and “shortcuts” for melting belly fat faster than a roided hornet? Absolutely not.

If someone were to ask Jasmine Santos to describe the last few years of her life with a single word, it would definitely be a four-letter one. After 17 years - and countless broken bones and broken promises - she knows her window to compete in figure skating is coming to a close. But when the offer of a lifetime comes in from an arrogant idiot she's spent the last decade dreaming about pushing in the way of a moving bus, Jasmine might have to reconsider everything.

The Complete Book of Five Rings is an authoritative version of Musashi's classic The Book of Five Rings, translated and annotated by a modern martial arts master, Kenji Tokitsu. Tokitsu has spent most of his life researching the legendary samurai swordsman and his works, and in this book he illuminates this seminal text, along with several other works by Musashi.

The bestselling fitness and self-improvement book for breaking through mental resistance and barriers, building unshakeable discipline, and keeping your goals alive when things get tough.

Pulitzer Prize, Biography, 2016. Barbarian Days is William Finnegan's memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates it is something else entirely: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life.

Derick Lugo had never been hiking. He certainly couldn't imagine going more than a day without manicuring his goatee. But with a job cut short and no immediate plans, this fixture of the New York comedy scene began to think about what he might do with months of free time. He had heard of the Appalachian Trail, but he had never seriously considered attempting to hike all 2,184.2 miles of it. Suddenly he found himself asking, Could he do it?

All over America, families are investing blood, sweat, tears, and retirement savings in their children’s sports careers, all with the ultimate goal of…what exactly? A college scholarship? A professional contract? Simply the taste of victory? Through the lens of the highly competitive world of girls’ softball, Lewis reveals the youth sports industrial complex that has arisen to aggressively monetize after-school pastimes.

Follow the trails of hunters - the original storytellers - as they interpret signs, examine tracks, and chase and catch their prey (or fail to). Listeners can curl up with the best authentic hunting fiction and non-fiction, bringing the great Mount Kenya and the prairies of the American Bison into your living room. From Theodore Roosevelt and Gene Hill to Rick Bass and Charles Dickens, remember classic hunting tales and discover new stories of hunters’ luck, camaraderie, and use of smarts on the trail.

When Edmund Hillary first conquered Mt. Everest, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay was at his side. Indeed, for as long as Westerners have been climbing the Himalaya, Sherpas have been the unsung heroes in the background. In August 2008, when eleven climbers lost their lives on K2, the world’s most dangerous peak, two Sherpas survived. They had emerged from poverty and political turmoil to become two of the most skillful mountaineers on earth. Based on unprecedented access and interviews, Buried in the Sky reveals their astonishing story for the first time.

In Wildlife Wars, Terry Grosz serves up fascinating stories - alternately hair-raising, hilarious, and heart-wrenching - from his 30-year struggle to protect wildlife in America. A natural storyteller, Grosz writes about the remarkable characters he met - on both sides of the law - as he matched wits with elk poachers, salmon snaggers, commercial-market duck hunters, and a host of other law-breakers. Best of all, though, these stories are so remarkably entertaining you won't want to put them down.

A revolutionary approach to the techniques of working with horses, by a renowned instructor. In Horses Never Lie, renowned horse trainer Mark Rashid challenges the conventional wisdom of "alpha leadership" and teaches the listener to become a "passive leader" - a counterpart to the kind of horse other members of a herd choose to associate with and to follow. Applying Rashid’s principles and techniques helps cultivate horse personalities that are responsive and dependable regardless of the rider.

When Ball Four was published in 1970, it created a firestorm. Bouton was called a Judas, a Benedict Arnold and a “social leper” for having violated the “sanctity of the clubhouse.” Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force Bouton to sign a statement saying the book wasn’t true. Ballplayers, most of whom hadn’t read it, denounced the book. It was even banned by a few libraries. Almost everyone else, however, loved Ball Four.

On the playing field, natural talent isn’t enough—there’s a mental component that determines whether athletes win the race or wipe out before the finish line. But what separates standout sports stars from the rest? In a paradigm-shifting new theory, acclaimed sportswriter Matt Fitzgerald identifies two key traits behind athletic success: strict self-regulation over thoughts and emotions and an unquenchable psychological need to pursue victory—even when it means enduring extreme mental and physical suffering.

Several years after his playing career was cut short by injury before it had a chance to really begin, John Madden was hired as an assistant coach by the Oakland Raiders, one of professional football's most iconoclastic franchises. Two years later he was named the team's head coach and proceeded to lead the Raiders to five championship games in his first seven seasons. Following years of heartbreaking losses in some of history's most memorable games.

In the world of strength and conditioning, learning how to move others not just physically, but also psychologically and emotionally is paramount to getting the most out of them. People are the ultimate performance variable, and understanding how to effectively blend knowledge of proper training with the nuances of human behavior is integral to helping athletes achieve their ultimate goals. Unfortunately, while much attention has been given to the science of physical training, little attention has been given to the science of communication.