Book picks similar to
Unscripted by Ken Leiker


wrestling
nonfiction
wwe
pro-wrestling

Blue Blood: Duke-Carolina: Inside the Most Storied Rivalry in College Hoops


Art Chansky - 2005
    Duke and Carolina will be here forever." ---Mike KrzyzewskiFor fifty years the rivalry between Duke and Carolina has featured famous brawls, endless controversy, long-nurtured hatred---and some of the best basketball ever played in the history of the sport. For Duke and UNC players and fans, the competition is not about winning a prize, trophy or title---it's about bragging rights and raw pride.Blue Blood is a thrilling chronicle of the Duke-Carolina rivalry as it has evolved over the last fifty years. With unparalleled insider access, veteran journalist and author Art Chansky details the colorful, revered, and respected rivalry---for the first time ever. The Duke-Carolina rivalry has fostered more than thirty former players from the two schools playing or coaching in the NBA; it has enchanted a nation of spectators to watch games between the archrivals---garnering some of the highest regular-season TV ratings in history. Blue Blood celebrates the history of this rivalry, the traditions, the heritage, and, most importantly---spectacular basketball."You can see the beads of sweat on coaches' and players' faces as the tale by this former sports editor for the Durham Morning Herald unfolds."---News & Record (Greensboro, NC)"A book on this rivalry was long overdue, and Chansky does it justice. This is sure to become a staple of every Tar Heel or Blue Devil fan's library."---InsideCarolina.com"A holy text for both sides of the rivalry. . . . This book is a coffee table necessity for anyone that claims to have a background in college basketball . . . you need to read this book cover to cover as many times as possible until you can recite from it."---The East Carolinian"I'm biased, but I think this is the greatest rivalry, not just in college basketball, but in all of sports."---Dick Vitale, ESPN"Art Chansky has more than learned what Duke-Carolina is all about; he's lived it for more than thirty years. His columns, commentaries, and characterizations have long been on the money, and Blue Blood puts them all together in an anticipated and entertaining work that reads more like a novel. But truth is stranger than fiction, and Chansky tells it just like it is."---Curry Kirkpatrick, who has covered Duke-Carolina for Sports Illustrated, ESPN, and ESPN the Magazine

Old Maine Woman: Stories from the Coast to the County


Glenna Johnson Smith - 2010
    The book also includes some of her best fiction pieces.

Alaska Man: A Memoir of Growing Up and Living in the Wilds of Alaska


George Davis - 2017
    He survives this perilous wheel of fortune, and thrives in the face of danger! I would like to add to why my book is important, is that we are true authentic Alaskans that live life off of the grid and that we have been entrepreneurs, making our living off of the land and sea. We are wilderness and off the grid consultants if that is important. On our website we have a variety of things we consult on from sport fishing, hunting, adventures, lodges/outfitters, developing or improving remote properties, and much more.

If These Walls Could Talk: Chicago Blackhawks: Stories from the Chicago Blackhawks' Ice, Locker Room, and Press Box


Mark Lazerus - 2017
    In If These Walls Could Talk: Chicago Blackhawks, Mark Lazerus chronicles the team's rise from the dark ages of the 2000s to the golden age of the 2010s through never-before-told stories from inside the dressing room, aboard the team plane, at the players' homes, and — especially in the case of the rowdy 2009-2010 team that started it all — in countless Chicago bars. If These Walls Could Talk: Chicago Blackhawks will bring readers closer to their favorite players than ever before. It's a book Hawks fans won't want to be without.

Behind The White Ball


Jimmy White - 1998
    Aged 16, White was the youngest player to win the English Amateur Championship. At 18, he won the World Amateur title. By 1984, he's a professional success, married but not at all settled. He's the kind of man who goes out for a packet of cigarettes and comes home two weeks later. Gambling, women, marathon binges with showbiz friends like Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones, have threatened the stability of his marriage. But somehow White has survived, to tell in candid detail, a most unusual, often outrageous story of a very sporting life.

21 Months, 24 Days: A blue-collar kid's journey to the Vietnam War and back


Richard Udden - 2015
    Threatened by the draft in the late sixties, he enlisted in the Army to avoid becoming a grunt, yet ended up one anyway. He endured a grueling war in Vietnam and then returned to a country too angry to care. While his journey took unexpected turns, his choices got him there, so he did his best to react positively and keep moving forward.Udden delivers his story in a comfortable, friendly style. He conveys the experiences of basic training, advanced infantry training, and what it was like to live, work, guard, patrol, and fight in the jungle. The reader will feel the adrenalin rush of a firefight, the thrill of a wild ride dangling below a helicopter, and the humor in celebrating his 21st birthday on a firebase.Through his words and personal photographs, you will live through his journey exactly as he experienced it.

All Round View


Imran Khan - 1988
    He tells of his life and the game he loves: from his childhood in Lahore, to his student days at Oxford (where he led the University team), his time at Worcester and thence to Sussex, culminating in his captaincy of Pakistan. A self portrait emerges of a man who has spent fifteen years at the top: years which have wrought changes - political, commercial and tactical - in the way cricket is played and promoted; changes too, in the man himself, as he reconciled his Muslim upbringing with the professional and personal pressures of being an international sportsman.

The Final Season: Fathers, Sons, and One Last Season in a Classic American Ballpark


Tom Stanton - 2001
    Maybe the two of you watched broadcasts from Yankee Stadium or Candlestick Park, or listened as Red Barber or Vin Scully called the plays on radio. Or maybe he coached your team or just played catch with you in the yard. Chances are good that if you're a baseball fan, your dad had something to do with it--and your thoughts of the sport evoke thoughts of him. If so, you will treasure The Final Season, a poignant true story about baseball and heroes, family and forgiveness, doubts and dreams, and a place that brings them all together.Growing up in the 60s and 70s, Tom Stanton lived for his Detroit Tigers. When Tiger Stadium began its 88th and final season, he vowed to attend all 81 home games in order to explore his attachment to the place where four generations of his family have shared baseball. Join him as he encounters idols, conjures decades past, and discovers the mysteries of a park where Cobb and Ruth played. Come along and sit beside Al Kaline on the dugout bench, eat popcorn with Elmore Leonard, hear Alice Cooper's confessions, soak up the warmth of Ernie Harwell, see McGwire and Ripken up close, and meet Chicken Legs Rau, Bleacher Pete, Al the Usher, and a parade of fans who are anything but ordinary. By the autumn of his odyssey, Stanton comes to realize that his anguish isn't just about the loss of a beloved ballpark but about his dad's mortality, for at the heart of this story is the love between fathers and sons--a theme that resonates with baseball fans of all ages.

We Promised You a Great Main Event: An Unauthorized WWE History


Bill Hanstock - 2020
    Unrestricted. No holds barred.In We Promised You a Great Main Event, longtime sports journalist Bill Hanstock pulls back the curtain to give a smart fan’s account of WWE and Vince McMahon’s journey to the top. Untangling the truth behind the official WWE storyline, Hanstock does a deep dive into key moments of the company’s history, from the behind-the-scenes drama at the Montreal Screwjob, to the company’s handling of the Jimmy Snuka scandal, to the real story of the Monday Night Wars.WWE is an extraordinary business success and an underappreciated pop cultural phenomenon. While WWE soared to prominence during the Hulk Hogan years, as the stakes grew more and more extreme, wrestlers faced steroid scandals and assault allegations. The whole story is here, good, bad, and ugly, from the heights of iconic cultural moments like Wrestlemania III to the arrival of global superstars like The Rock and John Cena.We Promised You a Great Main Event is an exhaustive, fun account of the McMahon family and WWE’s unprecedented rise. Drawing on a decade of covering wrestling, Bill Hanstock synthesizes insights from historians, journalists, and industry insiders with his own deep research to produce the most up-to-date, entertaining history of WWE available. Full of amazing characters and astonishing stories from the ring to corporate boardrooms, it is a story as audacious as any WWE spectacle.