Yoga Girl


Rachel Brathen - 2014
    In Yoga Girl, Brathen takes readers beyond her Instagram feed and shares her journey like never before—from her self-destructive teenage years in her hometown in Sweden to her adventures in the jungles of Costa Rica, and finally to the beautiful and bohemian life she’s built through yoga and meditation in Aruba today. Featuring spectacular photos of Brathen practicing yoga with breathtaking tropical backdrops, along with step-by-step yoga sequences and simple recipes for a healthy, happy, and fearless lifestyle—Yoga Girl is like an armchair vacation to a Caribbean spa.

Harry Anderson's Games You Can't Lose: A Guide for Suckers


Harry Anderson - 1989
    Now, Harry shares many of his hilarious insider tips.

Tony Accardo is Joe Batters


Neil Gordon - 2018
    Throw in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and the murders of John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, Marilyn Monroe, Bugsy Siegel, Sam Giancana, Lucky Luciano, Tony the Ant Spilotro, Johnny Roselli and Jimmy Hoffa. Toss in Hollywood scandal and the mobbed up career of Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack. Now you can begin to grasp the epic story of Tony Accardo. Why has this story never been told? Accardo killed everyone in his path: family, friends, cops, reporters, movie stars, and politicians. Operating from deep within the shadows Tony influenced national policy, exploited the FBI, owned politicians, and fixed presidential elections. Connected to every gangster from Al Capone to Lucky Luciano to John Gotti, Joe Batters is the must-read that every Godfather fan is craving.

Rumble Road: Untold Stories from Outside the Ring


Jon Robinson - 2010
    If you liked Are We There Yet?, then you'll love Rumble Road.

Coach K: The Rise and Reign of Mike Krzyzewski


Ian O'Connor - 2022
    Through unprecedented access to Krzyzewski’s best friends, closest advisers, fiercest adversaries, and generations of his players and assistants, three-time New York Times bestselling author Ian O’Connor takes you behind the Blue Devil curtain with a penetrating examination of the great, but flawed leader as he closes out his iconic career.   Krzyzewski  built a staggering basketball empire that has endured for more than four decades, placing him among the all-time titans of American sport, and yet there has never been a defining portrait of the coach and his program. Until now. O’Connor uses scores of interviews with those who know Krzyzewski best  to deliver previously untold stories about the relationships that define the venerable Coach K, including the one with his volcanic mentor, Bob Knight, that died a premature death. Krzyzewski was always driven by an inner rage fueled by his tough Chicago upbringing, and by the blue-collar Polish-American parents who raised him to fight for a better life. As the retiring Coach K makes his final stand, vying for one more ring during the 2021-2022 season before saying goodbye at age 75, O’Connor shows you sides of the man and his methods that will surprise even the most dedicated Duke fan.

The Biggest Game in Town


Al Álvarez - 1983
    Acclaimed author A. Alvarez delves into the seedy, obsessive world of high-stakes Vegas poker, where "the next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing." Uncovering an exotic underground rich in ambiance and eccentricity, The Biggest Game in Town is "a magnificent book " (San Francisco Chronicle), a real one of a kind.

Half a Life


Darin Strauss - 2010
    We follow Strauss as he explores his startling past-collision life - the funeral, the queasy drama of a high-stakes court case? and what starts as a personal tale of a tragic event opens into the story of how to live with a very hard fact: we can try our human best in the crucial moment, and it might not be good enough. Half a Life is a nakedly honest, ultimately hopeful examination of guilt, responsibility, and living with the past.

Manhood for Amateurs


Michael Chabon - 2009
     A shy manifesto, an impractical handbook, the true story of a fabulist, an entire life in parts and pieces, Manhood for Amateurs is the first sustained work of personal writing from Michael Chabon. In these insightful, provocative, slyly interlinked essays, one of our most brilliant and humane writers presents his autobiography and his vision of life in the way so many of us experience our own lives: as a series of reflections, regrets, and reexaminations, each sparked by an encounter, in the present, that holds some legacy of the past. What does it mean to be a man today? Chabon invokes and interprets and struggles to reinvent for us, with characteristic warmth and lyric wit, the personal and family history that haunts him even as--simply because--it goes on being written every day. As a devoted son, as a passionate husband, and above all as the father of four young Americans, Chabon presents his memories of childhood, of his parents' marriage and divorce, of moments of painful adolescent comedy and giddy encounters with the popular art and literature of his own youth, as a theme played--on different instruments, with a fresh tempo and in a new key--by the mad quartet of which he now finds himself co-conductor. At once dazzling, hilarious, and moving, Manhood for Amateurs is destined to become a classic.

The Untold Story of Imelda Marcos


Carmen Navarro Pedrosa - 1969
    As late as 1953, she was a starry-eyed, penniless, provincial lass in search of a good fortune in Manila. Then came Ferdinand E. Marcos, literally a knight in shining armor who rescued her from poverty and misery. "I will make you the First Lady of the land," he promised her.Complete, detailed replete with facts and documents which have been painstakingly hidden from the public by the administration's image-makers, her life story as told in generations. It explains Imelda's much vaunted charisma which in President Marcos' own words garnered one million votes in the 1965 elections.She is a person who is difficult to be indifferent to. This book tells us why.

Check-raising the Devil


Mike Matusow - 2009
     2.  Fascinating Memoir:  This book has it all: high stakes gambling, drugs, jail, psychotic episodes and debilitating depression and mental illness, plus the depths of despair and heights of victory.  3.  Very High Profile:  Mike Matusow is one of the most recognizable and followed players in poker today.  Yahoo's online search engine identifies over 1.1 million websites that provide content about Mike Matusow.  His weekly online video show "The Mouthpiece" at CardPlayer.com, averages over 2,000 viewers per day. 4.  Super Popular Subject: Poker is the third most watched sport on cable television, behind auto racing and football. 5.  Secondary Market Possibilities: The National Institute of Mental Health estimates there are 5.7 million people in the U.S. that have bipolar disorder and the CDC estimates 1.6 million elementary school children have been diagnosed ADHD.Get Ready for a Wild Ride… Hang on tight as Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, poker player extraordinaire, takes you with him on a breathtaking, true-life roller coaster ride from his humble beginnings in a trailer park to a rock and roll lifestyle full of hot women, sex, wild drug-filled parties and million-dollar wins and losses. Yet behind the glamour and glory of his high-stakes poker career lurked the flip side: a person torn between two debilitating mental illnesses?—?bipolar disorder and ADHD. To dig himself out of depression and suicidal despair, Matusow turned to dangerous street drugs to self-medicate a problem he didn’t understand, and spiraled deeper into the darker world of addiction, police narcotic stings, and jail time. In this revealing and tumultuous autobiography, the combustible Matusow holds nothing back. You’ll get a mouthful of the man behind the infamous Matusow Meltdowns seen on national TV. Riveting, exhilarating, sexy, sometimes shocking and always fascinating, this voyeur’s look into the world of high-stakes poker, mental illness, and ultimately, Matusow’s inspiring redemption, will keep you glued to your seat until the very last page!

The Middle Place


Kelly Corrigan - 2005
    A self-assured adman and former all-American lacrosse player (now part-time coach), he shines brightly, and his daughter appears content to live in his reflected glory.Kelly considers herself lucky for this great touchstone in her life, and her dad's can-do spirit becomes her greatest asset when she's diagnosed with breast cancer as a young mother. It is her dad's pluck and resolve that will see her through the oncoming battles -- including the realization that her "cure" will mean the end of her ability to bear children and her dream of having a large family of her own.Though Kelly writes of her husband and daughters, her mother and her brothers, it is her father's love that sustains her. And so, readers fear for her when she reveals that George has been diagnosed with cancer, too. It is at this nadir, facing not only her own mortality but her father's as well, that Kelly finally begins to emerge as a survivor -- a wife, a mother, and more herself. Yet, she will always be her father's daughter.(Spring 2008 Selection)

Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling


Bret Hart - 2007
    As a teenager, he could have been an amateur wrestling Olympic contender, but instead he turned to the family business, climbing into the ring for his dad’s western circuit, Stampede Wrestling. From his early twenties until he retired at 43, Hart kept an audio diary, recording stories of the wrestling life, the relentless travel, the practical jokes, the sex and drugs, and the real rivalries (as opposed to the staged ones). The result is an intimate, no-holds-barred account that will keep readers, not just wrestling fans, riveted.Hart achieved superstardom in pink tights, and won multiple wrestling belts in multiple territories, for both the WWF (now the WWE) and WCW. But he also paid the price in betrayals (most famously by Vince McMahon, a man he had served loyally); in tragic deaths, including the loss of his brother Owen, who died when a stunt went terribly wrong; and in his own massive stroke, most likely resulting from a concussion he received in the ring, and from which, with the spirit of a true champion, he has battled back.Widely considered by his peers as one of the business’s best technicians and workers, Hart describes pro wrestling as part dancing, part acting, and part dangerous physical pursuit. He is proud that in all his years in the ring he never seriously hurt a single wrestler, yet did his utmost to deliver to his fans an experience as credible as it was exciting. He also records the incredible toll the business takes on its workhorses: he estimates that twenty or more of the wrestlers he was regularly matched with have died young, weakened by their own coping mechanisms, namely drugs, alcohol, and steroids. That toll included his own brother-in-law, Davey Boy Smith. No one has ever written about wrestling like Bret Hart. No one has ever lived a life like Bret Hart’s.For as long as I can remember, my world was filled with liars and bullshitters, losers and pretenders, but I also saw the good side of pro wrestling. To me there is something bordering on beautiful about a brotherhood of big tough men who pretended to hurt one another for a living instead of actually doing it. Any idiot can hurt someone.—from Hitman

Ice Cream Man


Dax Flame - 2019
    Having run out of options, former YouTube star Dax Flame must get a job at an ice cream shop in order to make ends meet.

A Three Dog Life


Abigail Thomas - 2006
    Forced to adapt to a life alone, Abigail finds solace at home, discovering that friends, family and dogs can reshape a life of chaos into one that makes sense - a life full of its own richness and beauty.

Young Blood: The Story of the Family Murders


Bob R. O'Brien - 2002
    After years of speculation and rumour, for the first time the real-life expose about this famous series of murders in Adelaide can be told by the man who solved the case. South Australia has an international reputation for being the home of some very strange murders. But during the 1970s this capital city was shocked when a series of young men, all fit and healthy, disappeared from its streets one by one. their bodies were found dumped in the countryside outside the city. All were mutilated and some were dismembered. A group of prominent SA judges and businessmen, believed to be gay, were suspected of being involved with the killings (they weren t). this group were dubbed the Family. the author he detective who investigated the murder of the most high profile of the victims (the son of the city s pre-eminent tV newsreaders) ventually arrested accountant Bevan Von Einem, who is still in gaol for his crimes.