Rod: The Autobiography


Rod Stewart - 2012
    He was the charismatic lead singer for the trailblazing rock and roll bands The Jeff Beck Group and The Faces, and as a solo artist, the author of such beloved songs as "Maggie May," "Tonight’s the Night," "Hot Legs," "Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?," "Young Turks," "Forever Young," and "You Wear It Well."  Now after more than five decades in the spotlight, he is finally ready to take a candid and romping look back at his life both on and off the stage. From his humble British roots to his hell-raising years on tour with his bandmates, not forgetting his great loves (including three marriages and eight children) and decades touring the world, Rod delivers a riveting ride through one of rock's most remarkable lives.From the Hardcover edition.

Ball Four


Jim Bouton - 1970
    The commissioner, executives, and players were shocked. Sportswriters called author Jim Bouton a traitor and "social leper." Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force him to declare the book untrue. Fans, however, loved the book. And serious critics called it an important social document. Today, Jim Bouton is still not invited to Oldtimer's Days at Yankee Stadium. But his landmark book is still being read by people who don't ordinarily follow baseball.

White Line Fever: The Autobiography


Lemmy Kilmister - 2002
    This is the story of the heaviest drinking, most oversexed speed freak in the music business.Ian Fraser Kilmister was born on Christmas Eve, 1945. Learning from an early age that chicks really do appreciate a guy with a guitar, and inspired by the music of Elvis and Buddy Holly, Lemmy quickly outgrew his local bands in Wales, choosing instead to head to Manchester to experience everything he could get his hands on. And he never looked back.Lemmy tripped through his early career with the Rocking Vicars, backstage touring with Jimi Hendrix, as a member of Opal Butterflies and Hawkwind. In 1975, he went on to create speed metal and form the legendary band Motorhead.During their twenty-seven-year history, Motorhead has released 21 albums, been nominated for a Grammy, and conquered the rock world with such songs as "Ace of Spades," "Bomber," and "Overkill." Throughout the creation of this impressive discography, the Motorhead lineup has seen many changes, but Lemmy has always been firmly at the helm.White Line Fever, a headbanging tour of the excesses of a man being true to his music and his pleasures, offers a sometimes hilarious, often outrageous, but always highly entertaining ride with the frontman of the loudest rock band in the world.

Personal Foul


Tim Donaghy - 2009
    Personal Foul takes an in-depth look at former NBA referee Tim Donaghy and the betting scandal that rocked professional basketball. Containing never-before-seen documentation and correspondence between the league office, referees, coaches, players and owners, this is the decisive book that reveals exactly what was done and how it all happened. Which games were affected and how? Is it true that referees targeted particular players? Just how much did the NBA know and when? How did the mafia get involved? Personal Foul answers all of these questions and more. Thrilling and poignant, Personal Foul takes the reader on the journey of one man wrestling his own demons and shines a light on a culture of gambling and "directive" officiating in the NBA that promises to change the way sports fans view the game forever.

Magic Johnson: My Life


Earvin "Magic" Johnson - 1983
    In this dramatic, exciting, and inspirational autobiography, Magic Johnson allows readers into his life, into his tirumphs and tragedies on and off the court. In his own exuberant style, he tells readers of the friends and family who've been constant supporters and the basketball greats he's worked with. It's all here, the glory and the pain the character, charisma, and courage of the hero called Magic.

MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search For A New Best Friend


Rachel Bertsche - 2011
    But shortly after getting married, she realizes that her new life is missing one thing: friends. Sure, she has plenty of BFFs—in New York and San Francisco and Boston and Washington, D.C. Still, in her adopted hometown, there’s no one to call at the last minute for girl talk over brunch or a reality-TV marathon over a bottle of wine. Taking matters into her own hands, Bertsche develops a plan: Meeting people everywhere from improv class to friend rental websites, she'll go on fifty-two friend-dates, one per week for a year, in hopes of meeting her new Best Friend Forever.

Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty


Charles Leerhsen - 2015
    His lifetime batting average is still the highest of all time, and when he retired in 1928, after twenty-one years with the Detroit Tigers and two with the Philadelphia Athletics, he held more than ninety records. But the numbers don't tell half of Cobb's tale. The Georgia Peach was by far the most thrilling player of the era: "Ty Cobb could cause more excitement with a base on balls than Babe Ruth could with a grand slam," one columnist wrote. When the Hall of Fame began in 1936, he was the first player voted in.But Cobb was also one of the game's most controversial characters. He got in a lot of fights, on and off the field, and was often accused of being overly aggressive. In his day, even his supporters acknowledged that he was a fierce and fiery competitor. Because his philosophy was to "create a mental hazard for the other man,"; he had his enemies, but he was also widely admired. After his death in 1961, however, something strange happened: his reputation morphed into that of a monster - a virulent racist who also hated children and women, and was in turn hated by his peers. How did this happen? Who is the real Ty Cobb? Setting the record straight, Charles Leerhsen pushed aside the myths, traveled to Georgia and Detroit, and re-traced Cobb's journey, from the shy son of a professor and state senator who was progressive on race for his time, to America's first true sports celebrity. In the process, he tells of a life overflowing with incident and a man who cut his own path through his times - a man we thought we knew but really didn't.

The Tao of Martha: My Year of LIVING; Or, Why I'm Never Getting All That Glitter Off of the Dog


Jen Lancaster - 2013
    Jen’s still a little rough around the edges. Suffice it to say, she’s no Martha Stewart. And that is exactly why Jen is going to Martha up and live her life according to the advice of America’s overachieving older sister—the woman who turns lemons into lavender-infused lemonade.By immersing herself in Martha’s media empire, Jen will embark on a yearlong quest to take herself, her house, her husband (and maybe even her pets) to the next level—from closet organization to craft making, from party planning to kitchen prep.Maybe Jen can go four days without giving herself food poisoning if she follows Martha’s dictates on proper storage....Maybe she can grow closer to her girlfriends by taking up their boring-ass hobbies like knitting and sewing.…Maybe she can finally rid her workout clothes of meatball stains by using Martha’s laundry tips.… Maybe she can create a more meaningful anniversary celebration than just getting drunk in the pool with her husband....again. And maybe, just maybe, she’ll discover that the key to happiness does, in fact, lie in Martha’s perfectly arranged cupboards and artfully displayed charcuterie platters.Or maybe not.

The Storm Within: The Autobiography of a Legend


Cameron Smith - 2020
    The recipient of numerous Dally M and Golden Boot awards, he has starred in the toughest league competition on the planet every season since he made his NRL debut in 2002. Captaining the Melbourne Storm to multiple premierships, Smith played in a staggering seventeen finals campaigns. An integral member of the record-breaking Queensland teams of 2006-2017, he won eleven State of Origin series. As skipper of the Australian national team for over a decade, he led the Kangaroos to two World Cups. Smith is credited with revolutionising the number nine position. He holds the State of Origin records for most appearances and most wins, as well as the NRL records for most games, goals, points scored, wins and appearances as captain.This book maps his unique journey in the game: an extraordinary look into the biggest matches and biggest moments, Smith describes his career with great colour and candour, outlining what it takes to climb to the highest level in sport. Talent aside, it is Smith's intelligence and poise that set him apart, coupled with consistency, durability and longevity that are unlikely to ever be matched. Notoriously private throughout his career, The Storm Within sets the record straight. Finally, the life behind the legend - the man behind the mystery - tells his story.Features a foreword by legendary Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy.

Who I Am


Pete Townshend - 2012
    is a Londoner and a Mod.... wanted The Who to be called The Hair.... loved The Everly Brothers, but not that "drawling dope" Elvis.... wanted to be a sculptor, a journalist, a dancer and a graphic designer.... became a musician, composer, librettist, fiction writer, literary editor, sailor.... smashed his first guitar onstage, in 1964, by accident.... heard the voice of God on a vibrating bed in rural Illinois.... invented the Marshall stack, feedback and the concept album.... once speared Abbie Hoffman in the neck with the head of his guitar.... inspired Jimi Hendrix's pyrotechnical stagecraft.... is partially deaf in his left ear.... stole his windmill guitar playing from Keith Richards.... followed Keith Moon off a hotel balcony into a pool and nearly died.... did too much cocaine and nearly died.... drank too much and nearly died.... detached from his body in an airplane, on LSD, and nearly died.... helped rescue Eric Clapton from heroin.... is banned for life from Holiday Inns.... was embroiled in a tabloid scandal that has dogged him ever since.... has some explaining to do.... is the most literary and literate musician of the last 50 years.... planned to write his memoir when he was 21.... published this book at 67.

Wilt, 1962: The Night of 100 Points and the Dawn of a New Era


Gary M. Pomerantz - 2005
    The game was not televised; no New York sportswriters showed up; and a fourteen-year-old local boy ran onto the court when Chamberlain scored his hundredth point, shook his hand, and then ran off with the basketball. In telling the story of this remarkable night, author Gary M. Pomerantz brings to life a lost world of American sports.In 1962, the National Basketball Association, stepchild to the college game, was searching for its identity. Its teams were mostly white, the number of black players limited by an unspoken quota. Games were played in drafty, half-filled arenas, and the players traveled on buses and trains, telling tall tales, playing cards, and sometimes reading Joyce. Into this scene stepped the unprecedented Wilt Chamberlain: strong and quick-witted, voluble and enigmatic, a seven-footer who played with a colossal will and a dancer’s grace. That strength, will, grace, and mystery were never more in focus than on March 2, 1962. Pomerantz tracked down Knicks and Philadelphia Warriors, fans, journalists, team officials, other NBA stars of the era, and basketball historians, conducting more than 250 interviews in all, to recreate in painstaking detail the game that announced the Dipper’s greatness. He brings us to Hershey, Pennsylvania, a sweet-seeming model of the gentle, homogeneous small-town America that was fast becoming anachronistic. We see the fans and players, alternately fascinated and confused by Wilt, drawn anxiously into the spectacle. Pomerantz portrays the other legendary figures in this story: the Warriors’ elegant coach Frank McGuire; the beloved, if rumpled, team owner Eddie Gottlieb; and the irreverent p.a. announcer Dave “the Zink” Zinkoff, who handed out free salamis courtside.At the heart of the book is the self-made Chamberlain, a romantic cosmopolitan who owned a nightclub in Harlem and shrugged off segregation with a bebop cool but harbored every slight deep in his psyche. March 2, 1962, presented the awesome sight of Wilt Chamberlain imposing himself on a world that would diminish him. Wilt, 1962 is not only the dramatic story of a singular basketball game but a meditation on small towns, midcentury America, and one of the most intriguing figures in the pantheon of sports heroes. Also available as a Random House AudioBookFrom the Hardcover edition.