Book picks similar to
The Best American Sports Writing 2014 by Christopher McDougall
sports
non-fiction
nonfiction
collections
Outrunning the Demons: Lives Transformed through Running
Phil Hewitt - 2019
With a foreword by Dean Karnazes.Outrunning the Demons is an in-depth exploration of just why running can so often seem the answer to everything when you find yourself in extremis. Phil Hewitt has been there himself. He was viciously mugged in 2016 and left for dead. Suffering the acute symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and unable to make any sense of what had happened to him, Phil found that dedicating himself to running--and its possible healing powers--was the only route ahead.Running can take us to fantastic places. Just as importantly, it can also bring us back from terrible ones. For people in times of crisis, trauma and physical or mental illness, running is often the means by which they reconstruct fractured, fragmented identity--or indeed the means to a new identity. When normality collapses, running can put it back together again. In the very worst cases, it can actually create a new normality and offer us the chance to move on.The author's own experiences place him in a unique position as he interviews runners who have suffered similarly and worse in a wide range of scenarios. The book covers the themes of Trauma, Bereavement, Depression & Anxiety, Addiction & Alcoholism, Terrorism, Violence/Sexual Abuse, Long-term Health Conditions (cancer, stroke etc), and Eating Disorders. While dealing with heavy, harrowing subjects, this powerfully compelling, engrossing, and enriching book will ultimately uplifting and celebratory, an exploration of why running can be the key to overcoming traumatic experiences and rebuilding lives.
Running Well: Run Smarter, Run Faster, Avoid Injury... And Enjoy It More!
Sam Murphy - 2008
'Running Well' shows runners how to minimise the risks of injury and other problems by showing the difference between training and straining, avoiding overtraining, varying speed and distance, keeping the running muscles strong and supple and honing technique.
Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson - 1844
Alfred R. Ferguson was founding editor of the edition, followed by Joseph Slater (until 1996).
Who's on Worst?: The Lousiest Players, Biggest Cheaters, Saddest Goats and Other Antiheroes in Baseball History
Filip Bondy - 2013
Mays? Since baseball is a game of failure, it's much more fun to dive into the fray and explore baseball's worst: who was the lousiest pitcher of all-time? the biggest goat? the most despicable owner? the greatest cheater? Filip Bondy wields formidable research, advanced sabermetrics and his considerable wit to provide this indispensable guide to the less glorious side of our national pastime. Each chapter is filled with rich and colorful stories of the players unfortunate enough to be chosen in each category and is followed by a handy top-ten list, such as Most Overpaid Yankees. From a delightful survey of batters who fell below the dreaded "Mendoza Line" to a rundown of managers who had long careers distinguished by relentless losing to a roster of players who took steroids but still stunk, Who's on Worst? is a thoroughly entertaining portrait of the personalities who deserve their place in baseball history as much as the immortals.
Sox and the City: A Fan's Love Affair with the White Sox from the Heartbreak of '67 to the Wizards of Oz
Richard Roeper - 2006
An account of what it was like to grow up a White Sox fan in a Cubs nation, this title covers the history of the organisation, from the heartbreak of 1967 and the South-Side Hit Men to the disco demolition and the magical 2005 season when they became world champions.
Mud, Sweat and Tears
Bear Grylls - 2011
After leaving school, he spent months hiking in the Himalayas as he considered joining the Indian Army. Upon his return to England after a change of heart, he passed SAS selection and served with 21 SAS for three years. During this time, he broke his back in several places in a free-fall parachuting accident and it was questionable whether he would ever walk again. However, after months of rehabilitation, focusing always on his childhood dream of climbing Everest, he slowly became strong enough to attempt the ultimate ascent of the world's highest peak. At 7.22 a.m. on 26 May 1998, Bear entered the Guinness Book of Records as the youngest Briton to have successfully climbed Everest and returned alive. He was only twenty-three years old and this was only the beginning of his extreme adventures...Known and admired by millions - whether from his prime-time TV adventures, as a bestselling author or as a world-class motivational speaker - Bear has been there and done it all. Now, for the first time and in his own words, this is the story of his action-packed life
No Nonsense
Joey Barton - 2016
Think again. No Nonsense is a game-changing autobiography which will redefine the most fascinating figure in British football. It is the raw yet redemptive story of a man shaped by rejection and the consequences of his mistakes. He has represented England, and been a pivotal player for Manchester City, Newcastle United, Queens Park Rangers, Marseille and Burnley, but his career has featured recurring controversy. The low point of being sent to prison for assault in 2008 proved to be the catalyst for the re-evaluation of his life.No Nonsense reflects Barton’s character – it is candid, challenging, entertaining and intelligent. He does not spare himself, in revealing the formative influences of a tough upbringing in Liverpool, and gives a survivor’s insight into a game which to use his phrase 'eats people alive'. The book is emotionally driven, and explains how he has redirected his energies since the birth of his children. In addition to dealing with his past, he expands on his plans for the future. The millions who follow his commentaries on social media, and those who witnessed him on BBC’s Question Time, will be given another reason to pause, and look beyond the caricature.
I Miss You When I Blink: Essays
Mary Laura Philpott - 2019
Mary Laura Philpott thought she’d cracked the code: Always be right, and you’ll always be happy. But once she’d completed her life’s to-do list (job, spouse, house, babies—check!), she found that instead of feeling content and successful, she felt anxious. Lost. Stuck in a daily grind of overflowing calendars, grueling small talk, and sprawling traffic. She’d done everything “right,” but she felt all wrong. What’s the worse failure, she wondered: smiling and staying the course, or blowing it all up and running away? And are those the only options? In this memoir-in-essays full of spot-on observations about home, work, and creative life, Philpott takes on the conflicting pressures of modern adulthood with wit and heart. She offers up her own stories to show that identity crises don’t happen just once or only at midlife; reassures us that small, recurring personal re-inventions are both normal and necessary; and advises that if you’re going to faint, you should get low to the ground first. Most of all, Philpott shows that when you stop feeling satisfied with your life, you don’t have to burn it all down and set off on a transcontinental hike (unless you want to, of course). You can call upon your many selves to figure out who you are, who you’re not, and where you belong. Who among us isn’t trying to do that? Like a pep talk from a sister, I Miss You When I Blink is the funny, poignant, and deeply affecting book you’ll want to share with all your friends, as you learn what Philpott has figured out along the way: that multiple things can be true of us at once—and that sometimes doing things wrong is the way to do life right.
Exploitative Play in Live Poker: How to Manipulate your Opponents into Making Mistakes
Alexander Fitzgerald - 2018
Nevertheless, there are numerous situations where even very experienced players behave in predictable ways. These deeply-ingrained habits lead them to make mistakes. The problem is that these situations won’t often arise at the table by chance – you have to make them happen. Exploitative Play in Live Poker is a ground-breaking work that teaches you how to create the circumstances where your opponents will be likely to blunder and how to exploit them when they do. To achieve this you will need to put to one side starting hand charts, balance and GTO (Game Theory Optimal) play. Instead you will incorporate new concepts that may well place you outside your comfort zone. However, your style will now be forcing the other players at the table outside of their comfort zone and, unlike you, they won’t know how to adapt. Learn how to: * Counter the auto-continuation-bettor * Develop a powerful donk-betting strategy * Use the overbet, the check-raise and the three-barrel effectively * As well as being a highly successful player, Alex Fitzgerald runs a poker consultancy that serves more than 1,000 professional poker players in 60 countries. As part of this work, he has very likely trawled through more hand history databases than anyone else. This gives him a unique insight into how players really play, especially when placed under pressure and forced into unfamiliar situations.
Baseball Prospectus 2016: The Essential Guide to the 2016 Season
Sam Miller - 2016
Instead, "Baseball Prospectus 2016" contains significant improvements along with the usual key stat categories, player predictions and insider-level commentary that readers expect from Baseball Prospectus annual guide."Baseball Prospectus 2016" once again provides fantasy players and insiders alike with prescient PECOTA projections, which "Sports Illustrated" has called perhaps the game s most accurate projection model. Still, stats are just numbers if you don t see the larger context, and Baseball Prospectus brings together an elite team of analysts to provide the definitive look at all thirty teams their players, their prospects and their managers to explain away flukes, hot streaks, injury-tainted numbers and park effects.Nearly every major-league team has sought the advice of current or former Prospectus analysts, and readers of "Baseball Prospectus" 2016 will understand what all those insiders have been raving about.In a book that sports personality Ken Tremendous calls The tip of the nerd spear, the team at Baseball Prospectus is proud to bring the following improvements to the 2016 Annual:Two full years of projections PECOTA lines for 2016 and 2017Historical Peak MPH added for major-league pitchersDeserved Run Average (DRA) added for major-league pitcherscFIP added for major-league and minor-league pitchersPitcher WARP redesigned, utilizing DRA and cFIP for all pitchersRevised cFIP-driven PECOTA pitching projectionsCatcher-specific defensive stats for all catchers Double-A and aboveOutfield assists and catcher defense integrated in FRAA and WARPBallpark schematic and wall height study for every stadiumHit List, finance, and farm system ranking graphs for each teamEvery organization s key front office personnel and Baseball Prospectus alumni identified"
Don't Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems
David Rakoff - 2005
Whether David Rakoff's contrasting the elegance of one of the last flights of the supersonic Concorde with the good-times-and-chicken-wings populism of Hooters Air; working as a cabana boy at a South Beach hotel; or traveling to a private island off the coast of Belize to watch a soft-core video shoot where he is provided with his very own personal manservant rarely have greed, vanity, selfishness, and vapidity been so mercilessly skewered. Somewhere along the line, our healthy self-regard has exploded into obliterating narcissism; our manic getting and spending have now become celebrated as moral virtues. Simultaneously a Wildean satire and a plea for a little human decency, Don t Get Too Comfortable shows that far from being bobos in paradise, we are in a special circle of gilded-age hell.
The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations
Toni Morrison - 2019
It is divided into three parts: the first is introduced by a powerful prayer for the dead of 9/11; the second by a searching meditation on Martin Luther King Jr., and the last by a heart-wrenching eulogy for James Baldwin. In the writings and speeches included here, Morrison takes on contested social issues: the foreigner, female empowerment, the press, money, "black matter(s)," and human rights. She looks at enduring matters of culture: the role of the artist in society, the literary imagination, the Afro-American presence in American literature, and in her Nobel lecture, the power of language itself. And here too is piercing commentary on her own work (including The Bluest Eye, Sula, Tar Baby, Jazz, Beloved, and Paradise) and that of others, among them, painter and collagist Romare Bearden, author Toni Cade Bambara, and theater director Peter Sellars. In all, The Source of Self-Regard is a luminous and essential addition to Toni Morrison's oeuvre.
Chris & Nancy: The True Story of the Benoit Murder-Suicide & Pro Wrestling's Cocktail of Death
Irvin Muchnick - 2009
It laid bare the devastating prevalence of steroids and its effects on users. In order to tackle the whole story, dig up the facts, and connect the dots, Irvin Muchnick gives the most sensational scandal in pro wrestling history the full true-crime treatment in Chris and Nancy. Muchnick – the author of Wrestling Babylon and a co-author of Benoit: Wrestling with the Horror That Destroyed a Family and Crippled a Sport – has parsed public records and interviewed dozens of witnesses, inside and outside wrestling, to put together the first thorough and authoritative events of the gruesome June 2007 weekend in Fayette County, Georgia, during which World Wrestling Entertainment superstar Chris Benoit murdered his wife Nancy and their seven-year-old son Daniel, before proceeding to kill himself. But this book goes beyond the crime itself to answer some of the most important questions behind it. The biography of Benoit, a wrestler’s wrestler, makes it clear that his tragedy was a microcosm of the culture of drugs and death behind the scenes of one of North America’s most popular brand of sports entertainment. The author probes the story of the massive supplies of steroids and human growth hormone found in his home – all prescribed by a “doctor to the stars” who got indicted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and all dismissed by a WWE “wellness policy” that promoted everything except its talent’s wellness. The Benoit case led to unprecedented scrutiny of wrestling’s overall health and safety standards, by Congressional investigators and others, and this book is the primary source of what they found and what they should continue to look for. The ebook edition includes a new introduction that looks at recent events in sports, and further contextualizes the story of Chris Benoit and the figures surrounding his career.
Fringes: Life on the Edge of Professional Rugby
Ben Mercer - 2019
This book does not do that. For many, playing professional sport is the Dream Job. Few manage it, very few make it to the top and for the rest, life is very different. This is their story. In Fringes, Ben Mercer invites you to witness life at the outer edges of professional rugby. This is a first hand account of what life is like as a journeyman professional athlete. You play, but to the wider public you don't exist. You earn but you don't drive a flash car. You sometimes pack out a stadium but sometimes, you play in a deserted park. This is the story for the majority of sports professionals. Only the minority taste the top, only one person gets to lift the cup or win the medal, only 15 get to play for England at any one time. For the rest, that’s not the case. Ben Mercer is a former professional rugby player who after becoming disillusioned and uninspired plying his trade in the English Second Division, accepted an offer out of the blue to go to France and do something different - help an amateur team turn professional. This is a first hand account of what life is like in the lower reaches of professional sport - where your employment status is as precarious as your health and barely anyone will know your name. It's about how it feels to live year to year, with teammates constantly on the move. It's about how professionalism irreversibly changes the French club Stade Rouennais as they move up the divisions, about the tension between progress and identity in a rugby team. It's also about how it feels to actually be out there on the field, how it feels to occasionally do something extraordinary and how it feels when this is no longer enough for you to make the sacrifices that you need to make to keep playing. There's no ghostwriting, it's an unmitigated meditation on how it feels and what it means to play rugby for a living, to dedicate yourself to an uncompromising but occasionally beautiful game. If you've wanted to know what life is really like as a professional athlete, on the Fringes, away from the glitz and glamour of the international game then look no further.
Farther Away
Jonathan Franzen - 2012
In The New York Times Book Review, Sam Tanenhaus proclaimed it "a masterpiece of American fiction" and lauded its illumination, "through the steady radiance of its author's profound moral intelligence, [of] the world we thought we knew."In Farther Away, which gathers together essays and speeches written mostly in the past five years, Franzen returns with renewed vigor to the themes, both human and literary, that have long preoccupied him. Whether recounting his violent encounter with bird poachers in Cyprus, examining his mixed feelings about the suicide of his friend and rival David Foster Wallace, or offering a moving and witty take on the ways that technology has changed how people express their love, these pieces deliver on Franzen's implicit promise to conceal nothing. On a trip to China to see first-hand the environmental devastation there, he doesn't omit mention of his excitement and awe at the pace of China's economic development; the trip becomes a journey out of his own prejudice and moral condemnation. Taken together, these essays trace the progress of unique and mature mind wrestling with itself, with literature, and with some of the most important issues of our day. Farther Away is remarkable, provocative, and necessary.