White Storm: The Story of Real Madrid


Phil Ball - 2002
    They include twenty-nine league titles, nine European Cups, seventeen Spanish Cups, two UEFA Cups and three World Club Championship titles.The story of Real Madrid is, however, much more than the mere sum of its achievements. The club has always attracted the biggest names in the game - the type of player more recently referred to by Los Merengues as 'galáctico'. And for every Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo or Beckham, there is a legend from the past.White Storm charts the history of the club from its foundations to the golden period of Di Stéfano and Puskas, through the 'hippy years' to the modern embodiment of Madridismo - Raúl. It ends with an analysis of the Beckham impact, the disintegration of the Florentino Pérez regime and a look at what the future might hold for the world's most famous club.

The Greatest Course That Never Was


J. Michael Veron - 2001
    But now, just as Charley is settling down into his budding legal career at a prestigious Atlanta law firm, strange notes clipped to obituaries start to arrive. Curious as to their origin, he tracks down the sender-an old caddie from Augusta National named Moonlight McIntrye-and Charley finds himself drawn into another tangled mystery surrounding a hidden golf course.Driven by his passion for the game and a hunger for the truth, Charley dives into the most riveting, high-stakes mystery yet, another terrific golf story that will entice and delight fans and newcomers alike. Join Charley and Moonlight in their search for The Greatest Course That Never Was.

When It Counts (2016, #2)


Lauren Hopkins - 2016
    Gymnastics is Amalia’s life and she’s sacrificed everything to get this far, but she still has to prove she has what it takes to stand out in Rio. The competition is tough and nothing is guaranteed, not even for her teammates, recently-crowned national champion Ruby Spencer, who missed the 2012 Olympics after rupturing her Achilles a month before the Games, and world champion Emerson Bedford, whose personal drama is threatening her mental game when she needs it most. Picking up where "Finding Our Balance" left off, "When It Counts" follows Amalia, Ruby, and Emerson on the next steps in their journey to Rio.

Striking Out


Will Weaver - 1900
    Never been to a movie. Never played baseball with a real team. Never got over feeling guilty for the loss of his brother. But change is in the air. Billy discovers he has a natural talent for baseball, especially as a pitcher. Maybe, just maybe, there's more in store for him than life on the farm. But can Billy convince his father of that? Or is he destined to spend the rest of his life pitching nothing but hay?Teenager Billy Baggs is desperately needed on his family's struggling dairy farm, but he's also an extraordinarily gifted natural baseball player. How he struggles to reconcile his father's desire to keep him on the farm with his coach's interest in getting him on the field is at the heart of this ‘meaty story.… The complex characters grow and change in profoundly real ways.''K. ‘[With] flashes of humor, a wealth of lovingly recounted details evokes the difficult daily life on a small dairy farm.''Publishers Weekly. 1994 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA)1994 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library)1993 "Pick of the Lists" (ABA)

Ten Thousand Tries


Amy Makechnie - 2021
    Off the field, Golden’s dad, once a pro soccer player himself, is now battling ALS, a disease that attacks his muscles, leaving him less and less physically able to control his body every day. And while Mom says there’s no cure, Golden is convinced that his dad can beat this, just like any opponent, they just have to try. Golden knows that if you want to perfect a skill you have to put ten thousand tries in, so he’s convinced if he can put that much effort in, on and off the field, he can stop everything from changing. But when his dad continues to decline and his constant pushing starts to alienate his friends and team, Golden is forced to confront the idea that being master of your universe might not mean being in control of everything. What if it means letting go of the things you can’t control so you can do the most good for the things you can?

Building a Champion: On Football and the Making of the 49ers


Bill Walsh - 1990
    The celebrated coach shares his philosophy of football, profiles players he has coached, and recounts key moments in his career.

Racing From Evil: A Nikki Latrelle Mystery Novella; The Prequel


Sasscer Hill - 2016
    Tony Ryan Best in Racing Literature awards.RACING FROM EVIL What happens to orphaned Nikki Latrelle after she flees from her pedophile stepfather through the streets of Baltimore and climbs the razor-wire fence into Pimlico Racetrack? Nikki’s drawn to horses, knows how to ride, and dreams of being a jockey. But how can a runaway with no ID, no family, and no income survive?“Could Sasscer Hill be the Dick Francis of her generation? Count me among those who would vote yes.” Margaret Maron, New York Times Best Selling Author and Winner of Edgar Best Novel, Edgar Grand Master, Agatha, Anthony & Macavity Awards

Jilly Cooper: Rivals and Riders


Jilly Cooper - 2012
    This special 2-for-1 collection features two of these classic titles: Riders and Rivals.RidersRiders takes the lid off international showjumping, a sport where the brave horses are almost human, but the humans behave like animals. The brooding hero, gypsy Jake Lovell, under whose magic hands the most difficult horse or woman becomes biddable, is driven to the top by his loathing of the beautiful bounder and darling of the show ring, Rupert Campbell-Black. Having filched each other's horses, and fought and fornicated their way around the capitals of Europe, the feud between the two men finally erupts with devastating consequences during the Los Angeles Olympics.RivalsInto the cut-throat world of Corinium television comes Declan O'Hara, a mega-star of great glamour and integrity. Living rather too closely across the valley is Rupert Campbell-Black, divorced and as dissolute as ever, and now the Tory Minister for Sport. Declan needs only a few days at Corinium to realise that the Managing Director, Lord Baddingham, is a crook who has recruited him merely to help retain the franchise for Corinium. Baddingham has also enticed Cameron Cook, a gorgeous but domineering woman executive, to produce Declan's programme. Declan and Cameron detest each other, provoking a storm of controversy into which Rupert plunges with his usual abandon. As a rival group emerges to pitch for the franchise, reputations ripen and decline, true love blossoms and burns, marriages are made and shattered, and sex raises its (delicious) head at almost every throw as, in bed and boardroom, the race is on to capture the Cotswold Crown.

Mane Attraction


Kay Stewart - 2019
    What Emma discovers is that she hates surprises. When her life is turned upside down and she is suddenly seeing people in a new light, she decides to embrace this opportunity to take a walk on the wild side.Declan loves playing hockey for a living. Who wouldn't? Life as the captain of the professional hockey team, the Milwaukee Manes, is very organized and he likes knowing his main concern is putting the puck in the net. That is until his best friend's sister decides to shake up his life with rules of her own. Before he even knows what is happening, he has completely fallen under Emma's spell.Everything was good... right up until it wasn't. When Declan's best friend finds out about his relationship with Emma, and a ghost from Emma's past resurfaces, the trust they had built with one another shatters around them. Trust has a way of bringing people together just as it has a way of ripping them apart. Will Milwaukee's favorite hockey player find his way back to the one woman who has ever meant more to him than a rubber puck?

The Franchise


Peter Gent - 1983
    The league had no business awarding a team to dying Park City, but it only took a little pressure—financial and otherwise—to bring the expansion franchise to town. At first, they’re worthless, playing in an empty stadium for slack-jawed fans, but the owners have a plan. Five years to financial security. Five years to complete domination of the sport. Five years to the Super Bowl. And it starts with Taylor Rusk. But Rusk, the finest college quarterback of his generation, is no fool, and he realizes quickly that all is not honest in Park City. He doesn’t want to stop the corruption; he wants a piece of it, and for a price he will lead his new team to glory. In Texas, football is life. But in Park City, it can mean death, too.

The Kingdom of Shivas Irons


Michael Murphy - 1997
    Michael Murphy's Golf in the Kingdom is one of the bestselling golf books of all time and has been hailed as "a golf classic if any exists in our day" (John Updike) and "a masterpiece on the mysticism of golf" (San Francisco Chronicle).  Golf in the Kingdom introduced Shivas Irons, the mysterious golf pro and philosopher with whom Murphy played a mythic round of golf on Scotland's Burningbush links, a round that profoundly altered his game--and his vision.The Kingdom of Shivas Irons is the enchanting story of Murphy's return to Scotland in search of Shivas Irons and his wisdom about golf and human potential.  Murphy's quest takes him from the mystical golf courses of Scotland, across the world to the first Russian Open Golf Championship, and finally to Pebble Beach on the California Coast.  The result is a delightful exploration of the inner game of golf and a provocative inquiry into our remarkable possibilities for growth and transformation.

Goat Brothers


Larry Colton - 1993
    Summary; The true-life American epic of five men who meet as fraternity brothers in the early 1960s and live out the dreams, failures, loves, and betrayals of their tumultuous generation. Subjects; Colton, Larry. United States -- Biography. Journalists -- United States -- Biography. Genre; Biography.

Goal Line


Tiki Barber - 2011
    At the start of ninth grade, they’re not only wiser and more mature, but they’re also taller and stronger—with bigger muscles and bigger hands to grab and hold the ball. Factor in the return of their beloved Coach Wheeler, and the boys couldn’t be more ready for football season. But when Tiki wins a school-wide essay contest and gives an inspirational speech in front of the whole school, he becomes sought after for guidance and advice. The school paper even wants him to do a Dear Tiki column! However, Tiki would prefer make his mark on the field—and with the Eagles starting 4-0 and a perfect season in sight, he’ll have to put a lid on his advice column and concentrate on football.Book Details: Format: Hardcover Publication Date: 8/30/2011 Pages: 176 Reading Level: Age 8 and Up

If I Don't Six


Elwood Reid - 1998
    Elwood Reid first appeared on the literary stage with a powerful and bruising story called "What Salmon Know," which appeared in the March 1997 issue of GQ.  Here was a writer not afraid to examine the soulful underside of the American male, or the violence that accompanies disappointed dreams.  Now, in his first, extraordinary novel, Reid tells the story of Elwood Riley, a six-foot-six, 275-pound blue-collar kid whose ticket out of Cleveland is a "full ride" football scholarship to the University of Michigan.But Riley is cursed with intelligence and an awareness of the vicious inhumanity of the college football system.  If Riley doesn't want to "six"--lose his scholarship or get maimed--he has to become a "fella," a pain-loving freak too nihilistic to care what he does to himself or others.  And after Riley encounters the alluring, mysteriously damaged Kate, his dilemma becomes ever more painful.Elwood Reid's portrait of this world is at once blackly humorous, starkly tragic, and perfectly detailed.  With deft strokes, he portrays emotionally stunted coaches who have mastered the art of humiliating and manipulating young men, groupies attracted to the fame but undone by the shocking cruelty of the players, and the athletes themselves, who grow addicted to violence, alcohol, and steroids, too caught up in the glory of playing for Big Blue to notice they are mere meat to the coaches and the university.In tough, spare, beautiful prose that should invite comparisons to the works of Thom Jones and Denis Johnson, Reid describes a place where young men damage their souls and their bodies in pursuit of a worthless glamor.  This is a profound, unsettling book about a familiar yet hidden world--a Greek tragedy in cleats.

A Long Pitch Home


Natalie Dias Lorenzi - 2016
    He was a star on his cricket team. But when his father suddenly sends the family to live with their aunt and uncle in America, nothing is familiar. While Bilal tries to keep up with his cousin Jalaal by joining a baseball league and practicing his English, he wonders when his father will join the family in Virginia. Maybe if Bilal can prove himself on the pitcher’s mound, his father will make it to see him play. But playing baseball means navigating relationships with the guys, and with Jordan, the only girl on the team—the player no one but Bilal wants to be friends with.