What Is a Girl Worth?: My Story of Breaking the Silence and Exposing the Truth about Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics


Rachael Denhollander - 2019
    The first victim to publicly accuse Larry Nassar, the former USA Gymnastics team doctor who sexually abused hundreds of young athletes, Rachael now reveals her full story for the first time. How did Nassar get away with it for so long? How did Rachael and the other survivors finally stop him and bring him to justice? And how can we protect the vulnerable in our own families, churches, and communities?What Is a Girl Worth? is the inspiring true story of Rachael's journey from an idealistic young gymnast to a strong and determined woman who found the courage to raise her voice against evil, even when she thought the world might not listen. This deeply personal and compelling narrative shines a spotlight on the physical and emotional impact of abuse, why so many survivors are reluctant to speak out, what it means to be believed, the extraordinary power of faith and forgiveness, and how we can learn to do what's right in the moments that matter most.This inspirational, empowering book is written by attorney, advocate, educator, and author Rachael Denhollander.

The NHL: A Century of Trials and Triumphs


D'Arcy Jenish - 2013
    Millions of fans from Montreal to Miami and Edmonton to Anaheim attend NHL games leach year, millions more watch on TV and the league pays its best players multi-million annual salaries.Over the course of its first century, the NHL's fortunes have ebbed and flowed. It has experienced setbacks and triumphs and innumerable crises. The league has awarded many franchises only to see some of them falter, fail and fold. The board of governors - which has included rich eccentrics and at least one future convict - has sometimes been fractured by men who loathed each other. How on earth has the NHL survived? The answer lies in the remarkable fact that it has had only five presidents and one commissioner. Two of these chiefs were stop-gaps. For the balance of league's ninety-plus years, four men have shaped and guided its fortunes and controlled the tough, hard-nosed, sometimes unruly owners who constituted the board of governors.      This is the story of two perpetual struggles -- the one on the ice and the one going on behind the scenes to keep the whole enterprise afloat. D'Arcy Jenish was granted unprecedented access to previously unpublished league files, including revelatory minutes of board meetings, and conducted dozens of hours of interviews with league executives, including commissioner Gary Bettman and former president John Ziegler, as well as well as owners, coaches, general managers and player representatives. He now reveals for the first time the true story behind some of the most significant events of the contemporary era.     This is a definitive, revelatory chonicle that no serious hockey fan will want to be without.

The Lost Soul of Eamonn Magee


Paul D. Gibson - 2018
    It may be hard to believe but it was against the background of all this that Eamonn won the WBU world welterweight and Commonwealth light welterweight titles. The author, Paul Gibson, has managed to decipher a very dark, very troubled, very flawed individual who happened to have an exceptional gift to box at the highest world level. The Lost Soul of Eamonn Magee reads like the screenplay of the kind of gritty rags-to-riches-to-rags boxing story that Hollywood producers seem to love.

Scoring at Half Time


George Best - 2003
    Inside stories, lurid tales, embarrassing incidents: soccer legend George Best has gathered together his favourite stories of his and his friends’ anecdotes and observations from their experiences in and out of the game over the last forty years.

Law Man: Memoir of a Jailhouse Lawyer


Shon Hopwood - 2017
    Those who knew him well would never have imagined that, as a young man, he’d be adrift with few prospects and plotting to rob a bank. But he did, committing five armed bank robberies before being apprehended. Serving ten years in federal prison, Shon feared his life was over. He wasn’t sure if he could survive a cell block, but he was determined to try. Hopwood pumped-up in the prison gym to defend himself and earned respect on the basketball court. He reconnected with the girl of his dreams from high school through letters and prison visits; and, crucially, he talked his way into a job in the prison law library. Hopwood slowly taught himself criminal law and began to help fellow inmates rather than himself. He wrote one petition to the Supreme Court, which was chosen to be heard from over 7,000 other petitions submitted by the greater legal community that year. The Justices voted 9-0 in favor of Hopwood’s petition when the case was finally heard. What might have been considered luck by some, was dispelled when a second petition from him was selected to be heard by the Supreme Court. He didn’t grasp it yet, but Shon’s legal work was the start of a new life. Shon works on policy reform, and he is a cofounder of PrisonProfessors.com. He strives to improve outcomes of America’s prison system, and he tells his amazing story in Law Man.

Lucky Man


Michael J. Fox - 2002
    Fox stunned the world by announcing he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease -- a degenerative neurological condition. In fact, he had been secretly fighting it for seven years. The worldwide response was staggering. Fortunately, he had accepted the diagnosis, and by the time the public started grieving for him, he had stopped grieving for himself. Now, with the same passion, humor, and energy, that Fox has invested in his dozens of performances over the last 18 years, he tells the story of his life, his career, and his campaign, to find a cure for Parkinson's.Combining his trademark ironic sensibility, and keen sense of the absurd, he recounts his life -- from his childhood in a small town in western Canada, to his meteoric rise in film and television which made him a worldwide celebrity. Most importantly however, he writes of the last 10 years, during which -- with the unswerving support of his wife, family, and friends -- he has dealt with his illness. He talks about what Parkinson's has given him: the chance to appreciate a wonderful life and career, and the opportunity to help search for a cure, and spread public awareness of the disease. He is a very lucky man, indeed.

Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography


Neil Patrick Harris - 2014
    You will be born in New Mexico. You will get your big break at an acting camp. You will get into a bizarre confrontation outside a nightclub with actor Scott Caan. Even better, at each critical juncture of your life, you will choose how to proceed. You will decide whether to try out for Doogie Howser, M.D. You will decide whether to spend years struggling with your sexuality. You will decide what kind of caviar you want to eat on board Elton John’s yacht. Choose correctly and you’ll find fame, fortune, and true love. Choose incorrectly and you’ll find misery, heartbreak, and a hideous death by piranhas. All this, plus magic tricks, cocktail recipes, embarrassing pictures from your time as a child actor, and even a closing song. Yes, if you buy one book this year, congratulations on being above the American average, but make that book Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography!

Pele: My Life And The Beautiful Game


Pelé
    

Death Punch'd: Surviving Five Finger Death Punch's Metal Mayhem


Jeremy Spencer - 2014
    In this high-energy memoir, Jeremy Spencer, the band’s cofounder and drummer, takes us onstage and behind the scenes, on tour and into the studio to tell the band’s story and his own. Death Punch’d is a detailed in-depth account of the group’s origins and influences, as well as the infighting and tensions that, when channeled properly, result in the music fans love. It is also the hard-charging, laugh-out-loud tale of how a mischievous boy rose from small-town Indiana to rock royalty—and how he nearly destroyed it all for a good time.Told in his unique, self-deprecating voice, filled with his twisted and humorous take on living the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll dream turned nightmare, and including dozens of photos, Death Punch’d is a lively, no-holds-barred ride and an inspiring cautionary tale that offers lessons for us all.

Heartbreak & Triumph: The Shawn Michaels Story


Shawn Michaels - 2005
    Heels and babyfaces. Kliqs and Curtain Calls. Tearing down house shows and tearing up hotel rooms. Ladders and cages. Vacated titles and unwarranted suspensions. Works and screwjobs. Heartaches and backbreaks. Forced retirements and redemption. Rock 'n' roll and Graceland. There are two sides to every story; for Shawn Michaels, there is "Heartbreak & Triumph."World Wrestling Entertainment fans think they know "The Heartbreak Kid." He's "The Showstopper" who pushes his high-flying abilities to the limit in the squared circle, on ladders, and in steel cages. He's the company's first "Grand Slam" champion. And of course, he's forever the guy who conspired with WWE Chairman Vince McMahon to screw Bret "Hitman" Hart out of the WWE Championship in Montreal at "Survivor Series" on November 9, 1997.But that's the side "HBK" has allowed you to see...until now. "Heartbreak & Triumph: The Shawn Michaels Story" introduces us to Michael Shawn Hickenbottom ("Everyone called me Shawn"), the youngest of four children whose "really conservative upbringing" made him shy and "afraid that people wouldn't like me if I showed who I really was." But upon discovering Southwest Championship Wrestling (SWCW) on TV one Saturday night, the preteen Hickenbottom realized instantly what he wanted to become, and years later would convince his father -- a colonel in the U.S. Air Force -- to let him drop out of college and pursue his dream.From there, Hickenbottom fully recounts the events that led to "Shawn Michaels's" tutelage under Mexican wrestler Jose Lothario; working matches at Mid-South Wrestling under the guidance of Terry Taylor and the Rock 'n' Roll Express's Robert Gibson & RickyMorton; flying high with Marty Jannetty as "The Midnight Rockers" in the American Wrestling Association (AWA); and how a barroom confrontation in Buffalo almost prevented the tandem from ever joining the World Wrestling Federation. "The Rockers" would drop the "Midnight" and climb to the top of a tough World Wrestling Federation tag-team division in the late 1980s, though Michaels confesses how a "fear of abandonment" stagnated his desire to participate in singles competition, pressured him into a marriage he wasn't ready for, and drove him to drinking heavily and downing pills "just to get through the day."With the impact of some "Sweet Chin Music" (Michaels's Superkick finisher), "Heartbreak & Triumph" expresses the "sour note" that dissolved Michaels's partnership with Jannetty and started his transformation into "The Heartbreak Kid." You'll learn firsthand of the "unfair" allegation that brought about HBK's classic Ladder match with Razor Ramon at "WrestleMania X" ("I lost the match, but I made my career"); the incident in Syracuse that set the stage for Shawn's unbelievable "comeback" victories at "Royal Rumble 1996," and in the Iron Man WWE Championship match with Bret Hart at "WrestleMania XII"; and how his escalating backstage feud with Hart inadvertently built toward the formation of "D-Generation X," as well as the first-ever "Hell in a Cell" contest against The Undertaker at "Badd Blood" in October 1997.Beyond the squared circle, Michaels clears the air about his days running with "The Kliq" -- Kevin Nash ("Diesel"), Scott Hall ("Razor Ramon"), Paul Levesque ("Triple H"), and Sean Waltman ("The 1-2-3 Kid") -- their contributions to WWE's wildly successful "Attitude"era, and the consequences of their uncharacteristic Madison Square Garden "Curtain Call" in May 1996. And for the first time anywhere, Michaels shoots completely straight about his role in "the biggest scandal in wrestling history," the infamous "Montreal Screwjob" at "Survivor Series 1997."While reliving the crippling back injury that forced him to retire in his prime following his WWE Championship loss at "WrestleMania XIV," Michaels credits the new loves in his life -- his second wife Rebecca, his children, and his newfound faith -- with giving him the strength to kick his habit, recover physically, and make a jubilant return to the ring at "SummerSlam 2002" (in a Street Fight against best friend Triple H, no less). Now back on top and doing what he enjoys most, the WWE Superstar regards "Heartbreak & Triumph" as the perfect means "to review my life, and attempt to figure out how I became the person I am."

unSweetined


Jodie Sweetin - 2009
    Her ups and downs seemed not so different from our own, but more than a decade after the popular television show ended, the star publicly revealed her shocking recovery from methamphetamine addiction. Even then, she kept a painful secret—one that could not be solved in thirty minutes with a hug, a stern talking-to, or a bowl of ice cream around the family table. The harrowing battle she swore she had won was really just beginning. In this deeply personal, utterly raw, and ultimately inspiring memoir, Jodie comes clean about the double life she led—the crippling identity crisis, the hidden anguish of juggling a regular childhood with her Hollywood life, and the vicious cycle of abuse and recovery that led to a relapse even as she wrote this book. Finally, becoming a mother gave her the determination and the courage to get sober. With resilience, charm, and humor, she writes candidly about taking each day at a time. Hers is not a story of success or defeat, but of facing your demons, finding yourself, and telling the whole truth—unSweetined.

It Is What It Is: The Autobiography


David Coulthard - 2007
    He got his breakthrough into Formula One in the tragic circumstances of Ayrton Senna's death in 1994, and quickly established himself as one of the best drivers on the circuit. From 1996-2004, he drove for McLaren, one of the leading teams throughout the entire period, before moving to Red Bull for 2005-07. Taking the reader from his early days when he first became hooked on racing karts at the age of 11, through to the high-speed world of Formula One he now inhabits, Coulthard has written one of the most honest and powerful sports autobiographies of recent years. In the book, he talks about his ups and downs at McLaren, the reputation he gained for his playboy lifestyle and how hard this has made it for him to settle down. Throughout it all he seeks to answer the questions about himself that anyone might ask, and so to reveal what it is that really drives him on. His struggle to understand himself makes for a remarkable memoir.

The Rocky Road


Eamon Dunphy - 2013
    

Left Foot Forward: A Year in the Life of a Journeyman Footballer


Garry Nelson - 1995
    This book describes the 1994-5 season at Charlton Athletic but it could be any in which he reveals the ups and downs of what it is like to be an ordinary professional player.There are the injuries, the battles for selection, and the worries that age is catching up on him, which would mean the end of his career. But there are also the occasional triumphs, such as when he was appointed captain and scored the winning goal in a televised match.Written with wit, intelligence and insight, Left Foot Forward reveals far more about what it is really like to be a footballer than any number of ghosted autobiographies by the big stars. It is destined to become a classic of football writing.

Stolen Season: A Journey Through America and Baseball's Minor Leagues


David Lamb - 1991
    He encounters enterprising owners, dedicated managers, die-hard fans, Hall of Fame instructors, and hopeful players. 8-page insert.