Backlund: From All-American Boy to Professional Wrestling's World Champion


Bob Backlund - 2014
    He was a below-average student with a lackluster work ethic and a bad attitude, who hung with the wrong crowd and made a lot of bad choices. He was a kid whose life was headed for disaster—until a local coach took interest in him, suggested that he take up amateur wrestling, and offered to work with him if he promised to stay out of trouble.It was in North Dakota that Bob Backlund had the first of several chance encounters that would shape his destiny. While working out at the YMCA gymnasium in Fargo, North Dakota, where he wrestled for North Dakota State, Backlund met a well-known professional wrestler, “Superstar” Billy Graham. The men talked, and at Graham’s suggestion, Backlund was inspired to pursue a career in professional wrestling.Less than five years from that day, on February 20, 1978, Backlund would find himself halfway across the country, standing in the middle of the ring at Madison Square Garden with his hand raised in victory as the newly crowned World Wide Wrestling Federation Heavyweight Champion. The man Backlund pinned for the championship that night was none other than Superstar Billy Graham.Featuring contributions from Bruno Sammartino, Harley Race, Terry Funk, Pat Patterson, Ken Patera, Sergeant Slaughter, The Magnificent Muraco, George “The Animal” Steele, “Mr. USA” Tony Atlas, The Iron Sheik, and many others, this book tells the incredible story of the life and nearly forty-year career of one of the most famous men to ever grace the squared circle.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, is proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team.In addition to books on popular team sports, we also publish books for a wide variety of athletes and sports enthusiasts, including books on running, cycling, horseback riding, swimming, tennis, martial arts, golf, camping, hiking, aviation, boating, and so much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Son of a Silverback


Russell Kane - 2019
    Very funny and heartbreaking.' Davina McCallFrom one of Britain’s most popular and prolific comedians comes a hilarious and deeply moving memoir of life lived under the rule of a Silverback dad.The Silverback is considered the undisputed king, a creature whose authority is never challenged and who does not yield to compromise. He walks proudly, feeds greedily, grafts tirelessly, mates voraciously, swears constantly and is threatened all too easily. The Silverback is known to nestle in the misty peaks of central Africa but can also be found in Barking, Essex. Meet Dave Kane, the disappointed, steroid-ingesting, metal-wielding, bouncer father of slight, effete Gamma Male, Russell Kane.SON OF A SILVERBACK is a story about fathers and sons, class and education and how one scrawny, sensitive, fake-tan-applying 'ponce' stepped out of his father's shadow and became a man - whatever that means.

Stronger: Forty Days of Rock, Jesus, and Salvation


Brian Welch - 2010
    Written with passion and openness, this forty-day journey offers stories from Head's past and present, as he speaks candidly about his bouts of depression since finding God, his struggles against the darkness as he's tried to understand his faith, and how, through these times of weakness, God's written word has been one of the keys to making him stronger than he's ever been. Applying both the Old and New Testaments to every aspect of his life--from his time with Korn to his new solo career to his life-altering decisions to his relationship with his daughter--Head details how, no matter what the issue, God has always provided the guidance he's needed to become a stronger person.One part journal chronicling his evolving relationship with God, one part spiritual testament to the undeniable strength of the Bible, "Stronger" is a devotional unlike any other--both a moving tribute to the transformative power of the word and a no-holds-barred look at what it means to give yourself completely to Jesus Christ.

The House of Fiction: Leonard, Susan and Elizabeth Jolley


Susan Swingler - 2012
    In this startling part memoir, part mystery, Susan explains why she and her father were kept apart while telling the story of her quest to find him. As she painstakingly traces and documents clues to a better understanding of Leonard, she inadvertently unravels an intricate fiction created by Elizabeth Jolley to protect those she loves.

ER DOC: Defining Moments of a Career in Emergency Medicine


Reggie Duling - 2021
    

Loving Tiara: Memoir


Tiffani Goff - 2019
    At forty-five years old, my life’s mission was complete. If I died tomorrow, I would be proud of the life I lived.” - Loving Tiara Loving Tiara is a compelling memoir that will encompass your every thought, break your heart, fill you with hope, and leave you with a sense of awe. When Tiffani married the love of her life, Lou, after graduating from college, she assumed she would continue to live the affluent life she had always known, having grown up in Newport Beach, California. She never imagined she would soon be stalked by creditors, driving a car on the repossession list and forced to worry about providing basic necessities for her family, such as buying diapers and groceries. This increasingly desperate situation forced her to decide to return home to her parents with her baby and husband. After getting their life back on track, and with Tiffani in her final year of law school, they decided to have another baby. At eight months old, however, they discovered that their new daughter Tiara had Tuberous Sclerosis, a rare genetic disorder resulting in intractable epilepsy, developmental delay, chronic hospital admissions, and uncontrollable violent behaviors. So how did Tiffani cope with her new reality? She chose to fight. She challenged the doctors, battled the insurance companies, and refused to give up caring for Tiara even when her own life was at risk. The author’s story of unconditional love, unimaginable challenges, and, ultimately, triumph, is a compelling one, which will take hold of your heart and not let go. This memoir will, hopefully, inspire you to tackle fear, encourage you never to give up, and remind you always to trust your gut instincts.

You're Coming With Me Lad: Tales Of A Yorkshire Bobby


Mike Pannett - 2009
    He blends gentle humour with real-life action as he introduces the wonderful rural characters and breathtaking scenery on his local beat. It's a far cry from Mike's old job hunting down drug gangs and knife crime in Central London.

Couplehood


Paul Reiser - 1994
    A veteran comic performer, Reiser is best-known as the co-creator and star of the highly-rated NBC comedy, "Mad About You," which "Time" Magazine called "The season's best new sitcom"in its 1992 debut. Every Thursday night more than twenty million viewers watch as Paul Reiser reveals the most intimate and hilarious scenes of a marriage. Now for the first time, Reiser brings his trademark wit to the page in a book that will delight his eagerly-awaiting audience, and anyone else who has ever fallen in love--or tried not to. In Couplehood, a "New York Times" bestseller for more than 40 weeks, Reiser reflects on what it means to be half of a couple -- everything from the science of hand holding, to the technique of tag-team storytelling, to the politics of food and why it always seems to come down to chicken or fish.NBC's hit comedy, "Mad About You," has collected his comic observationsabout life and love in" Couplehood," a New York Times bestseller for morethan 40 weeks.In "Couplehood," Reiser reflects on what it means to be half of a couple-- everything from the science of hand holding, to the technique of tag-teamstorytelling, to the politics of food and why it always seems to come down tochicken or fish.Cited by "Time" magazine as "the season's best new sitcom" in its 1992debut,

Juke Box Hero: My Five Decades in Rock 'n' Roll


Lou Gramm - 2013
    Songs such as “Cold As Ice,” “I Want to Know What Love Is,” “Waiting for a Girl Like You,” “Double Vision,” “Urgent,” and “Midnight Blue” are among 20 Gramm songs that achieved Top 40 status on the Billboard charts and became rock classics still played often, nearly three decades after they first hit the airwaves and the record store shelves. Juke Box Hero: The My Five Decades in Rock 'n' Roll chronicles, with remarkable candor, the ups and downs of this popular rocker’s amazing life—a life which saw him achieve worldwide fame and fortune, then succumb to its trappings before summoning the courage and faith to overcome his drug addiction and a life-threatening brain tumor. Gramm takes the reader behind the scenes—into the recording studio, back stage, on the bus trips and beyond—to give an insider’s look into the life of the man Rolling Stone magazine referred to as “the Pavarotti of rock.”

Mother's Ruin: The Extraordinary True Story of How Alcohol Destroys a Family


Nicola Barry - 2007
    And of how Nicola battled with her own alcoholism but, determined to throw off her mother's legacy, came through a survivor.

Love Without Borders: How Bold Faith Opens the Door to Embracing the Unexpected


Angela Braniff - 2020
    The Braniff household includes their two biological daughters, Kennedy, 12, and Shelby 10; Rosie, 7, who was adopted from China with special needs; Noah, 7, adopted from Congo; Jonah 5, adopted domestically, Ivy and Amelia, their two year old twins who were adopted as embryos, and implanted in Angela, who gave birth to them; and finally Benjamin who was also adopted domestically shortly after this book was written.Angela’s love for life and her family radiates through everything she does. In Love Without Borders she opens her heart and her home to share her story, offering a relatable and honest view of motherhood and love. With both humor and honesty, Angela chronicles her journey to discover God’s purpose for her and how she welcomed it—even though it meant raising a large, non-traditional family that looked different than she ever imagined. She talks about diverse aspects of her kids’ lives, from the challenging adoption process, to secondary infertility, and homeschooling. And most important, she reflects on coming to terms with her own sense of identity and worth, on learning to accept there is no “perfect” way to be a woman, wife, and mother, and on embracing and sharing God’s message that love has no borders.Funny, moving, and deeply spiritual, Love Without Borders will inspire other women to discover their own purpose—and to cherish those who God has put in their lives.

Say It Again In A Nice Voice


Meg Mason - 2012
    A hilarious memoir of coming to grips with motherhood, from one of Australia's funniest writers.'Mothers. those women with purses the size of meat trays that hold an entire deck of school portrait photos and a chequebook, make a casserole without a recipe, make the tightest bed you'll ever sleep in and only swear under extreme duress. How, how, would I go from me to that?'At 24, Meg Mason was newly married to a man 'essentially indistinguishable from a young Matt Damon' after landing her dream job, writing for the times in London. What could possibly go wrong? A holiday in Greece, an accidental shortage of birth control, and eight months later she was sobbing on the side of a road over trading her career for something she knew zip about.On October 8, 2003, she invented motherhood by Having A Baby. On October 9, she discovered a bunch of women had done that already. But still they couldn't tell her how to do it. Thanks to a helpful neighbour, she knew that convincing a newborn to take a bottle by letting it lick a Dorito first to 'get more thirsty' didn't always work, but not what to do when your child won't sleep for roughly two years in London or in Sydney, or how to remove your hand from a stroller - after you've superglued it to the handle. Hair-raising, terrifying and hilariously funny, along the way she discovers that being a mother, however disaster-prone, just might be the only thing that she is truly irreplaceable at.'Mason is a comic natural, her admissions of ignorance are achingly funny and provide a tonic for anyone feeling the struggle' Better Homes & Gardens'In between the amusing anecdotes, the author grapples with issues that many women will identify with - work, relationships and family life - with warmth and honesty.' Courier Mail

Townie


Andre Dubus III - 2011
    To protect himself and those he loved from street violence, Andre learned to use his fists so well that he was even scared of himself. He was on a fast track to getting killed - or killing someone else. He signed on as a boxer. Nearby, his father, an eminent author, taught on a college campus and took the kids out on Sundays. The clash of worlds couldn't have been more stark - or more difficult for a son to communicate to a father. Only by becoming a writer himself could Andre begin to bridge the abyss and save himself. His memoir is a riveting, visceral, profound meditation on physical violence and the failures and triumphs of love.

The Blue Jay's Dance: A Birth Year


Louise Erdrich - 1995
    Moving, memorable… [The Blue Jay’s Dance is] a book that breaks ground.”—Boston Sunday GlobeFifteen years after its initial publication, New York Times bestselling author Louise Erdrich’s beloved memoir The Blue Jay’s Dance is available for a whole new generation of families to discover. The first major work of nonfiction by the author of such classics as Love Medicine and The Plague of Doves, The Blue Jay’s Dance is, in the words of the New York Times Book Review, an “observant, tender, and honest” meditation on the experience of motherhood.

The Tin Ring: How I Cheated Death


Zdenka Fantlova - 2010
    Enamored with a man named Arno, Zdenka Fantlová, a young Czech-Jewish woman, is separated from her soul-mate due to the German invasion. During a brief reunion, Arno proposes to 19-year-old Zdenka with a ring made from tin. Following Zdenka from Terezin through Auschwitz and Kurzbach to Bergen–Belsen, this heartbreaking account dwells less on the horrors of extermination camps and more on the compassion of the friends and family who shared in her ordeal.