His followers multiplied and he got the attention of everyone from celebrities to production studios to major media outlets such as Time and Glamour.  Now Dear Girls breaks out of the 140-character limit as Charlie imagines what would happen if he put the wisdom of the girls to the test.  After being unceremoniously dumped by the girl he was certain was “the one,” Charlie realized his neighbors’ conversations were not only amusing, but also offered him access to a completely uncensored woman’s perspective on the world. From the importance of effectively Facebook-stalking potential girlfriends and effortlessly pulling off pastel, to learning when in the early stages of dating is too presumptuous to bring a condom and how to turn food poisoning into a dieting advantage, the girls get Charlie into trouble, but they also get him out of it—without ever having a clue of their impact on him.

    But occasionally over the years he’s found it impossible to turn down a particularly enticing assignment or, in the case of the 2012-13 Premier League, just unable to resist writing about that most spectacular of seasons. Fortunately for those who love great writing about soccer, all these fugitive pieces are collected in Fan Mail. You can follow the fortunes, as Hornby did, of a hopelessly out-of-their-depth Cambridge United in the old Second Division, discover why Perry Groves was an unlikely hero among Arsenal fans, enjoy Hornby trying to explain the World Cup to Americans, and share with him the pain of watching his national team.

    His new book, The A Swing, is his first for a decade and is an evolution of his swing theories that have successfully helped thousands of golfers globally. His tour players, whom he has coached over the years, have amassed 19 major golf championships. David has been prolific during his 30+ year career in producing books, videos, teaching aids that have inspired golfers of every level to reach their potential.The A Swing - A stands for Alternative - is a simple way to swing the club, which follows biomechanically sound, scientific principles, and only requires minimal practice. The A Swing has been thoroughly tested with a wide range of players, from tour level to beginner, junior to senior, and the results overall have been nothing short of dramatic.The A Swing is a way to develop a consistent, repetitive motion which will improve accuracy and distance, and is easy on the body. It will fix many of golf's common faults, and the book takes you through an easy, step-by-step approach. With over 200 illustrations, easy drills, and the 7-Minute Practice Plan, golfers now have the opportunity to play the way they've always dreamed of. Golf is a frustrating game, even for the top players, but the A Swing will make it easier and more fun. It could really change the way the game has been taught, which hasn't changed for years - it is not an exact method, and has leeway for individualism.David is excited that the A Swing will help golfers the world over enjoy the game more. In essence, the A Swing is a shortcut to great golf. Whatever your level of play is now, whatever your goals, however you've been struggling with the game, the A Swing could change your golfing life.

    And it's precisely this offbeat sense of curiosity that led the duo to create Weird N.J. and the successful series that followed. The NOT shockingly result? Every "Weird" book has become a best seller in its region! ((Series Sales Points)) This best-selling series has sold more than one million copies...and counting Thirty volumes of the Weird series have been published to great success since Weird New Jersey's 2003 debut

    As baseball's Hit King, he shattered records that were thought to be unbreakable. And during the 1970s, he was the leader of the Big Red Machine, the Cincinnati Reds team that dominated the game. But he's also the greatest player who may never enter the Hall of Fame because of his lifetime ban from the sport. Perhaps no other ballplayer's story is so representative of the triumphs and tragedies of our national pastime.In Play Hungry, Rose tells us the story of how, through hard work and sheer will, he became one of the unlikeliest stars of the game. Guided by the dad he idolized, a local sports hero, Pete learned to play hard and always focus on winning. But even with his dad's guidance, Pete was cut from his team as a teenager--he wasn't a natural. Rose was determined, though, and never would be satisfied with anything less than success. His relentless hustle and headfirst style would help him overcome his limitations, leading him to one of the most exciting and brash careers in the history of the sport.Play Hungry is Pete Rose's love letter to the game, and an unvarnished story of life on the diamond. One of the icons of a golden age in baseball, he describes just what it was like to hit (or try to hit) a Bob Gibson fastball or a Gaylord Perry spitball, what happened in that infamous collision at home plate during the 1970 All-Star Game, and what it felt like to topple Ty Cobb's hit record. And he speaks to how he let down his fans, his teammates, and the memory of his dad when he gambled on baseball, breaking the rules of a sport that he loved more than anything else. Told with candor and wry humor--including tales he's never told before--Rose's memoir is his final word on the glories and controversies of his life, and, ultimately, a master class in how to succeed when the odds are stacked against you.

    Working his way through the minor leagues, earning three hundred dollars a month, he survived just about everything, even riots in stadiums in Puerto Rico. And while players and other umps hit the bars at night, Harvey memorized the rule book. In 1962, he broke into the big leagues and was soon listening to rookie Pete Rose worrying that he would be cut by the Reds and laying down the law with managers such as Tommy Lasorda and Joe Torre. This colorful memoir takes you behind the plate for some of baseball’s most memorable moments, including Roberto Clemente’s three thousandth and final hit; the heroic three-and-two pinch-hit home run by Kirk Gibson in the ’88 World Series; and the nail-biting excitement of the ’68 World Series. But beyond the drama, Harvey turned umpiring into an art. He was a man so respected, whose calls were so feared and infallible, that the players called him “God.” And through it all, he lived by three rules: never take anything from a player, never back down from a call, and never carry a grudge. A book for anyone who loves baseball, They Called Me God is a funny and fascinating tale of on- and off-the-field action, peopled by unforgettable characters from Bob Gibson to Nolan Ryan, and a treatise on good umpiring techniques. In a memoir that transcends the sport, Doug Harvey tells a gripping story of responsibility, fairness, and honesty.

    Rowan Ricardo Phillips writes with such fluidity, and packs the book with bursts of brilliance. This is a compulsively readable guide to one truly Homeric year of professional tennis.” —John Green, author of The Fault in Our StarsAn energetic, lyrical, genre-defying account of the 2017 tennis season.In The Circuit: A Tennis Odyssey, the award-winning poet—and Paris Review sports columnist—Rowan Ricardo Phillips chronicles 2017 as seen through the unique prism of its pivotal, revelatory, and historic tennis season. The annual tennis schedule is a rarity in professional sports in that it encapsulates the calendar year. And like the year, it’s divided into four seasons, each marked by a final tournament: the Grand Slams.Phillips charts the year from winter’s Australian Open, where Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal renewed their rivalry in a match for the ages, to fall’s U.S. Open. Along the way, Phillips paints a new, vibrant portrait of tennis, one that captures not only the emotions, nerves, and ruthless tactics of the point-by-point game but also the quicksilver movement of victory and defeat on the tour, placing that sense of upheaval within a broader cultural and social context. Tennis has long been thought of as an escapist spectacle: a bucolic, separate bauble of life. The Circuit will convince you that you don’t leave the world behind as you watch tennis—you bring it with you.

    A baseball superstar in the 1970s and 80s, Fisk was known not just for his dedication to the sport and tremendous plays but for the respect with which he treated the game.A homegrown icon, Fisk rapidly became the face of one of the most storied teams in baseball, the Boston Red Sox of the 1970s. As a rookie making only $12,000 a year, he became the first player to unanimously win the American League Rookie of the Year award in 1972, upping both his pay grade and national recognition. Fisk's game-winning home run in Game Six of the hotly-contested 1975 World Series forever immortalized him in one of the sport's most exciting televised moments. Fisk played through an epic period of player-owner relations, including the dawn of free agency, strikes, and collusions. After leaving Boston under controversy in 1981, he joined the Chicago White Sox, where he played for 12 more major league seasons, solidifying his position as one of the best catchers of all time.Doug Wilson, finalist for both the Casey Award and Seymour Medal for his previous baseball biographies, uses his own extensive research and interviews with childhood friends and major league teammates to examine the life and career of a leader who followed a strict code and played with fierce determination.

    George directly influenced the likes of Muhammad Ali, who took his bragging and boasting from George; James Brown, who began to wear sequined capes onstage after seeing George on TV; John Waters, whose films featured the outrageous drag queen Divine as an homage to George; and too many wrestlers to count. Amid these pop culture discoveries are firsthand accounts of the pro wrestling game from the 1930s to the 1960s.The ideal American male used to be stoic, quiet, and dignified. But for a young couple struggling to make ends meet, in the desperation born of the lingering Depression and wartime rationing, an idea was hatched that changed the face of American popular culture, an idea so bold, so over-the-top and absurd, that it was perfect. That idea transformed journeyman wrestler George Wagner from a dark-haired, clean-cut good guy to a peroxide-blond braggart who blatantly cheated every chance he got. Crowds were stunned—they had never seen anything like this before—and they came from miles around to witness it for themselves.Suddenly George—guided by Betty, his pistol of a wife—was a draw. With his golden tresses grown long and styled in a marcel, George went from handsome to . . . well . . . gorgeous overnight, the small, dank wrestling venues giving way to major arenas. As if the hair wasn't enough, his robes—unmanly things of silk, lace, and chiffon in pale pinks, sunny yellows, and rich mauves—were but a prelude to the act: the regal entrance, the tailcoat-clad valet spraying the mat with perfume, the haughty looks and sneers for the "peasants" who paid to watch this outrageously prissy hulk prance around the ring. How they loved to see his glorious mane mussed up by his manly opponents. And how they loved that alluringly alliterative name . . . Gorgeous George . . . the self-proclaimed Toast of the Coast, the Sensation of the Nation!All this was timed to the arrival of that new invention everyone was talking about—television. In its early days, professional wrestling and its larger-than-life characters dominated prime-time broadcasts—none more so than Gorgeous George, who sold as many sets as Uncle Miltie.Fans came in droves—to boo him, to stick him with hatpins, to ogle his gowns, and to rejoice in his comeuppance. He was the man they loved to hate, and his provocative, gender-bending act took him to the top of the entertainment world. America would never be the same again.

    This was a girl who succeeded at everything she tried, and who was only getting started.But when Maddy began her long-awaited college career, her parents noticed something changed. Previously indefatigable Maddy became withdrawn, and her thoughts centered on how she could change her life. In spite of thousands of hours of practice and study, she contemplated transferring from the school that had once been her dream. When Maddy's dad, Jim, dropped her off for the first day of spring semester, she held him a second longer than usual. That would be the last time Jim would see his daughter.What Made Maddy Run began as a piece that Kate Fagan, a columnist for espnW, wrote about Maddy's life. What started as a profile of a successful young athlete whose life ended in suicide became so much larger when Fagan started to hear from other college athletes also struggling with mental illness. This is the story of Maddy Holleran's life, and her struggle with depression, which also reveals the mounting pressures young people, and college athletes in particular, face to be perfect, especially in an age of relentless connectivity and social media saturation.

    This is the full story of how the team was saved from disintegration when Honda suddenly pulled out of Formula One; the management buyout for £1.00; and its subsequent sale to Mercedes for £140 million. As CEO, Nick Fry was in the driving seat for one of the most incredible journeys in the history of motorsport. Here, he gives an up-close-and-personal account of how he and Ross Brawn turned disaster into championship glory, and offers a unique and thrilling perspective on an elite global sport.

    In this fast-paced investigation into the adrenaline-pumping world of NASCAR, a physicist with a passion uncovers what happens when the rubber hits the road and 800- horsepower vehicles compete at 190 miles per hour only inches from one another. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky reveals how and why drivers trust the engineering and science their teams literally build around them not only to get them across the finish line in first place, but also to keep them alive. Professor Leslie-Pelecky is a physicist in love with the sport’s beauty and power and is uniquely qualified to explain exactly how physics translates into winning races. Based on the author’s extensive access to race shops, pit crews, crew chiefs and mechanics, this book traces the life cycle of a race car from behind the scenes at top race shops to the track. The Physics of NASCAR takes readers right into the ultra competitive world of NASCAR, from the champion driver’s hot seat behind the detachable steering wheel to the New Zealander nicknamed Kiwi in charge of shocks for the No. 19 car. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky tells her story in terms anyone who drives a car--and maybe occasionally looks under the hood--can understand. How do drivers walk away from serious crashes? How can two cars travel faster together than either car can on its own? How do you dress for a 1800°F gasoline fire? In simple yet detailed, high-octane prose, this is the ultimate thrill ride for armchair speed demons, auto science buffs, and NASCAR fans at every level of interest. Readers, start your engines.

    It is the toughest ticket in sports, with black-market tickets selling for $10,000 and more. Success at Augusta National breeds legends, while failure can overshadow even the most brilliant of careers. But as Curt Sampson, author of the bestselling Hogan, reveals in The Masters, a cold heart beats behind the warm antebellum façade of this famous Augusta course. And that heart belongs to the man who killed himself on the grounds two decades ago. Club and tournament founder Clifford Roberts, a New York stockbroker, still seems to run the place from his grave. An elusive and reclusive figure, Roberts pulled the strings that made the Masters the greatest golf tournament in the world. His story--including his relationship with presidents, power brokers, and every golf champion from Bobby Jones to Arnold Palmer to Jack Nicklaus--has never been told. Until now.        The Masters is an amazing slice of history, taking us inside the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Augusta's most famous member. It is a look at how the new South coexists with the old South: the relationships between blacks and whites, between Southerners and Northerners, between rich and poor--with such characters as James Brown, the Godfather of Soul; the great boxer Beau Jack; and Frank Stranahan, the playboy golfer and the only white pro ever banned from the tournament. The Masters is a spellbinding portrait of a tournament unlike any other.

    He is ultra competitive but never forgets to have fun. An immensely likeable man.' Damon HillThe world’s foremost designer in Formula One, Adrian Newey OBE is arguably one of Britain’s greatest engineers and this is his fascinating, powerful memoir.How to Build a Car explores the story of Adrian’s unrivalled 35-year career in Formula One through the prism of the cars he has designed, the drivers he has worked alongside and the races in which he’s been involved.A true engineering genius, even in adolescence Adrian’s thoughts naturally emerged in shape and form – he began sketching his own car designs at the age of 12 and took a welding course in his school summer holidays. From his early career in IndyCar racing and on to his unparalleled success in Formula One, we learn in comprehensive, engaging and highly entertaining detail how a car actually works. Adrian has designed for the likes of Mario Andretti, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Damon Hill, David Coulthard, Mika Hakkinen, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel, always with a shark-like purity of purpose: to make the car go faster. And while his career has been marked by unbelievable triumphs, there have also been deep tragedies; most notably Ayrton Senna’s death during his time at Williams in 1994.Beautifully illustrated with never-before-seen drawings, How to Build a Car encapsulates, through Adrian’s remarkable life story, precisely what makes Formula One so thrilling – its potential for the total synchronicity of man and machine, the perfect combination of style, efficiency and speed.

    Two of Formula One's most honoured champions and iconic figures drove together for McLaren for two seasons, and their acrimonious and hostile relationship extended even after one of them had left the team. ALAIN PROST, France's only F1 world champion, the intelligent, smooth driver with the epithet 'Le Professeur'. AYRTON SENNA, the mercurial kid from a privileged background in Sao Paolo who would become the most intense and ruthless racing driver the world has ever seen. It was a story that would have a tragic ending. As the great rivals raced to victory, their relationship deteriorated badly, beginning with the breaking of a gentleman's agreement, and public spats followed, culminating in Prost accusing Senna of deliberately trying to ride him off the circuit, and fearful that the Brazilian would get someone killed with his daring overtaking feats. And the final, sad act of this drama happened at the San Marino Grand prix at Imola in May 1994, when Senna was killed. Featuring a rare interview with Prost, and insight from Martin Brundle, Damon Hill, Sir Frank Williams, Bernie Ecclestone, Derek Warrick, Johnny Herbert, Gerhard Berger, plus McLaren insiders and other F1 figures, Malcolm Folley provides us with a breath-taking account of one of the all-time classic sporting rivalries.