The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs


Tyler Hamilton - 2012
    The result is an explosive book that takes us, for the first time, deep inside a shadowy, fascinating, and surreal world of unscrupulous doctors, anything-goes team directors, and athletes so relentlessly driven to succeed that they would do anything—and take any risk, physical, mental, or moral—to gain the edge they need to win.Tyler Hamilton was once one of the world’s best-liked and top-ranked cyclists—a fierce competitor renowned among his peers for his uncanny endurance and epic tolerance for pain. In the 2003 Tour de France, he finished fourth despite breaking his collarbone in the early stages—and grinding eleven of his teeth down to the nerves along the way. He started his career with the U.S. Postal Service team in the 1990s and quickly rose to become Lance Armstrong’s most trusted lieutenant, and a member of his inner circle. For the first three of Armstrong’s record seven Tour de France victories, Hamilton was by Armstrong’s side, clearing his way. But just weeks after Hamilton reached his own personal pinnacle—winning the gold medal at the 2004 Olympics—his career came to a sudden, ignominious end: He was found guilty of doping and exiled from the sport.From the exhilaration of his early, naïve days in the peloton, Hamilton chronicles his ascent to the uppermost reaches of this unforgiving sport. In the mid-1990s, the advent of a powerful new blood-boosting drug called EPO reshaped the world of cycling, and a relentless, win-at-any-cost ethos took root. Its psychological toll would drive many of the sport’s top performers to substance abuse, depression, even suicide. For the first time ever, Hamilton recounts his own battle with clinical depression, speaks frankly about the agonizing choices that go along with the decision to compete at a world-class level, and tells the story of his complicated relationship with Lance Armstrong.A journey into the heart of a never-before-seen world, The Secret Race is a riveting, courageous act of witness from a man who is as determined to reveal the hard truth about his sport as he once was to win the Tour de France.

Fast Girl: A Life Spent Running from Madness


Suzy Favor Hamilton - 2015
    This is a heartbreakingly honest yet hopeful memoir reminiscent of Manic, Electroboy, and An Unquiet Mind.During the 1990s, three-time Olympian Suzy Favor Hamilton was the darling of American track and field. An outstanding runner, a major sports apparel spokesperson, and a happily married wife, she was the model for an active, healthy, and wholesome life. But her perfect facade masked a dark truth: manic depression and bipolar disorder that drove her obsession to perform and win. For years after leaving the track, Suzy wrestled with her condition, as well as the loss of a close friend, conflicted feelings about motherhood and her marriage, and lingering shame about her athletic career. After a misdiagnosis and a recommendation for medication that only exacerbated her mania and made her hypersexual, Suzy embarked on a new path, and assumed a new identity. Fueled by a newfound confidence, a feeling of strength and independence and a desire she couldn’t tamp down, she became a high-priced escort in Las Vegas, working as “Kelly.”But Suzy could not keep her double life a secret forever. When it was eventually exposed, it sent her into a reckless suicidal period where the only option seemed out. Finally, with the help of her devoted husband, Suzy finally got the proper medical help she needed. In this startling frank memoir, she recounts the journey to outrun her demons, revealing how a woman used to physically controlling her body learned to come to terms with her unstable mind. It is the story of a how a supreme competitor scored her most important victory of all—reclaiming her life from the ravages of an untreated mental illness. Today, thanks to diagnosis, therapy, Kelly has stepped into the shadows, but Suzy is building a better life, one day at a time. Sharing her story, Suzy is determined to raise awareness, provide understanding, and offer inspiration to others coping with their own challenges.

Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner


Judy Melinek - 2014
    Judy Melinek began her training as a New York City forensic pathologist. With her husband T.J. and their toddler Daniel holding down the home front, Judy threw herself into the fascinating world of death investigation, performing autopsies, investigating death scenes, counseling grieving relatives. Working Stiff chronicles Judy's two years of training, taking readers behind the police tape of some of the most harrowing deaths in the Big Apple, including a firsthand account of the events of September 11, the subsequent anthrax bio-terrorism attack, and the disastrous crash of American Airlines flight 587.Lively, action-packed, and loaded with mordant wit, Working Stiff offers a firsthand account of daily life in one of America's most arduous professions, and the unexpected challenges of shuttling between the domains of the living and the dead. The body never lies, and through the murders, accidents, and suicides that land on her table, Dr. Melinek lays bare the truth behind the glamorized depictions of autopsy work on shows like CSI and Law and Order to reveal the secret story of the real morgue.

Too Fat to Fish


Artie Lange - 2008
    Wild, shocking, and drop-dead funny, Too Fat to Fish is Lange's reflection on his rise to stardom.

Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs


Elissa Wall - 2008
    At once shocking, heartbreaking, and inspiring, Wall’s story of subjugation and survival exposes the darkness at the root of this rebel offshoot of the Mormon faith.

Hollywood Causes Cancer: The Tom Green Story


Tom Green - 2004
    He was doing a public access show up north when MTV heard about him and brought him to New York to see what he could do in the big city. Tom became an instant smash, slicing up dead raccoons on stage, introducing his parents to Monica Lewinsky in the middle of the night, and pioneering a type of shocking humor that begat Jackass, Fear Factor, and other reality shows.In the next few years, Tom starred in the hilarious Road Trip and three other movies (Freddy Got Fingered, Stealing Harvard, and Charlie’s Angels), married and divorced Drew Barrymore, and recorded his surgery for testicular cancer in a well-received, hysterical, and oddly moving documentary for MTV. But the fearless Canadian with the outrageous sense of humor, hit show, and tabloid-hyped marriage got a taste of the darker side of Hollywood, too, as the media that made him the toast of Tinseltown cut him down to size in the wake of his divorce, illness, and some professional bumps in the road.Hollywood Causes Cancer not only tells the full story of Tom’s wildly entertaining trip to celebrity but is also an absorbing and even revelatory look at a dramatic, excessive, ruthless place called Hollywood, and how one man survived his journey into the heart of it all.

Geronimo: My Life


Geronimo - 1906
    Completely and utterly authentic, its captivating narrator is the most famous member of the Apache tribe: Geronimo.The spiritual and intellectual leader of the American Indians who defended their land from both Mexico and the United States for many years, Geronimo surrendered in 1886. Two decades later, while under arrest, he told his story through a native interpreter to S. M. Barrett, an Oklahoma school superintendent. Barrett explains in his introduction, "I wrote to President Roosevelt that here was an old Indian who had been held a prisoner of war for twenty years and had never been given a chance to tell his side of the story, and asked that Geronimo be granted permission to tell for publication, in his own way, the story of his life."This remarkable testament is the result. It begins with Geronimo's retelling of an Apache creation myth and his descriptions of his youth and family. He explains his military tactics as well as traditional practices, including hunting and religious rituals, and reflects upon his hope for the survival of his people and their culture.

Me and the Table - My Autobiography


Stephen Hendry - 2018
    Hendry retired in 2012 with a record-breaking seven World Champion titles under his belt, a record that remains to this day. He's now ready to tell his life story for the first time - from a childhood spent climbing the ranks of the sport, through the highs of the '90s and lows of the 2000s, to his life now as a sports pundit and commentator.With an insight into the world of the man behind the cue, and what made him such a top-class player, this is the definitive autobiography of the legend that is Stephen Hendry.

Rise: My Story


Lindsey Vonn - 2022
    Vonn, who became the first American woman to win a downhill race at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, has led an incredible career on the slopes earning 82 World Cup wins, 20 World Cup titles, 3 Olympic medals, and 7 World Championship medals.In her new memoir, Vonn will share that her epic journey to success has been anything but downhill. From moving away from her small Minnesota town to pursue her career and navigating her personal life in the public eye, to challenging the skiing norm and raising the profile of women in the sport and the high-speed crashes she endured and the remarkable recoveries she made, Vonn has faced her fair share of obstacles and has unbelievably persevered through them all.Also the founder of the Lindsey Vonn Foundation, Vonn has been an inspiration to fans and athletes—especially young women—everywhere since her Olympic debut. With her new inspiring book, readers will cheer for their favorite sports hero all over again as she recounts her triumphs, shares what her next chapter will entail, and reminds us to never give up on our dreams.