Everybody knows the record the stuff of almanacs, trade magazines and clipping services. A handful know the man. But only Muhammad Ali knows his life as he lived it. The Greatest is Ali's own story.

For six years he worked, traveled and talked with Richard Durham, a writer with a stunning talent, and the result is mesmerizing in its brilliance, drama, humanity and sheer entertainment. This is no documented scrapbook of wins and losses strung together with anecdotes; nor is it a thin potpourri of locker room gags. This book, like Ali who has incited every reaction except indifference goes straight to the place where responses to him have always been the gut.

When the history of the twentieth century is finally recorded, it must include Muhammad Ali. He is "The Greatest."

This is not a book about how to train for an Ironman, the kit you need or anything that could actually prove to be useful. If there is anything useful in this book then that's purely by accident. If you are looking for some genuine training tips on Ironman then please get one of the decent training books - not the 55,000 words of illiterate drivel this represents. This is a simply a story about someone (fat northerner in the shape of Darren) deciding to do something as stupid as Ironman and the things you encounter on the way. Such as the psychotic geese, paperless portaloos, the mind games and the doomsday feeling that no matter how much training you do it's never enough. Darren is fat, bald, ugly and lives in the North West of England with his wife Amy and daughter Lilly-Mae where he continues to try to be a triathlete.

*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* From the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Tiger Woods comes the definitive inside story of the New England Patriots--the greatest sports dynasty of the 21st century. It's easy to forget that the New England Patriots were once the laughingstock of the NFL, a nearly bankrupt team that had never won a championship and was on the brink of moving to St. Louis. Everything changed in 1994, when Robert Kraft acquired the franchise and soon brought on board head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. Since then, the Patriots have become a juggernaut, making ten trips to the Super Bowl, winning six of them, and emerging as one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world. How was the Patriots dynasty built? And how did it last for two decades? In The Dynasty, acclaimed journalist Jeff Benedict provides richly reported answers in a sweeping account based on exclusive interviews with more than two hundred insiders--including team executives, coaches, players, players' wives, team doctors, lawyers, and more--as well as never-before-seen recordings, documents, and electronic communications. Through his exhaustive research, Benedict uncovers surprising new details about the inner workings of a team notorious for its secrecy. He puts us in the room as Robert Kraft outmaneuvers a legion of lawyers and investors to buy the team. We listen in on the phone call when the greatest trade ever made--Bill Belichick for a first-round draft choice--is negotiated. And we look over the shoulder of forty-year-old Tom Brady as a surgeon operates on his throwing hand on the eve of the AFC Championship Game in 2018. But the portrait that emerges in The Dynasty is more rewarding than new details alone. By tracing the team's epic run through the perspectives of Kraft, Belichick, and Brady--each of whom was interviewed for the book--the author provides a wealth of new insight into the complex human beings most responsible for the Patriots' success. The result is an intimate portrait that captures the human drama of the dynasty's three key characters while also revealing the secrets behind their success. "The Dynasty is...[a] masterpiece...It's a relationship book, it's a football book, it's a business book...you'll just eat up these stories" (Colin Cowherd).

In 2013, Alan Hodgkinson marks 60 years spent playing and coaching at clubs including Sheffield United, Manchester United and England. This is the story of his life - and the life of the game - in that time. In 2013, Alan Hodgkinson marks 60 years spent playing and coaching at clubs including Sheffield United, Manchester United and England. In 'Between the Sticks', Alan tells the story of a life in football: from his days as a trainee at Worksopp Town in the 50s, to his big-money move to Sheffield United (where his signing-on fee was a new suit for 'courting'), to England duty, as well as a glittering coaching career at Man United, Rangers, Villa among others. It is a story that features legends of the game such as Matthews, Charlton, Best, and Pele, all of whom Alan has played with or against. 'Between the Sticks' will transport the reader back to a golden age of football, when pig skins were hoofed around with hobnail boots, to the modern day where as a coach at Oxford United Alan sees the realities of 21st century football first-hand. It is a story that no football fan will want to miss.

Having made the daring decision to set off around the world by bicycle, Pam Goodall left the comfortable surroundings of her home in West Sussex one spring morning, and went on to pedal her way through Europe, Asia and America. She was approaching her sixtieth birthday and travelled alone. Riding It Out is a record of this remarkable journey, giving a vivid and lighthearted account. This includes the trials of finding a place to sleep each night, the reality of owning a Brooks saddle and choosing to ignore persistent warnings from well meaning strangers of the dangers lurking ahead for a lone female cyclist. The challenge of obtaining visas throughout Asia proves nerve-wracking and costly. This one woman tale of adventure encapsulates the spirit of freedom of the open road (or bumpy track) so that you can enjoy the experience without the discomforts.

Tom Clavin and Danny Peary chronicle the life and career of baseball's "natural home run king" in the first definitive biography of Roger Maris--including a brand-new chapter to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his record breaking season.
Roger Maris may be the greatest ballplayer no one really knows. In 1961, the soft-spoken man from the frozen plains of North Dakota enjoyed one of the most amazing seasons in baseball history, when he outslugged his teammate Mickey Mantle to become the game's natural home-run king. It was Mantle himself who said, "Roger was as good a man and as good a ballplayer as there ever was." Yet Maris was vilified by fans and the press and has never received his due from biographers--until now.
Tom Clavin and Danny Peary trace the dramatic arc of Maris's life, from his boyhood in Fargo through his early pro career in the Cleveland Indians farm program, to his World Series championship years in New York and beyond. At the center is the exciting story of the 1961 season and the ordeal Maris endured as an outsider in Yankee pinstripes, unloved by fans who compared him unfavorably to their heroes Ruth and Mantle, relentlessly attacked by an aggressive press corps who found him cold and inaccessible, and treated miserably by the organization. After the tremendous challenge of breaking Ruth's record was behind him, Maris ultimately regained his love of baseball as a member of the world champion St. Louis Cardinals. And over time, he gained redemption in the eyes of the Yankee faithful.
With research drawn from more than 130 interviews with Maris's teammates, opponents, family, and friends, as well as 16 pages of photos, some of which have never before been seen, this timely and poignant biography sheds light on an iconic figure from baseball's golden era--and establishes the importance of his role in the game's history.

A biography of America's greatest all-around athlete that "goes beyond the myth and into the guts of Thorpe's life, using extensive research, historical nuance, and bittersweet honesty" (Los Angeles Times), by the bestselling author of the classic biography When Pride Still Mattered. Jim Thorpe rose to world fame as a mythic talent who excelled at every sport. Most famously, he won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, he was an All-American football player at the Carlisle Indian School, the star of the first class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and played major league baseball for John McGraw's New York Giants. Even in a golden age of sports celebrities, he was one of a kind. But despite his awesome talent, Thorpe's life was a struggle against the odds. At Carlisle, he faced the racist assimilationist philosophy "Kill the Indian, Save the Man." His gold medals were unfairly rescinded because he had played minor league baseball, and his supposed allies turned away from him when their own reputations were at risk. His later life was troubled by alcohol, broken marriages, and financial distress. He roamed from state to state and took bit parts in Hollywood, but even the film of his own life failed to improve his fortunes. But for all his travails, Thorpe survived, determined to shape his own destiny, his perseverance becoming another mark of his mythic stature. Path Lit by Lightning "[reveals] Thorpe as a man in full, whose life was characterized by both soaring triumph and grievous loss" (The Wall Street Journal).

Coach Bobby Bowden is an icon of college football who ran his legendary, top-ranking program with a trademark southern charm. With his recent retirement, Bowden is ready to give fans and readers the behind-the-scenes story of his 55-year career and the path that helped him become one of college football's most successful coaches and patriarch of the sport's most famous coaching family.
In this book, Bowden will reveal never-before-published details of the moments and events that have defined his life, including:
* The tragic death of his grandson and son-in-law in a 2004 automobile accident.
* The details of his retirement as FSU's coach at the end of the 2009 season.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018 WINNER OF THE TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR 2019 THE FULL STORY BEHIND THE RISE, FALL AND RISE AGAIN OF TIGER WOODS 'A rattling read... Superbly written' Daily Mail 'Arguably the most serious attempt ever made to get behind golf's great enigma' Guardian 'Exhilarating, depressing, tawdry and moving... perfectly pitched biography' New York Times Based on three years of extensive research and reporting, two of today's most acclaimed investigative journalists, Jeff Benedict of Sports Illustrated and eleven-time Emmy Award winner Armen Keteyian, deliver the first major biography of Tiger Woods - sweeping in scope and packed with groundbreaking, behind-the-scenes details of the Shakespearean rise and epic fall of a global icon. In 2009, Tiger Woods was the most famous athlete on the planet, a transcendent star of almost unfathomable fame and fortune living what appeared to be the perfect life - married to a Swedish beauty and the father of two young children. Winner of fourteen major golf championships and seventy-nine PGA Tour events, Woods was the first billion-dollar athlete, earning more than $100 million a year in endorsements from the likes of Nike, Gillette, AT&T and Gatorade. But it was all a carefully crafted illusion. As it turned out, Woods had been living a double life for years - one that exploded in the aftermath of a late-night crash that exposed his serial infidelity and sent his personal and professional life off a cliff. In Tiger Woods, Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian dig deep behind the headlines to produce a richly reported answer to the question that has mystified millions of sports fans for nearly a decade: who is Tiger Woods? Drawing on more than four hundred interviews with people from every corner of Woods's life - friends, family members, teachers, romantic partners, swing coaches, business associates, Tour pros and members of Woods's inner circle - Benedict and Keteyian construct a captivating psychological profile of an African-American child programmed by an attention-grabbing father and the original Tiger Mom to be the 'chosen one', to change not just the game of golf, but the world as well. But at what cost? Benedict and Keteyian provide the startling answers in a biography, updated for this edition, destined to make headlines and linger in the minds of readers for years to come.

""It's not so surprising that on the day of my fifth wedding anniversary I would be crouched in the open door of an airplane, thirteen thousand feet above the Colorado plains, about to jump out. That coincidence of timing really wasn't.""
Steph Davis is a superstar in the climbing community and has ascended some of the world's most awe-inspiring peaks. But when her husband makes a controversial climb in a national park, the media fallout--and the toll it takes on her marriage--suddenly leaves her without a partner, a career, a source of income . . . or a purpose.
In the company of only her beloved dog, Fletch, Davis sets off on a search for a new identity and discovers skydiving. Though falling out of an airplane is completely antithetical to the climber's control she'd practiced for so long, she turns each daring jump into an opportunity to fly, first as a skydiver, then as a base jumper, and finds herself indelibly changed. As she opens herself to falling, she also finds the strength to open herself to love again, even in the wake of heartbreak. And before too long, she fortuitously meets someone who shares her passions.
"Learning to Fly "is Davis's fascinating account of her transformation. From her early tentative skydives, to zipping into her first wingsuit, to surviving devastating accidents against the background of breathtaking cliffs, to soaring beyond her past limits, she discovers new hope and joy in letting go. "Learning to Fly "isn't just an adventure but a woman's story of risk-taking and self-discovery, with love at its heart.

Leonard's story starts as rugby started - in the amateur days, when the Cockney Carpenter began playing for Barking and Saracens in the days before multi-million pound business owners and sponsorship deals. His big break came when he was invited to join the England squad for their tour to Argentina in 1990 and has been capped 100 times. It was a tour that precipitated one of the greatest periods in the history of the British game, and Leonard provides a compelling insight into life behind the international scenes with England and the Lions, as well as the domestic game through his time at Saracens and Harlequins. Once told that he would never walk again after undergoing life-saving surgery on his neck, Leonard describes the torment he went through during this period - both physical and financial - and how he fought against all the odds to re-establish himself on the international stage. With 100 Test caps won to date, and a career in rugby union spanning two decades, there is no more experienced player in the modern game. Leonard has plenty to tell about the people he has met during his career - Rob Andrew, Will Carling, Lawrence Dallaglio, Brian Moore, Dick Best and Clive Woodward all feature - and with nicknames like 'The Fun Bus' and 'The Scourge of the Barking Barmaids' the stories are as colourful and controversial as the man himself. All is revealed in this fascinating portrait of an English rugby legend who also reflects upon England's 2002 Six Nations campaign, his hopes for his international future and a tough year for Quins.