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Books > Biography > Sport
Red Sox MVP Pedroia tells this feel-good story about his love of
baseball, overcoming the naysayers, and winning a World Series in
his first season.
On the 50th anniversary of American Track and Field icon Steve Prefontaine’s tragic death comes an essential reappraisal of his life and legacy, a powerful work of narrative history exploring the forces and psychology that made Prefontaine great and separating the man from the myths.
In the fifty years since his tragic death in a car crash, Steve Prefontaine has towered over American distance running. One of the most recognizable and charismatic figures to ever run competitively in the United States, Prefontaine has endured as a source of inspiration and fascination—a talent who presaged the American running boom of the late 1970s and helped put Nike on the map as the brand’s first celebrity-athlete face.
Now on the anniversary of his untimely death, author Brendan O’Meara, host of the Creative Nonfiction podcast, offers a fresh, definitive retelling of Prefontaine’s life, revisiting one of the most enigmatic figures in American sports with a twenty-first-century lens. Through over a hundred and fifty original interviews with family, friends, teammates, and competitors, this long-overdue reappraisal of Prefontaine—the first such exhaustive treatment in almost thirty years—provides never-before-told stories about the unique talent, innovative mental strength, and personal struggles that shaped Prefontaine on and off the track. Bringing new depth to an athlete long eclipsed by his brash, aggressive running style and the heartbreak of his death at twenty-four, O’Meara finds the man inside the myth, scrutinizing a legacy that has shaped American sports culture for decades.
What emerges is a singular portrait of a distinctly American talent, a story written in the pines and firs of the Pacific Northwest back when running was more blue-collar love than corporate pursuit—the story of a runner whose short life casts a long, fast shadow.
Written by a New York Times bestselling author and reporter who “knows the world of professional golf…like few others” (The Wall Street Journal) comes “the most insightful and evenhanded book written yet about one of the signature athletes of the last twenty-five years” (Booklist, starred review) detailing Tiger Woods’s remarkable comeback and his journey back into winner’s circle.
Tiger Woods’s long descent into a personal and professional hell reached bottom in the early hours of Memorial Day in 2017. Woods’s DUI arrest that night came on the heels of a desperate spinal surgery, just weeks after he told close friends he might never play tournament golf again. His mug shot and alarming arrest video were painful to look at and, for Woods, a deep humiliation. The former paragon of discipline now found himself hopelessly lost and out of control, exposed for all the world to see. That episode could have marked the beginning of Tiger’s end. It proved to be the opposite.
Instead of sinking beneath the public disgrace of drug abuse and the private despair of a battered and ailing body, Woods embarked on the long road to redeeming himself. In The Second Life of Tiger Woods, Michael Bamberger, who has covered Woods since the golfer was an amateur, draws upon his deep network of sources inside locker rooms, caddie yards, clubhouses, fitness trailers, and back offices to tell the true and inspiring story of the legend’s return. Packed with new information and graced by insight, Bamberger’s story reveals how this iconic athlete clawed his way back to the top.
This is a “gripping” (Kirkus Reviews) and intimate portrait of a man who has spent his life in front of the camera but has done his best to make sure he was never really known. Here is Tiger, barefoot, in handcuffs, showing a police officer a witty and self-deprecating side of himself that the public never sees. Here is Tiger on the verge of tears with his children at the British Open. Here is Tiger trying to express his gratitude to his mother at a ceremony at the Rose Garden. In these pages, Tiger is funny, cold, generous, self-absorbed, inspiring—and real.
The Second Life of Tiger Woods is not only the saga of an exceptional man but also a celebration of second chances. Bamberger’s bracingly honest book is about what Tiger Woods did, and about what any of us can do, when we face our demons head-on.
Brilliant, honest, combative – Eddie Jones is a gigantic yet enigmatic figure in world rugby and a true legend of the game. In My Life And Rugby he tells his story for the first time, including the full inside story of England’s 2019 World Cup campaign.
Eddie Jones is one of the most experienced and decorated coaches in world rugby. He career has spanned four World Cups; from losing to England in the 100th minute in 2003, working with South Africa when they won in 2007, and causing the greatest upset in 2015 when he masterminded the Japanese defeat of South Africa.
Since taking over as head coach of England in 2015 Eddie Jones has masterminded a complete revival of the national team. He has won the Six Nations Championship back-to-back, including England’s first grand slam in a generation, their first ever whitewash of Australia, as well as taking them on their longest ever winning streak.
In his explosive autobiography Jones shows how his fiercely competitive attitude, his love of coaching and his philosophy of the game were formed while growing up in a tough working-class suburb of Sydney as a small half-Japanese kid, playing schoolboy rugby alongside the legendary Ella brothers.
Learning from the extreme highs and lows of his own playing career – the numerous successes playing for Randwick and New South Wales but also the painful disappointment of never playing for Australia – he shows what it takes to be the best in the world and how everything he has learnt about the game on and off the pitch has gone into plotting England’s route to the top of World Rugby.
My Life And Rugby is the story of one of the most compelling and singular figures in rugby, told with unflinching honesty this is the ultimate rugby book for all fans of the sport.
FEATURING A FOREWORD FROM MARK CAVENDISH AND CONTRIBUTIONS FROM GERAINT
THOMAS, CHRIS FROOME AND ROD ELLINGWORTH.
A rare insight into the heart of pro cycling and the inner workings of
the peloton, from Team Sky and Ineos Grenadiers legend, Luke Rowe.
There’s one well-established truth in professional cycling: the
strongest always wins. Yet in a sport of champions, victory is only
possible as a team. At the heart of that team effort, that unity, is
the road captain.
After more than a decade as the pre-eminent road captain in
professional bike racing, Luke Rowe reveals here for the first time the
intricacies of that role. As he lifts the lid, he provides the ultimate
insider’s view on racing tactics and strategy within the professional
peloton. He gives readers an unprecedented insight into what exactly is
going on within that pulsing mass of athletic power and
state-of-the-art machinery, seen through the eyes of the rider tasked
with leading his team to glory.
Featuring exhilarating stories from his years at Team Sky and Ineos
Grenadiers – where he played a fundamental role in the team’s dominance
at the Tour de France, leading Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas and Egan
Bernal to their Tour victories – Luke shows what it’s like to manage a
road race unfolding at 60km/h. As he points out, it is ‘like playing
chess on wheels’.
Road Captain immerses readers in the team dynamics, tactical
complexities and split-second decisions vital to success in
professional cycling. It discloses the mental and physical battles
taking place within a group of riders, and reveals how the biggest bike
races are won.
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