The courageous and transformative story of triathlon hall-of-fame athlete Julie Moss. In 1982, Julie Moss ran the Ironman triathlon for her college senior research project. Her idea was quirky, even crazy: a 140.6-mile combination of swimming, cycling, and running. Julie brought no triathlon experience, but she did bring a latent willpower that, the world soon found out, wouldn’t be denied. What happened next changed Ironman forever . . . After becoming the unlikely leader during the final leg, Julie fell and lost all bodily function fifteen meters (50 feet) from the finish. While on hands and knees, she watched her rival pass her. Thirty seconds later, she crawled across the line—stunning the millions who were watching on television. At age twenty-three, Julie became the instant global icon. That this young co-ed would represent such a new sport was unlikely. That she would inspire millions in the three decades years since was unthinkable. Yet, it happened. And keeps happening. In 2017 Julie won her age group in the Ironman North American Championships—racing 25 minutes faster than her 1982 Ironman. How does a 58-year-old woman beat the time of her 23-year-old self? Which begs the question, Could she also beat her 1982 time in the more demanding Kona? The world will find out in October 2018. Crawl of Fame is the long-awaited release of her incredible story. Julie describes how she found her greater purpose while lying across the finish line at Ironman 1982 — and how that greater purpose as a woman, athlete, endurance sports symbol and, now, iconic figure has defined her life and inspired others since.

The Cooperstown Casebook by Jay Jaffe provides a definitive guide to the greatest players in baseball history, and the Hall of Fame.

An extraordinary and inspiring chronicle of one woman’s harrowing journey to become the first female to kayak the entire Amazon River. Part memoir, part feminist manifesto, Amazon Woman shows what incredible feats we are capable of and will encourage people, especially women, across all backgrounds and ages to find the courage and strength to live the life they’ve imagined. This 148-day journey began on Darcy Gaetcher’s 35th birthday. The emotional waters that would fester and erupt on the ensuing journey was often more challenging to navigate than the mighty river itself. With blistering lips and irradiated fingernails, Darcy would tackle raging Class Five whitewater for twenty-five days straight, barely survived a dynamite-filled canyon being prepared for a new hydroelectric plan. She and her two companions would encounter illegal loggers, narco-traffickers, murderous Shining Path rebels, and ruthless poachers in the black market trade in endangered species. In a desperate attempt meant to give her some pretense of control, Darcy even cut off all her hair before entering Peru’s notoriously dangerous “Red Zone” in hopes of passing for a boy and being seen as less of a target. At once a heart-pounding adventure and a celebration of pushing personal limits, Amazon Woman speaks to all of us feeling trapped by our desk-bound, online society. This a story of finding the courage and strength to challenge nature, cultures, social norms, and oneself.

Wife and mother. Teacher and musician. Marathoner and rock climber. At 66, Dierdre Wolownick-Honnold became the oldest woman to climb El Capitan in Yosemite--and in The Sharp End of Life: A Mother’s Story, she shares her intimate journey, revealing how her climbing achievement reflects a broader story of courage and persistence. Dierdre grew up under the watchful eyes of a domineering mother and realized early on that her parents’ plans for her future weren’t what she wanted for herself. Later, what seemed like a storybook romance brought escape, with new experiences and eye-opening travel, but she quickly discovered that her husband was not the happy-go-lucky man he had first appeared. Adapting as best she could, Dierdre juggled work and raising two young children, encouraging them to be fearlessly confident. She noted with delight how her “little lady” Stasia took it upon herself to look out for her baby brother, and watched in amazement as Alex (Honnold of "Free Solo" fame) started climbing practically before he could crawl. After years of struggle in her marriage and her ultimate divorce, Dierdre found inspiration in her now-adult children’s passions, as well as new depths within herself. At Stasia’s urging, she took up running at age 54 and soon completed several marathons. Then at age 58, Alex led her on her first rock climbs. A world of friendship and support suddenly opened up to her within the climbing “tribe,” culminating in her record-setting ascent of El Cap with her son. From confused young wife and busy but lonely mother to confident middle-aged athlete, Dierdre brings the reader along as she finds new strength, happiness, and community in the outdoors--and a life of learning, acceptance, and spirit.

A New York Times bestselling author takes readers inside the Ironman triathlon. As he did so masterfully in his New York Times bestseller, The Gatekeepers, Jacques Steinberg creates a compelling portrait of people obsessed with reaching a life-defining goal. In this instance, the target is an Ironman triathlon-a 2.4-mile open-water swim followed by a 112-mile bike ride, then finally a 26-mile marathon run, all of which must be completed in no more than seventeen hours. Steinberg focuses not on the professionals who live off the prize money and sponsorships but on a handful of triathletes who regard the sport as a hobby. Vividly capturing the grueling preparation, the suspense of completing each event of the triathlon, and the spectacular feats of human endurance, Steinberg plumbs the physical and emotional toll as well as the psychological payoff on the participants of the Ford Ironman Arizona 2009. His You Are an Ironman is both a riveting sports narrative and a fascinating, behind-the scenes study of what makes these athletes keep going..

A 2017 Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, this witty and entertaining contemporary debut deftly combines high school drama with pitch-perfect flirty banter. Taylor Simmons is screwed. Things were hard enough when her dedication to her studies earned her the title of Ice Queen, but after she got drunk at a party and woke up next to bad boy surfer Evan McKinley, the entire school seems intent on tearing Taylor down with mockery and gossip. Desperate to salvage her reputation, Taylor persuades Evan to pretend they're in a serious romantic relationship. After all, it's better to be the girl who tames the wild surfer than just another notch on his surfboard. Readers will be ready to sign their own love contract after reading The Way to Game the Walk of Shame, a fun and addicting contemporary YA romance by Jenn P. Nguyen and chosen by readers like you for Macmillan's young adult imprint Swoon Reads. Praise for The Way to Game the Walk of Shame: "The Way to Game the Walk of Shame is the cutest heart-swelling romance to hit the shelves in ages." —Pooled Ink "A feel good romance with tons of laughs and flirty banter." —Young Adult Book Madness “I love that it's so funny, yet at the same time the characters have a lot of depth and emotional growth.” —Ashley Maker, reader on SwoonReads.com

Dayne Matthews returns to Hollywood and is caught up in the dangerous world of fame and paparazzi. Katy Hart is delighted when she learns she can play opposite of Dayne in a Hollywood film. The choices these two make will change their lives forever.

Minnesota sports legend Bud Grant tells the story of his remarkable life as a player and coach in this rich firsthand account. From surviving polio in childhood to a shining college sports career and playing both basketball and football professionally, and from coaching a championship-winning Canadian team to leading the Minnesota Vikings to four Super Bowls, Grant shares his personal perspective for the first time in this autobiography with entertaining detail and refreshing openness. The book recounts his experiences with star players and gives the inside story on Grant’s controversial retirement in 1983 and his return to the sideline in 1985. Minnesota sports lovers will also enjoy Grant’s reflection on his own idiosyncrasies, including his famous love of cold-weather football and banning of sideline heaters, and his postretirement life spent devoted to environmental protection and being an outdoorsman.

The feel-good underdog story of the first American swimmer to win Olympic gold, set against the turbulent rebirth of the modern Games, that “bring[s] to life an inspiring figure and illuminate[s] an overlooked chapter in America’s sports history” (The Wall Street Journal) “Once or twice in a decade, one of these stories . . . like Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken [or] Daniel Brown’s The Boys in the Boat . . . captures the imagination of the public. . . . Add The Watermen by Michael Loynd to this illustrious list.”—Swimming World Winner of the International Swimming Hall of Fame’s Paragon Award and the Buck Dawson Authors Award In the early twentieth century, few Americans knew how to swim, and swimming as a competitive sport was almost unheard of. That is, until Charles Daniels took to the water. On the surface, young Charles had it all: high-society parents, a place at an exclusive New York City prep school, summer vacations in the Adirondacks. But the scrawny teenager suffered from extreme anxiety thanks to a sadistic father who mired the family in bankruptcy and scandal before abandoning Charles and his mother altogether. Charles’s only source of joy was swimming. But with no one to teach him, he struggled with technique—until he caught the eye of two immigrant coaches hell-bent on building a U.S. swim program that could rival the British Empire’s seventy-year domination of the sport. Interwoven with the story of Charles’s efforts to overcome his family’s disgrace is the compelling history of the struggle to establish the modern Olympics in an era when competitive sports were still in their infancy. When the powerful British Empire finally legitimized the Games by hosting the fourth Olympiad in 1908, Charles’s hard-fought rise climaxed in a gold-medal race where British judges prepared a trap to ensure the American upstart’s defeat. Set in the early days of a rapidly changing twentieth century, The Watermen—a term used at the time to describe men skilled in water sports—tells an engrossing story of grit, of the growth of a major new sport in which Americans would prevail, and of a young man’s determination to excel.

_______________ 'A triumph of scholarship and sympathy... one of the great post-war biographies' - Independent 'A landmark in scholarly criticism... Knowlson is the world's largest Beckett scholar. His life is right up there with George Painter's Proust and Richard Ellmann's Joyce in sensitivity and fascination' - Daily Telegraph 'It is hard to imagine a fuller portrait of the man who gave our age some of the myths by which it lives' - Evening Standard _______________ SHORTLISTED FOR THE WHITBREAD PRIZE _______________ Samuel Beckett's long-standing friend, James Knowlson, recreates Beckett's youth in Ireland, his studies at Trinity College, Dublin in the early 1920s and from there to the Continent, where he plunged into the multicultural literary society of late-1920s Paris. The biography throws new light on Beckett's stormy relationship with his mother, the psychotherapy he received after the death of his father and his crucial relationship with James Joyce. There is also material on Beckett's six-month visit to Germany as the Nazi's tightened their grip. The book includes unpublished material on Beckett's personal life after he chose to live in France, including his own account of his work for a Resistance cell during the war, his escape from the Gestapo and his retreat into hiding. Obsessively private, Beckett was wholly committed to the work which eventually brought his public fame, beginning with the controversial success of "Waiting for Godot" in 1953, and culminating in the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.