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.

Showcasing the evocative artwork created by John Moll for this special edition, James A. Michener’s The Watermen is a unique tribute to the adventurous seafarers of the Chesapeake Bay. Excerpted from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author’s classic Chesapeake, this enthralling novel has a unity and a spirit all its own, telling the story of the bay and its wildlife, but especially of the watermen, from their favorite pastimes to their rivalries in hunting, oystering, racing, and fighting. Gorgeously illustrated, brilliantly conceived, The Watermen is a narrative and visual feast from one of America’s favorite storytellers. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from James A. Michener's Hawaii. Praise for Chesapeake “Another of James Michener’s great mines of narrative, character and lore.”—The Wall Street Journal “[A] marvelous panorama of history seen in the lives of symbolic people of the ages . . . an emotionally and intellectually appealing book.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “Michener’s most ambitious work of fiction in theme and scope.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer “Magnificently written . . . one of those rare novels that is enthusiastically passed from friend to friend.”—Associated Press

Photographs depict the daily life of Chesapeake Bay fisherman and are accompanied by the comments and observations of the watermen

Cecelski, "chronicles the world of slave and free black fishermen, pilots, sailors, ferrymen, and other laborers who, from the colonial era through Reconstruction, plied the vast inland waters of North Carolina from the Outer Banks to the upper reaches of tidewater rivers."

Showcasing the evocative artwork created by John Moll for this special edition, James A. Michener’s The Watermen is a unique tribute to the adventurous seafarers of the Chesapeake Bay. Excerpted from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author’s classic Chesapeake, this enthralling novel has a unity and a spirit all its own, telling the story of the bay and its wildlife, but especially of the watermen, from their favorite pastimes to their rivalries in hunting, oystering, racing, and fighting. Gorgeously illustrated, brilliantly conceived, The Watermen is a narrative and visual feast from one of America’s favorite storytellers. Praise for Chesapeake “Another of James Michener’s great mines of narrative, character and lore.”—The Wall Street Journal “[A] marvelous panorama of history seen in the lives of symbolic people of the ages . . . an emotionally and intellectually appealing book.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “Michener’s most ambitious work of fiction in theme and scope.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer “Magnificently written . . . one of those rare novels that is enthusiastically passed from friend to friend.”—Associated Press

Waterman is the first comprehensive biography of Duke Kahanamoku (1890–1968): swimmer, surfer, Olympic gold medalist, Hawaiian icon, waterman. Long before Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz made their splashes in the pool, Kahanamoku emerged from the backwaters of Waikiki to become America’s first superstar Olympic swimmer. The original “human fish” set dozens of world records and topped the world rankings for more than a decade; his rivalry with Johnny Weissmuller transformed competitive swimming from an insignificant sideshow into a headliner event. Kahanamoku used his Olympic renown to introduce the sport of “surf-riding,” an activity unknown beyond the Hawaiian Islands, to the world. Standing proudly on his traditional wooden longboard, he spread surfing from Australia to the Hollywood crowd in California to New Jersey. No American athlete has influenced two sports as profoundly as Kahanamoku did, and yet he remains an enigmatic and underappreciated figure: a dark-skinned Pacific Islander who encountered and overcame racism and ignorance long before the likes of Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, and Jackie Robinson. Kahanamoku’s connection to his homeland was equally important. He was born when Hawaii was an independent kingdom; he served as the sheriff of Honolulu during Pearl Harbor and World War II and as a globetrotting “Ambassador of Aloha” afterward; he died not long after Hawaii attained statehood. As one sportswriter put it, Duke was “Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey combined down here.” In Waterman, award-winning journalist David Davis examines the remarkable life of Duke Kahanamoku, in and out of the water. Purchase the audio edition.

Combines a natural history of the Atlantic blue crab with an historical and ecological study of Chesapeake Bay and a chronicle of the commercial crabber's year