Biographies Memoirs Sports

A journalist who many iconic athletes have trusted to tell their stories (of both triumph and disgrace), Jim has had unprecedented access to the people, places, and extraordinary events in the world of sports. Asking tough but fair questions, he has broken numerous stories, and landed squarely in the middle of others, from the Ben Johnson and Barry Bonds steroid scandals, to Michael Jordan’s surprise retirement, to the off-the-court Kobe/Shaq feud which led to their on-the-court break up, to being part of the live broadcast for 22 Super Bowls.

No Hollywood scriptwriter could possibly have envisioned the breathless, adrenaline-pumping climax to the 2021 Formula 1 season. On the very last lap of the final race of an unbelievably arduous and controversial season, Red Bull's Max Verstappen nervelessly overtook the seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes to clinch the first place that thrust the young prodigy to the narrowest of victories and to his first World Drivers' title. He followed up by taking the 2022 title as well.

The standout memoir from NBA powerhouse Andre Iguodala, the indomitable sixth man of the champion Golden State Warriors. Andre Iguodala is one of the most admired players in the NBA. And fresh off the Warriors’ third NBA championship in the last four years, his game has never been stronger. Off the court, Iguodala has earned respect, too - for his successful tech investments, his philanthropy, and increasingly for his contributions to the conversation about race in America.

Mourinho is both a sumptuous celebration of The Special One's managerial career so far, and an enigmatic insight into his unique brand of football wisdom and philosophy. In the legendary manager's very first audiobook, and in his own images and captions, José Mourinho charts the peaks and troughs of the opening 15 years of what has been a stellar rise to the summit of the global game.

From Frank Brady, who wrote one of the best-selling books on Bobby Fischer of all time and who was himself a friend of Fischer’s, comes an impressively researched biography that for the first time completely captures the remarkable arc of Bobby Fischer’s life. When Bobby Fischer passed away in January 2008, he left behind a confounding legacy. Everyone knew the basics of his life—he began as a brilliant youngster, then became the pride of American chess, then took a sharp turn, struggling with paranoia and mental illness. But nobody truly understood him.

The 1989 Ironman World Championship was the greatest race ever in endurance sports. In a spectacular duel that became known as the Iron War, the world's two strongest athletes raced side by side at world-record pace for a grueling 139 miles. Driven by one of the fiercest rivalries in triathlon, Dave Scott and Mark Allen raced shoulder to shoulder through Ironman’s 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike race, and 26.2-mile marathon. After 8 punishing hours, both men would demolish the previous record - and cross the finish line a mere 58 seconds apart.

Total Competition is the most compelling, comprehensive and revealing insight into what it takes to get to the top in Formula One that has ever been published. Across four decades, Ross Brawn was one of the most innovative and successful technical directors and then team principals in Formula One. Leading Benetton, Ferrari, Honda, Brawn and Mercedes, he worked with drivers such as Michael Schumacher, Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton to make them world champions.

Filled with headline-making revelations, The Truth About Aaron is a shocking and moving account of promise, tragedy, and loss - of one man’s descent into rage and violence, as told by the person who knew him more closely than anyone else.

Jo Anne Normile was not supposed to keep the foal, an exuberant Thoroughbred with only a few white hairs on his reddish-brown forehead. But she fell in love with the young horse, who had literally been born into her arms. The breeder finally said she could keep the colt, whom she nicknamed "Baby" - but only if she raced him. It was difficult to take Baby away from the safety of his pasture. But Normile had made a promise.

Megan Rapinoe, Olympic gold medalist and two-time Women's World Cup champion, reveals for the first time her life both on and off the field. Guided by her personal journey into social justice, brimming with humor, humanity, and joy, she urges all of us to ask ourselves, What will you do with your one life?

At five feet ten inches tall, running back Walter Payton was not the largest player in the NFL, but he developed a larger-than-life reputation for his strength, speed, and grit. Nicknamed “Sweetness” during his college football days, he became the NFL’s all-time leader in rushing and all-purpose yards, capturing the hearts of fans in his adopted Chicago.

One April morning I left the Mexico border and walked north on the Pacific Crest Trail. For five months I hiked through the California desert, the snows of the Sierra Nevada, and the Cascade Mountains of Oregon and Washington. My goal was to succeed in an epic challenge: to hike 2,650 miles and reach Canada before the October snows.

Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse have been friends for 30 years, but when life intervened, what was once a joyous and spontaneous friendship dwindled to the odd phone call or occasional catch up. Then, Glory Be! They were both diagnosed with heart disease and realised that time is short. They'd better spend it fishing...So they dusted off their kits, chucked on their waders and ventured into the achingly beautiful British countryside to fish, rediscover the joys of their friendship and ruminate on some of life's most profound questions....

Originally published in 1994, this book was a fly-fishing phenomenon in the way Howell Raines' Fly Fishing Through the Mid-Life Crisis was. Taking his fishing hobby to near metaphysical levels, Ted Leeson tells about his passions: rivers, trout, and fly fishing. With wry humor and rare insight, he explores questions that engage most fishermen: What is it about rivers that draws us so irresistibly, and why does fly fishing seem such an aptly suited response?

Finding Gobi is the miraculous tale of Dion Leonard, a seasoned ultramarathon runner who crosses paths with a stray dog while competing in a 155-mile race through the Gobi Desert in China. The lovable pup, who would later earn the name Gobi, proved that what she lacked in size, she more than made up for in heart, as she went step for step with Dion over the Tian Shan Mountains and across massive sand dunes, keeping pace with him for 77 miles.

By age twenty, at the height of the Jazz Age, Trudy Ederle was the most accomplished swimmer in the world. She’d won Olympic gold and set a host of world records. But the greatest challenge remained: the English Channel. Only a few swimmers, none of them women, had ever made the treacherous twenty-one mile crossing. Trudy’s failed first attempt seemed to confirm what many naysayers believed: No woman could possibly accomplish such a thing. In 1926, Ederle proved them wrong.

No player has been more synonymous with the glory years of Manchester United Football Club over the past two decades than right-back Gary Neville. An Old Trafford regular since he attended his first match at the age of six, captain of the brilliant 1992 FA Youth Cup-winning team that became known as 'Fergie's Fledglings', outspoken representative of MUFC, Neville is the ultimate one-club man. He has been at the heart of it all, and he is telling it all.

An SBS Gurkha soldier's account of how his tough Nepali upbringing and the lessons learned in his army life enabled his record-breaking conquest of all 14 of the world's 8,000m peaks in under seven months. What happens when ambition meets limitless imagination? Enter Project Possible: a seemingly unreachable goal to climb all 14 'death zone' mountains in record time. The previous record was seven years, 10 months and six days. I did it in six months.

He is one of the most controversial and beloved athletes in history, a tennis legend and a volcanic, mesmerizing presence. But after reaching the top of his game - what came next? Fifteen years after his international number-one best seller You Cannot Be Serious, John McEnroe is back and ready to talk. Now the undisputed elder statesman of tennis, McEnroe has won over his critics as a brilliant commentator at the US Open, Wimbledon, and other Grand Slam tournaments.

Half an audiobook on basketball, half an audiobook on management techniques, The Gold Standard captures Coach K's personal style and approach to getting different (and sometimes difficult) people to work hard and succeed in reaching a common goal. "In all forms of leadership, whether you are a coach, a CEO, or a parent, there are four words that, when said, can bring out the best in your team, your employees, and your family...I believe in you. These four words can mean the difference between a fear of failure and the courage to try".