Biographies Memoirs Sports

Scotty Bowman is recognized as the best coach in hockey history, and one of the greatest coaches in all of sports. He won more games and more Stanley Cups than anyone else. Despite all the changes in hockey, he coached at the very top for more than four decades, his first Cup win and his last an astonishing thirty-nine years apart. Yet perhaps most uniquely, different from anyone else who has ever lived or ever will again, he has continuously experienced the best of hockey since he was fourteen years old.

Cameron Hanes discovered his true passion for bowhunting when he was twenty. Inspired by the physical challenges of stalking elk in the Oregon wilderness—traversing mountainous terrain, braving erratic weather, and evading his quarry’s even more dangerous predators—he began an ever-evolving journey of self-improvement. To become the best bowhunter of wild elk, to the caliber he believed he could be, Cam realized he would need more than archery skills.

Alone on the Wall recounts the most astonishing achievements of Honnold's extraordinary life and career, brimming with lessons on living fearlessly, taking risks, and maintaining focus even in the face of extreme danger. Now Honnold tells, for the first time and in his own words, the story of his three hours and 56 minutes on the sheer face of El Cap, which Outside called "the moon landing of free soloing.... A generation-defining climb. Bad ass and beyond words.... One of the pinnacle sporting moments of all time."

Brian Burke is one of the biggest hockey personalities - no, personalities full-stop - in the hockey media landscape. His brashness makes him a magnet for attention, and he does nothing to shy away from it. Most famous for advocating "pugnacity, truculence, testosterone, and belligerence" during his tenure at the helm of the Maple Leafs, Burke has lived and breathed hockey his whole life.

As one of the NHL's most polarizing players, Sean Avery turned the rules of professional hockey on their head. For 13 seasons, he played for some of the most storied franchises in the league, including the Detroit Red Wings, the Los Angeles Kings, and the New York Rangers, making his mark in each city as a player who was sometimes loved, sometimes despised, and always controversial. In Offside, Avery displays his trademark candor about the world of pro hockey and does for it what Jim Bouton's game-changing Ball Four did for baseball.

Richard Henry Dana, a law student turned sailor for health reasons, sailed in 1834 aboard the brig Pilgrim on a voyage from Boston around Cape Horn to California. Drawing from his journals, Two Years Before the Mast gives a vivid and detailed account, shrewdly observed and beautifully described, of a common sailor's wretched treatment at sea, and of a way of life virtually unknown at that time.

In Above the Noise, DeRozan opens up about both his proudest triumphs and the times he felt so weighed down he couldn’t get out of bed. He reflects on what it took to make a name for himself in a new country after getting drafted by the Toronto Raptors. He recounts the pressure of playing with veteran athletes as a twenty-year-old rookie, and the pain of losing role models. And he reveals what it felt like to be traded away from the team that he wanted to play with for the rest of his career.

Edge of the Map is equal parts inspiring, dramatic, and heartbreaking. One of America's greatest high altitude mountaineers, Christine Boskoff was at the top of her career when she and her partner perished in an avalanche in 2006. Principled and humble, Boskoff was also a deeply loved role model in the climbing community.

In the history of modern sport, there have never been two high-level teammates who loathed each other the way Shaquille O’Neal loathed Kobe Bryant and Kobe Bryant loathed Shaquille O’Neal. From public sniping and sparring, to physical altercations and the repeated threats of trade, it was warfare. And yet, despite eight years of infighting and hostility, by turns mediated and encouraged by coach Phil Jackson, the Shaq-Kobe duo resulted in one of the greatest dynasties in NBA history.

Matt Fitzgerald has already made a name for himself in the endurance-sport community with books like 80/20 Running, How Bad Do You Want It?, and Iron War. He is an accomplished amateur runner, but if he follows the training, nutrition, and lifestyle of an elite runner, just how fast could he go? He is approaching his mid-40s, so the time to do this is now. He at last has the financial means to do nothing but train.

Few people know the answers better than Emma Hayes. As the coach of Chelsea FC Women, she has led the club to 14 major trophies. She is a widely celebrated figure in sports media as a woman starting to get equal recognition in this space, and has been named TV pundit of the year by both Broadcast Magazine and the Sports Journalists Association. In this book, Emma shares her experience of managing a high-performance football team to draw out life lessons and techniques that listeners can apply to their own professional and personal circumstances.

What’s it take to overcome the odds and change the game? That’s at the heart of the warm and revealing conversations between epic NBA sharpshooters—and father and son—Dell and Stephen Curry in their Audible Original Heat Check. While Dell laid the groundwork, Stephen later delivered a whole new era of jaw-dropping three-pointers from a time previously dominated by flying dunks. In these episodes, we hear how Stephen experienced his life’s journey and how Dell saw it play out.

In early 2015, Roderick Toombs, aka Rowdy Roddy Piper, began researching his own autobiography with a trip through Western Canada. He was rediscovering his youth, a part of his life he never discussed during his sixty-one years, many spent as one of the greatest talents in the history of pro wrestling. Following his death due to a heart attack that July, two of his children took on the job of telling Roddy's story, separating fact from fiction in the extraordinary life of their father.

When Des woke up on April 16, 2018, the morning of the Boston Marathon, it was 39 degrees and raining, with high, gusty winds. The weather didn’t bother her. In fact, she thought it might be a blessing. She was far from peak form—recovering from illness and questioning her running future—and didn’t expect much of herself that day. But as she ticked off mile after mile in the brutal conditions, passing familiar landmarks on the course she knew and loved, something shifted. Opportunity unexpectedly presented itself. Des tapped into her inner strength and found a reason to race.

Frenchman Lionel Terray is one of mountaineering history's greatest alpinists, and his autobiography, Conquistadors of the Useless, stands among the "100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time", according to National Geographic Adventure magazine. Following World War II, when France desperately needed successes to heal its wounds, Terray emerged as a national hero, conquering summits atop the planet's highest mountains.

Sultan tells the story of cricket's greatest left-arm bowler, and one of its enduring survivors, who was chosen from the streets of Lahore and groomed by Imran Khan to become champion of the world—he was Man of the Match in the final of the 1992 World Cup which Pakistan won. Along the way were unforgettable rivalries with the legends of his time, from Viv Richards and Ian Botham to Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne. All of this against a backdrop of conspiracy and intrigue over ball tampering and match-fixing, about which Wasim finally sets the story straight.

Ever since his astonishing victory in the 1991 PGA Championship, John Daly has enthralled fans with his big drives, bigger personality, and "Grip It and Rip It" approach to golf - and to life. Usually seen with a Marlboro Light dangling from his lip, John is the unchained, unpredictable, unapologetic bad boy of professional golf. My Life in and out of the Rough is a thrillingly - and sometimes shockingly - candid memoir of a larger-than-life athlete battling assorted addictions (alcohol, gambling, chocolate, sex), his weight, and, perhaps worst of all, divorce lawyers.

Professional wrestler Ashley Massaro died by suicide in 2019. Ashley vs WWE follows events leading up to her death and examines allegations of abuse while she was wrestling for WWE. As journalist Isobel Thompson delves into Ashley's story, she investigates whether her allegations are just the tip of the iceberg. This story takes Isobel from the UK, to Ashley’s home of Long Island, and into the world of WWE wrestling in the early 2000s - where the power, influence and misogyny of the real world played out through the characters in the ring.

The first English-language biography of Formula 1’s hottest new talent, Dutchman Max Verstappen. Few drivers have ever shaken up Formula 1 in quite the same way as Verstappen. Already the youngest competitor in F1 history, having made his breakthrough in 2015 aged just 17, his debut race for Red Bull at the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix saw him become the youngest driver ever to win a race, achieve a podium finish or even lead a lap.

Mark Messier is one of the most accomplished athletes and dynamic leaders in the history of professional sports. He won the Stanley Cup five times with the Edmonton Oilers during their dynasty years and once more with the New York Rangers, ending the team’s 54-year championship drought. He is second on the all-time career lists for playoff points and third for regular season games played and for regular season points. Notably, he is the only player to have captained two different NHL franchises to championships.