Outdoors Memoirs

To most Canadians, the Molson name is part of the very fabric of Canada. Since 1786, when John Molson founded his first brewery in Montreal, it has become synonymous with beer, hockey, and philanthropy. Few realize, however, how close the family came in recent years to losing control of the enterprise. Back to Beer...and Hockey offers intimate details of the life and work of Eric Molson, who not only saved the company, but positioned it to thrive as a global brewery into the 21st century.

At basketball-crazy Durfee High School in Fall River, Massachusetts, junior guard Chris Herren carried his family’s and the city’s dreams on his skinny frame. His grandfather, father, and older brother had created their own sports legends in a declining city; he was the last, best hope for a career beyond the shuttered mills and factories. Herren was heavily recruited by major universities, chosen as a McDonald’s All-American, featured in a Sports Illustrated cover story, and at just seventeen years old became the central figure in Fall River Dreams, an acclaimed book about the 1994 Durfee team’s quest for the state championship.

Nine-time NBA Champion coach Phil Jackson knows all about being in the spotlight, about high-profile, high-pressure seasons coaching gigantic personalities through adversity and controversy in the middle of a media hothouse in which every move is another headline, another installment in the soap opera. But nothing had quite prepared him for the only-in-Hollywood high-wire act of the Lakers' 2003-2004 season.

Journey with Olympian Ryan Hall as he reflects on the joys and trials of the running life and, along the way, shows you how his faith has helped him win in his workouts, races, and overall mindset. Ryan Hall is an Olympic athlete and American record holder in the half marathon (59:43). But as a kid, Ryan hated running. He wanted nothing to do with the sport until one day, he felt compelled to run the 15 miles around his neighborhood lake. He was hooked.

Two-time championship-winning and record-breaking racing driver Jason Plato is a living, breathing example of what you shouldn't do if you want to become a professional racing driver. Since joining the Williams Touring Car team in 1997 it's no coincidence that he has had more race wins than Lewis Hamilton and Stirling Moss, competed in more races than Jenson Button and set the largest number of fastest laps ever. But it's also no coincidence that he once spent several days in prison in Monaco for stealing a JCB.

In Dream Team, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum delivers the untold story of the greatest team ever assembled: the 1992 U.S. Olympic men's basketball team that captivated the world, kindled the hoop dreams of countless children around the planet, and remade the NBA into a global sensation. As a senior staff writer for Sports Illustrated, McCallum enjoyed a courtside seat for the most exciting basketball spectacle on earth, covering the Dream Team from its inception to the gold medal ceremony in Barcelona.

For nearly forty years he has ruthlessly exploited and dominated Formula One motor racing, and now he is setting his sights further afield...This is the true story of Bernie Ecclestone, the street-smart, working-class kid who masterminded the transformation of Formula One from an amateur sport of the fifties into a global billion dollar industry of the 21st century.

Ray Lewis, legendary Baltimore Ravens linebacker and one of the greatest defensive players of his generation, holds nothing back on the state of football as well as his troubled childhood, his rise to athletic greatness, the storm that threatened to ruin his NFL career, and the devastating injury that nearly cost him a final moment of glory.

Before primetime ESPN coverage, lucrative branding deals like Air Jordans, and $40 million annual player salaries, there was the NBA of the 1970s and 1980s. Enter Dan Shaughnessy, then the beat reporter for The Boston Globe who covered the Boston Celtics every day from 1982 to1986. It was a time when reporters travelled with professional teams—flying the same commercial airlines, riding the same buses, and staying in the same hotels. Drawing on unprecedented access and personal experiences, Shaughnessy takes us inside the legendary Larry Bird-led Celtics teams.

The cruising tale is full of the sights and sounds, the fragrances and native customs of foreign lands, especially Central American and the Caribbean. It is a story of a leisurely sail through the Gulf of Cortez and on through Panama Canal to the Azores and England. Cruising in Seraffyn is also a carefully thought out guide to living aboard a small boat, with fun and economy as the guiding principles. Four appendices provide data that is vital for anyone comtemplating long-distance cruising.

Over the past two decades, Life in the Fast Lane has grown to become a true staple of Formula 1 literature. In essence a monthly diary of a Benetton grand prix mechanic, this essential book gives a behind-the-scenes account of daily life in the trenches of F1 during the tragic and turbulent 1994 season.

On May 22, 2010, at the age of 13, American teenager Jordan Romero became the youngest person to climb to the summit of Mount Everest. At 15, he became the youngest person to reach the summits of the tallest mountains on each of the seven continents. In this energizing memoir for young adults, Jordan recounts his experience, which started as a spark of an idea at the age of nine and, many years of training and hard work later, turned into a dream come true.

The remarkable true story of a lone genius whose quest to unlock the science behind the perfect swing changed golf forever. In 1939, Homer Kelley played golf for the first time and scored 116. Frustrated, he did not play again for six months; when he did he carded a 77. Determined to understand why he was able to shave nearly 40 strokes off his score, Kelley spent three decades of trial and error to unlock the answer and to recapture that one wonderful day when golf was easy and enjoyable.

Bill Parcells may be the most iconic football coach of our time. During his decades-long tenure as an NFL coach, he turned failing franchises into contenders. He led the ailing New York Giants to two Super Bowl victories, turned the New England Patriots into an NFL powerhouse, reinvigorated the New York Jets, brought the Dallas Cowboys back to life, and was most recently enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

After years of watching Kenyan athletes win the world's biggest races, Adharanand Finn set out to discover just what it was that made them so fast - and to see if he could keep up. Packing up his life he moved from Devon to Iten, in Kenya, to eat with, interview, sleep beside and - most importantly – run with, some of the greatest runners in the world. In the distance rests his dream, to join the best of the Kenyan athletes in an epic first marathon across the Kenyan plains.

Unrelenting winds, carnivorous polar bears, snake nests, sweltering heat, and constant hunger. Paddling from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay, following the 2,000-mile route made famous by Eric Sevareid in his 1935 classic Canoeing with the Cree, Natalie Warren and Ann Raiho faced unexpected trials, some harrowing, some simply odd. Warren's spellbinding account retraces the women's journey from inspiration to Arctic waters, giving listeners an insider view of planning a three-month canoe expedition to the successful accomplishment of the adventure of a lifetime.

Featuring interviews from Patriots players and coaches, Holley presents a fascinating portrait of the partnership between Tom Brady, the Patriots' star quarterback, and Bill Belichick, the team's prolific coach. Chock-full of behind-the-scenes anecdotes and information exploring how they have strategized and weathered controversies, all culminating in four Super Bowl rings, this is required listening for any Patriots fan and students of the game of football.

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 Super Bowl champion wide receiver for the New England Patriots shares his inspiring story of an underdog kid who was always doubted to becoming one of the most reliable and inspiring players in the NFL. Relentless is the story of Julian Edelman's rise, and the continuing dominance of the Patriot dynasty, filled with memories of growing up with a father who was as demanding as any NFL coach, his near-constant fight to keep his intensity and competitiveness in check in high school and college, and his celebrated nine seasons with the Patriots.

This is a book about ten women over the past three hundred years who have found walking essential to their sense of themselves, as people and as writers. Wanderers traces their footsteps, from eighteenth-century parson's daughter Elizabeth Carter—who desired nothing more than to be taken for a vagabond in the wilds of southern England—to modern walker-writers such as Nan Shepherd and Cheryl Strayed.