Professional Sports

After sailing 300,000 miles and weathering dozens of storms in all the world's oceans, John Kretschmer has plenty of stories and advice to share. John's offshore training passages sell out a year in advance, and his entertaining presentations are popular at boat shows and yacht clubs all over the English-speaking world. John's talent for storytelling enchants his audience as it soaks up the lessons he learned during his often challenging voyages. Now you can take a seat next to John - at a lesser cost - and get the knowledge you need to fulfill your own dream of blue-water adventure.

They are motivators, key strategists, tough bosses, and choreographers. They can be branded as heroes, ousted as scapegoats, quietly valued as friends, and everything in between. It's all in the job description for an NHL head coach. In Behind the Bench, Craig Custance sits down for film sessions and candid conversations with some of the game's most notable modern luminaries - names like Mike Babcock, Joel Quenneville, Dan Bylsma, Ken Hitchcock, and Claude Julien - all of whom share their singular views on topics ranging from leadership secrets to on-ice game plans.

Men's hockey in Canada may hog the limelight, but interest in women's hockey has never been higher. The Role I Played is a memoir of Sami Jo Small's 10 years with Canada's National Women's Hockey Team. Beginning with her experience as a rookie at the first-ever women's Olympic hockey tournament in Nagano in 1998 and culminating with Canada's third straight Olympic gold medal in Vancouver in 2010, the veteran goaltender gives the listener behind-the-scenes insight into one of the most successful teams in sports history.

Is there a way to find truth in the stuff of legend? You may think you know Andre the Giant - but who was Andre Roussimoff? This comprehensive biography addresses the burning questions, outrageous stories, and common misconceptions about his height, his weight, his drawing power as a superstar, and his seemingly unparalleled capacity for food and alcohol. But more importantly, The Eighth Wonder of the World transports listeners beyond the smoke and mirrors of professional wrestling into the life of a real man.

The Greatest Fishing Stories Ever Told is sure to ignite recollections of your own angling experiences as well as send your imagination adrift. In this compilation of tales you will hear about two kinds of places: the ones you have been to before and love to remember and the places you have only dreamed of going and would love to visit. Whether you prefer to fish rivers, estuaries, or beaches, this book will take you to all kinds of water, where you'll experience catching every kind of fish.

Lex Luger, wrestling mega-sensation and three-time world heavyweight champion, ruled the ring for years as "The Total Package." Yet backstage, he was wrestling with addictions to sex, drugs, and alcohol - things he clung to even when his mistress died suddenly of a drug overdose and Lex went to jail. In Wrestling with the Devil, Lex Luger reveals never-before-told stories from his career, his struggle with personal demons, and how, through unexpected faith, grace, and redemption, he overcame all odds to fight the only battle that really matters.

In his best-selling first book, Jeremy Wade, the star of the hit TV series River Monsters, memorably recounted his adventures on six continents in pursuit of fish of staggering proportions and terrifying demeanor. Now "the greatest angling explorer of his generation" (Independent on Sunday) returns to delight listeners with a book of an entirely different sort, the book he was always destined to write - the distillation of a life spent fishing. Thoughtful and funny, brimming with wisdom and above all, adventure, these are pitch-perfect reflections....

"Hard pass." That's what the last girl I slept with said when she got her first sober glimpse of me. She laughed, walked out of my penthouse - and I never saw her again. It doesn't matter that I'm a rich, professional athlete; what mattered was my face. Beauty might only be skin deep for some - but I know better. "Pay up." That's what the last girl I spoke to said over the phone when I made her an offer she couldn't refuse.

Reiner Strickland had led his team to three national championships, and playing a knight in shining armor was all in a day's work for the NFL star quarterback. Only his damsel in distress had no idea who he was, and it threw him off his game. He was the face of his organization and was used to everyone recognizing him. Her innocence, charm, and beauty captivated him. It wasn't until after they parted ways that he realized that he never got her number or even her last name.

The Wrestlers' Wrestlers spotlights elite performers and analyzes exactly what made them your favorite wrestler's favorite wrestlers. Authors Dan Murphy and Brian Young interviewed more than 40 in-ring veterans, historians, referees, and promoters to get a unique insider's look at the people who have made a lasting impact on the world of professional wrestling. It offers a special peek "behind the curtain" and a rare look into the top stars' thoughts on their peers, their influences, and their personal favorites.

In Brave Enough, Jessie Diggins reveals the true story of her journey from the American Midwest into sports history. With candid charm and characteristic grit, she connects the dots from her free-spirited upbringing in the woods of Minnesota to racing in the bright spotlights of the Olympics. Going far beyond stories of races and ribbons, she describes the challenges and frustrations of becoming a serious athlete.

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.

At age 20, Thomas Dekker was already earning €100,000 a year - as an amateur bike racer. The next year, he turned pro and his salary quadrupled then rose again to €900,000 as he established his position as a super-domestique among Europe's wealthiest superteams. The sport world marveled at Dekker's rise as the young racer set his ambitions on capturing cycling's biggest prizes for himself. Before long, though, Dekker found himself corrupted by money, dazzled by fame, and cracking under the relentless pressure to perform at a superhuman level.

Seven Days in Augusta is a celebration of what makes the Masters singular and iconic, from the par-3 contest to Amen Corner to Butler Cabin. Mark Cannizzaro goes behind the scenes of the exclusive competition, covering wide-ranging topics including green jacket rituals, tales from The Crow's Nest atop the clubhouse, the extreme lengths some fans have gone to acquire tickets, and what goes on outside the gates during Masters week. Features some of the most memorable and dramatic moments from the tournament's history, this is an essential, expansive look at golf's favorite event.

Mason James is the responsible one who stayed behind to run the ranch while his brother, Rock, took off to play professional hockey. Women have used him before to get to his brother - and Mason intends never to get burned again. But after he meets quirky Tessa Kane at his brother's wedding, Mason discovers he's ready to take a chance on love. Tessa Kane is a reporter on the verge of losing a job she desperately needs - unless she's clever enough to snag a story on the famous Rockford James. But when she falls for her subject's brother, she's caught between a rock and a cowboy.

Wyatt's not one to trust psychology in sports. But when she meets Everly Holman, Wyatt not only starts trusting the woman to help improve her game, she also sees Everly as much more than the team doctor. Unfortunately for her, Everly might not be willing to risk her career over their growing feelings. As they both work to establish the fledgling league, they discover that, sometimes, falling in love is worth the possibility of losing everything.

Despite the howling protests from his peers, no one's ever been more willing to spill the beans on what it's really like inside the pro cycling peloton than the sarcastic scribe Phil Gaimon. Building on the outrageous success of his hilarious 2014 debut, Pro Cycling on $10 a Day: From Fat Kid to Euro Pro, Gaimon gathers the absolute gems from his monthly Q & A feature column in VeloNews magazine into his new book, Ask a Pro.

Scuba Professional is not only for professionals. Serious divers who take more than a passing interest in their hobby and want to know what goes on behind the scenes will be fascinated by the topics addressed and the insights offered. From a dive safety point of view, Simon looks at the bigger picture and, in a series of chapters on avoiding and handling accidents, sets out a framework for developing the safety culture within our sport.

As the coach during professional football’s most storied era, Tom Landry transformed the gridiron from a no-holds-barred battlefield to the highly-technical chess match it is today. With his trademark fedora and stoic facade, he was a man of faith and few words, for twenty-nine years guiding “America’s Team” from laughingstock to well-oiled machine, with an unprecedented twenty consecutive winning seasons and two Super Bowl titles.

Fanny Bullock Workman was a complicated and restless woman who defied the rigid Victorian morals she found as restrictive as a corset. With her frizzy, brown hair tucked under a topee, Workman was a force on the mountain and off. Instrumental in breaking the British stranglehold on Himalayan mountain climbing, this American woman climbed more peaks than any of her peers, became the first woman to map the far reaches of the Himalayas, the first woman to lecture at the Sorbonne, and the second to address the Royal Geographic Society of London.