Sports Science

In Imperfect, Jim Abbot retraces his remarkable journey. Born without a right hand, Jim Abbott as a boy dreamed of being a great athlete. Raised in Flint, Michigan, by parents who saw in his condition not a disability but an extraordinary opportunity, Jim became a two-sport standout in high school, then an ace pitcher for the University of Michigan. But his journey was only beginning. By 21, he’d won the gold medal game at the 1988 Olympics and cracked the starting rotation of the California Angels....

Conventional wisdom about running is passed down like folklore (and sometimes contradicts itself). In Running Smart, Mariska van Sprundel, a science journalist and recreational runner who has had her fair share of injuries, sets out to explore the science behind such claims.

Clarkston, Georgia, was a typical Southern town until it was designated a refugee settlement center in the 1990s, becoming the first American home for scores of families in flight from the world's war zones; from Liberia and Sudan to Iraq and Afghanistan. Suddenly Clarkston's streets were filled with women wearing the hijab, the smells of cumin and curry, and kids of all colors playing soccer in any open space they could find.

Weaving elements of memoir, philosophical reflection, sports writing, and humour, Fail Better is an intellectual love letter to baseball by one of North America's most engaging philosophers. Kingwell illustrates complex concepts like theoretically infinite game-space, "time out of time", and the rules of civility with accessible examples drawn from the game, its history, and his own halting efforts to hit 'em where they ain't.

Forest bathing isn't taking a bath in the middle of the forest; it's the act of allowing your senses to bathe in the sensations of the wooded areas we have come to know and love. During a forest bathing session, you fully immerse yourself into experiences, reaping physical, emotional, mental, and social health benefits. Forest bathing is a natural and proven way to help relieve stress and reduce the adverse effects that a hectic life can cause.

A distinguished scientist reveals how we are losing the world’s songbirds, why this predicts widespread environmental problems, and what we can do to save the birds and their habitats. Wood thrush, bobolinks, the Eastern kingbird - migratory songbirds are disappearing at a frightening rate. Following the birds on their 6,000-mile migratory journey, renowned biologist Bridget Stutchbury leads us on an ecological field trip to explore firsthand their major threats, and reveals what a vital part of our ecosystem they are.

This wide-ranging history synthesizes scholarship and media sources to give the listener an inside view of the television contracts, labor issues, and other off-the-field forces that shaped the National Football League. Historian Richard Crepeau shows how Commissioner Pete Rozelle's steady leadership guided the league's explosive growth during the era of Monday Night Football and the Super Bowl's transformation into a mid-winter spectacle.

Every NASCAR fan—at one time or another—asks the same question: Why isn't my favorite driver winning? This is your chance to discover how much more there is to NASCAR than "Go fast, turn left, and don't crash." In this fast-paced investigation into the adrenaline-pumping world of NASCAR, a physicist with a passion uncovers what happens when the rubber hits the road and 800-horsepower vehicles compete at 190 miles per hour only inches from one another.

Leaving her garden to the mercy of the slugs, award-winning writer Alys Fowler set out in an inflatable kayak to explore Birmingham's canal network, full of little-used waterways where huge pike skulk and kingfishers dart. Her book is about noticing the wild everywhere and what it means to see beauty where you least expect it. What happens when someone who has learned to observe her external world in such detail decides to examine her internal world with the same care?

The story of black professional baseball provides a remarkable perspective on several major themes in modern African American history: the initial black response to segregation, the subsequent struggle to establish successful separate enterprises, and the later movement toward integration. Baseball functioned as a critical component in the separate economy catering to black consumers in the urban centers of the North and South. While most black businesses struggled to survive from year to year, professional baseball teams and leagues operated for decades, representing a major achievement in black enterprise and institution building.

Whether you aspire to complete your first 5K race, achieve a new personal best, or simply find joy and fulfillment in your running journey, "Running Formula: A Guide on How to Elevate Your Running Game. Learn Tips and Techniques for Enhanced Speed and Endurance" is your trusted companion. Let it be your roadmap to reaching new heights in your running pursuits, unlocking your full potential, and experiencing the exhilaration of crossing the finish line stronger than ever before.

This audiobook reflects upon the martial arts as it was hundreds of years ago, before it became popular in the West and people were awarded ranks in astonishingly short periods of time. This audiobook speaks about the true spirit of the martial arts...when it should be used and when it shouldn't; it accurately recounts the history of a number of mainstream martial arts and then goes on to put forth the philosophy of "Christians in the Martial Arts".

Seen around the world, John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s Black Power salute on the 1968 Olympic podium sparked controversy and career fallout. Yet their show of defiance remains one of the most iconic images of Olympic history and the Black Power movement. Here is the remarkable story of one of the men behind the salute, lifelong activist, John Carlos.

How Football Explains America is a fascinating, first-of-its-kind journey through the making of America's most complex, intriguing, and popular game. ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio explores just how crucial football is to understanding the American psyche. Paolantonio tackles varying American themes from Manifest Destiny to “fourth and one” as he goes deep in order to answer the age-old question: Why does America love football so much?

The Girls is a profound exploration of trust, ambition, betrayal, and self-discovery. Award-winning journalist Abigail Pesta unveils this deeply reported narrative at a time when the nation is wrestling with the implications of the MeToo movement. How do the women who grew up with Nassar reconcile the monster in the news with the man they once trusted? In The Girls, we learn that their answers to that wrenching question are as rich, insightful, and varied as the human experience itself.

Born and raised in West Philadelphia, Kareem thought he and his siblings would always be stuck in “The Bottom”, a community and neighborhood devastated by poverty and violence. Riding their bicycles through Philly’s Fairmount Park, Kareem’s brothers discover a barn full of horses. Noticing the brothers’ fascination with her misfit animals, Lezlie Hiner, founder of The Work to Ride stables, offers them their escape: an after school job in exchange for riding lessons. What starts as an accidental discovery turns into a love for horseback riding.

“The virus exposed how we live and work. It also revealed how we play, and what we lose when we have to stop.” For every kid who makes it to the NBA, thousands more seek out the pleasure and camaraderie of pick-up basketball in their local community centre or neighbourhood park. It’s a story that plays out in sport after sport–team and individual, youth and adult, men's and women's.

Drugs in sport are big news and the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport is common. Here, Chris Cooper, a top biochemist at the University of Essex, looks at the science behind drugs in sport. Using the performance of top athletes, Cooper begins by outlining the limits of human performance. Showing the basic problems of human biochemistry, physiology, and anatomy, he looks at what stops us running faster, throwing longer, or jumping higher. Using these evidence-based arguments he shows what the body can, and cannot, do.

Author Dion von Moltke, has become the preeminent coach in car racing after he retired from professional racing. He founded Blayze Coaching that has gone on to coach more than 3,000 grassroots racers. Dion amassed a coaching team that includes the likes of two-time IndyCar Champion Josef Newgarden, Two-Time Rolex at Daytona 24 Hour Winner Ricky Taylor, IndyCar Podium Finisher, Oliver Askew, and more.

As Nazi Germany launched its campaign of racial terror and pushed the world toward war, three misfits banded together to challenge Hitler’s dominance at the apex of motorsport: the Grand Prix. Their quest for redemption culminated in a remarkable race that is still talked about in racing circles to this day - but which, soon after it ended, Hitler attempted to completely erase from history.