In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle

Death to the BCS: The Definitive Case Against the Bowl Championship Series: Totally Revised and Updated 2011 Edition

Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter, Jeff Passan · 238 pages

Reinvigorates the old argument against the BCS with new evidence and pulls back the curtain on the inner workings of college sports' most despised postseason.

Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong

David Walsh · 426 pages

Traces the journalist's efforts to uncover the truth behind cycling's biggest star.

Next Man Up: A Year Behind the Lines in Today's NFL

John Feinstein · 507 pages

In the NFL there is only one certainty: that every day, someone will have to be the Next Man Up. Football is an unrelentingly punishing sport, played and practiced at undiminished intensity, and it devours its players. Confronting injuries, trades, and the grim reality of competition, every NFL team prepares constantly for the likelihood--the certainty--that even franchise players can go down at

Counting Coup: A True Story of Basketball and Honor on the Little Big Horn

Larry Colton · 434 pages

In Native American tradition, a warrior gained honor and glory by "counting coup" -- touching his enemy in battle and living to tell the tale. This is a modern story of...COUNTING COUPIn this extraordinary work of journalism, Larry Colton journeys into the world of Montana's Crow Indians and follows the struggles of a talented, moody, charismatic young woman named Sharon LaForge, a gifted basketba

The Breaks of the Game

David Halberstam · 400 pages

The story of one season with the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team touches on many aspects of professional sports: stars, salaries, the media, fans, ethics, drugs, and racial tension.

The Fight

Norman Mailer · 247 pages

In 1974 in Kinshasa, Zaïre, two African American boxers were paid five million dollars apiece to fight each other. One was Muhammad Ali, the aging but irrepressible “professor of boxing.” The other was George Foreman, who was as taciturn as Ali was voluble. Observing them was Norman Mailer, a commentator of unparalleled energy, acumen, and audacity. Whether he is analyzing the fighters’ moves, int

How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization

Franklin Foer · 261 pages

Soccer is much more than a game, or even a way of life. It is a perfect window into the cross-currents of today's world, with all its joys and its sorrows. In this remarkably insightful, wide-ranging work of reportage, Franklin Foer takes us on a surprising tour through the world of soccer, shining a spotlight on the clash of civilizations, the international economy, and just about everything in b

Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life

Richard Ben Cramer · 553 pages

"In this biography, Richard Ben Cramer presents a stunning, often shocking portrait of the hero nobody knew. It is a story that sweeps through the twentieth century, bringing to light along the way not just America's national game, but her movie stars, mobsters, pols, writers...the birth (and the price) of modern national celebrity.". "This is the story Joe DiMaggio never wanted to tell - and nev

The Best Team Money Can Buy

Molly Knight · 336 pages

"The inside-the-clubhouse story of two tumultuous years when the Los Angeles Dodgers were re-made from top to bottom, from the ownership of the team to management to the players on the field, becoming the most talked-about and most colorful team in baseball"-- In 2012, an investment group bought the Los Angeles Dodgers from Frank McCourt, who had driven the team into bankruptcy in the midst of an

The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football

Jeff Benedict, Armen Keteyian · 432 pages

A revelatory account based on the authors' unprecedented access to the NCAA's highest-level programs throughout the 2012 season describes its high-powered system of billion-dollar television deals, high-priced coaches, football "hostessing," castoff athlete-students and paid test takers.

Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong

Juliet Macur · 480 pages

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Christopher McDougall · 287 pages

Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world's greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we tho

The Jordan Rules: The Inside Story of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls

Sam Smith · 333 pages

Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series

Eliot Asinof · 302 pages

King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero

David Remnick · 326 pages

There were mythic sports figures before him - Jack Johnson, Babe Ruth, Joe Louis, Joe DiMaggio - but when Cassius Clay burst onto the sports scene from his native Louisville in the 1950s, he broke the mold. He changed the world of sports and went on to change the world itself. As Muhammad Ali, he would become the most recognized face on the planet. This unforgettable story of his rise and self-cre

The Formula: How Rogues, Geniuses, and Speed Freaks Reengineered F1 into the World's Fastest-Growing Sport―A High-Octane History of Formula 1's Rise in America, Racing Culture, and Engineering Marvels

Joshua Robinson · 304 pages

Night Games: Sex, Power and Sport

Anna Krien · 288 pages

What does a young footballer do to cut loose? At night, some play what they think of as pranks, or games. Night games with women. Sometimes these involve consensual sex, but sometimes they don't, and sometimes they fall into a grey area. In the tradition of Helen Garner's The First Stone comes a closely observed, controversial book about sex, consent and power. In Night Games, Anna Krien follows t

Fourth and Long: The Fight for the Soul of College Football

John U. Bacon · 343 pages

For the millions of fans who celebrate the game-day heroics of the student athletes that give college football its heart and soul, bestselling author John U. Bacon's "Fourth and Long," a warts-and-all look at the present and future of the game, gives them reason to still believe.

Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell: A True Story of Violence, Corruption, and the Soul of Surfing

Chas Smith · 256 pages

"For two months every winter, when Pacific storms make landfall, Oahu's paradisical North Shore turns into a fiery hell. Its normal population of sixteen thousand more than triples and this explosion of mainlanders, Brazilians, Australians, and Europeans creates one of the most combustible milieus on earth. Waves, like gold and oil, are a limited resource and, as such, are fiercely fought over by

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman

Jon Krakauer · 416 pages

The bestselling author of Into the Wild, Into Thin Air, and Under the Banner of Heaven delivers a stunning, eloquent account of a remarkable young man's haunting journey. Like the men whose epic stories Jon Krakauer has told in his previous bestsellers, Pat Tillman was an irrepressible individualist and iconoclast. In May 2002, Tillman walked away from his $3.6 million NFL contract to enlist in th

Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine

George Dohrmann · 435 pages

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist George Dohrmann's remarkable debut offers an up-close and unforgettable narrative that reveals the gritty reality hiding behind the romanticized hoop dreams of America's basketball prodigies.

Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen

Joe Drape · 269 pages

Michael Jordan: The Life

Roland Lazenby · 708 pages

Traces the life of one of the most legendary basketball players in the history of the sport, drawing upon interviews with Jordan's friends, family, and teammates, and following his career from college to the NBA.

The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports

Jeff Passan · 384 pages