Specially Curated List of Books for the Game Day Hero Reader Types
Our collection caters to the Game Day Hero's thirst for knowledge and entertainment. So, whether you're looking for motivation, insights, or a moment of laughter, these books will be the perfect companions on your fall adventures. Keep your eyes clear and your heart full, and let the pages of these books enhance your game-day experience.
March NEW RELEASES
There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension
by Hanif Abdurraqib
Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, in the 1990s, Hanif Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron James were forged and countless others weren't. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tension between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role models, all of which he expertly weaves together with intimate, personal storytelling. "Here is where I would like to tell you about the form on my father's jump shot," Abdurraqib writes. "The truth, though, is that I saw my father shoot a basketball only one time."
There's Always This Year is a triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. No matter the subject of his keen focus--whether it's basketball, or music, or performance--Hanif Abdurraqib's exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves.
Nourish: Simple Recipes to Empower Your Body and Feed Your Soul: A Healthy Lifestyle Cookbook
by Gisele Bündchen
Superstar model and philanthropist Gisele Bündchen believes wellness begins with food. At home she chooses lean, healthy proteins and nutrient-rich vegetables; she also believes in eating with flexibility (pizza night with the kids!). This means recipes that are gluten free and rely on body-fueling ingredients like almond flour, avocado oil, and dates.
In her cookbook, Gisele provides thoughtful guidance on how to create a routine filled with positive intention, nourishing food, and gratitude to support a healthy lifestyle. The first part of her cookbook walks readers through adjusting to this new mindset and offers practical guidance. Many of the recipes include suggestions for light and hearty pairings, as well as tips for making meals “kid friendly”.
Becky Lynch: The Man: Not Your Average Average Girl
by Rebecca Quin
By age seven, Rebecca Quin, now known in the ring as Becky Lynch, was already defying what the world expected of her. Raised in Dublin, Ireland in a devoutly Catholic family, Rebecca constantly invented new ways to make her mother worry--roughhousing with the neighborhood kids, hosting secret parties while her parents were away, enrolling in a warehouse wrestling school, nearly breaking her neck and almost kneecapping a WWE star before her own wrestling career even began--and she was always in search of a thrilling escape from the ordinary.
Rebecca's deep love of wrestling as a child set her on an unlikely path. With few female wrestlers to look to for guidance, Rebecca pursued a wrestling career hoping to change the culture and move away from the antiquated disrespect so often directed at the elite female athletes that grace the ring. Even as a teenager, she knew that she would stop at nothing to earn a space among the greatest wrestlers of our time, and to pave a new path for female fighters.
It's Hard for Me to Live with Me: A Memoir
by Rex Chapman - Seth Davis
He is considered by many the greatest basketball player ever produced by the hoops-crazy state of Kentucky. In two years at the University of Kentucky, he scored over 1,000 points, led the Wildcats to a Sweet Sixteen appearance and was nicknamed "King Rex." The first player ever drafted by the Charlotte Hornets, he spent twelve seasons in the NBA, dazzling in dunk contests and sinking one of the most memorable buzzer-beaters in league history. But by the end of his career, Rex Chapman was harboring a destructive secret.
Years before America's opioid crisis would become national news, Chapman developed a dependency on Vicodin and Oxycontin, ultimately ingesting fifty painkillers a day. In addition, he developed a severe gambling addiction, once nearly losing $400,000 at a Las Vegas blackjack table. All this would cost him his family as well as most of the $40 million fortune he'd made in basketball, leaving him to live in his car and shoplift to support his addictions. Only when he was arrested--and his mugshot made national news--did he finally commit to getting clean.
February NEW RELEASES
Dear Black Girls: How to Be True to You
by A'Ja Wilson
Despite gold medals, WNBA championships, and a list of accolades, A'ja Wilson knows how it feels to be swept under the rug--to not be heard, to not feel seen, to not be taken seriously. As a fourth grader going to a primarily white school in South Carolina, A'ja was told she'd have to stay outside for a classmate's birthday party. "Huh?" she asked. Because the birthday girl's father didn't like Black people.
Wilson tells stories like this, about how even when life tried to hold her down, it didn't stop her. She shares her contribution to "The Talk," and how to keep fighting, all while igniting strength, passion, and joy. Dear Black Girls is a necessary and meaningful exploration of what it means to be a Black woman in America today--and a rallying cry to lift up women and girls everywhere.
The Burden of Sports: How and Why Athletes Struggle with Mental Health
by John Weston Parry
This book examines the mental health and emotional well-being of elite American athletes generally and in the context of sports propaganda, the legal system, politics, and the Covid pandemic. The book covers mental health conditions all athletes may encounter, as well as the special challenges of female, queer, transgender, and intersex athletes.
Far Beyond Gold: Running from Fear to Faith
by Sydney McLaughlin
Sydney McLaughlin knows about facing down obstacles. She has mastered not only racing over hurdles on the track but also tackling challenges in her personal life--from lifelong battles with perfectionism and anxiety to persistent questions about her identity and whether she was "enough."
Her pursuit of perfection and people-pleasing continued for years until God broke into her story with his overwhelming grace, transforming love, and empowering truth.
Experience the story of a woman who shifted from anxiety to boldness, from limits to freedom, and from perfectionism to purpose--and now shows the world that often what we think is impossible is possible with God.
Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections
by Emily Nagoski
In Come as You Are, Emily Nagoski, PhD, revolutionized the way we think about women's sexuality. Now, in Come Together, Nagoski takes on a fundamentally misunderstood subject: sex in long-term relationships.
Most of us struggle at some point to maintain a sexual connection with our partner/s or spouse. And many of us are given not-very-good advice on what to do about it. In this book, Nagoski dispels the myths we've been taught about sex--for instance, the belief that sexual satisfaction and desire are highest at the beginning of a relationship and that they inevitably decline the longer that relationship lasts. Nagoski assures us that's not true.
So, what is true? Come Together isn't about how much we want sex, or how often we're having it; it's about whether we like the sex we're having. Nagoski breaks down the obstacles that impede us from enjoying sex--from stress and body image to relationship difficulties and gendered beliefs about how sex "should" be--and presents the best ways to overcome them.
January NEW RELEASES
Dialed in: Do Your Best When It Matters Most
by Dana Sinclair
What do a major league baseball catcher struggling with pop ups, an operating room doctor tense before a surgery, and a slumping sixteen-year-old tennis prodigy all have in common? They're elite performers who are not achieving excellence, and they're not sure how to improve.
Enter Dr. Dana Sinclair. For more than twenty years, Dr. Dana has worked with the best of the best to improve results, from NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL teams to IndyCar drivers and Olympic athletes. She helps performers shift their focus and deliver optimal performance in high-pressure moments that define greatness. Her methods also work for students and teachers, business leaders and managers--anyone motivated to improve. Her approach is simple: figure out what gets in your way, develop actions to address it in the moment, and then stick to the plan. It's not about how you feel, it's about what you do!
Naomi Osaka: Her Journey to Finding Her Power and Her Voice
by Ben Rothenberg
Naomi Osaka is everywhere, but how did she get there?
Most tennis fans were introduced to Naomi Osaka as they watched her win the 2018 US Open final in an unforgettably controversial and dramatic victory over her idol, Serena Williams. Since then, Osaka has galvanized the tennis world--and gained attention across the culture--not only by winning three more Grand Slams, but by finding her voice.
Her extraordinary talent and unique blend of power and vulnerability have propelled her to the top of her sport and onto the front page of newspapers and magazines worldwide. She became the highest-paid female athlete in history and one of the most discussed, at the cultural crossroads on myriad social issues.
But until now, the story of the Haitian Japanese American Osaka family's journey across the world to follow their tennis dreams--and how their youngest daughter found her power off the court--has remained little known. It is a story unlike any other, and Ben Rothenberg's biography not only shows where Osaka came from but also where she's going as she returns to competitive tennis after a year on maternity leave. Through a riveting exploration of the ways Osaka has changed the game on and off the court, Rothenberg details the incredible impact Osaka has had in the arenas of sports, media, business, social justice, and mental health.
Resilient: The Untold Story of Crossfit's Greatest Comeback
by Brooke Wells
On the last night of the 2021 CrossFit Games, ten thousand fans watched in horror as Brooke Wells' elbow dislocated under the weight of a 190-pound barbell. This is the extraordinary story of what happened next: How Wells pulled off a highly improbable comeback that transformed her mentally and physically into one of the fittest women in the world.
In Resilient, Wells provides a refreshingly honest, authentic account of how she overcame fear, self-doubt, and a slew of unexpected obstacles to return to the CrossFit Games less than a year after undergoing total elbow reconstruction. A story of strength, passion, courage, and grit, Resilient is a celebration of one athlete's extraordinary spirit and her inspiring ability to never say die.