Autumn means tailgates, Friday night lights and legendary rivalry games. For Game Day Heroes, the sports action extends far beyond the gridiron. If you aren't outside or hitting the gym, you might find yourself sitting on your favorite armchair with one of these new release books from the world of sports and recreation.
It's football season, so you'll find plenty of titles about the biggest stars of our generation. Whether you're a fan of Lane Kiffin and Tom Brady or like to spend your weekends staying fit or watching your favorite teams, our editors have sourced the best sports and recreation books to fit your interests.
New Sports & Recreation Books September 2026
Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness
by Lars Anderson
Based on years of in-depth reporting and sources from every corner of his life, Brady is the definitive biography of the life, career, and retirement of one of football's most legendary figures, Tom Brady.
New York Times bestselling author and former Sports Illustrated journalist Lars Anderson plunges into Tom Brady's childhood to discover the origins of what Brady later described as his "sickness" his category-five obsession with the game. The obsession dictated every choice Brady made, from what foods he ate to how he managed his day-to-day schedule to how he viewed his role as father to his three children and husband to supermodel Gisele Bündchen.
From more than 350 original interviews with people who know the quarterback on and off the field, Anderson paints a detailed psychological portrait of Tom Brady, a self-described loner whose life is defined by discipline, resilience, a fascination with preparation, an intolerance for wasted time, and a relentless pursuit of the extraordinary. What he finds is a man riddled with contradiction, defined by both a prolific career of unmatched success on the field and the agonizing cost of greatness in his personal life.
Brady is a comprehensive view of the life of the most accomplished player in the history of America's game. Anderson digs deep behind the headlines to provide a richly detailed answer to one of the most vexing questions in sports: Who, really, is Tom Brady?
Fights Worth Fighting: Finding Strength in Struggle
by Dolph Lundgren
Best known for his role as Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, Dolph Lundgren skyrocketed to fame in the 1980s and has since built a remarkable career spanning over a hundred films--including producing, writing, and directing multiple projects. But beyond the on-screen battles lies a far more compelling story: the real-life fights Lundgren has faced behind the scenes.
In this deeply personal account, Lundgren opens up about his upbringing in Sweden, his rise from a chemical engineering student to a martial arts champion, and his eventual transformation into an international movie star. He explores the pressures of fame, the emotional and physical toll of life in a cutthroat industry, and his private struggles. Now, as he faces his most difficult challenge yet--a fight against cancer--Lundgren reflects on the cost of survival and what it truly means to keep going.
The Invisible List: One Passion a Year, Every Year
by Ravi Gupta
Transform hobbies to habits in this guide to pursuing the things you never thought you had time for, right now.
"With a blend of memoir, motivation, and actionable strategy, Ravi Gupta shares how a high-achieving life left him burned-out, unfulfilled, and disconnected--and how he reignited his spirit by dedicating himself to learning a single skill each year." -- Charles Duhigg, New York Times bestselling author of Supercommunicators and The Power of Habit
We all have an "invisible list" of things that we say we'll do when we finally have the time: learn guitar, take up tennis, write a book, plant a butterfly garden. But life--jobs, families, the obligations of being a person--always gets in the way. The Invisible List is a blueprint for making those goals real. And the first step? Giving yourself permission.
From educator and civic entrepreneur Ravi Gupta comes a bold, inspiring approach to resurrecting your passions, no matter how limited your time or money. After realizing that he had stopped doing anything for the sheer love of it, Gupta shifted course and decided to dedicate a full year to becoming competent in one of his long-deferred hobbies. No quitting allowed.
It soon became a yearly pursuit that has included taking on screenwriting, surfing, and powerlifting--and has led him to find new friends and a new focus and to discover that he is never too old to learn new things. Drawing on his successes as well as setbacks, Gupta shares how to create and fulfill your own invisible list, introducing concepts like
- THE LAUNCHPAD: a building-block skill that gets you in shape for more challenging years
- THE ANYWHERE, ANYTIME: an easy-to-access, affordable, and practical pursuit
- THE MENTAL MARATHON: a mind-sharpening hobby that grows your memory
- THE BIG ONE: something that takes a lot of time and resources--not impossible but requires planning
- THE GIVEBACK: an undertaking that builds community, empathy, and relationships
Part memoir, part guidebook, part manifesto, The Invisible List illustrates how to create a life worth living.
The Perilous Fight
by Colin Kaepernick
A defining and uncompromising memoir from Super Bowl quarterback and renowned civil rights activist, Colin Kaepernick.
"A candid, observant, generous chronicle of his development as an elite, suddenly dispensable NFL quarterback and also of the relentless, high-profile civil rights warrior he's become." --Booklist Starred Review
On September 1, 2016, Colin Kaepernick took a knee during "The Star Spangled Banner," but the world never fully understood the whole story. Not the "why" or the cost of his courage. That story begins in Turlock, California, where Kaepernick, a Black kid adopted into a white family, navigated constant resistance to His Blackness and sense of self.
Sports became his refuge and his proving ground, where his talent could not be questioned. The extraordinary result? A quarterback whose arm and instincts would carry him to the Super Bowl and into history books. But with success came an education he hadn't anticipated.
In the fraught world of sports politics, he saw the hidden powerhouses pulling the strings. Steeled with the readings of Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Huey P. Newton, and Angela Davis, he saw in the NFL, in Turlock, in the repeated, unpunished police killings of Black and Brown Americans, an undeniable truth revealed: this was not someone else's fight. It was his. It is ours.
When Kaepernick knelt, the NFL blackballed him. But in the ten years since, the questions his protest raise have not gone away. In The Perilous Fight, Kaepernick delivers his story with the same unflinching conviction that defined his most-watched moment, a single act of protest that changed American sports and culture forever. And ultimately, it is a story about the future we are all still fighting to build.
The Playbook: The Hidden Forces Shaping Winners and Losers in the Modern NFL
by Joshua Robinson - Jonathan Clegg
New York Times bestselling authors Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg turn their sharp reporting and propulsive writing to the NFL, going inside the most influential and successful teams--including the Eagles, the Ravens, and the Rams--and showing what it takes to build winning teams in the most competitive, brutal sports league in the world.
The NFL is the toughest league in the world in which to build a winner--and it's not particularly close. Between the hard salary cap, constant rule changes, comprehensive revenue redistribution, and constraining player contracts, the league engineers parity with draconian efficiency. It punishes winners, elevates losers, and goes out of its way to prevent dynasties. By the laws of the NFL, this hard road to the top is a feature, not a bug.
And yet, in the face of these intense obstacles, some teams have learned how to thrive, year after year. How does this happen? What separates the champions from the Sunday-afternoon chaff?
Talent on the field and on the sidelines helps, but as Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg reveal the modern NFL is not won through Xs and Os alone. Instead there is a new calculus of winning in the world's most lucrative sports league. The teams that triumph exploit a range of loopholes from contract strategy to draft savvy to proprietary metrics, finding ways to extract ruthless efficiencies from a system built to strip away every advantage.
Going inside the front offices and locker rooms of the most influential and forward-looking teams in today's NFL--from the Eagles to the Ravens to the Rams--Robinson and Clegg show the franchises that are using the NFL's rigid system to their own advantage, examining how they are drafting creatively, winning differently--and how the rest of league has yet to catch up.
The result is a fascinating window into achieving success in the modern NFL and an unparalleled look at how the cunning it takes to win on the field starts in the most surprising of places.
This Is about Running. This Is Not about Running.
by Chris Bennett
From Nike Running's Global Head Coach Chris Bennett comes a bold, welcoming book for runners, non-runners, and everyone in between. Rooted in the coaching philosophy that has helped millions take their first steps forward, it's about finding the courage to cross the starting lines in your life.
This Is About Running. This Is Not About Running. is a deeply motivating, funny, and unexpectedly moving book about what happens when we dare to step up to the starting lines in our lives. Drawing on the philosophy that has inspired millions around the world, Coach Bennett reframes running not as a test of speed, distance, or competition--but as a practice in showing up, moving forward, and discovering what's possible when you take a chance on yourself.
With his signature mix of positivity, pop-culture wisdom, and back-to-basics insight, Bennett strips away the pressure that keeps so many people stuck. Instead, he offers a refreshing invitation: you don't have to be fast, fit, or fearless to be a runner. You just have to start. And once you do, running has a way of teaching you about far more than running: about resilience, confidence, self-trust, and the quiet power of momentum.
Whether you're lacing up for the first time, returning after years away, or simply looking for a new way to think about progress, this book is a reminder that forward is forward, and that something extraordinary can happen when you take that first step.
Because the best running isn't really about running at all.
It's about life.
Lane Being Lane: The Story of Lane Kiffin, College Football's Agent of Chaos
by John Talty
The first book on the most polarizing coach in college sports, Louisiana State University football coach Lane Kiffin, charts his inexorable rise and his impact on the game, as he left a trail of winning teams, bad feelings, and controversy in his wake.
In his 50+ years, Lane Kiffin has had a rarified perch, operating among football's biggest players, coaches, and brands. And during that time, he's managed to annoy just about all of them.
Legendary Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, who made Kiffin the youngest NFL head coach at age 31, so hated working with Kiffin that he publicly branded him a liar. Kiffin's abrupt departure from Tennessee led to protests and burning mattresses on campus.
While at the University of Southern California, Kiffin was famously fired on a Los Angeles airport tarmac in the middle of the night. Hall of Fame Alabama coach Nick Saban, sick of three years of Kiffin's antics, fired him right before a national championship game.
Most recently, Kiffin's departure from Ole Miss for LSU, before the College Football Playoff, led to more scenes of chaos on a tarmac--and promises years to come of bitter contests between the two SEC rivals. Led by a hands-on Louisiana governor, LSU is paying Kiffin $13 million annually and giving him the keys to what could be the sport's most expensive roster in 2026.
No one embodies the absurdity and the circus-like feel of college football better than Lane Kiffin. In this deeply sourced work, veteran journalist John Talty charts the coach's repeated rises and falls, from the brilliance of the USC dynasty teams to the struggles of the intense daily pressures of trying to win at the highest level in a world where the old rules don't apply.
Lane Being Lane is a revelatory look at college football's most fascinating figure, a man who epitomizes an era where a well-crafted trolling tweet seems to get just as much attention and even reward as a touchdown-scoring call.
The W: A History of the WNBA
by Tamryn Spruill
A raucous roller-coaster history of the WNBA, from celebrated start-up to lean years, and on to the recent boom, from a passionate sports journalist
The history of the WNBA is an epic one, and in The W, journalist Tamryn Spruill tells the full thrilling story. This is a three-decade tale of tenacious athletes, devoted fans, and a vibrant, diverse league that struggled for years to find a firm footing in the wider sports culture.
When the WNBA launched to much fanfare in 1996, the nascent league was treated like a kid sister with a lot of potential. Eight teams collectively owned by the NBA played a short schedule during the men's offseason. Fans flocked to arenas to see stars Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie, and Rebecca Lobo, and the Houston Comets won their first of four consecutive championships.
But television broadcasts were hard to find, the conversation around the league was often blatantly sexist, and less than a decade after their "four peat," the dynastic Comets had been disbanded and ceased to exist.
Social media helped players upend that dynamic, be their authentic selves, and engender change inside the league and beyond it. College stars became pros, legends broke records, and the women of the WNBA became undeniable. Thirty years after its founding, the time has more than come for this comprehensive account of the league, and the women whose drive, on-court and off, built the W.
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Your reading list doesn't have to stop here. Check out our top sports and recreation books for Spring and Summer 2026. Or dive into nonfiction books focusing on politics and current events hand-picked for our Maverick Reader Type.