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.
Best New Sports & Recreation Books October 2026
Bam!: John Madden, the NFL Explosion, and the Video Game That Changed Sports
by Scott Howard-Cooper
The untold story of John Madden's astonishing second act--and how the coach, broadcaster, and video-game icon transformed the NFL while confronting the damage football could do.
John Madden retired abruptly from coaching in 1979, five months after receiver Darryl Stingley suffered a paralyzing injury against his Raiders. The tragedy would never leave him. He had no intention of entering broadcasting. Yet, within a decade--BAM!--he had become the most recognizable voice in football and a driving force behind America's most powerful sports league.
Veteran sports journalist Scott HowardCooper reveals how Madden recast himself at exactly the right moment. Television was transforming sports, and the NFL needed a translator to turn complex strategy into entertainment. Madden didn't just analyze football; he redefined how it was watched and loved--from the telestrator and pregame film study to Thanksgiving football.
But BAM! goes beyond the booth, tracing Madden's personal life, unguarded moments, unexpected turns, and his influence through advertising, network wars, labor battles, concussion debates, and the Madden NFL video game--which reshaped gaming and brought football to new generations. Yet, Madden could never entirely escape what the game demanded from the men who played it.
BAM! is the story of how one rumpled, affable man became a defining figure in football's greatest boom--and its reckoning --and why the NFL cannot stop invoking his name.
Bloodlines: A Memoir
by Joe Manganiello
In this gripping memoir, actor Joe Manganiello, star of True Blood and Magic Mike, reveals the previously undisclosed health ordeal--marked by multiple near-death experiences and medical crises--that led him beyond medicine and into a remarkable, globe-spanning quest that revealed answers about his ancestry, inherited trauma, and the deeper histories we carry.
Joe Manganiello seemed to have it all: a soaring career, a new marriage, and what many considered, the best physique in Hollywood. Then, without warning, his body began to fail him. A cascade of autoimmune-related illnesses attacked his skin, thyroid, eyes, lungs, and digestive system, plunging him into a seven-year battle, plagued by chronic pain, a life-saving organ amputation, existential crisis, and a prolonged fight for survival that left doctors with few answers and no clear explanation.
As Manganiello struggled to stay alive amidst medicine's inability to fully explain what ailed him, an unorthodox path emerged--shamans, pagan rituals, ancient myths, long lost family records, and the rebirth of his own spirituality. A search that led him deep into his own bloodline: to a survivor of the Armenian genocide, to ancestors shaped by violence and displacement, and the hidden patterns shared by others living with chronic illness.
In Bloodlines, Manganiello writes with candor and hard-won clarity about illness, masculinity, faith, ambition and the identities we build to endure. More than a memoir of medical crisis, it's a searching account of what happens when the life you have constructed can no longer contain the truth of what you carry.
Deeply personal and emotionally expansive, Bloodlines considers how the past lives on in the body and in the stories we tell about strength, survival, and selfhood. The result is both a page-turning, heart-pounding book for the ages and an essential meditation on inheritance, loss, and the work of living with what remains.
Food Is Medicine: Healing Our Bodies, Nourishing Our Minds, and Transforming Our Food System
by Dariush Mozaffarian
An urgent indictment of the food we eat and a blueprint for a nutrition revolution to mend our health, economy, and planet, from a world-renowned expert in nutrition, medicine, and public policy
The food we eat is making us sick. In the United States and around the world, diet has become the leading cause of illness and premature death, from obesity and diabetes to heart disease and other chronic ailments. Advocates of healthier diets pin the blame on overeating, but the bigger issue is what we undereat--the dearth of food that nourishes and heals. Harnessing the power of the right foods can do more than prevent illness--it can treat it, extending life while reducing the crippling cost of ill health to our communities and economy. Food Is Medicine shows the way, from transforming our own diets to keep us healthy to getting the right foods from our farms into our stores and onto our plates--all while eating plentifully and pleasurably.
A global authority, uniquely positioned on the front lines of nutrition science, medicine, and public policy, Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, DrPH, draws on cutting-edge research to turn complex science into a clear, actionable program to end the health crisis in our homes and communities. Excavating the decisions that led to a broken food system, plagued by the harms of ultraprocessing and ruinous to the environment, he lays out how the meals we eat are damaging our bodies. He reveals the medicinal, healing power of ideal nutrition and introduces the innovators who are pioneering solutions--at the doctor's office, in supermarkets, in the halls of Congress, and above all for individuals, to empower them to access the foods they need to live well.
With clarity and optimism, braiding storytelling, science, and practical wisdom, Food Is Medicine lays out a vision for a twenty-first century food system that will restore health, nourishment, and equity without sacrificing convenience or choice. In the process, these solutions can revitalize our economy, and even help to heal our planet.
Looking for Terry: A Memoir
by Terry Bradshaw
"Red meat for gridiron devotees, with plenty of dish on the biz." --KIRKUS REVIEWS
Terry Bradshaw explores what it really means to be Terry Bradshaw.
For more than fifty years, Terry Bradshaw has been one of the most recognizable figures in American culture. A Hall of Fame quarterback who led the Pittsburgh Steelers to four Super Bowl victories, Bradshaw didn't fade quietly into retirement. Instead, he reinvented himself--again and again--as a movie and television actor, a beloved NFL broadcaster, and a larger-than-life personality whose humor and self-deprecation made him a household name far beyond football.
In Looking for Terry, his first memoir in more than two decades, Bradshaw finally pulls back the curtain on the persona the public thinks it knows. With trademark candor and wit, he examines how a reputation for being "not too smart" followed him throughout his career--and how he learned to embrace it rather than fight it. By leaning into the jokes, Bradshaw discovered that humor could be both a shield and a superpower. The result was the goofy, always-game-for-a-laugh Terry Bradshaw that fans came to love. But behind the punchlines was a more complicated man, one who sometimes felt trapped by the very character he helped create.
This memoir is not just a reflection on fame and perception; it's an unflinching look at vulnerability. Bradshaw opens up about his struggle with depression, his deeply personal battle with cancer, and the role his faith played in carrying him through his darkest moments. This memoir is raw, moving, and unexpectedly tender, revealing a side of Bradshaw rarely seen on television.
By turns hilarious, heartfelt, and deeply inspiring, Looking for Terry is a story about resilience, reinvention, and the courage it takes to tell the truth about yourself--even when the world thinks it already knows who you are. Readers will laugh right along with Terry and ultimately come away with a deeper appreciation for the man behind the legend.
The Game
by Peter King
For 40 years, Peter King's unmatched access, curiosity, and passion have made him synonymous with the National Football League. He broke countless stories, giving us the human side of the sport and influencing countless reporters. Players trusted him; coaches and owners revealed information to him. He gathered it all into notebooks and columns that kept fans riveted.
Now, in The Game, King has brought all his knowledge and insight together in one place to tell the story of the modern NFL as no one else could. Moving from the mid-1980s, when the league went head-to-head with baseball in popularity, to the present, when it dominates every other entertainment in America, King narrates the NFL's explosive rise from the inside. He puts us in the room with Pete Rozelle, toward the end of the legendary commissioner's career and life. He takes us on the Madden Cruiser, on a cross-country journey with John Madden.
He goes behind the scenes in the Reggie White free-agency saga, when the small-town Green Bay Packers made the canniest offer you'll ever hear. He gives us Deion Sanders's philosophy on how to be great on the field and how to work the system off it. He shows us Steve Young, lying in a bed with IVs in each arm after the greatest game of his life on the biggest stage. He shares the bizarre story of how a tanning bed and some well-timed push-ups helped catapult Peyton Manning to the top of the 1998 draft. He reveals Nick Foles's mastery of a moment no one thought he could be equal to. He brings us inside the worlds of referees, of owners, of NFL drafts. Looking at the future, he fires a warning shot about the greed overtaking the game.
Time and again, King was in limousines, on planes, in locker rooms, and on sidelines where players and coaches told him why they did what they did, whom they hated, whom they thought highly of, what they dreamed of achieving. The result is The Game--a portrait of the modern NFL in all its messy glory, from one of the greatest storytellers the sport has ever produced.
The Glass Box: The Shocking True Story of How Crossfit Broke the Rules, Made Millions, and Changed Fitness Forever
by Calum Marsh
"A page-turner with the momentum of an Aaron Sorkin screenplay."--Kirkus Reviews
A New York Times 'New Nonfiction Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2026' selection
An eye-opening and wildly entertaining book about the multimillion-dollar fitness phenomenon CrossFit and its mercurial founder, Greg Glassman--from an investigative journalist and regular contributor to the New York Times.
How did an upstart workout regimen, begun out of commercial gyms in Santa Cruz in the '90s, become one of the most popular and polarizing fitness platforms in the world? And who, exactly, is the person responsible for its success?
The Glass Box is a page-turning and upsetting look at CrossFit--one of the most popular fitness programs in the world--and at its divisive founder, Greg Glassman. Written by veteran journalist Calum Marsh, it is both a thorough history of a company's rise and an eagle-eyed examination of what happens when a visionary idea marches headlong toward global expansion.
CrossFit is a phenomenon, and its studios and methods are now ubiquitous. But the company's culture of unapologetic machismo, and the sometimes reckless behavior of Glassman and his cronies, repeatedly put the brand, and its founder, in the hot seat--until one careless mistake too many brought the empire crashing down.
We Thought They'd Never Leave: Musings on Food and Family
by Tony Shalhoub - Josie Adams
From Emmy, Tony, and Golden Globe winner Tony Shalhoub comes a delightful, heartfelt memoir about food, family, recipes, and the stories we pass down around the table.
Every summer for over five decades, more than fifty members of the Shalhoub family have gathered in Door County, Wisconsin, for a week of home-cooked meals, fiercely competitive card games, old stories, new memories, and just enough chaos to keep things interesting.
Written with his daughter Josie Adams, We Thought They'd Never Leave is Tony Shalhoub's warm and deeply personal reflection on the people who shaped him. Through stories spanning four generations--from an orphaned Lebanese boy who survived wartime hunger to the sprawling family he would one day help create--Tony traces the Lebanese American family traditions, meals, and rituals that continue to bring the Shalhoubs back together year after year.
Along the way, the beloved actor known for Monk and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel reflects on growing up as one of ten children in a lively Lebanese American household in Green Bay, Wisconsin; navigating family life, work, and parenthood; and helping preserve a reunion that has become a beloved family institution. Also included are twenty treasured family recipes, ranging from stuffed grape leaves and tabbouleh to Midwestern chili and cherry pie.
Filled with unforgettable characters, deeply moving stories, and Tony's signature humor, We Thought They'd Never Leave is an invitation to join the Shalhoub table, where everyone has an opinion, everyone is expected to pitch in, and there's always room for one more.
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.