**The feel-good underdog story of the first American swimmer to win Olympic gold, set against the turbulent rebirth of the modern Games, that “bring[s] to life an inspiring figure and illuminate[s] an overlooked chapter in America’s sports history” (The Wall Street Journal)“Once or twice in a decade, one of these stories . . . like Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken [or] Daniel Brown’s The Boys in the Boat . . . captures the imagination of the public. . . . Add...

**The feel-good underdog story of the first American swimmer to win Olympic gold, set against the turbulent rebirth of the modern Games, that “bring[s] to life an inspiring figure and illuminate[s] an overlooked chapter in America’s sports history” (The Wall Street Journal)“Once or twice in a decade, one of these stories . . . like Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken [or] Daniel Brown’s The Boys in the Boat . . . captures the imagination of the public. . . . Add...

Former best friends who built their careers writing about a single work of art meet after a decades-long falling-out. One of them, called to the other’s deathbed for unknown reasons by a “relatively short” nine-page email, spends his flight toBerlin reflecting on Dutch Renaissance painter Count Hugo Beckenbauer and his masterpiece, Saint Sebastian’s Abyss, the work that established both men as important art critics and also destroyed their relationship. A darkly comicmeditati...

"Debut author Garza skillfully links brilliantly crafted episodes to create an unforgettable community in Galveston, TX...Indeed, staying well-tuned to Garza’s work earns enduring rewards."— Booklist (starred review)"These rich performances, a chorus of different tones and accents, create a beautiful tapestry of a complicated city and the people who call it home." - AudioFile Magazine"Beaut...

A stunning debut novel about a young undocumented Peruvian woman fighting to keep her family afloat in New York City.Ana Falcón, along with her husband Lucho and their two young children, has fled the economic and political strife of Peru for a chance at a new life in New York City in the 1990s. Being undocumented, however, has significantly curtailed the family’s opportunities: Ana is indebted to a loan shark who calls herself Mama, and is stretched thin by unceas...

**NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A “boisterous and infectious debut novel” (The Guardian) about a group of friends and their immigrant families from Queens, New York—a tenderly observed, fiercely poetic love letter to a modern generation of brown girls.“An acute study of those tender moments of becoming, this is an ode to girlhood, inheritance, and the good trouble the body yields.”—Raven Leilani, author of Luster**FINALIST: The New Amer...

A National Bestseller!A new collection of the best Canadian trivia in honour of Canada’s 150th birthday.Just in time for Canada’s 150th birthday comes this collection of the best in Canadian questions and answers, covering history, famous Canadians, sports, word origins, geography, and everything in between. In these pages, you’ll learn the answers to questions like:Where did the word Canuck come from?How did an aristocratic ...

The first book to be set in the new Richler typeface, commissioned by Random House of Canada Limited and Jack Rabinovitch in memory of Mordecai.Mordecai Richler’s final book pays homage to his personal heroes and celebrates a writer’s love of sport with his trademark irascibility, humour and acuity.Even while writing his bestselling novels, Mordecai Richler nurtured his obsession with sports, writing brilliantly on ice hockey, baseball, salmon fishing, bodybuilding, and wre...

The first comprehensive biography of the legendary figure who defined excellence in American sports: Jim Thorpe, arguably the greatest all-around athlete the United States has ever seen.With clarity and a fine eye for detail, Kate Buford traces the pivotal moments of Thorpe’s incomparable career: growing up in the tumultuous Indian Territory of Oklahoma; leading the Carlisle Indian Industrial School football team, coached by the renowned “Pop” Warner, to victories against the count...

From its beginnings in Ancient Greek antiquity, right up to its arrival in Great Britain, the home of so many modern sports and favoured pastimes, the Olympic Games have always been a grand and exciting spectacle, whether you're watching a no-holds-barred wrestling match or a mesmerising, freewheeling gymnast. 'The Olympics, A Very Peculiar History' gives an overview of the strange, the unbelievable and the downright bizarre events that have occurred over the many years that this esteemed ...

Eccentric, unexpected, and told by the city’s most popular historian, Ghost Road and Other Forgotten Stories of Windsor is the city like you’ve never seen it before.

North American Ultrarunning: A History explores the rich heritage of ultradistance running stretching back thousands of years; the Americas were originally peopled by nomads on foot. The book documents ultradistance feats by Native Americans, the earliest European explorers and settlers, before recording the growing development of the professional sport in North America in the nineteenth century. This fascinating story continues onwards into the twentieth century to the Pyle Trans-America ...