Derick Lugo had never been hiking. He certainly couldn't imagine going more than a day without manicuring his goatee. But with a job cut short and no immediate plans, this fixture of the New York comedy scene began to think about what he might do with months of free time. He had heard of the Appalachian Trail, but he had never seriously considered attempting to hike all 2,184.2 miles of it. Suddenly he found himself asking, Could he do it?

On the playing field, natural talent isn’t enough—there’s a mental component that determines whether athletes win the race or wipe out before the finish line. But what separates standout sports stars from the rest? In a paradigm-shifting new theory, acclaimed sportswriter Matt Fitzgerald identifies two key traits behind athletic success: strict self-regulation over thoughts and emotions and an unquenchable psychological need to pursue victory—even when it means enduring extreme mental and physical suffering.

The Complete Book of Five Rings is an authoritative version of Musashi's classic The Book of Five Rings, translated and annotated by a modern martial arts master, Kenji Tokitsu. Tokitsu has spent most of his life researching the legendary samurai swordsman and his works, and in this book he illuminates this seminal text, along with several other works by Musashi.

If someone were to ask Jasmine Santos to describe the last few years of her life with a single word, it would definitely be a four-letter one. After 17 years - and countless broken bones and broken promises - she knows her window to compete in figure skating is coming to a close. But when the offer of a lifetime comes in from an arrogant idiot she's spent the last decade dreaming about pushing in the way of a moving bus, Jasmine might have to reconsider everything.

If you want to get bigger, leaner, and stronger without steroids, good genetics, extreme dieting, or wasting ridiculous amounts of time in the gym...you want to listen to this book. Because here’s the deal: Building lean muscle and burning stubborn fat isn't nearly as complicated you’ve been led to believe. This book is the shortcut.

Follow the trails of hunters - the original storytellers - as they interpret signs, examine tracks, and chase and catch their prey (or fail to). Listeners can curl up with the best authentic hunting fiction and non-fiction, bringing the great Mount Kenya and the prairies of the American Bison into your living room. From Theodore Roosevelt and Gene Hill to Rick Bass and Charles Dickens, remember classic hunting tales and discover new stories of hunters’ luck, camaraderie, and use of smarts on the trail.

All over America, families are investing blood, sweat, tears, and retirement savings in their children’s sports careers, all with the ultimate goal of…what exactly? A college scholarship? A professional contract? Simply the taste of victory? Through the lens of the highly competitive world of girls’ softball, Lewis reveals the youth sports industrial complex that has arisen to aggressively monetize after-school pastimes.

You can get that beautiful “beach-ready” body without following a bland, boring, bodybuilding diet and without doing exhausting strength training workouts you hate. And this exercise book shows you how.

Champions aren’t born. They’re built. Greg Harden spent over 30 years building them at the University of Michigan, including 400 future professional athletes, 50 NFL first-round draft picks, and 120 Olympians from over 20 countries. He gained national recognition when 60 Minutes Sports profiled him as “Michigan’s Secret Weapon.” Now, in his first book, Greg Harden is reaching out to help anyone who wants to live their best life by offering powerful and practical advice.

In Wildlife Wars, Terry Grosz serves up fascinating stories - alternately hair-raising, hilarious, and heart-wrenching - from his 30-year struggle to protect wildlife in America. A natural storyteller, Grosz writes about the remarkable characters he met - on both sides of the law - as he matched wits with elk poachers, salmon snaggers, commercial-market duck hunters, and a host of other law-breakers. Best of all, though, these stories are so remarkably entertaining you won't want to put them down.

When Edmund Hillary first conquered Mt. Everest, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay was at his side. Indeed, for as long as Westerners have been climbing the Himalaya, Sherpas have been the unsung heroes in the background. In August 2008, when eleven climbers lost their lives on K2, the world’s most dangerous peak, two Sherpas survived. They had emerged from poverty and political turmoil to become two of the most skillful mountaineers on earth. Based on unprecedented access and interviews, Buried in the Sky reveals their astonishing story for the first time.

The biggest paradox in golf is that the harder you try to hit the ball, the worse you do so. In The Keys to the Effortless Golf Swing, Michael McTeigue offers you a simple system of sequential body movements that produces a true swinging motion with every club in the bag. The result is increased distance and greater accuracy for all sizes, shapes, and ages of golfers for a minimum investment in learning time.

In the most famous scandal of sports history, eight Chicago White Sox players - including Shoeless Joe Jackson - agreed to throw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for the promise of $20,000 each from gamblers reportedly working for New York mobster Arnold Rothstein. Heavily favored, Chicago lost the Series five games to three. Although rumors of a fix flew while the series was being played, they were largely disregarded by players and the public at large.

When Ball Four was published in 1970, it created a firestorm. Bouton was called a Judas, a Benedict Arnold and a “social leper” for having violated the “sanctity of the clubhouse.” Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force Bouton to sign a statement saying the book wasn’t true. Ballplayers, most of whom hadn’t read it, denounced the book. It was even banned by a few libraries. Almost everyone else, however, loved Ball Four.

Where's the Next Shelter? is the true story of three travelers on the Appalachian Trail, a 2,000-mile hike that stretches from Georgia to Maine, told from the perspective of Gary Sizer, a seasoned backpacker and former marine who quickly finds himself humbled by the endeavor. If you long for the horizon or to sleep under the stars, then come along for the hike of a lifetime. All you have to do is take the first step.

How would you defend your family and home if the grid collapsed and dark forces came to take everything from you? That's the heart-pounding dilemma facing the Foster family in Blackout Dawn. Former soldier Roy Foster, a battle-hardened veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, lives a peaceful life with his wife, Josie, and daughter, Alex, on their idyllic homestead in the Inland Northwest. But their tranquility shatters when an electromagnetic pulse attack wipes out the entire power grid across America. A sudden and violent home invasion forces Roy to kill one of the intruders—the brother of a ...

If the power grid went down and everyone turned against you, how would you survive? This is the burning question facing the Parker family in Descent Into Chaos, a gripping apocalyptic novel that chronicles their desperate fight for survival as America disintegrates around them. One moment, life is perfectly normal. The next, a catastrophic EMP attack thrusts the entire United States back into the Stone Age. Lights flicker out. Cars crash. Phones and laptops go dead. Planes plummet from the sky. Fires rage uncontrollably. In the ensuing chaos, frenzied mobs take to the streets, looting and ...

Imagine being torn apart from your children by hundreds of miles when the entire grid across the United States collapses. How far would you go to reunite with them? That's the dire dilemma facing parents Bill and Sally Chandler in Pulse of Chaos. Stranded in their Montana getaway cabin after a devastating EMP strike, they find themselves cut off from their kids, Cole and Jenny, who are left behind in their now chaotic hometown. With no way to communicate and the world plunging into anarchy as ordinary people morph into desperate savages, Bill and Sally embark on a perilous journey on foot ...

Imagine being in the heart of a bustling city when the world as you know it comes to a sudden, screeching halt. Holly finds herself in exactly this predicament in Echoes of the EMP. One evening in Atlanta, Georgia, while enjoying drinks with her two best friends, Matthew and Elizabeth, the city is plunged into darkness by a catastrophic electromagnetic pulse attack. The once-vibrant metropolis quickly descends into chaos, transforming into a war zone overnight. As the reality of a nationwide grid failure sets in, Holly, Matthew, and Elizabeth must navigate a city teetering on the brink of ...

When the world goes dark, survival becomes more than just a test of strength—it becomes a battle for the soul. In "Rescue Through Ruin," the lights have gone out across the globe, plunging society into chaos. Cities are reduced to battlegrounds, lawlessness reigns, and the remnants of humanity scramble to survive. Amidst this collapse, Ryan Jennings, a seasoned U.S. marine, must navigate a fractured world to save the woman he loves. But with each step, he is forced to confront not only the dangers lurking in the shadows but the darkness within himself. Ryan’s mission to rescue Erin from...