by Kevin Fedarko (2013)
During catastrophic 1983 runoff flooding at Glen Canyon Dam, river guide Kenton Grua and his two-man crew launched a wooden dory into the raging Colorado River to run the Grand Canyon faster than anyone in history.
Joe Simpson
Joe Simpson and his climbing partner Simon Yates had just reached the 21,000-foot summit of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes when disaster struck: Simpson shattered his leg during the descent. In a raging storm, Yates attempted to lower him by rope until Simpson slipped over an ice cliff, hanging into a dark crevasse.
Christopher McDougall
Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic feats, and cutting-edge science, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners, the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico.
Daniel James Brown
The emotional true story of nine working-class American boys from the Pacific Northwest who rowed to gold against elite European squads and Adolf Hitler's handpicked crew at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Santiago Colás
Pro basketball player Rasheed Wallace often exclaimed the pragmatic truth Ball don't lie! during a game. It is a protest against a referee's bad calls. But the slogan, which originated in pickup games, brings the reality of a racialized urban playground into mainstream American popular culture.In Ball Don't Lie!, Yago Colas traces the various forms of power at work in the intersections between basketball and language from the game's invention to the present day. He critiques existing popular myths concerning the history of basketball, contextualizes them, and presents an alternative history of the sport inspired by innovations. Colas emphasizes the creative prerogative of players and the ways in which their innovations shape and are shaped by broader cultural and social phenomena. Ball Don't Lie! shows that basketball cannot be reduced to a single, fixed or timeless essence but instead is a continually evolving exhibition of physical culture that flexibly adapts to and sparks changes in American society.