Leveling the Playing Field: Sports Non-Fiction

You're a pretty athletic bunch out there, Burqueños. You run and walk in the Duke City Marathon and the Run for the Zoo; some of you take part in one of our two roller derbies, Duke City or Albuquerque; you ski and snowboard; you cycle; you hike. Some of you take advantage of the many recreation opportunities city parks to have offer. There are many of you who, whether active yourselves or no, follow sports - maybe you just watched football on Thanksgiving. Or cheered for the Astros during the World Series. Or maybe you're looking forward to the next World Cup.

We just want to make sure you know that we have resources in the library catalog for you, too! And not just exercise and weight loss reads, either, though we certainly have plenty of those titles. Here's a smattering of sports non-fiction we hope you might find intriguing:

The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports by Jeff Passan

Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50-Year Friendship On and Off the Court by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and David Fisher

Running With a Police Escort: Tales From the Back of the Pack by Jill Grunenwald [eBook]

Game Worn: Baseball Treasures From the Game's Greatest Heroes and Moments by Stephen Wong and Dave Grob

Epic Bike Rides of the World: Explore the Planet's Most Thrilling Cycling Routes

Dust Bowl Girls: The Inspiring Story of the Team That Barnstormed Its Way to Basketball Glory by Lydia Reeder

Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History by Cait Murphy

My Cubs: A Love Story by Scott Simon

Home and Away: Writing the Beautiful Game by Karl Ove Knausgaard and Fredrik Ekelund 

Wonder Girl: The Magnificent Sporting Life of Babe Didrikson Zaharias by Don Van Natta Jr.

Off Speed: Baseball, Pitching, and the Art of Deception by Terry McDermott

A Life Well Played: My Stories by Arnold Palmer

Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape by Jessica Luther

Ways of Grace: Stories of Activism, Adversity, and How Sports Can Bring Us Together by James Blake

Women Who Tri: A Reluctant Athlete's Journey Into the Heart of America's Newest Obsession by Alicia DiFabio [eBook]

How Cycling Can Save the World by Peter Walker

Sting Like a Bee: Muhammad Ali vs. the United States of America, 1966-1971 by Leigh Montville

May is...National Bike Month

BICYCLING, 1873. - A quartet of intrepid bicyclists pedaling their way in 1873 from London, England, to John O'Groat's, the northermost point of Scotland. Wood engraving from a contemporary English newspaper.. Fine Art. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016.
quest.eb.com/search/140_1651878/1/140_1651878/cite. Accessed 9 May 2017.

May is National Bike Month, sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists and celebrated in communities from coast to coast. Established in 1956, National Bike Month is a chance to showcase the many benefits of bicycling — and encourage more folks to giving biking a try... National Bike to Work Week 2017 will be held on May 15-19. Bike to Work Day is May 19!
~from The League of American Bicyclists' website

There's still a little time to celebrate National Bike Month with and the Brew Cruise tonight and Bike to Work Day tomorrow, though we missed most of the Duke City Classic, which runs from the 12th - 21st. New Mexico seems to attract cyclists - a local family are bringing mountain biking to TV with a show called Mountainbike Mania (according to New Mexico True, mountain biking has become more popular in the state); new races are being created locally; you can tour "New Mexico Enchanted Lands" with the Adventure Cycling Association (for a fee) or ride in the Tour de Gila; the New York Times even featured an article about cycling Santa Fe a few years ago, and the Santa Fe Reporter just covered women's place in the Outside Bike & Brew. Tourists are reminded to watch out for goatheads!

Search the library catalog for materials about cycling!

• Children's Collection
• Adult Collection
• DVDs

What's your experience cycling locally? Let us know any resources we might have missed in the comments!

Local Bicycling Resources

BikeABQ 

New Mexico Cycling Calendar

Critical Mass Albuquerque  

BikeBurque

Ghost Bikes [Duke City Wheelmen]

Bicycling [City of Albuquerque]

This page provides information about biking in Albuquerque. The City of Albuquerque has more than 400 miles of bike paths and trails. Albuquerque promotes healthy and responsible bicycling. Learn about trail etiquette, take a bicycle safety class (adults can can earn a refurbished bike equipped with a bike helmet and a bike lock!), visit the Esperanza Bicycle Safety Education Center - where you can donate a bike or attend an open bike clinic.

Tournament Reads

This has been a big soccer summer - last month saw the Copa America, and the European Championship (Euros) is still ongoing. There will also be soccer at the upcoming Summer Olympics. One of our favorite irreverent soccer blogs, Dirty Tackle, posted a video from the England soccer team's hotel and training base which featured a look at the team's well-stocked bookshelf in the "leisure room". If only the video featured shots of the players reading!

What is considered a tempting read for the average soccer player? Well, Dirty Tackle compiled a list of the seemingly "hand-picked" titles on display. Here is a list of books from the team's training base which are in our library catalog:

Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho

Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs

Richard Branson’s Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story

Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom

George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones

Zack O’Malley Greenburg’s Empire State of Mind: How Jay-Z Went From Street Corner to Corner Office [eBook]

Zlatan Ibrahimović's I am Zlatan: My Story On and Off the Field

Do you think many of these got read by the players? Would you be interested in reading a book endorsed by your favorite athlete? Since our Summer Reading theme (going strong until July 16th!) is Get in the Game: Read, we've compiled a list of other recent titles from the library catalog sports fans might enjoy:

Why Soccer Matters by Pelé

Soccer Men: Profiles of the Rogues, Geniuses, and Neurotics Who Dominate the World's Most Popular Sport by Simon Kuper

Gareth Bale: The Biography by Frank Worrall [eBook]

More Than a Team: A Father, a Son, and Barça by Vicenç Villatoro [eBook]

Bloody Confused!: A Clueless American Sportswriter Seeks Solace in English Soccer by Chuck Culpepper [eBook]
Outcasts United: The Story of a Refugee Soccer Team That Changed a Town by Warren St. John [eBook]

This Love is Not For Cowards: Salvation and Soccer in Ciudad Juárez by Robert Andrew Powell [eBook] 

Futebol Nation: The Story of Brazil Through Soccer by David Goldblatt [eBook]

La Roja: How Soccer Conquered Spain and How Spanish Soccer Conquered the World by Jimmy Burns [eBook]

 
Find a Way by Diana Nyad

A Different Kind of Daughter: The Girl Who Hid From the Taliban in Plain Sight by Maria Toorpakai with Katharine Holstein

Speed Kings: The 1932 Winter Olympics and the Fastest Men in the World by Andy Bull

Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling by William Fotheringham

Das Reboot: How German Soccer Reinvented Itself and Conquered the World by Raphael Honigstein

Great Men Die Twice: The Selected Works of Mark Kram edited by Mark Kram, Jr

Ping Pong Diplomacy: The Secret History Behind the Game That Changed the World by Nicholas Griffin

The Jewish Olympics: The History of the Maccabiah Games by Ron Kaplan

The Three Year Swim Club: The Untold Story of Maui's Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory by Julie Checkoway

This is Your Brain on Sports: The Science of Underdogs, the Value of Rivalry, and What We Can Learn From the T-shirt Cannon by L. Jon Wertheim and Sam Sommers

Dancing with the Devil in the City of God: Rio de Janeiro On the Brink by Juliana Barbassa

Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship of Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X by Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith

Earnhardt Nation: The Full-Throttle Saga of NASCAR's First Family by Jay Busbee

Recommended Sports Books for Adults & Youth

We are deep within the 95th regular season of the National Football League! 256 games to be played out over a seventeen week schedule leading up to Super Bowl XLIX on February 1, 2015, with 3 games on 3 networks on Thanksgiving Day: the Detroit Lions will host the Chicago Bears on CBS; the Dallas Cowboys will host the Philadelphia Eagles on Fox; and on prime-time NBC, the San Francisco 49ers will host Seattle Seahawks (championship rematch). Will you be watching? For the first time ever, no AFC (American Football Conference, one of two conferences of the NFL) teams will appear on Thanksgiving.

There are other sporting events of note in November, including the New York City Marathon, Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, rivalry games in college football, NASCAR Ford Ecoboost 400 (the championship round of the Sprint Cup), the Trampoline and Tumbling World Championships, the XXII Central American and Caribbean Games, PSA Men's World Squash Championship, the group stages of the UEFA Champions League, and World Weightlifting Championships; and in December, the World Swimming Championships and the International Rugby Board Women Sevens World Series are happening.

Who knew late fall was so chockablock with sporting events? Even if you can't catch all your favorite sports live this season, perhaps you'd like to use the upcoming holidays to kick back with some reading about sports - here are some titles we think you might enjoy! We even have a couple of books to get your sporty kids reading.

Adults

Blood Aces: The Wild Ride of Benny Binion, The Texas Gangster Who Created Vegas Poker by Doug J. Swanson

Collision Low Crossers: A Year Inside the Turbulent World of NFL Football by Nicholas Dawidoff

The Magnificent Masters: Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Weiskopf and the 1975 Cliffhanger at Augusta by Gil Capps

The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death by Colson Whitehead

Pete Rose: An American Dilemma by Kostya Kennedy

Ping Pong Diplomacy: The Secret History Behind the Game that Changed the World by Nicholas Griffin

Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival From the Bottom of the Pile by Nate Jackson

Why Football Matters: My Education in the Game by Mark Edmundson

Against Football: One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto by Steve Almond

Parcells: A Football Life by Bill Parcells and Nunyo Demasio

Season of Saturdays: A History of College Football in 14 Games by Michael Weinreb

Football: Great Writing About the National Sport edited by John Schulian

Newton's Football: The Science Behind America's Game by Allen St. John, Ainissa G. Ramirez, PH.D

I Am Zlatan: My Story On and Off the Field by Zlatan Ibrahimović with David Lagercrantz
 
Children

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

Fourth Down and Inches: Concussions and Football's Make-or-Break Moment by Carla Killough McClafferty

Muckers by Sandra Neil Wallace [eBook]

The Soccer Fence by Phil Bildner

Soccer Star by Mina Javaherbin 

So, You Want to Work in Sports?: The Ultimate Guide to Exploring the Sports Industry by Joanne Mattern 

Stealing the Game by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld

Baseball and Fitness Staff Picks

We are deep in the heart of baseball season!  Have you been to see the Albuquerque Isotopes yet this year? We have a few baseball reads recommended by library staff to share with you:

Trading Bases: A Story About Wall Street, Gambling, and Baseball (Not Necessarily In That Order) by Joe Peta 

The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood by Jane Leavy 

The Closer: My Story by Mariano Rivera

Throwback: A Big-League Catcher Tells How the Game Is Really Played by Kendall, Jason and Lee Judge

Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan's Guide for Beginners, Semi-Experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks by Zack Hample

If you are not a baseball fan but are looking to read more about physical fitness, here are some other titles selected by staff that you might enjoy:

 

The Art of Expressing the Human Body by Bruce Lee

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall

The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer by Gretchen Reynolds

Light on Yoga: Yoga Dipika by B.K.S. Iyengar

Pick Your Yoga Practice: Exploring and Understanding Different Styles of Yoga by Meagan McCrary

FastExercise: The Simple Secret of High-Intensity Training by Dr. Michael Mosley with Peta Bee

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir by Haruki Murakami

The Swing: Lose the Fat and Get Fit with This Revolutionary Kettlebell Program by Tracy Reifkind

Complete Guide to Kettlebell Training by Allan Collins

Relax into Stretch: Instant Flexibility Through Mastering Muscle Tension by Pavel Tsatsouline

The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance by David Epstein

No Need for Speed: A Beginner's Guide to the Joy of Running by John "The Penguin" Bingham

The Primal Blueprint: 21-Day Total Body Transformation by Mark Sisson

Great Games

Are you a sports fan? Perhaps you'd like to spend some time de-stressing during the silly season by curling up with books that allows you to relive some of the greatest games of your favorite sport, or read about some of the finest athletic competitions you didn't get to see.  Whether it's football, baseball, basketball, or beyond, we've compiled a list of titles for sports history fans of all stripes! However, if you know a title we've missed, feel free to add it in the comments.

Football

The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL by Mark Bowden

The Glory Game: How the 1958 NFL Championship Changed Football Forever by Frank Gifford ; with Peter Richmond

The Games That Changed the Game: The Evolution of the NFL in Seven Sundays by Ron Jaworski, with Greg Cosell and David Plaut

The Catch: One Play, Two Dynasties, and The Game That Changed the NFL by Gary Myers [eBook]

Baseball

A Game of Brawl: The Orioles, the Beaneaters, and The Battle for the 1897 Pennant by Bill Felber [eBook]

Bottom of the 33rd: Hope and Redemption in Baseball's Longest Game by Dan Barry

The Best Game Ever: Pirates vs. Yankees, October 13, 1960 by Jim Reisler

Game Six: Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America's Pastime by Mark Frost

The Greatest Game: The Yankees, the Red Sox, and the Playoff of '78 by Richard Bradley

Basketball

The Last Great Game: Duke vs. Kentucky and the 2.1 Seconds That Changed Basketball by Gene Wojciechowski

When March Went Mad: The GameThat Transformed Basketball by Seth Davis

Tennis

Strokes of Genius: Federer, Nadal, and the Greatest Match Ever Played by L. Jon Wertheim [eBook]

Golf

The War by the Shore: The Incomparable Drama of the 1991 Ryder Cup by Curt Sampson  [eBook]

Boxing

Two Ton: One Fight, One Night - Tony Galento v. Joe Louis by Joseph Monninger

The Greatest Fight of Our Generation: Louis vs. Schmeling by Lewis A. Erenberg [eBook]

Cycling

Hell on Two Wheels: An Astonishing Story of Suffering, Triumph, and the Most Extreme Endurance Race in the World by Amy Snyder

The Giro d'Italia: Coppi versus Bartali at the 1949 Tour of Italy by Dino Buzzati

Soccer

Home and Away: One Writer's Inspiring Experience at the Homeless World Cup by Dave Bidini [eBook]

The Story of the World Cup by Brian Glanville

The Girls of Summer: The U.S. Women's Soccer Team and How It Changed the World by Jere Longman

A Season with Verona: Travels Around Italy in Search of Illusion, National Character and - Goals! by Tim Parks

Miscellaneous

And The Crowd Goes Wild: Relive the Most Celebrated Sporting Events Ever Broadcast by Joe Garner

1941, The Greatest Year in Sports: Two Baseball Legends, Two Boxing Champs, and the Unstoppable Thoroughbred Who Made History in the Shadow of War by Mike Vaccaro

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Olympics by Daniel James Brown

Showdown at Shepherd's Bush: The 1908 Olympic Marathon and the Three Runners Who Launched a Sporting Craze by David Davis

Recommended Reads: Sports Stories

Got a sports fanatic in the house?  In the off-season, maybe you can get them interested in these athletically minded reads!

For Adults - Fiction

Calico Joe by John Grisham

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Basketball Jones by E. Lynn Harris

Playing for Pizza by John Grisham

Sudden Death by David Rosenfelt

Testimony by Anita Shreve

The Taliban Cricket Club by Timeri Murari


For Adults - Non-Fiction

La Roja: How Soccer Conquered Spain and How Spanish Soccer Conquered the World by Jimmy Burns [eBook]

SilverSmith: The Biography of Walter Smith by Neil Drysdale [eBook]

History of the World Cup, 1930-2010 by Clemente A. Lisi [eBook]

Home and Away: One Writer's Inspiring Experience at the Homeless World Cup by Dave Bidini [eBook]

Match Fixer by Neil Humphreys [eBook]

Chasing the Game: America and the Quest for the World Cup by Filip Bondy [eBook]

Long Distance Love: A Passion for Football by Grant Farred [eBook]

A Cultured Left Foot: The Eleven Elements of Footballing Greatness by Musa Okwonga [eBook]

Arsènal: The Making of a Modern Superclub by Alex Fynn and Kevin Whitcher

For Kids & Teens

Brothers at Bat: The True Story of an Amazing All-Brother Baseball Team by Audrey Vernick

Leverage by Joshua C. Cohen

Curveball: The Year I Lost My Grip by Jordan Sonnenblick

Hothead by Carl Ripken Jr.

The Final Four by Paul Volponi

A Passion for Victory: The Story of the Olympics in Ancient and Early Modern Times by Benson Bobrick

Yes, She Can!: Women's Sports Pioneers by Glenn Stout

Stars in the Shadows: The Negro League All-Star Game of1934 by Charles R. Smith Jr.

Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer

Suggested by two articles from Booklist magazine: "Listenalikes:Talking Sports" & "Top 10 Sports Books for Youth: 2012".

2012 Summer Olympics

The 2012 Summer Olympic Games are upon us!  The Olympics run from July 27th - August 12th. Will you be following the action? What's your favorite event? We've collected some helpful links below for learning about the Olympic Games & keeping score, but perhaps you'd like to check out some Olympic-related items in addition to those?  Here are some of the most recent items in the library catalog!

For Kids

Discover the Summer Olympics with Cecile & Pepo (dvd)

A Passion for Victory: The Story of the Olympics in Ancient and Early Modern Times by Benson Bobrick

The Olympics: Scandals by Moira Butterfield


For Adults

How to Watch the Olympics: The Essential Guide to the Rules, Statistics, Heroes, and Zeroes of Every Sport by David Goldblatt and Johnny Acton

Showdown at Shepherd's Bush: The 1908 Olympic Marathon and the Three Runners who Launched a Sporting Craze by David Davis

How to be Like Women Athletes of Influence: Thirty-One Women at the Top of Their Game and How You Can Get There Too by Dana Pennett O'Neil and Pat Williams

The Olympics: Unforgettable Moments of the Games by Stephanie Peters [eBook only in our catalog]

Gold by Chris Cleave


Biographies of Athletes

Off Balance by Dominique Moceanu with Paul and Teri Williams

In the Water They Can't See You Cry: A Memoir by Amanda Beard ; with Rebecca Paley

Zero Regrets: Be Greater than Yesterday by Apolo Ohno with Alan Abrahamson

Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics by Jeremy Schaap


Just for Fun

Olympknits by Laura Long


For more items in the catalog, try a subject search of "Olympics".



Useful links:

London 2012 Olympics: Official Website & Mobile Apps for the London 2012 Summer Olympics. Live results, competition schedule, news, photos, videos, medal count, athlete bios.

Olympic.org: Official website of the Olympic movement

NBC Olympics: Coverage of the London 2012 Olympic Games from NBCOlympics.com includes live video, highlights, results, schedules, TV Listings, medals, news, photos, & more.

The 10 Oddest Former Olympic Events