Would you enjoy letting yourself fall from the top of a skyscraper? Or swimming through a narrow, dark passage in an underground cave, thousands of feet from the surface? Some people do these things for fun every day. Are they more fearless than most people, or just plain crazy? Take the plunge with some daring athletes and see if you have the stomach for the world's deadliest sports.

Can you imagine being one of just three hundred soldiers from ancient Greece pitted against an army of thousands? Or wading through muddy, lice-infested trenches in World War I while bombs blasted overhead? These are just a couple of the situations that people faced during some of the world's most deadly battles. Explore the horrors of those fatal fights inside this book.

Imagine yourself parachuting from a plane straight into a raging forest fire, or racing against the clock to disarm a ticking bomb while enemy forces lurk around you. For some people, this is just a typical day at work. They have some of the world's deadliest jobs...and you're about to join them! Explore these high-risk careers and see if you have the guts to do what they do!

If you pay attention to the news, you've probably seen some scary headlines: fiery NASCAR crashes, career-ending sports injuries, and more. But the truth is, these kinds of accidents are rare. Engineers have designed sports gear to keep athletes as safe as possible. Carbon-fiber helmets, smart pads, and avalanche air bags are just a few of the improvements that help people play sports more safely. Learn more about how the technology in sports gear works to keep us safe.

Examines the animals that are both vicious and adorable, including polar bears, otters, and chimpanzees.

These widely acclaimed essays from the author of Infinite Jest -- on television, tennis, cruise ships, and more -- established David Foster Wallace as one of the preeminent essayists of his generation. In this exuberantly praised book -- a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner -- David Foster Wallace brings to nonfiction the same curiosity, hilarity, and exhilarating verbal facility that has delighted readers of his fiction, including the bestselling Infinite Jest.

Examines 2,500 years of sporting violence, describes the extent of the violent action in modern sports, and explains how that violence affects other aspects of life.