With hundreds of books dedicated to conventional sports and activities, this encyclopedia on the weirdest and wackiest games offers a fresh and entertaining read for any audience. Weird Sports and Wacky Games around the World: From Buzkashi to Zorbing focuses on what many would consider abnormal activities from across the globe. Spanning subjects that include individual games, team sports, games for men and women, and contests involving animal competitors, there is something for every reader. Whether researching a particular country or region's traditions or wanting an interesting read for pleasure, this book offers an array of uses and benefits. Though the book focuses on games and sporting activities, the examination of these topics gives readers insight into unfamiliar places and peoples through their recreation—an essential part of the human experience that occurs in all cultures. Such activities are not only embedded in everyday life but also indelibly interconnected with social customs, war, politics, commerce, education, and national identity, making the whimsical topic of the book an appealing gateway to insightful, highly relevant information.

Bog snorkelling, dwile flonking, wife carrying — these might sound like the newest entries in a dictionary of euphemisms, but they are in fact sports. Strange sports, yes, but actual sports nonetheless. And there are dozens more, as you'll discover in this fantastic, witty and oddly compelling round-up of the world's strangest events held in the glorious name of competition. How about Chess-Boxing? It features 11 alternating rounds of chess and boxing and you can win by either a knockout or a checkmate. Or what about the Afghani sport of Buzkashi? This translates as goat grabbing and is like a surreal version of rugby on horseback, with a 55kg goat carcass instead of a ball and up to 100 competitors who are allowed to whip other riders to get the carcass off them and into their own scoring circle. Then there is the very Australian annual Goanna Pulling Championships, held every June. The competitors are actually consenting adults, who put large leather collars around their necks, hitch the collars to a chain that runs between the two of them, lie down on their stomachs, facing each other, with chests lifted off the ground, and attempt to drag their opponent backwards across the winning line. There are 50 very weird but very real sports in the book and you will find yourself chuckling on every page as you learn about them.

Sports Plays is a volume about sports in the theatre and what it means to stage sports. The chapters in this volume examine sports plays through a range of critical and theoretical approaches that highlight central concerns and questions both for sports and for theatre. The plays cut across boundaries and genres, from Broadway-style musicals to dramas to experimental and developmental work. The chapters examine and trouble the conventions of staging sports as they open possibilities for considering larger social and cultural issues and debates. This broad range of perspectives make the volume a compelling resource for students and scholars of sport, theatre, and performance studies whose interests span feminism, sexuality, politics, and race.

A few white lies during a simple game of truth or dare spin out of control and make life very complicated for Lia in this “entertaining bibliotherapy” (Kirkus Reviews) from Barbara Dee. When Lia returns after a summer with her eccentric aunt, it feels like everything has changed within her group of five friends. Everyone just seems more…dramatic. And after playing a game of Truth or Dare, Lia discovers how those divides are growing wider, and tells a few white lies about what really happened over the summer in order to “keep up.” But is “keeping up” with her BFFs really worth it?

Winner, 2019 PROSE Award for Anthropology, Criminology and Sociology, presented by the Association of American Publishers A groundbreaking look at the lives of transgender children and their families Some “boys” will only wear dresses; some “girls” refuse to wear dresses; in both cases, as Ann Travers shows in this fascinating account of the lives of transgender kids, these are often more than just wardrobe choices. Travers shows that from very early ages, some at two and three years old, these kids find themselves to be different from the sex category that was assigned to them at birth. How they make their voices heard—to their parents and friends, in schools, in public spaces, and through the courts—is the focus of this remarkable and groundbreaking book. Based on interviews with transgender kids, ranging in age from 4 to 20, and their parents, and over five years of research in the US and Canada, The Trans Generation offers a rare look into what it is like to grow up as a trans child. From daycare to birthday parties and from the playground to the school bathroom, Travers takes the reader inside the day-to-day realities of trans kids who regularly experience crisis as a result of the restrictive ways in which sex categories regulate their lives and put pressure on them to deny their internal sense of who they are in gendered terms. As a transgender activist and as an advocate for trans kids, Travers is able to document from first-hand experience the difficulties of growing up trans and the challenges that parents can face. The book shows the incredible time, energy, and love that these parents give to their children, even in the face of, at times, unsupportive communities, schools, courts, health systems, and government laws. Keeping in mind that all trans kids are among the most vulnerable to bullying, violent attacks, self-harm, and suicide, and that those who struggle with poverty, racism, lack of parental support, learning differences, etc, are extremely at risk, Travers offers ways to support all trans kids through policy recommendations and activist interventions. Ultimately, the book is meant to open up options for kids’ own gender self-determination, to question the need for the sex binary, and to highlight ways that cultural and material resources can be redistributed more equitably. The Trans Generation offers an essential and important new understanding of childhood.