The Mesoamerican ballgame was no ordinary sport. Played by the Olmecs, Maya and Aztecs, from at least 1200 BC to the Spanish Conquest in the 16th century AD, it was both a contest of breathtaking athletic skill and a ritual spectacle in which the struggle between the opposing forces of day and night, good and evil, life and death was enacted by the teams on the ballcourt. ''The Sport of Life and Death'', the most comprehensive work ever on the Mesoamerican ballgame, brings together a range of these works of art, of striking beauty, vivacity and power, from tiny jade carvings of the Olmecs depicting their player kings to the ring-shaped stone goals that once stood in Aztec ballcourts. Essays by leading authorities on Mesoamerican art and culture discuss all aspects of the ballgame, such as the natural history of rubber, the magnificent architecture of the ballcourts, the extraordinary equipment worn by the players, the complex religious symbolism and ritual elements of the games and descriptions of versions that are still played today in Mexico.

New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Award "Nimbly splices together history, science, reporting and personal experiences into a taut and cautiously hopeful narrative.… Egan’s book is bursting with life (and yes, death)." —Robert Moor, New York Times Book Review The Great Lakes—Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario, and Superior—hold 20 percent of the world’s supply of surface fresh water and provide sustenance, work, and recreation for tens of millions of Americans. But they are under threat as never before, and their problems are spreading across the continent. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes is prize-winning reporter Dan Egan’s compulsively readable portrait of an ecological catastrophe happening right before our eyes, blending the epic story of the lakes with an examination of the perils they face and the ways we can restore and preserve them for generations to come.

What compels mountain climbers to take the risks that they do? Is it the thrill in the physical accomplishment, in managing to defy the odds, or both -- and why do they continue to do what they do in the face of such great danger? In On the Ridge Between Life and Death, David Roberts confronts these questions head-on as he recounts the exhilarating highs and desperate lows of his climbing career. By the time he was twenty-two, Roberts had already been involved in three fatal mountain climbing accidents and had escaped death himself by the sheerest of luck. And yet, as he acknowledges, few things have brought him more joy than climbing. In a famous essay on the subject written more than twenty years ago, Roberts judged climbing to be "worth the risk." He continues to climb to this day, and several of his challenging routes in Alaska have never been climbed since. But in reassessing the emotional costs to himself and to loved ones, he reaches a different conclusion, one that is sure to cause controversy not only in climbing circles, but among adventurers of all kinds. Candid and unflinching, On the Ridge Between Life and Death is a compelling examination of the risks we take in order to feel more alive.

From the award-winning author of NO HUNGER IN PARADISE Outside the global spotlight, footballers don't drive Aston Martins or pose for underwear ads. This is war. This is life. This is football. Michael Calvin turned up for the first day of pre-season training at Millwall FC. 333 days later, he sat among the subs at Wembley. Over the course of a season, he witnessed the intimate everyday life of a football club far from the glitz and glamour of the Premier League, and the unique characters that come together every day on the field. These are dedicated, hard-working family men, close to their roots, 'playing for the people who hate their jobs, who'd love our lives.' Forget about the over-hyped circus of the Premier League. This is the beautiful game in all its raucous glory: essential reading for anyone whom football is a way of life.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BC NATIONAL AWARD FOR CANADIAN NON-FICTION A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK From the bestselling author and Hall of Famer Ken Dryden, this is the story of NHLer Steve Montador—who was diagnosed with CTE after his death in 2015—the remarkable evolution of hockey itself, and a passionate prescriptive to counter its greatest risk in the future: head injuries. Ken Dryden’s The Game is acknowledged as the best book about hockey, and one of the best books about sports ever written. Then came Home Game (with Roy MacGregor), also a major TV-series, in which he explored hockey’s significance and what it means to Canada and Canadians. Now, in his most powerful and important book yet, Game Change, Ken Dryden tells the riveting story of one player’s life, examines the intersection between science and sport, and expertly documents the progression of the game of hockey—where it began, how it got to where it is, where it can go from here and, just as exciting to play and watch, how it can get there.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A deeply affecting coming-of-age memoir about family, love, loss, basketball—and life itself—by the beloved author of The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini During one unforgettable season as a Citadel cadet, Pat Conroy becomes part of a basketball team that is ultimately destined to fail. And yet for a military kid who grew up on the move, the Bulldogs provide a sanctuary from the cold, abrasive father who dominates his life—and a crucible for becoming his own man. With all the drama and incandescence of his bestselling fiction, Conroy re-creates his pivotal senior year as captain of the Citadel Bulldogs. He chronicles the highs and lows of that fateful 1966–67 season, his tough disciplinarian coach, the joys of winning, and the hard-won lessons of losing. Most of all, he recounts how a group of boys came together as a team, playing a sport that would become a metaphor for a man whose spirit could never be defeated. Praise for My Losing Season “A superb accomplishment, maybe the finest book Pat Conroy has written.”—The Washington Post Book World “A wonderfully rich memoir that you don’t have to be a sports fan to love.”—Houston Chronicle “A memoir with all the Conroy trademarks . . . Here’s ample proof that losers always tell the best stories.”—Newsweek “In My Losing Season, Conroy opens his arms wide to embrace his difficult past and almost everyone in it.”—New York Daily News “Haunting, bittersweet and as compelling as his bestselling fiction.”—Boston Herald

The Precolumbian ballgame, played on a masonry court, has long intrigued scholars because of the magnificence of its archaeological remains. From its lowland Maya origins it spread throughout the Aztec empire, where the game was so popular that sixteen thousand rubber balls were imported annually into Tenochtitlan. It endured for two thousand years, spreading as far as to what is now southern Arizona. This new collection of essays brings together research from field archaeology, mythology, and Maya hieroglyphic studies to illuminate this important yet puzzling aspect of Native American culture. The authors demonstrate that the game was more than a spectator sport; serving social, political, mythological, and cosmological functions, it celebrated both fertility and the afterlife, war and peace, and became an evolving institution functioning in part to resolve conflict within and between groups. The contributors provide complete coverage of the archaeological, sociopolitical, iconographic, and ideological aspects of the game, and offer new information on the distribution of ballcourts, new interpretations of mural art, and newly perceived relations of the game with material in the Popol Vuh. With its scholarly attention to a subject that will fascinate even general readers, The Mesoamerican Ballgame is a major contribution to the study of the mental life and outlook of New World peoples.