Biography & Autobiography

Her goal: to become a world-renowned biomedical engineer working with scientific societies to improve the role of women in scientific fields and the way scientists and engineers integrate people and society into their work. By 1979, this goal had become a reality.

In her memoirs, acclaimed biomedical engineer Monique Frize recalls the events in her life that taught her to overcome obstacles, become more resilient, recognize the importance of mentors and role models, and remain focused on the future. She also speaks of her appreciation of the critical role played by family and friends in maintaining the strength and determination required to succeed. And, above all, to succeed in a man’s world.

Frize fondly remembers her youth in Montreal and in Ottawa, and her marked interest for math and science. Her entry into the world of engineering was both romantic—she met her husband—and tragic. She faced prejudice and stereotypes, which she ultimately overcame. She reconciled family and work life, pursuing a challenging and rewarding international career in a very specialized field at a time when this was still very uncommon for a woman. And she relives the tragic Polytechnique massacre.

These memoirs are sure to inspire young women who have a dream, and more specifically those who wish to enter sciences and engineering.

Published in English.

One hundred years after his death, Leo Tolstoy continues to be regarded as one of the world’s most accomplished writers. Historically, little attention has been paid to his wife Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya.

Acting in the capacity of literary assistant, translator, transcriber, and editor, she played an important role in the development of her husband’s career. Her memoirs – which she titled My Life – lay dormant for almost a century. Now their first-time-ever appearance in Russia is complemented by an unabridged and annotated English translation. Tolstaya’s story takes us from her childhood through the early years of her marriage, the writing of War and Peace and Anna Karenina and into the first year of the twentieth century. She paints an intimate and honest portrait of her husband’s character, providing new details about his life to which she alone was privy. She offers a better understanding of Tolstoy’s character, his qualities and failings as a husband and a father, and forms a picture of the quintessential Tolstoyan character which underlies his fiction.

My Life also reveals that Tolstaya was an accomplished author in her own right—as well as a translator, amateur artist, musician, photographer, and businesswoman—a rarity in the largely male-dominated world of the time. She was actively involved in the relief efforts for the 1891–92 famine and the emigration of the Doukhobors in 1899. She was a prolific correspondent, in touch with many prominent figures in Russian and Western society. Guests in her home ranged from peasants to princes, from anarchists to artists, from composers to philosophers. Her descriptions of these personalities read as a chronicle of the times, affording a unique portrait of late-19th- and early-20th-century Russian society, ranging from peasants to the Tsar himself. My Life is the most important primary document about Tolstoy to be published in many years and a unique and intimate portrait of one of the greatest literary minds of all time.

The Modern Language Association (MLA) awarded the Lois Roth Award to John Woodsworth and Arkadi Klioutchanski of the University of Ottawa’s Slavic Research Group for their translation of Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya’s My Life memoirs. My Life was selected among the top 100 non-fiction works of 2010 by The Globe and Mail. It has also won an honourable mention in the Biography and Autobiography category of the 2010 American Publishers Awards for the Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE) awards. And, finally, it made it into the Association of American University Presses' 2011 Book, Jacket and Journal Show.

Published in English.

To the older generations in her native Slovakia, Hana Ponická is well-known for her successful children’s books and courageous fight against the communist regime. Her psychological ordeal began in February 1977 when the elderly lady refused to sign the so-called anticharta, a condemnation of the human rights group Charter 77, which had published its first manifesto in the West on 1 January 1977. All Slovak and Czech artists had to sign the anticharta; they were forced by the regime to condemn the dissidents, the most prominent among them being Václav Havel (1936–2011), who were standing up against the violation of basic human rights enshrined in the Czechoslovak constitution following the conclusion of the CSCE treaty of Helsinki. Ponická, like most of her fellow artists, had neither read the Charter 77 manifesto nor the text of the anticharta; she thus refused to sign. Her courage prompted the regime to terrorize her psychologically.


This political biography is the first ever written about Ponická, despite her being a household name in Slovakia. Josette Baer’s analysis is based on Ponická’s memoirs of that cruel year of 1977, newspaper articles she published prior to 1971, when the regime effectively banned any critical voice from publication, and newspaper articles she published after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 to promote the establishing of a rule-of-law state and democracy.


The documents of the StB, the Slovak and Czech Security Services, are analyzed for the first time; they are evidence of how the StB tried to pressure the resilient and disciplined grandmother of three into obedience.


Oral history interviews with Dirk Matthias Dalberg, Vlasta Jaksicsová, and Mary Šamal inform the reader about the situation of the Slovak dissidents of Charter 77, how normal citizens lived in the regime, and how the Czech and Slovak exile communities in the USA saw the dissidents in Communist Czechoslovakia.

Virginia C. Gildersleeve was the most influential dean of Barnard College, which she led from 1911 to 1947. An organizer of the Seven College Conference, or “Seven Sisters,” she defended women's intellectual abilities and the value of the liberal arts. She also amassed a strong set of foreign policy credentials and, at the peak of her prominence in 1945, served as the sole woman member of the U.S. delegation to the drafting of the United Nations Charter. But her accomplishments are undercut by other factors: she had a reputation for bias against Jewish applicants for admission to Barnard and early in the 1930s voiced an indulgent view of the Nazi regime.

In this biography, historian Nancy Woloch explores Gildersleeve’s complicated career in academia and public life. At once a privileged insider, prone to elitism and insularity, and a perpetual outsider to the sexist establishment in whose ranks she sought to ascend, Gildersleeve stands out as richly contradictory. The book examines her initiatives in higher education, her savvy administration, her strategies for gaining influence in academic life, the ways that she acquired and deployed expertise, and her drive to take part in the world of foreign affairs. Woloch draws out her ambivalent stance in the women’s movement, concerned with women’s status but opposed to demands for equal rights. Tracing resonant themes of ambition, competition, and rivalry, The Insider masterfully weaves Gildersleeve’s life into the histories of education, international relations, and feminism.

Virginia C. Gildersleeve was the most influential dean of Barnard College, which she led from 1911 to 1947. An organizer of the Seven College Conference, or “Seven Sisters,” she defended women's intellectual abilities and the value of the liberal arts. She also amassed a strong set of foreign policy credentials and, at the peak of her prominence in 1945, served as the sole woman member of the U.S. delegation to the drafting of the United Nations Charter. But her accomplishments are undercut by other factors: she had a reputation for bias against Jewish applicants for admission to Barnard and early in the 1930s voiced an indulgent view of the Nazi regime.

In this biography, historian Nancy Woloch explores Gildersleeve’s complicated career in academia and public life. At once a privileged insider, prone to elitism and insularity, and a perpetual outsider to the sexist establishment in whose ranks she sought to ascend, Gildersleeve stands out as richly contradictory. The book examines her initiatives in higher education, her savvy administration, her strategies for gaining influence in academic life, the ways that she acquired and deployed expertise, and her drive to take part in the world of foreign affairs. Woloch draws out her ambivalent stance in the women’s movement, concerned with women’s status but opposed to demands for equal rights. Tracing resonant themes of ambition, competition, and rivalry, The Insider masterfully weaves Gildersleeve’s life into the histories of education, international relations, and feminism.

Mixing fiction, history, psychoanalysis, and personal fantasy, Teresa, My Love turns a past world into a modern marvel, following Sylvia Leclercq, a French psychoanalyst, academic, and incurable insomniac, as she falls for the sixteenth-century Saint Teresa of Avila and becomes consumed with charting her life. Traveling to Spain, Leclercq, Julia Kristeva's probing alter ego, visits the sites and embodiments of the famous mystic and awakens to her own desire for faith, connection, and rebellion.

One of Kristeva's most passionate and transporting works, Teresa, My Love interchanges biography, autobiography, analysis, dramatic dialogue, musical scores, and images of paintings and sculpture to engage the reader in Leclercq's—and Kristeva's—journey. Born in 1515, Teresa of Avila outwitted the Spanish Inquisition and was a key reformer of the Carmelite Order. Her experience of ecstasy, which she intimately described in her writings, released her from her body and led to a complete realization of her consciousness, a state Kristeva explores in relation to present-day political failures, religious fundamentalism, and cultural malaise. Incorporating notes from her own psychoanalytic practice, as well as literary and philosophical references, Kristeva builds a fascinating dual diagnosis of contemporary society and the individual psyche while sharing unprecedented insights into her own character.

Memory Is Our Home is a powerful biographical memoir based on the diaries of Roma Talasiewicz-Eibuszyc, who was born in Warsaw before the end of World War I, grew up during the interwar period and who, after escaping the atrocities of World War II, was able to survive in the vast territories of Soviet Russia and Uzbekistan.

Translated by her own daughter, interweaving her own recollections as her family made a new life in the shadows of the Holocaust in Communist Poland after the war and into the late 1960s, this book is a rich, living document, a riveting account of a vibrant young woman's courage and endurance.

A forty-year recollection of love and loss, of hopes and dreams for a better world, it provides richly-textured accounts of the physical and emotional lives of Jews in Warsaw and of survival during World War II throughout Russia. This book, narrated in a compelling, unique voice through two generations, is the proverbial candle needed to keep memory alive.

Memory Is Our Home is a powerful biographical memoir based on the diaries of Roma Talasiewicz-Eibuszyc, who was born in Warsaw before the end of World War I, grew up during the interwar period and who, after escaping the atrocities of World War II, was able to survive in the vast territories of Soviet Russia and Uzbekistan.

Translated by her own daughter, interweaving her own recollections as her family made a new life in the shadows of the Holocaust in Communist Poland after the war and into the late 1960s, this book is a rich, living document, a riveting account of a vibrant young woman's courage and endurance.

A forty-year recollection of love and loss, of hopes and dreams for a better world, it provides richly-textured accounts of the physical and emotional lives of Jews in Warsaw and of survival during World War II throughout Russia. This book, narrated in a compelling, unique voice through two generations, is the proverbial candle needed to keep memory alive.

Throughout her life, Diana Trilling (1905-1996) wrote about profound social changes with candor and wisdom, first for The Nation and later for Partisan Review, Harpers, and such popular magazines as Vogue and McCalls. She went on to publish five books, including the best-selling Mrs. Harris: The Death of the Scarsdale Diet Doctor, written when she was in her late seventies. She was also one half of one of the most famous intellectual couples in the United States.

Diana Trilling’s life with Columbia University professor and literary critic Lionel Trilling was filled with secrets, struggles, and betrayals, and she endured what she called her “own private hell” as she fought to reconcile competing duties and impulses at home and at work. She was a feminist, yet she insisted that women’s liberation created unnecessary friction with men, asserting that her career ambitions should be on equal footing with caring for her child and supporting her husband. She fearlessly expressed sensitive, controversial, and moral views, and fought publicly with Lillian Hellman, among other celebrated writers and intellectuals, over politics. Diana Trilling was an anticommunist liberal, a position often misunderstood, especially by her literary and university friends. And finally, she was among the “New Journalists” who transformed writing and reporting in the 1960s, making her nonfiction as imaginative in style and scope as a novel. The first biographer to mine Diana Trilling’s extensive archives, Natalie Robins tells a previously undisclosed history of an essential member of New York City culture at a time of dynamic change and intellectual relevance.

A thousand years ago, a young Japanese girl embarked on a journey from deep in the countryside of eastern Japan to the capital. Forty years later, with the long account of that journey as a foundation, the mature woman skillfully created an autobiography that incorporates many moments of heightened awareness from her long life. Married at age thirty-three, she identified herself as a reader and writer more than as a wife and mother; enthralled by fiction, she bore witness to the dangers of romantic fantasy as well as the enduring consolation of self-expression.

This reader’s edition streamlines Sonja Arntzen and Moriyuki Itō’s acclaimed translation of the Sarashina Diary for general readers and classroom use. This translation captures the lyrical richness of the original text while revealing its subtle structure and ironic meaning, highlighting the author’s deep concern for Buddhist belief and practice and the juxtaposition of poetic passages and narrative prose. The translators’ commentary offers insight into the author’s family and world, as well as the style, structure, and textual history of her work.

A poet's hiking vacation turns deadly in soaring Mojave heat; his true survival story leaves you with chills. Rosenthal’s shocking ordeal was covered by The Discovery Channel and on "Fight to Survive" with Bear Grylls.

A real estate broker in Downtown Los Angeles, Ed Rosenthal's passion is poetry, writing about the historic buildings he sells and advocates to preserve. He hates slumlords, is fed up with his buyers, and finally escapes to the Mojave to bathe at a natural spring and take his favorite hiking trip in Joshua Tree National Park. But his vacation soon turns into a nightmare. Over six grueling days without water, food, or hope, he discovers a well of perseverance in the snippets of his life that play over the deadly but inspiring landscape, in which he finds himself utterly and inexplicably lost. The God of Random Chance has, despite his best efforts his whole life, finally caught up to him. He describes his ordeal and its setting in intimate, vivid detail: surreal visions mix with wayfinding and intuitive wisdom in a poet’s-eye view of the life-lessons and magic that the desert can hold.

At the heart of fame is the tricky business of image management. Over the last 115 years, the celebrity autobiography has emerged as a popular and useful tool for that project. In Limelight, Katja Lee examines the memoirs of famous Canadian women like L. M. Montgomery, Nellie McClung, the Dionne Quintuplets, Margaret Trudeau, and Shania Twain to trace the rise of celebrity autobiography in Canada and the role gender has played in the rise to fame and in writing about that experience.
Arguing that the celebrity autobiography is always negotiating historically specific conditions, Lee charts a history of celebrity in English Canada and the conditions that shape the way women access and experience fame. These contexts shed light on the stories women tell about their lives and the public images they cultivate in their autobiographies. As strategies of self-representation change and the pressure to represent the private life escalates, the celebrity autobiography undergoes distinct shifts—in form, function, and content—during the period examined in this study.
Limelight: Canadian Women and the Rise of Celebrity Autobiography is the first book to explore the history and development of the celebrity autobiography and offers compelling evidence of the critical role of gender and nation in the way fame is experienced and represented.

On a May morning in 1939, eighteen-year-old Velma Demerson and her lover were having breakfast when two police officers arrived to take her away. Her crime was loving a Chinese man, a “crime” that was compounded by her pregnancy and subsequent mixed-race child.
Sentenced to a home for wayward girls, Demerson was then transferred (along with forty-six other girls) to Torontos Mercer Reformatory for Females. The girls were locked in their cells for twelve hours a day and required to work in the on-site laundry and factory. They also endured suspect medical examinations. When Demerson was finally released after ten months’ incarceration weeks of solitary confinement, abusive medical treatments, and the state’s apprehension of her child, her marriage to her lover resulted in the loss of her citizenship status.
This is the story of how Demerson, and so many other girls, were treated as criminals or mentally defective individuals, even though their worst crime might have been only their choice of lover. Incorrigible is a survivor’s narrative. In a period that saw the rise of psychiatry, legislation against interracial marriage, and a populist movement that believed in eradicating disease and sin by improving the purity of Anglo-Saxon stock, Velma Demerson, like many young women, found herself confronted by powerful social forces. This is a history of some of those who fell through the cracks of the criminal code, told in a powerful first-person voice.

Memories are like layers of your skin or layers of paint on a canvas. In The Queen of Peace Room, Magie Dominic peels away these layers as she explores her life, that of a Newfoundlander turned New Yorker, an artist and a writer — and frees herself from the memories of her violent past.

On an eight-day retreat with Catholic nuns in a remote location safe from the outside world, she exposes, and captures, fifty years of violent memories and weaves them into a tapestry of unforgettable images. The room she inhabits while there is called The Queen of Peace Room; it becomes, for her, a room of sanctuary. She examines Newfoundland in the 1940s and 1950s and New York in the 1960s; her confrontations with violence, incest, and rape; the devastating loss of friends to AIDS; and the relationship between life and art. These memories she finds stored alongside memories of nature’s images of trees pulling themselves up from their roots and fleeing the forest; storms and ley lines, and skies bursting with star-like eyes.

In The Queen of Peace Room, from a very personal perspective, Magie Dominic explores violence against women in the second half of the twentieth century, and in doing so unearths the memory of a generation. In eight days, she captures half a century.

“Where do you come from?”
When Vijay Agnew first immigrated to Canada people would often ask her “Where do you come from?” She thought it a simple, straightforward question, and would answer in the same simple, straightforward manner, by telling them where she had been born and where she grew up.
But over the years she learned that many so-called third-world people resent being asked this question, because it implies that having a different skin colour (which is what usually prompts the question) makes a person an outsider and not really Canadian. This realization inspired her to look more closely at the question — and the answer. The result is this book.
Where I Come From is a reflective memoir of an immigrant professor’s life in a Canadian university. It covers the period from 1967, when Canada was opened up to third-world immigrants, to the present. The book illustrates the ways in which identity is socially constructed by tracing some of the labels that were applied to the author at various stages during her thirty years in Canada — “foreign student,” “Indian woman,” “immigrant,” “Indian feminist,” and “third-world woman.” She shows how each of these names has affected her relationships with other people and contributed to making her the woman she is now perceived to be: a feminist, anti-racist, activist professor. This multilayered story reveals the complex ways in which race, class, and gender intersect in an immigrant woman’s life, and engages readers in a conversation that narrows the distance between them, showing not only what is different, but what is shared.

“Ruby wrote letters home almost every week....She wrote anything that came into her head: about her children and Fred, her housekeeping, food, clothes, her friends, activities, schemes for making money, her dreams for the future....Her letters, nave, intimate and lively, were always optimistic or poignant. We’d read them to each other on the phone or pass them around. Often we saved them.”

So writes Edna Staebler in her introduction to this edited collection of her sister Ruby’s letters from the fifties. In 1957 when Edna first began to collect and edit these letters she did so simply because she was sure that others would enjoy reading them as much as her own family did. Over fifty years later, the letters remain a joy to read and reclaim the ordinary voice of a housewife. Remarkably, these letters echo themes academics want to isolate in order to analyze women’s roles in the modern world — drifting (“life just happened to me”) and contingency (“women’s lives depend on relationships”), for example, as well as the balance between family and work. As a fine example of women’s life writing they also illustrate the literary patterns of overt and covert stories and of textual and subtextual meaning.

Haven’t Any News: Ruby’s Letters from the Fifties includes an Afterword by Marlene Kadar, Associate Professor of Humanities at York University and a leading expert on women’s life writing. All those concerned with women’s studies and with the social history of twentieth-century Canada will find this book of enormous interest and it will delight Edna Staebler fans everywhere.

Women’s letters and memoirs were until recently considered to have little historical significance. Many of these materials have disappeared or remain unarchived, often dismissed as ephemera and relegated to basements, attics, closets, and, increasingly, cyberspace rather than public institutions. This collection showcases the range of critical debates that animate thinking about women’s archives in Canada.

The essays in Basements and Attics, Closets and Cyberspace consider a series of central questions: What are the challenges that affect archival work about women in Canada today? What are some of the ethical dilemmas that arise over the course of archival research? How do researchers read and make sense of the materials available to them? How does one approach the shifting, unstable forms of new technologies? What principles inform the decisions not only to research the lives of women but to create archival deposits? The contributors focus on how a supple research process might allow for greater engagement with unique archival forms and critical absences in narratives of past and present.

From questions of acquisition, deposition, and preservation to challenges related to the interpretation of material, the contributors track at various stages how fonds are created (or sidestepped) in response to national and other imperatives and to feminist commitments; how archival material is organized, restricted, accessed, and interpreted; how alternative and immediate archives might be conceived and approached; and how exchanges might be read when there are peculiar lacunae—missing or fragmented documents, or gaps in communication—that then require imaginative leaps on the part of the researcher.

Women’s letters and memoirs were until recently considered to have little historical significance. Many of these materials have disappeared or remain unarchived, often dismissed as ephemera and relegated to basements, attics, closets, and, increasingly, cyberspace rather than public institutions. This collection showcases the range of critical debates that animate thinking about women’s archives in Canada.

The essays in Basements and Attics, Closets and Cyberspace consider a series of central questions: What are the challenges that affect archival work about women in Canada today? What are some of the ethical dilemmas that arise over the course of archival research? How do researchers read and make sense of the materials available to them? How does one approach the shifting, unstable forms of new technologies? What principles inform the decisions not only to research the lives of women but to create archival deposits? The contributors focus on how a supple research process might allow for greater engagement with unique archival forms and critical absences in narratives of past and present.

From questions of acquisition, deposition, and preservation to challenges related to the interpretation of material, the contributors track at various stages how fonds are created (or sidestepped) in response to national and other imperatives and to feminist commitments; how archival material is organized, restricted, accessed, and interpreted; how alternative and immediate archives might be conceived and approached; and how exchanges might be read when there are peculiar lacunae—missing or fragmented documents, or gaps in communication—that then require imaginative leaps on the part of the researcher.

Motherlode: A Mosaic of Dutch Wartime Experience is Carolyne Van Der Meer’s creative reinterpretation through short stories, poems, and essays of the experiences of her mother and other individuals who either spent their childhoods in Nazi-occupied Holland or were deeply affected by wartime in Holland. The book documents the author’s personal journey as she uncovers her mother’s past through their correspondence and discussion and through research in the Netherlands. Motherlode also considers mother–daughter relationships and the effect of wartime on motherhood.
Motherlode is not about recording precise historical data; rather, it attempts to recover and interpret the complex emotions of the individuals growing up in wartime. The book is based on interviews with the author’s mother and other Dutch Canadians, interviews with and letters from Canadian Jewish war veterans, and information provided by individuals with direct or indirect experience of the Dutch Resistance. The creative pieces explore onderduik (going into/being in hiding), life in an occupied country, the work of the Dutch Resistance, liberation, collective and individual cultural memory, and the way in which wartime childhoods shaped adulthood for these individuals.

Not the Whole Story is a compilation of sixteen stories narrated by single mothers in their own way and about their own lives. Each story is unique, but the same issues appear again and again. Abuse, parenting as single mothers, challenges in the labour market, mental health and addictions issues, a scarcity of quality childcare, immigration and status vulnerability, struggles with custody, and poverty—these factors, combined with a lack of support, contribute to their continued struggles.
The themes that recur across stories illustrate that the issues the women face are not just about individual struggle; they demonstrate that major issues in Canada’s social system have been neglected in public policy. In order for these issues to be addressed we need to challenge the flawed public policies and the negative discourse that continue to marginalize single mothers—in terms of the opportunities in their own lives and in terms of how they are understood by other Canadians.
The first-person narratives of the struggles and issues faced by low-income single mothers provide narrative richness and are augmented by introductory and concluding chapters that draw the narrative themes together and offer overarching discussion and analysis.

A Colorado favorite, Tomboy Bride presents the first-hand account of a young pioneer woman and her life in a rough and tumble mining town of the Old West.

In 1906 at the age of twenty, Harriet Fish hopped on a train from Oakland, California, to the San Juan Mountains of Colorado in search of a new life as the bride of assayer George Backus. Together, the couple ventured forth to discover mining town life at the turn of the twentieth century, adjusting to dizzying elevation heights of 11,500 feet and all the hardships that come with it: limited water, rationed food supplies, lack of medical care, difficulty in travel, avalanches, and many more. As she and George move from Telluride’s Tomboy Mine to the rugged coast of British Columbia, to the town of Elk City, Idaho, and then back to Colorado’s Leadville, Harriet paints a poignant picture of a world centered around mining, sharing amusing and often challenging experiences as a woman of the era.

With a new foreword by award-winning author Pam Houston, this 50th anniversary edition also includes previously unpublished black and white photographs documenting Harriet's journey. Tomboy Bride endures as a classic of the region to this day as it captures in heart-felt emotion and vivid detail the personal account of Harriet Backus, a true pioneer of the West.

A Colorado favorite, Tomboy Bride presents the first-hand account of a young pioneer woman and her life in a rough and tumble mining town of the Old West.

In 1906 at the age of twenty, Harriet Fish hopped on a train from Oakland, California, to the San Juan Mountains of Colorado in search of a new life as the bride of assayer George Backus. Together, the couple ventured forth to discover mining town life at the turn of the twentieth century, adjusting to dizzying elevation heights of 11,500 feet and all the hardships that come with it: limited water, rationed food supplies, lack of medical care, difficulty in travel, avalanches, and many more. As she and George move from Telluride’s Tomboy Mine to the rugged coast of British Columbia, to the town of Elk City, Idaho, and then back to Colorado’s Leadville, Harriet paints a poignant picture of a world centered around mining, sharing amusing and often challenging experiences as a woman of the era.

With a new foreword by award-winning author Pam Houston, this 50th anniversary edition also includes previously unpublished black and white photographs documenting Harriet's journey. Tomboy Bride endures as a classic of the region to this day as it captures in heart-felt emotion and vivid detail the personal account of Harriet Backus, a true pioneer of the West.

[Large print edition, Luciole font, size 16]

They used nicknames like Stovepipe, Burnt Biscuits, Skillet, Skinny, and Marble Eye. They worked for presidents of the United States, captains of industry, and the greatest golfers in the world. Their real names were Carl Jackson, Willie Perteet, and Matthew Palmer—and they witnessed every great moment, both private and public, at Augusta National beginning in the1930s—from Gene Sarazen's "shot heard 'round the world" to Jack Nicklaus winning a record five of his six Masters. Read why Nicklaus said he wouldn’t trade caddie Willie “Pete” Peterson “for a million dollars” and what Willie “Cemetery” Perteet really thought of President Eisenhower’s golf game. The Black caddies of Augusta National also endured, in their own ways, the racist social order of the sport and at the same time participated, albeit vicariously, in its many thrills. Ward Clayton documents their stories—history as compelling as the game of golf itself.

'Does anyone in this room think that I can do wonders? I’m a normal guy from the Black Forest… I am the "normal one"' Jurgen Klopp, 9 October 2015

Jürgen Klopp’s announcement in January 2024 that he was to step down as Liverpool manager at the end of the season would see an unprecedented outpouring of grief from his adopted city. The Anfield Wrap has followed Liverpool through nine remarkable years, ten cup finals, and eight trophies, and now the ‘normal one’ is finally set to return to a normal life.

But the story of Klopp and Liverpool is a special one. A city haunted by tragedy and economic hardship rapidly found itself reinvigorated and redrawn by one man's philosophy, and an approach to life and football that was driven by joy, passion and inclusivity. Klopp’s arrival led not only to spectacular footballing success, but also saw Liverpool itself becoming more culturally relevant than at any point since the height of Beatlemania.

Neil Atkinson, host of The Anfield Wrap, tells the story of this unique relationship with a passion, zeal and humour befitting of the man himself. Structured around nineteen notable games in Klopp’s Liverpool career, Atkinson expertly weaves the personal and the political into this retelling of one of football's most improbable journeys, one that would change both the landscape of the sport and the city of Liverpool forever.

Es la crónica en caliente, con el recuerdo del campo de batalla aún en la retina, de la deseada y a su modo perfecta conquista de la tercera estrella. Gastón Edul, pegado a la línea de cal y desde la zona mixta, y Alejandro Wall, honrando la tradición de la prensa escrita, nos regalaron en los días de Qatar 2022 crónicas, análisis e información de alto nivel. Pero apenas regresaron a Buenos Aires se pusieron a escribir, en afiebradas veladas de diciembre y enero, este libro urgente y eterno a la vez.
Aquí está la historia íntima de la Copa del Mundo que el fútbol le debía a Lionel Messi; la construcción mítica de Lionel Scaloni, el héroe modesto, el técnico menos pensado; el uno a uno de ese grupo de jugadores y asistentes que torció la historia con sus propias reglas. Centrándose en la final contra Francia, La tercera va y viene en el tiempo, contando lo que no se vio, analizando con agudeza lo que sí y apostando a las nobles armas de la pasión y el periodismo para dejar testimonio de una alegría interminable.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

The intimate history of the World Cup that the soccer world owned Lionel Messi. 

An essential biography of a cricketing great, exploring his achievements as a player, manager and political activist.

This ground-breaking biography of Sir Clyde Walcott explores the extraordinary life and achievements of a man who was both an important activist and one of the greatest cricketers of all time.

In the 1950s Walcott was part of the legendary ‘three Ws’ batting triumvirate with Everton Weekes and Frank Worrell that helped give West Indies cricket a new identity distinct from its colonial past. After test cricket he became a prominent administrator and advocate of Black consciousness, managing the great West Indies teams that dominated the sport in the 1980s. A vocal supporter of using cricket to apply pressure to the South African apartheid regime, in 1992 he became chairman of the International Cricket Council – the first Black man in that influential role.

Shining a light on Walcott’s largely ignored part in effecting change through the vehicle of cricket, this book also shows how he contributed to dramatic social transformation in Guyana as cricket and social organiser for the country’s sugar estates from 1954 to 1970, bringing about improvements in the living conditions and self-esteem of plantation workers while promoting the emergence of several world-class cricketers from a previously neglected corner of the Caribbean.

An essential biography of a cricketing great, exploring his achievements as a player, manager and political activist.

This ground-breaking biography of Sir Clyde Walcott explores the extraordinary life and achievements of a man who was both an important activist and one of the greatest cricketers of all time.

In the 1950s Walcott was part of the legendary ‘three Ws’ batting triumvirate with Everton Weekes and Frank Worrell that helped give West Indies cricket a new identity distinct from its colonial past. After test cricket he became a prominent administrator and advocate of Black consciousness, managing the great West Indies teams that dominated the sport in the 1980s. A vocal supporter of using cricket to apply pressure to the South African apartheid regime, in 1992 he became chairman of the International Cricket Council – the first Black man in that influential role.

Shining a light on Walcott’s largely ignored part in effecting change through the vehicle of cricket, this book also shows how he contributed to dramatic social transformation in Guyana as cricket and social organiser for the country’s sugar estates from 1954 to 1970, bringing about improvements in the living conditions and self-esteem of plantation workers while promoting the emergence of several world-class cricketers from a previously neglected corner of the Caribbean.

Life is full of ups and downs, twists and turns. But one thing is certain: there is no reverse.

No one can go back in time to right a wrong or choose a different path. The only choice people have is to keep moving forward. In the game of life, everyone wins some and loses some. The good news is that, in life, every day is game day. A loss yesterday doesn’t mean a win can’t happen today. In fact, when people learn from their losses, they set themselves up for more wins in the future. 

My Name Is Not 18121-018 goes on a deeply personal journey, detailing Sammie’s path to becoming a professional football player and the highs and the lows that came with it. From the profound loss of a child from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and a federal prison sentence to the incredible redemption found through accepting Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, Sammie shares a transformative story of hope discovered in the shadows of life’s lowest moments.

Through it all, he reveals precisely what it means to win the most important game of all - the game of life.

They used nicknames like Stovepipe, Burnt Biscuits, Skillet, Skinny, and Marble Eye. They worked for presidents of the United States, captains of industry, and the greatest golfers in the world. Their real names were Carl Jackson, Willie Perteet, and Matthew Palmer—and they witnessed every great moment, both private and public, at Augusta National beginning in the1930s—from Gene Sarazen's "shot heard 'round the world" to Jack Nicklaus winning a record five of his six Masters. Read why Nicklaus said he wouldn’t trade caddie Willie “Pete” Peterson “for a million dollars” and what Willie “Cemetery” Perteet really thought of President Eisenhower’s golf game. The Black caddies of Augusta National also endured, in their own ways, the racist social order of the sport and at the same time participated, albeit vicariously, in its many thrills. Ward Clayton documents their stories—history as compelling as the game of golf itself.

When the Philadelphia Phillies signed Dick Allen in 1960, fans of the franchise envisioned bearing witness to feats never before accomplished by a Phillies player. A half-century later, they're still trying to make sense of what they saw.

Carrying to the plate baseball's heaviest and loudest bat as well as the burden of being the club's first African American superstar, Allen found both hits and controversy with ease and regularity as he established himself as the premier individualist in a game that prided itself on conformity. As one of his managers observed, "I believe God Almighty hisself would have trouble handling Richie Allen." A brutal pregame fight with teammate Frank Thomas, a dogged determination to be compensated on par with the game's elite, an insistence on living life on his own terms and not management's: what did it all mean? Journalists and fans alike took sides with ferocity, and they take sides still.

Despite talent that earned him Rookie of the Year and MVP honors as well as a reputation as one of his era's most feared power hitters, many remember Allen as one of the game's most destructive and divisive forces, while supporters insist that he is the best player not in the Hall of Fame. God Almighty Hisself: The Life and Legacy of Dick Allen explains why.

Mitchell Nathanson presents Allen's life against the backdrop of organized baseball's continuing desegregation process. Drawing out the larger generational and business shifts in the game, he shows how Allen's career exposed not only the racial double standard that had become entrenched in the wake of the game's integration a generation earlier but also the forces that were bent on preserving the status quo. In the process, God Almighty Hisself unveils the strange and maddening career of a man who somehow managed to fulfill and frustrate expectations all at once.

Explores Jackie Robinson’s compelling and complicated legacy

Before the United States Supreme Court ruled against segregation in public schools, and before Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, Jackie Robinson walked onto the diamond on April 15, 1947, as first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, making history as the first African American to integrate Major League Baseball in the twentieth century. Today a national icon, Robinson was a complicated man who navigated an even more complicated world that both celebrated and despised him.

Many are familiar with Robinson as a baseball hero. Few, however, know of the inner turmoil that came with his historic status. Featuring piercing essays from a range of distinguished sportswriters, cultural critics, and scholars, this book explores Robinson’s perspectives and legacies on civil rights, sports, faith, youth, and nonviolence, while providing rare glimpses into the struggles and strength of one of the nation’s most athletically gifted and politically significant citizens. Featuring a foreword by celebrated directors and producers Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon, this volume recasts Jackie Robinson’s legacy and establishes how he set a precedent for future civil rights activism, from Black Lives Matter to Colin Kaepernick.

Bingo!: Forty Years in the NBA is the memoir of legendary Los Angeles Clippers and sports broadcaster Ralph Lawler. Bingo! covers Lawler’s extraordinary life and career, from his childhood in Peoria, Illinois; through his time at Bradley University; to the beginning of his sports announcing career at the Riverside International Raceway; his years spent in Philadelphia with the Flyers, Phillies, and 76ers; his stint in San Diego with the Sails and the Chargers; and culminating in his 40-year career with the Clippers.

Along the way, basketball and the NBA is the focus of the book, with Lawler’s observations and stories about players, coaches, and teams from the 1940s through his retirement at the close of the 2019 season forming the core of the narrative. Included among the myriad stories and reflections are his relationships with NBA legend Bill Walton, infamous Clippers owner Donald Sterling, Clippers GM and NBA great Elgin Baylor, and a variety of famous players, coaches, and fellow broadcasters from throughout the NBA.

As Lawler used to memorably say from behind the microphone, “Fasten your seatbelts!” Bingo! is a fun-filled journey through professional basketball, with plenty of “Oh me, oh my!” moments, including the definitive answer to the burning question all NBA fans want to know: What are the origins of Lawler’s Law?

The civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists drove the largest refugee exodus in the modern history of China, across the sea to the southern island of Taiwan. Martial artists of many styles were among this diaspora.

In the 1940’s areas of Taipei, Taiwan were terrorized by local gangsters. Supported by desperate martial artists who had to flee mainland China with no other resources but their martial skills, they robbed and extorted the population. The locals trying to rebuild a new life after the Japanese occupation, often hired their own cadre of martial artists. The Hong family was one of these merchant families.

Through hard work, honesty, and perseverance, the Hong family had come from poverty to build a successful candle making business. It’s patriarch, Hong Wu-fan, not only hired martial artists but invited famous refugee masters to live and train in his family compound, thus earning their loyalty and the honor of their secrets. One of the most outstanding students was Hong’s fourth son, Hong Yi-xiang.

The author Hong Ze-han tells the true story of his father Hong Yi-xiang, and the cultural story of Taiwan in the 50-year period between the 1940s and the 1990s. Hong Yi-xiang was the founder of the Yizong Tangshoudao school of martial arts. He earned his renowned reputation by using the philosophy of the internal arts to outwit his opponents, relying on strategy as much as superior physical skills.

Blessed with access to his father’s life and teachings, the author Hong Ze-han conjures intimate conversations with the master and weaves a tale of success out of the struggle to survive. We, dear readers, are allowed in—to become outside students to these teachings and the cultural times in which the master’s art developed. We become part of an art and a country made stronger by the character and strength of its immigrants.

Peter C. Newman called him "the Totem of the Titans." From a small Prairie town, Daryl K. "Doc" Seaman became an icon of Canadian business and hockey. He is one of the last of a breed of postwar entrepreneurs and sportsmen who forged modern Canada, striking deals on a handshake and always keeping their word.

After flying 82 combat missions during the Second World War, Doc Seaman worked in the oil industry with his brothers, turning a small Alberta drilling business into a global giant, Bow Valley Industries. Later, he led a group that brought the Atlanta Flames to Calgary. Still a Flames co-owner, he helped reshape Hockey Canada and restore Canada’s glory in international hockey.

Doc Seaman’s life is a remarkable saga of courage, resolve, generosity, and success. It ultimately leaves us not only with a deep appreciation of one iconic Canadian but also with a wider understanding of our country.

From 1971 to his retirement in 2011, Woody Durham was the “Voice of the Tar Heels,” the radio play-by-play man for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In this autobiography, Woody takes the reader on a nostalgic stroll down memory lane—from his descriptions of a sleepy Franklin Street in Chapel Hill and the days of football legend ChooChoo Justice to the enormous changes in college sports and how they are covered to his dozens of behind-the-scenes stories about the coaches and players he worked with during his tenure. An appendix offers Woody’s thoughts on every football and basketball player he covered who has an honored jersey at UNC.

Adam Lucas grew up dreaming of becoming a Carolina basketball player. A severe lack of both height and talent curtailed that dream, but he discovered another way to get as close as possible to the Tar Heels--writing about Carolina sports. He is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and Tar Heels Today and a columnist on GoHeels.com. He is author of seven books about Carolina basketball. Adam lives in Cary with his wife, Jennifer, and four children.

"Woody Durham is the epitome of a professional broadcaster, who just so happened to also love the Tar Heels as much as he did his craft. He prepared for each game as if it were the national championship and spoke about each player and coach with an enthusiasm that connected them to his listeners in a unique way. Woody helped bring the Tar Heels to life for generations of Carolina fans." Roy Williams

On March 3, 2008, the day Green Bay Packers fans had dreaded most, Brett Favre announced his retirement from professional football. Fans nationwide were shocked as they contemplated what the NFL would be like without Favre--one of the best NFL quarterbacks of all time--behind center for the Packers. This third, expanded edition of BRETT FAVRE: A PACKER FAN'S TRIBUTE contains everything from the previous editions and more. Of particular interest is a game-by-game recap of Favre's final NFL season in 2007 and an expanded section of fan comments and memories.

Many biographies have been written about the larger-than-life college football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant as well as an autobiography containing the coaches own memories. Other works have focused on an aspect of Bryant's career, his coaching methods, or his philosophy. The Bear: The Legendary Life of Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant stands alone among them all.

Based on a screenplay by the late sportswriter and columnist Al Browning, it showcases many of the most memorable moments of Bryant's life—many of them told by the coach himself—as stories filled with the immediacy and drama that go with a good story told well. The relationship Bryant and Browning shared went beyond that of coach and journalist. They were close friends, giving Browning a unique view of the man that few people had ever seen, especially in Bryant's final years before his retirement and death a short while later.

Some of the stories in this book have been heard before, but without the rich background and detail conveyed here. As such, the book validates many of them while clarifying others and occasionally correcting some inaccuracies.

"I just have a taken for finding the heart of a football team," Bryant once explained, and it was certainly true. It is equally true that All Browning found the heart of Bryant, and The Bear: The Legendary Life of Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant has captured the essence of the man from Fordyce, Arkansas, for whom winning was no just the most important thing. It was the only thing.

Boomer Sooner!

Bud Wilkinson was one of America’s greatest football coaches. His incredible achievements at the helm of the Oklahoma Sooners set a new benchmark for all college football coaches. During his seventeen years as the Sooners’ head coach, Wilkinson amassed a stellar 145-29-4 record that included winning streaks of 31 and 47 games, three national titles, four undefeated seasons, and thirteen consecutive conference championships. His career .826 winning percentage surpassed that of other coaching legends of the era, including Woody Hayes and Paul “Bear” Bryant.

But it wasn’t just the victories and titles that distinguished Wilkinson. The handsome and debonair former star quarterback was well-liked by colleagues, players, and football fans throughout the nation. In addition to his career as a college coach, he worked as a network-television commentator in the sixties and seventies, served as head of the President’s Council on Youth Fitness, made a foray into politics, and briefly returned to coaching in the late seventies with the Saint Louis Cardinals of the National Football League.

I Remember Bud Wilkinson offers hundreds of anecdotes and memories of Wilkinson by dozens of people who knew him well, including former players, fellow coaches, television personalities, friends, and many others. These recollections go into the locker room, between the white lines, and behind the scenes to explore and explain what made the multitalented Wilkinson a legend in his own time and beyond.

Grand Prize Winner, Banff Mountain Book Festival 2009.

When Jerry Moffatt burst onto the scene as a brash 17-year-old, rock climbing had never seen anyone like him before. Fiercely ambitious, even as a boy Moffatt was focussed on one thing: being the best in the world. This is the story of his meteoric rise to stardom, and how he overcame injury to stay at the top for over two decades. Top sport-climber, brilliant competitor and a pioneer in the new game of bouldering, Moffatt's story is that of climbing itself in the last thirty years.

Yet Jerry Moffatt is more than a dedicated athlete. Travelling the world to fulfil his dreams, Revelations is a compelling and often hilarious account of the climbing community with all its glories, dangers and foibles, as well as the story of a true sporting legend.

“In yet another skillful excavation of a dazzling Latino champion, Christian Giudice...follows Hector ‘Macho’ Camacho from his embattled childhood in Spanish Harlem, to the heights of his electrifying yet too-brief stardom and onto his abject end by hail of gunfire in a carful of cocaine. It is a compelling journey.”—Mark Kram Jr., author of Smokin’ Joe: The Life of Joe Frazier

Hector Camacho lived fast, and his fists flew even faster in the ring. Handsome, flamboyant, and outspoken, Camacho electrified the boxing scene of the 1980s and, shouting his mantra “Macho Time”, he beat some of the greatest fighters of his generation.

But his high-speed life caught up with him eventually―and tragically―when he was shot dead outside a nightclub in Puerto Rico at the age of fifty. Macho Time is written by Christian Giudice, author of Hands of Stone, the definitive biography of Roberto Duran, which was made into the motion picture of the same name starring Robert De Niro.

Macho Time is the first biography of Hector Camacho Sr. Camacho's son, Hector Camacho Jr., also a professional boxer, worked closely with author Christian Giudice to give him unprecedented access and insight into this complex man.

I thought I was cocky. Camacho surpasses me by three or four levels. But when Camacho brags, he’s not trying to convince you of anything; he’s just telling you what’s going to happen.”—Sugar Ray Leonard, from the pages of Macho Time

“He would give me a hug and a kiss, then he would sit on the couch and make everyone laugh so hard. He had such good energy and spirit. He brought such joy to people whenever he entered a room. It was a gift.”—Hector Camacho Jr., from Afterword of Macho Time

“The Duke is a harrowing tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, and a gripping read. Don’t miss it.”—T. J. English, New York Times bestselling author of Havana Nocturne

An American Gothic… 

In the early 1990s, Tommy Morrison, a young roughneck from Jay, Oklahoma, burst onto the boxing scene to become one of the most controversial fighters of his era. Handsome, eloquent, and dynamic, Morrison parlayed destructive knockout power and a homespun personality into celebrity status throughout middle America, where boxing rarely prospered. 

But it was his starring role in Rocky V alongside Sylvester Stallone that propelled him to stardom–and ultimately led to his tragic downfall. His brush with Hollywood fame triggered a limitless appetite for parties, liquor, and sex. When Morrison was shockingly diagnosed with HIV in 1996, his life imploded, and his subsequent descent into drugs, prison, bigamy, and conspiracy theories made Morrison notorious long after his glory days had ended.

In The Duke, Carlos Acevedo chronicles Morrison’s tumultuous life from his days as a teenaged Toughman contestant, to his victory over George Foreman, to his struggles with HIV and depression, to his death at forty-four, when his delusions finally overtook him.

Morrison himself was a divisive figure but critics and readers are unanimous about Acevedo’s The Duke.

“This is a big American saga writ large, just the sort of tortured tale Carlos Acevedo tells so well.”—Don Stradley, author of The War: Hagler–Hearns and Three Rounds for the Ages

“I love how Carlos Acevedo writes. He's detached and immersive, observant and detailed, unsparing and fair. He brings to life what I love—and what I don't love—about boxing. That's clear in The Duke, which examines not just Tommy Morrison, but Morrison's place in boxing, celebrity culture, and the greater sports consciousness. It's the perfect marriage of writer and subject, written sharply, broadly and expertly—and hard to put down.”—Greg Bishop senior writer, Sports Illustrated

“In yet another skillful excavation of a dazzling Latino champion, Christian Giudice...follows Hector ‘Macho’ Camacho from his embattled childhood in Spanish Harlem, to the heights of his electrifying yet too-brief stardom and onto his abject end by hail of gunfire in a carful of cocaine. It is a compelling journey.”—Mark Kram Jr., author of Smokin’ Joe: The Life of Joe Frazier

Hector Camacho lived fast, and his fists flew even faster in the ring. Handsome, flamboyant, and outspoken, Camacho electrified the boxing scene of the 1980s and, shouting his mantra “Macho Time”, he beat some of the greatest fighters of his generation.

But his high-speed life caught up with him eventually―and tragically―when he was shot dead outside a nightclub in Puerto Rico at the age of fifty. Macho Time is written by Christian Giudice, author of Hands of Stone, the definitive biography of Roberto Duran, which was made into the motion picture of the same name starring Robert De Niro.

Macho Time is the first biography of Hector Camacho Sr. Camacho's son, Hector Camacho Jr., also a professional boxer, worked closely with author Christian Giudice to give him unprecedented access and insight into this complex man.

I thought I was cocky. Camacho surpasses me by three or four levels. But when Camacho brags, he’s not trying to convince you of anything; he’s just telling you what’s going to happen.”—Sugar Ray Leonard, from the pages of Macho Time

“He would give me a hug and a kiss, then he would sit on the couch and make everyone laugh so hard. He had such good energy and spirit. He brought such joy to people whenever he entered a room. It was a gift.”—Hector Camacho Jr., from Afterword of Macho Time

SPECIAL GIFT EDITION!

This gift hardcover edition of Macho Time is as flamboyant as the man himself. Covered in leopard print and gold foil, it features an audacious all-leopard case, a blinding reproduction of Hector Camacho’s iconic “MACHO” gold chain on the dust jacket, and endpapers printed with poster-size duotone photos that pay tribute to the Puerto Rican American legend. A work of art that will dazzle both boxing fans and book lovers alike. It’s still Macho Time!

"Toft adeptly shows this to be the legacy Ron Lyle left behind, one that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with a boxing legacy that is nothing short of remarkable."—Rafael Garcia, The Fight City

"[Ron Lyle's] life was a remarkable one and the story of it worth re-telling, which makes the book’s new edition thoroughly welcome. Off The Ropes is absolutely recommended reading."—Gary Lucken, Boxing Monthly

"Nobody ever hit me that hard. No question. I’ll remember that punch on my deathbed. A great puncher, a great guy."—Earnie Shavers

In a life as tough as his battles in the ring, Ron Lyle had already served hard time for second-degree murder before he started his amateur boxing career at the age of twenty-nine. After he turned pro, fans knew him as the man who had Muhammad Ali beat on the scorecards for ten rounds in a fight for the heavyweight title; as the man who fought George Foreman in a legendary brawl with four knockdowns that nearly saw Foreman knocked cold; and as the man who was arrested for murder a second time.

Off the Ropes: The Ron Lyle Story is not your typical boxing biography, exploring not only the greatest era of heavyweights in boxing history, but also telling an equally compelling personal tale. Ron Lyle grew up in the Denver projects, one of nineteen children in a tight-knit, religious family. At twenty, he was convicted for a disputed gang killing and served seven and a half years at the Colorado State Penitentiary at Cañon City, where at one point he was nearly shanked to death, and where he learned to box before he was paroled in 1969.

After a meteoric amateur career, he turned pro in 1971, and over the next six years established an outstanding professional record, which, in addition to the near misses against Ali and Foreman, included a brutal knockout win over one of the era's most feared fighters, big-punching Earnie Shavers.

Then, in 1978, Lyle was indicted for murder a second time and, even though he was acquitted, his career was effectively over. The years that followed were filled with struggle, a captivating love story, and eventual redemption. Today, a youth center in Denver that he ran still bears his name.

Off the Ropes: The Ron Lyle Story is the poignant, uplifting biography of a singular man.

His style was iconic, and vintage ‘80s: aviator goggles, Jheri curls, neck roll, boxy pads. For the first time, Dickerson is telling his story. And he’s not holding anything back.

Eric Dickerson is the greatest player in Los Angeles Rams history and the NFL’s single season record holder for most rushing yards. In 2019, Dickerson was named to the National Football League’s 100th Anniversary All-Time Team. With an elegant upright running style that produced some of football’s most-watched highlights, it was said he was so smooth you couldn’t hear his pads clack as he glided past you.

But during his Hall of Fame career, his greatness was often overshadowed by his contentious disputes with Rams management about his contract. In the pre-free agency era, tensions over his exploitative contract often overshadowed his accomplishments. What’s his problem? went the familiar refrain from the media. Can’t he just shut up and run?

It’s time to reexamine how Eric Dickerson was portrayed. 

Watch My Smoke includes sixteen photographs 

His style was iconic, and vintage ‘80s: aviator goggles, Jheri curls, neck roll, boxy pads.

Eric Dickerson is the greatest player in Los Angeles Rams history and the NFL’s single season record holder for most rushing yards. In 2019, Dickerson was named to the National Football League’s 100th Anniversary All-Time Team. With an elegant upright running style that produced some of football’s most-watched highlights, it was said he was so smooth you couldn’t hear his pads clack as he glided past you.

But during his Hall of Fame career, his greatness was often overshadowed by his contentious disputes with Rams management about his contract. In the pre-free agency era, tensions over his exploitative contract often overshadowed his accomplishments. What’s his problem? went the familiar refrain from the media. Can’t he just shut up and run?

It’s time to reexamine how Eric Dickerson was portrayed. For the first time, he’s telling his story. And he’s not holding anything back.

Watch My Smoke includes sixteen photographs 

Michael Bennett is a Super Bowl Champion, a three-time Pro Bowl defensive end, a fearless activist, a feminist, a grassroots philanthropist, an organizer, and a change maker. He's also one of the most scathingly humorous athletes on the planet, and he wants to make you uncomfortable. Bennett adds his unmistakable voice to discussions of racism and police violence, Black athletes and their relationship to powerful institutions like the NCAA and the NFL, the role of protest in history, and the responsibilities of athletes as role models to speak out against injustice. Following in the footsteps of activist-athletes from Muhammad Ali to Colin Kaepernick, Bennett demonstrates his outspoken leadership both on and off the field.Written with award-winning sportswriter and author Dave Zirin, Things that Make White People Uncomfortable is a sports book for our turbulent times, a memoir, and a manifesto as hilarious and engaging as it is illuminating.

Michael Bennett is a Super Bowl Champion, a three-time Pro Bowl defensive end, a fearless activist, a feminist, a grassroots philanthropist, an organizer, and a change maker. He's also one of the most scathingly humorous athletes on the planet, and he wants to make you uncomfortable.

Bennett adds his unmistakable voice to discussions of racism and police violence, Black athletes and their relationship to powerful institutions like the NCAA and the NFL, the role of protest in history, and the responsibilities of athletes as role models to speak out against injustice. Following in the footsteps of activist-athletes from Muhammad Ali to Colin Kaepernick, Bennett demonstrates his outspoken leadership both on and off the field.

Written with award-winning sportswriter and author Dave Zirin, Things that Make White People Uncomfortable is a sports book for our turbulent times, a memoir, and a manifesto as hilarious and engaging as it is illuminating.