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Swim, Bike, Run: Our Triathlon Story
by Alistair Brownlee Jonathan BrownleeSwim, Bike, Run is the ultimate triathlon book, from Olympic heroes the Brownlee brothersThe Olympic Triathlon, Hyde Park, LondonAugust 7th 2012'We jogged to our positions on the pontoon: two brothers, side by side, the world and everyone we ever cared about looking on. Eighteen years of training, culminating in this single race. Noise from the crowd impossible to imagine. Hearts thumping. Swim-hats pulled tight, goggles lowered. Into a crouch, poised for the hooter. Three. Two. One...'This is the story of how two skinny lads from west Yorkshire became the best triathletes in the world.Meet the Brownlees: Olympic Champion Alistair, World Champion Jonny. Brothers, training partners, rivals. They have obliterated the competition and set new standards for swimming, biking and running.But the Brownlee brothers have never forgotten their roots. They still do their schoolboy hill runs and Dales rides; still train harder and longer than anyone; still push each other to new heights.In this revealing, often very funny book they take us inside their world and inside their races. It's both a riveting story of brotherly rivalry and a rare insight into what it takes to be the best.Swim, Bike, Run is also packed with training secrets. Whether you are thinking about your first triathlon or are a seasoned competitor, here are unique sections on how to swim, bike and run, and advice on nutrition, injury, and mental approach. With the Brownlees in your corner, you will do more than you ever thought possible. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in swimming, cycling and running and will be loved by readers of Mark Cavendish's Boy Racer and Running with the Kenyans.Alistair Brownlee, 24, is a British triathlete from Yorkshire. He is the reigning Olympic champion, a back-to-back European champion and a two-time World champion. Jonathan Brownlee, 22, is also a British triathlete from Yorkshire. He is the reigning World Champion, a two-time World Sprint champion and an Olympic bronze medalist.'Sport has two new heroes: a couple of nice lads from Yorkshire 'The Times
Swimming Across: A Memoir
by Andrew S. GroveSwimming Across is a personal and cultural memoir tracing Andrew Grove's most formative years. Beginning on the eve of Nazi Germany's invasion of his native Hungary and ending with his flight from communism to America 16 years later, it combines a child's sense of wonder with an engineer's passion for order and detail. Grove's uplifting autobiography depicts his family's struggle to survive in the face of a host of staggering obstacles. Nearly killed by scarlet fever at the age of four, forced into hiding by the Nazis in 1944, and dogged by anti-Semitism, Andrew Grove's survival was nothing short of miraculous. In Swimming Across, a true American hero reveals his origins and what it takes to survive... and to triumph.
Swimming Against the Tide: True Story of Para Swimmer Madhavi Latha
by Madhavi Latha PrathigudupuSwimming Against the Tide is an inspirational story about an ordinary woman with extraordinary grit who set out to create a fair and inclusive world for the persons with disability. When she was seven months old, a massive polio attack left Madhavi paralyzed below the shoulder. But her parents refused to leave her to her fate. With their most powerful wealth—patience and love—they gave Madhavi the wings to set out and conquer the world on her own terms. Triumphing over a near-death situation with hydrotherapy, she eventually became a national champion in para swimming. She then started a movement called ‘Yes, We Too Can!!!’ and co-opted other athletes with disabilities to realize their dreams through access to sports. Banker, public speaker and National Para Swimming Champion with 30 medals for swimming at the state and national level, co-founder of the Paralympic Swimming Association of Tamil Nadu, the Wheelchair Basketball Federation of India and more, behind this stellar list of accolades is the story of a young girl from a sleepy little village who dared to dream and challenged her circumstances, determined to surge through ‘disability’, emerging a winner and becoming an inspiration to many.
Swimming Aimlessly: One Man's Journey through Infertility and What We Can All Learn from It
by Jon WaldmanUsing his own journey as inspiration, writer Jon Waldman offers this heartfelt and funny guide for men and couples struggling with infertility. Take a moment to scroll through the contacts on your phone or your friends on Facebook. One in six of them is struggling with infertility. The affected women have most likely reached out to family, close friends, support groups, or online communities. They ask for the help they need, and often get it on behalf of themselves and their partners. But men don&’t always handle infertility well. Regardless of the underlying cause, the inability to conceive naturally can be extremely painful. The resulting feelings of inadequacy, shame, and isolation can change how a man acts towards those closest to him. But Jon Waldman wants to change that. In Swimming Aimlessly, Waldman shares his family&’s infertility story, a years-long, crazy expensive, physically and emotionally exhausting ride. He also speaks with other couples, doctors, and fertility experts, providing not only the latest science, but more intimate advice about the ups and downs of trying to conceive, keeping the partnership healthy, and dealing with the inevitable losses that come—even when the journey ends in a baby.
Swimming Studies
by Leanne ShaptonSwimming Studies is a wonderful, unique book from the writer and artist Leanne Shapton, author of Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry, with her artwork. As a teenager, Leanne Shapton trained for the Olympic swimming trials; now an artist, she is still drawn inexorably to swimming, in pools and on beaches across the world. What do you with an all-absorbing activity once it's past its relevance, and yet you can't quite give it up? Is it possible to find a new purpose for its rigours and focus?Swimming Studies is an original, meditative work that explores what it is like to move from a world of competition and discipline to one of recreation and introspection. Giving a fascinating glimpse into the private realms of swimming, and drawing, Shapton tells an intimate story of suburban adolescence, family ties, and the solitary underwater moments that now ground her artistic habits. 'Whenever I come across something of Leanne Shapton's, I feel like I have found a hidden treasure' Amy Sedaris
Swimming Studies
by Leanne ShaptonWinner of the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award, Autobiography Swimming Studies is a brilliantly original, meditative memoir that explores the worlds of competitive and recreational swimming. From her training for the Olympic trials as a teenager to enjoying pools and beaches around the world as an adult, Leanne Shapton offers a fascinating glimpse into the private, often solitary, realm of swimming. Her spare and elegant writing reveals an intimate narrative of suburban adolescence, spent underwater in a discipline that continues to inspire Shapton's work as an artist and author. Her illustrations throughout the book offer an intuitive perspective on the landscapes and imagery of the sport. Shapton's emphasis is on the smaller moments of athletic pursuit rather than its triumphs. For the accomplished athlete, aspiring amateur, or habitual practicer, this remarkable work of written and visual sketches propels the reader through a beautifully personal and universally appealing exercise in reflection.
Swimming Studies
by Leanne ShaptonWinner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography Named a Best Book of the Year by The ObserverBack in print, a “fusion of cool, clear-eyed prose and watercolors, photographs and painted portraits” (Time Out New York) by celebrated author and artist Leanne Shapton, on a sport that has shaped her life. Intimate with chlorinated space; weightless yet limited; closed off to taste, sound, and most sight; acutely aware of the clock: this is a swimmer’s state. When ten-year-old Leanne Shapton joins an Ontario township swim team with her brother, she finds an affinity for its rhythms—and spends years training, making it to the Olympic trials twice. Swimming Studies reflects on her time immersed in a world of rigor and determination, routine and competition, pairing together contemplative essays and paintings. Vivid details of an aquatic life appear: adolescence in suburban Canada, dawn risings for morning practice, bus rides with teammates, a growing collection of swimsuits, dips in lakes and oceans. When she trades athletic pursuits for artistic ones, the metrics of moving through water endure. In these elegant and potent meditations, Shapton renders swimming as a mode of experiencing time, movement, and perspective, capable of shaping our lives in every environment.
Swimming for My Life: A Memoir
by Kim FairleyIn 1970s Cincinnati, Kim’s overwhelmed, financially stressed parents dragged her and her four younger siblings into swimming—starting with a nearby motel pool—as a way to keep them occupied and out of their way. When Kim was eleven, they began leaving the kids at home with a sitter while they traveled the Midwest, where they sold imported wooden ornaments from their motorhome. But when Kim’s six-year-old brother crashed his new Cheater Slick bike and the babysitter deserted the children, what started as an accident became a pattern: Mom and Dad leaving for weeks at a time and the kids wrestling with life’s emergencies on their own. As Kim coped in the role of fill-in mother while dealing with the stresses of elite swimming, she struggled to shape her own life. She eventually found strength, competence and achievement through swimming—and became the second female swimmer to win a full ride to the University of Southern California, where she earned two national titles. Swimming for My Life is a peek into the dark side of elite swimming as well as a tale of family bonds, reconciling with the past, and how it is possible to emerge from life’s toxic and lifesaving waters.
Swimming in Paris: A Life in Three Stories
by Colombe SchneckA Natalie Portman Book Club Pick&“Sinewy, tough, sharp . . . Even though Schneck works at a scale that is deliberately small, insistently concrete, and extremely lean, her writing somehow exposes whole vistas of the female experience.&” —Katie Roiphe, The AtlanticFrom the award-winning and bestselling French author Colombe Schneck, a woman&’s personal journey through abortion, sex, friendship, love, and swimmingAt fifty years old, while taking swimming lessons, I finally realized that my body was not actually as incompetent as I&’d thought. My physical gestures had been, until then, small, worried, tense. In swimming I learned to extend them. I saw male bodies swimming beside me, and I swam past them, I was delighted, my breasts got smaller, my uterus stopped working. My body, by showing me who I was, allowed me to become fully myself.In Seventeen, Friendship, and Swimming, Colombe Schneck orchestrates a coming-of-age in three movements. Beautiful, masterfully controlled, yet filled with pathos, they invite the reader into a decades-long evolution of sexuality, bodily autonomy, friendship, and loss.Schneck&’s prose maintains an unwavering intimacy, whether conjuring a teenage abortion in the midst of a privileged Parisian upbringing, the nuance of a long friendship, or a midlife romance. Swimming in Paris is an immersive, propulsive triptych—fundamentally human in its tender concern for every messy and glorious reality of the body, and deeply wise in its understanding of both desire and of letting go.
Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son's Memoir
by David RieffBoth a memoir and an investigation, Swimming in a Sea of Death is David Rieff's loving tribute to his mother, the writer Susan Sontag, and her final battle with cancer. Rieff's brave, passionate, and unsparing witness of the last nine months of her life, from her initial diagnosis to her death, is both an intensely personal portrait of the relationship between a mother and a son, and a reflection on what it is like to try to help someone gravely ill in her fight to go on living and, when the time comes, to die with dignity. Rieff offers no easy answers. Instead, his intensely personal book is a meditation on what it means to confront death in our culture. In his most profound work, this brilliant writer confronts the blunt feelings of the survivor -- the guilt, the self-questioning, the sense of not having done enough. And he tries to understand what it means to desire so desperately, as his mother did to the end of her life, to try almost anything in order to go on living. Drawing on his mother's heroic struggle, paying tribute to her doctors' ingenuity and faithfulness, and determined to tell what happened to them all, Swimming in a Sea of Death subtly draws wider lessons that will be of value to others when they find themselves in the same situation.
Swimming in the Daylight
by Lisa C. PaulThere is always some part of the world where human rights are trampled and oppression quashes the human spirit. In the 1980s, it was the Soviet Union. In Swimming in the Daylight, Lisa Paul, a Catholic-American student living in Moscow in the early '80s, details how she grew to understand the perverse reality of the pre-Gorbachev Soviet regime as her friendship with her Russian-language tutor, Inna Kitrosskaya Meiman, blossomed. Inna, a Soviet-Jewish dissident and refusenik, was repeatedly denied a visa to receive life-saving cancer treatment abroad. The refusal was an apparent punishment imposed on both her and her Jewish husband, Naum, for his participation in the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group-the lone group fighting for human rights in the U.S.S.R. Before Lisa returned to the United States, she promised Inna she would do all she could to get her out of Moscow. But Lisa was one person, what could she possibly do that would make a difference? Inspired by her faith and rights as an American, Lisa staged a hunger strike, held press conferences, and galvanized American politicians to demand Inna's immediate release. In this heartfelt, compassionate, and inspiring narrative, Lisa brings the reader along with her as she learns indelible lessons from her heroic teacher. Inna's greatest lesson-that it is possible to swim through treacherous waters, in daylight, not in despair-is as relevant today as it was during the final years of the Soviet regime. At a time when international strife seems insurmountable and worries at home seem to paralyze, this story will teach people everywhere that it is the courage inside, not the chaos outside, that defines us.
Swimming in the Daylight: An American Student, A Soviet-Jewish Dissident, and the Gift of Hope
by Lisa C. PaulThere is always some part of the world where human rights are trampled and oppression quashes the human spirit. In the 1980s, it was the Soviet Union. In Swimming in the Daylight, Lisa Paul, a Catholic-American student living in Moscow in the early '80s, details how she grew to understand the perverse reality of the pre-Gorbachev Soviet regime as her friendship with her Russian-language tutor, Inna Kitrosskaya Meiman, blossomed. Inna, a Soviet-Jewish dissident and refusenik, was repeatedly denied a visa to receive life-saving cancer treatment abroad. The refusal was an apparent punishment imposed on both her and her Jewish husband, Naum, for his participation in the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group-the lone group fighting for human rights in the U. S. S. R. Before Lisa returned to the United States, she promised Inna she would do all she could to get her out of Moscow. But Lisa was one person, what could she possibly do that would make a difference? Inspired by her faith and rights as an American, Lisa staged a hunger strike, held press conferences, and galvanized American politicians to demand Inna's immediate release. In this heartfelt, compassionate, and inspiring narrative, Lisa brings the reader along with her as she learns indelible lessons from her heroic teacher. Inna's greatest lesson-that it is possible to swim through treacherous waters, in daylight, not in despair-is as relevant today as it was during the final years of the Soviet regime. At a time when international strife seems insurmountable and worries at home seem to paralyze, this story will teach people everywhere that it is the courage inside, not the chaos outside, that defines us.
Swimming in the Sink: An Episode of the Heart
by Lynne CoxFrom inspired and inspiring open-water swimmer and supreme athlete, able to endure cold water temperatures that would kill others, author of Swimming to Antarctica ("Riveting" --Sports Illustrated) and Grayson ("Moving, mystical" --People)--a powerful book about super athleticism and human frailty, about invincibility and the sudden (mind-altering) repercussions of illness, and about the triumph of spirit, surrender, and love.Lynne Cox is an elite athlete who broke many world records, among them swimming the English Channel at fifteen, being the first woman to swim across Cook Strait (eighteen miles), and being the first to swim off Antarctica in 32-degree water--for twenty-five minutes!--all without a wetsuit. And that's where Swimming in the Sink begins--at a laboratory at the University of London, with Cox's hand in ice-cold water, hooked up to thermocouples and probes, with three scientists trying to make sense of her extraordinary human capabilities. The test results paved the way for new medical and life-saving practices. As an athlete, Cox had put her heart into everything she'd ever accomplished. In turn her heart gave her great physical strength and endurance.In the midst of becoming the embodiment of a supreme endurance athlete, Cox took care of her elderly parents, both of whom passed away in quick succession, followed by the death of her beloved Labrador retriever, leaving Lynne in shock from loss and loneliness and soon literally suffering from the debilitating effects of a broken heart.On the edge of a precipice, Cox was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AFib). As the prognosis went from bad to worse, Cox was in fear of living out a lesser life as an invalid with a pacemaker and a defibrillator and the real possibility of her own death was before her. Cox writes of her full surrender to her increasing physical frailty, to her illness, her treatment, her slow pull toward recovery. In Swimming in the Sink we see Cox finding her way, writing about her transformative journey back toward health, and slowly moving toward the one aspect of her life that meant everything to her--freedom; mastery; transcendence--back to open waters, and the surprise that she never saw coming: falling in love.From the Hardcover edition.
Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer
by Lynne CoxCox was inducted into the Swimming Hall of Fame in 2000, and between her plunges, has written extensively about her adventures. Some of the two dozen essays here have appeared in or . Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR (booknews. com)
Swimming to the Moon
by Robert DreweFrom a floury encounter on a baker's work table to the art of sitting backwards on chairs, from budgie training to spontaneous human combustion, this collection showcases the nonfiction writing of one of Australia's best-loved authors. These pieces encompass suburban portraits and coastal living, affectionate nostalgia and the absurdity of the every day. They are endearing and often hilarious snapshots of life from a master novelist who has turned the column into an artform.
Swimming with Dr Johnson and Mrs Thrale: Sport, Health and Exercise in eighteenth-century England
by Julia Allen'Swimming with Dr Johnson and Mrs Thrale' challenges the popular image of Samuel Johnson as a man who favoured energetic discussion over physical exercise, enthroned in an armchair peering short-sightedly at a book. Thanks to the diarist and author Hester Thrale we have many anecdotes that connect Dr Johnson to a variety of sports, and Julia Allen, following Lytton Strachey's advice to attack her subject in unexpected places, uses entries from Dr Johnson's dictionary and anecdotes about the great man as her window into the world of eighteenth-century sport and exercise. Revealing a world both foreign and familiar, Allen takes the reader through a range of sports and activities, from boxing and cricket to dancing and coach travel to swimming, riding and skating. She reasserts women's place in eighteenth century sport, especially the luckier ones such as Mrs Thrale, and draws on medical treatises and reports to show how dangerous these sports could be, and to explore the theories upon which contemporary notions about health and exercise were based. Combined with fascinating biographies not only of Dr Johnson and Mrs Thrale, but also of a host of eighteenth-century sporting celebrities, Swimming with Dr Johnson and Mrs Thrale gives a fascinating insight into a century where things were done very differently, often with dangerous consequences. This eccentric book brings together pieces of eighteenth-century life to create a vivid picture of the whole, making it essential reading for anybody interested in history or sport.
Swimming with Faith: The Missy Franklin Story (ZonderKidz Biography)
by Natalie Davis MillerMissy Franklin is one of the most talented swimmers in the world. She is a four-time Olympic gold medalist and currently holds the world record in the 200-meter backstroke and American records in both the 100-meter and 200-meter backstroke. She was Swimming World’s World Swimmer of the Year and was awarded the American Swimmer of the Year award in 2012. Swimming with Faith: The Missy Franklin Story details her rise in fame as a swimmer and humbleness in the sport and in her personal life.
Swimming with the Blowfish: Hootie, Healing, and One Hell of a Ride: A Story of Redemption
by Jim SonefeldHootie & the Blowfish’s drummer chronicles the band’s rise, fall, and rebirth, as well as his path from addiction to recovery and a more fruitful life.For a time, there was no bigger band in the world than Hootie & the Blowfish—rock & roll’s unexpected foil to the grunge music that dominated the early ’90s airwaves.?In Swimming with the Blowfish, Jim?Sonefeld, drummer and one of the band’s principal songwriters, reveals the inside story of the band’s humble beginnings, meteoric rise, sudden fall, and ultimate rebirth—and in the telling he opens his heart to readers about addiction, recovery, and faith.Hootie became ubiquitous in the ‘90s—their debut album Cracked Rear View was one of the best-selling in the history of rock music; they won two Grammy Awards; their live performances were played alongside the Dave Matthews Band, R.E.M., and even Willie Nelson and Neil Young; and they appeared at the biggest venues in the world. Though Jim enjoyed the perks that came with fame—the parties, the relationships, the money, the drugs and alcohol—eventually it all became a camouflage that hid a deeper spiritual malady. As his life was careening toward disaster, he reached out his hands to seek relief in twelve-step recovery, eventually settling into a loving, but by no means uncomplicated, homelife.A book that encapsulates a band still beloved by legions of fans, Swimming with the Blowfish is much more—an unpretentious, emotional story of one man’s spiritual path to a more fruitful life. Jim’s journey is shattering, redeeming, and ultimately as comforting as your favorite flannel shirt.Praise for Swimming with the Blowfish“I’ve truly relished hanging out with the fun-loving, mischievous ‘Soni’ through the years, but this book exposes a more deeply-rooted, impassioned side he didn’t always show. He captures the spirit of the surreal and sometimes unsettling life behind the scenes of one of my favorite bands, sincerely revealing that he is as fragile as the rest of us. It’s an eloquent yet humbling example of a lesson we can all learn from—that no degree of fame or fortune leaves us immune to experiencing pain, powerlessness, and regret.” —Dan Patrick, sports broadcaster and host of?The Dan Patrick Show?“Jim Sonefeld details his rollercoaster ride through rock and roll, addiction and sobriety with searing honesty and grace.” —Radney Foster, singer-songwriter of Foster & Lloyd and author of?For You?to?See?the?Stars
Swing Hard in Case You Hit It: My Escape from Addiction and Shot at Redemption on the Trump Campaign
by Tim MurtaughFrom waking up in jail to flying on Air Force One less than four years later, this is the story of Tim Murtaugh&’s journey from desperate alcoholism to the top of the political world on the 2020 Trump campaign.When he woke up in jail in Fairfax County, Virginia, in 2015, Tim Murtaugh had no way of knowing he&’d be a senior leader on the reelection campaign for the president of the United States less than four years later.What began as a form of high-school amusement quickly became an addiction, which over decades would lead Murtaugh to the edge of ruin. Able to beat the disease of alcoholism only under the threat of losing everything, and with the support of a loving wife and family, Murtaugh managed to recover, revive his career, and make it to the top of the political world.Travel along on the 2020 Trump campaign as Murtaugh shares stories—never published before—from his two years as communications director, navigating a hostile media, the COVID-19 pandemic, highly anticipated debates, Election Day 2020, January 6, and life on the most-watched political campaign in world history.Swing Hard in Case You Hit It is a redemption story unlike any other—from being on the verge of complete self-destruction to flying on Air Force One with President Donald J. Trump—that doesn&’t come with a happy Hollywood ending
Swing Low
by Miriam ToewsOne morning, Mel Toews put on his coat and hat, walked out of town, and took his own life. A loving husband and father, a faithful member of the Mennonite church, and an immensely popular schoolteacher, Mel was a pillar of his close-knit community. Yet after a lifetime of struggling with bipolar disorder, he could no longer face the darkness that clouded his world. In this moving meditation on illness, family, faith, and love, Mel's daughter, critically acclaimed novelist and reporter Miriam Toews, recounts her father's life as he would have told it, in his own voice, right up to the day of his final walk. Swing Low is a bold, gracefully written, and compassionate recounting of one man's heartbreaking battle with depression.
Swing That Music
by Dan Morgenstern Louis Armstrong Rudy Vallee'Swing That Music' is a biography and a history of a jazz musician, Louis Armstrong.
Swing and a Hit: Nine Innings of What Baseball Taught Me
by Jack Curry Paul O'NeillThis fun and fiery New York Times bestselling memoir tells the life story of All Star Yankee and five-time World Champion, Paul O&’Neill, like you&’ve never seen him before. In Swing and Hit, O&’Neill elaborates on his most important hitting principles, lessons, and memories—exploring those elements across ten chapters (to align with the nine innings of a baseball game and one extra inning). Here, O&’Neill, with his intense temperament, describes what he did as a hitter, how he adjusted to pitchers, how he boosted his confidence, how he battled with umpires (and water coolers), and what advice he would give to current hitters. O&’Neill has always been a tough out at the plate. Recalling how he started to swing at bat as a two-year-old and kept swinging it professionally until he was thirty-eight, O&’Neill provides constant insights into the beauty and frustration of playing baseball. The legendary Ted Williams said using a round bat to hit a round ball is the most difficult thing to do in sports. Naturally, O&’Neill, who once received a surprise call from Williams that was filled with hitting advice, agrees. Swing and Hit features O&’Neill&’s most thoughtful revelations and offers clubhouse stories from some of the biggest names in Major League Baseball—hitters, managers, and teammates like Joe Torre, Derek Jeter, Don Mattingly, Pete Rose, and Bernie Williams. Remember, O&’Neill, ever the perfectionist, was the type of hitter who believed that pitchers didn&’t ever get him out. For that incredible reason and so many others, Swing and Hit is essential reading for any baseball fan.
Swing by Sailor
by Catherine DysonThis is a nostalgic look back at the 1940s, a fascinating insight into a unique journey taken by a group of ordinary women, a sympathetic portrait of youth and its hopes and expectations - and a reflection on the challenges of life, and love.
Swinging Into History: Toni Stone: Big-League Baseball's First Woman Player
by Karen L. SwansonYoung readers will root for Toni &“Tomboy&” Stone, the first woman (and the first Black woman) to break into professional baseball—taking over Hank Aaron&’s roster spot—in this nonfiction picture book biography.Nothing could stop Toni &“Tomboy&” Stone from playing baseball—not even her parents. The only girl on a church team, she persevered as insults were hurled her way from the boy players. She caught the attention of former major leaguer Gabby Street, who gave her a chance at his summer baseball school. With Coach Street&’s training—and the cleats he gifted her—Toni managed to earn a spot in the minor leagues. Though teams were hesitant to sign a woman, she pitched the idea that fans would pay to see a woman play—and it worked! But Toni&’s persistence and optimism were not enough to win over the Jim Crow South crowds nor her male teammates. Coaches put her in the starting lineup and then benched her early, every game, no matter her results. But her talent got noticed and she was signed by the Indianapolis Clowns, becoming the first woman to break into the pros. &“Toni arrives,&” shouted newspaper headlines, and she delivered! In her first professional game she ripped a single and drove in two runs, and left the crowd chanting &“TONI! TONI! TONI!&”
Swinging On The Garden Gate: A Memoir of Bisexuality and Spirit, Second Edition
by Elizabeth Jarrett AndrewA stunning memoir of coming of age and coming out bisexual by award-winning writer and teacher Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew. Every story begins with a word. As a young woman, Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew carried a word within her so potent that it spread through her every artery and vein. She carried it in secret until she was shown a different way and the word inside her turned restless and eager. Swinging on the Garden Gate: A Memoir of Bisexuality and Spirit describes a period of time in award-winning writer and teacher Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew’s life when she came to know bisexuality as an embodied manifestation of divinity. Andrew not only reconciles her United Methodist faith with her sexuality but realizes that her body is holy, her sexuality is holy, and the word she carried within her has always been holy. The spark of spirit Andrew identifies in her body she also finds throughout the solid matter of life—in childhood, nature, creativity, loss, death, and especially the coming out process. Andrew brings a distinctly queer feminist lens to Christian teachings and answers the question innumerable young people have posed to her over the years: “Is it possible to be both queer and spiritual?” The act of bringing hidden, personal truths to light is transformative, and for Andrew, a universal calling. This second edition includes a new note from Andrew as she looks back on its twenty-year history and a foreword by Bishop Karen Oliveto, the first openly lesbian bishop to be elected in the United Methodist Church.