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Waterman: The Life and Times of Duke Kahanamoku
by David DavisWaterman is the first comprehensive biography of Duke Kahanamoku (1890–1968): swimmer, surfer, Olympic gold medalist, Hawaiian icon, waterman.Long before Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz made their splashes in the pool, Kahanamoku emerged from the backwaters of Waikiki to become America’s first superstar Olympic swimmer. The original “human fish” set dozens of world records and topped the world rankings for more than a decade; his rivalry with Johnny Weissmuller transformed competitive swimming from an insignificant sideshow into a headliner event.Kahanamoku used his Olympic renown to introduce the sport of “surf-riding,” an activity unknown beyond the Hawaiian Islands, to the world. Standing proudly on his traditional wooden longboard, he spread surfing from Australia to the Hollywood crowd in California to New Jersey. No American athlete has influenced two sports as profoundly as Kahanamoku did, and yet he remains an enigmatic and underappreciated figure: a dark-skinned Pacific Islander who encountered and overcame racism and ignorance long before the likes of Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, and Jackie Robinson.Kahanamoku’s connection to his homeland was equally important. He was born when Hawaii was an independent kingdom; he served as the sheriff of Honolulu during Pearl Harbor and World War II and as a globetrotting “Ambassador of Aloha” afterward; he died not long after Hawaii attained statehood. As one sportswriter put it, Duke was “Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey combined down here.”In Waterman, award-winning journalist David Davis examines the remarkable life of Duke Kahanamoku, in and out of the water.
Watermark: The Broken Bell series
by Elise SchillerThe oldest child in a troubled Philadelphia family, Angel Ferente struggles to care for her three sisters while pursuing her goal of attending college on a swimming scholarship. She has a problematic relationship with her mother, Pic, who uses alcohol and drugs to self-medicate and at one point lost custody for a year, and an outright hostile relationship with her stepfather, the only father figure in her life. Angel is the center of stability in the household—making sure the younger girls get to school, ensuring that holidays are observed, doing the family’s laundry at her part-time job at a Laundromat, and even taking care of Pic when she is sick or depressed. It’s 1993, the midst of the crack epidemic, and Angel and her sisters are witness to the everyday events of life in a community beset by poverty and drugs: dealers on the corner, shoot-outs that kill bystanders, prostitutes on the job, and more. Then Angel goes to a team party on New Year’s Eve—and doesn’t come home afterward. In the wake of her disappearance, her teammates, her coach’s church, and her family search the city for her. The result changes their lives forever.
The Watermen: The Birth of American Swimming and One Young Man's Fight to Capture Olympic Gold
by Michael LoyndThe feel-good underdog story of &“one of the most fascinating people not only in the sport of swimming but in all of athletics&” (Olympic gold medalist Rowdy Gaines): the first American swimmer to win Olympic gold, set against the turbulent rebirth of the modern Games—for fans of The Boys in the Boat and Seabiscuit&“A truly compelling story of athletic triumph, individual perseverance in the face of adversity, and significant social history.&”—Bob Costas, former NBC host of twelve Olympic GamesIn the early twentieth century, few Americans knew how to swim, and swimming as a competitive sport was almost unheard of. That is, until Charles Daniels took to the water.On the surface, young Charles had it all: high-society parents, a place at an exclusive New York City prep school, summer vacations in the Adirondacks. But the scrawny teenager suffered from extreme anxiety thanks to a sadistic father who mired the family in bankruptcy and scandal before abandoning Charles and his mother altogether. Charles&’s only source of joy was swimming. But with no one to teach him, he struggled with technique—until he caught the eye of two immigrant coaches hell-bent on building a U.S. swim program that could rival the British Empire&’s seventy-year domination of the sport.Interwoven with the story of Charles&’s efforts to overcome his family&’s disgrace is the compelling history of the struggle to establish the modern Olympics in an era when competitive sports were still in their infancy. When the powerful British Empire finally legitimized the Games by hosting the fourth Olympiad in 1908, Charles&’s hard-fought rise climaxed in a gold-medal race where British judges prepared a trap to ensure the American upstart&’s defeat.Set in the early days of a rapidly changing twentieth century, The Watermen—a term used at the time to describe men skilled in water sports—tells an engrossing story of grit, of the growth of a major new sport in which Americans would prevail, and of a young man&’s determination to excel.
Watford Forever: How Graham Taylor and Elton John Saved a Football Club, a Town and Each Other
by John Preston Elton JohnThe unforgettable story, decades before Ted Lasso, of the real-life Watford Football Team, transformed into a powerhouse by coach Graham Taylor and owner Elton John. Nothing has brought English soccer more immediately into the American mainstream than Ted Lasso, which captivated the nation in thirty-four episodes over three seasons. But before there was Jason Sudeikis’s lovable and, at first, hapless AFC Richmond, there was Watford Football Club, a team from the outskirts of London with barely enough fans to fill its stands—and which, in the mid-1970s, was languishing in 92nd place at the bottom of the last division of the English Football League. That is, until rock superstar Elton John—who, with his dad, had followed the team as a boy—bought the lowly franchise and, with legendary manager Graham Taylor, transformed the luckless football club into a top-seeded Premier League team. Inspiring, funny, and ultimately heartbreaking, Watford Forever recalls the improbably tender relationship between Elton John and Taylor, a straight-talking former fullback, who together beat the odds and their personal demons to save a club and a struggling community.
Watkins Glen International
by Bill Green Michael ArgetsingerIn 1948, Watkins Glen became the site of the first postwar road race in America on a 6.6-mile course through the village and surrounding highways; the present-day road course was built in 1956 and held its first race the same year. The circuit presented its first professional race in 1957 when NASCAR made its first appearance. NASCAR returned to the Glen in 1964 and 1965 and found a permanent spot on the Watkins Glen calendar beginning in 1986. Today, the annual NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race in August ranks as the largest spectator event in the state of New York. In addition to NASCAR and Formula One, Watkins Glen race fans have enjoyed America's greatest race series, including Indy car, Can-Am, Trans-Am, six-hour endurance for prototypes, and amateur sports car racing.
Watkins Glen Racing (Images of Sports)
by Kirk W. House Charles R. MitchellThe war was won, the Depression was over, and Americans were back on the road. From all across the nation, sports car drivers converged on Watkins Glen to race through the gorges, hills, and village streets of western New York. Over the years, the course has evolved from its humble beginnings on streets lined with hay bales to the modern closed track that plays host to NASCAR today. Through vintage photographs, primarily from the International Motor Racing Research Center at Watkins Glen, Watkins Glen Racing chronicles the history of the track with early drivers, like Cameron Argetsinger, Phil Walters, and Dave Garroway, vintage cars, hairpin turns, and death-defying races.
The Waupaca Chain o' Lakes (Images of America)
by Zachary BishopThe Waupaca Chain o' Lakes are a series of 22 interconnected spring-fed lakes in central Wisconsin. The lakes' crystal clear waters, steep tree-covered banks, and other unique natural properties have long attracted people to their shores, starting with the pre-Columbian mound builders and Menominee Indians. European American settlers realized the lakes' potential for recreation in the 1870s and transformed the Chain o' Lakes and nearby city of Waupaca into major vacation destinations for tourists from all over the United States. Numerous businesses and attractions delighted vacationers throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries, including beautiful resort hotels, rustic inns and cottages, religious camps and retreats, family-run restaurants and shops, marinas, tour boats, natural areas, theme parks, the Wisconsin Veterans Home, and even an interurban railway. Thousands of people, especially families, still enjoy the Chain o' Lakes today.
The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean
by Susan CaseyFrom Susan Casey, bestselling author of The Devil's Teeth, an astonishing book about colossal, ship-swallowing rogue waves and the surfers who seek them out. For centuries, mariners have spun tales of gargantuan waves, 100-feet high or taller. Until recently scientists dismissed these stories--waves that high would seem to violate the laws of physics. But in the past few decades, as a startling number of ships vanished and new evidence has emerged, oceanographers realized something scary was brewing in the planet's waters. They found their proof in February 2000, when a British research vessel was trapped in a vortex of impossibly mammoth waves in the North Sea--including several that approached 100 feet. As scientists scramble to understand this phenomenon, others view the giant waves as the ultimate challenge. There are extreme surfers who fly around the world trying to ride the ocean's most destructive monsters. The pioneer of extreme surfing is the legendary Laird Hamilton, who, with a group of friends in Hawaii, figured out how to board suicidally large waves of 70 and 80 feet. Casey follows this unique tribe of people as they seek to conquer the holy grail of their sport, a 100-foot wave. In this mesmerizing account, the exploits of Hamilton and his fellow surfers are juxtaposed against scientists' urgent efforts to understand the destructive powers of waves--from the tsunami that wiped out 250,000 people in the Pacific in 2004 to the 1,740-foot-wave that recently leveled part of the Alaskan coast. Like Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, The Wave brilliantly portrays human beings confronting nature at its most ferocious.
The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean
by Susan CaseyFrom Susan Casey, bestselling author of The Devil's Teeth, an astonishing book about colossal, ship-swallowing rogue waves and the surfers who seek them out. For centuries, mariners have spun tales of gargantuan waves, 100-feet high or taller. Until recently scientists dismissed these stories--waves that high would seem to violate the laws of physics. But in the past few decades, as a startling number of ships vanished and new evidence has emerged, oceanographers realized something scary was brewing in the planet's waters. They found their proof in February 2000, when a British research vessel was trapped in a vortex of impossibly mammoth waves in the North Sea--including several that approached 100 feet.As scientists scramble to understand this phenomenon, others view the giant waves as the ultimate challenge. These are extreme surfers who fly around the world trying to ride the ocean's most destructive monsters. The pioneer of extreme surfing is the legendary Laird Hamilton, who, with a group of friends in Hawaii, figured out how to board suicidally large waves of 70 and 80 feet. Casey follows this unique tribe of people as they seek to conquer the holy grail of their sport, a 100-foot wave.In this mesmerizing account, the exploits of Hamilton and his fellow surfers are juxtaposed against scientists' urgent efforts to understand the destructive powers of waves--from the tsunami that wiped out 250,000 people in the Pacific in 2004 to the 1,740-foot-wave that recently leveled part of the Alaskan coast.Like Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, The Wave brilliantly portrays human beings confronting nature at its most ferocious.
Wave Warrior (Orca Soundings)
by Lesley ChoyceBen is determined to learn to surf. In the rough North Atlantic waters near his home, only the tough can make it on the water. His first attempt is a disaster. Then he meets Ray, a surfing veteran from California. Ray promises to teach him to surf—and to face his inner demons. As Ben becomes more comfortable on his board he learns to face his fears and prove that he has what it takes to become a Wave Warrior.
Wave Woman: The Life and Struggles of a Surfing Pioneer
by Victoria Heldreich DurandWave Woman is the untold story of an adventurer whose zest for life and learning kept her alive for ninety-eight years. Betty Pembroke Heldreich Winstedt was the granddaughter of Mormon pioneers who, after spending an active and athletic childhood in Salt Lake City, moved to Santa Monica with her family and enrolled at USC to study dental hygiene. Betty went on to elope with a man she hardly knew, and to have two daughters. In middle age, Betty finally followed her dream of living near the ocean; she moved to Hawaii and, at age forty-one, took up surfing. She lived and surfed at Waikiki during the golden years of the mid-1950s and was a pioneer surfer at Makaha Beach. She was competitive in early big-wave surfing championships and was among the first women to compete in Lima, Peru, where she won first place. Betty was an Olympic hopeful, a pilot, a mother, a sculptor, a jeweler, a builder, a fisherwoman, an ATV rider, and a potter who lived life her way, dealing with adversity and heartache on her own stoic terms. A love letter from a daughter to her larger-than-life mother, Wave Woman will speak to any woman searching for self-confidence, fulfillment, and happiness.
Waves of Healing: How Surfing Changes the Lives of Children with Autism
by Cash Lambert“Stand up, up, UP!” is the mantra of Surfers for Autism, an organization that runs surf events for children with autism, providing the opportunity to not only catch waves, but to become part of a supportive surfing community. It is also a message to all those struggling with autism: a message to stand up, no matter how hard it gets. Waves of Healing collects the stories of a group of everyday families who discovered Surfers for Autism in their search for hope, answers, and healing for their children with autism.These are stories about the struggles children with autism face—the struggle to stand on a surfboard, the struggle to communicate, the struggle to make progress in a world which accepts “normal” and rejects all else. But they’re also stories of breakthroughs, of authentic joy and unbridled excitement as they learn to see their world from a whole new perspective—standing tall atop a surfboard, riding a wave all their own.Exploring new avenues of therapy for those with autism, with therapeutic and extraordinary results, Waves of Healing is a snapshot of hope, courage, and human perseverance.
Waves of Winter (World of Love)
by L.C. ChaseThe west coast of Vancouver Island is one of the few places to boast world-class winter surfing, and Vancouverite Kellan Tremblay hits the waves as often as possible. On the ferry crossing to the island, he meets Australian Jax Colston. Jax is there for some snowboarding. He’s intrigued to discover that not only is winter surfing a thing, but you can surf and ski in the same day. Sensing a kindred spirit, Kellan offers to play tour guide and gives Jax a place to stay in his spare room. The two men bond over all things surf and snow, and it isn’t long before their passion for life lands them in bed together. Neither wants the week of cold days and hot nights to end, but Jax has to go home soon. Still, Jax doubts he’ll stay away for long. The draw of fresh powder, the long hot nights and the thrill of just being with Kellan will keep him coming back for a long time....World of Love: Stories of romance that span every corner of the globe.
The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball's Afterlife
by Brad BalukjianIs there life after baseball? Starting from this simple question, The Wax Pack ends up with something much bigger and unexpected—a meditation on the loss of innocence and the gift of impermanence, for both Brad Balukjian and the former ballplayers he tracked down. To get a truly random sample of players, Balukjian followed this wildly absurd but fun-as-hell premise: he took a single pack of baseball cards from 1986 (the first year he collected cards), opened it, chewed the nearly thirty-year-old gum inside, gagged, and then embarked on a quest to find all the players in the pack. Absurd, maybe, but true. He took this trip solo in the summer of 2015, spanning 11,341 miles through thirty states in forty-eight days. Balukjian actively engaged with his subjects—taking a hitting lesson from Rance Mulliniks, watching kung fu movies with Garry Templeton, and going to the zoo with Don Carman. In the process of finding all the players but one, he discovered an astonishing range of experiences and untold stories in their post-baseball lives, and he realized that we all have more in common with ballplayers than we think. While crisscrossing the country, Balukjian retraced his own past, reconnecting with lost loves and coming to terms with his lifelong battle with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Alternately elegiac and uplifting, The Wax Pack is part baseball nostalgia, part road trip travelogue, and all heart, a reminder that greatness is not found in the stats on the backs of baseball cards but in the personal stories of the men on the front of them.
Waxing and Care of Skis and Snowboards
by M. Michael Brady Leif TorgersenStep-by-step instructions and photos show how to wax, clean, and repair equipment. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
The Way (Exceptional Reading And Language Arts Titles For Intermediate Grades Ser.)
by Joseph BruchacFatherless Cody LeBeau is an American Indian boy who is starting high school with the usual trepidation. He fits into none of the cliques at the new school, but somehow keeps being noticed anyway—and is often teased because of his tendency to stutter. Then his Uncle Pat, an accomplished martial arts sensei, moves into the town and becomes the one who shows Cody "the way" through the maze of adolescent doubt and into manhood.
The Way Back: The funny, insightful and hopeful family adventure you need in 2021
by Jamie FeweryA moving, funny, sweeping and emotional family drama perfect for fans of David Nicholls, Beth O'Leary, Mike Gayle and Caroline Hulse.* * * * * * *If you're reading this, my funeral must have just finished. I've got something to ask of you...Who knows, you might even enjoy it?The Cadogan children haven't spoken to each other for three years. But their father, Gerry, has a plan to bring them together. To scatter his ashes, they must first drive his old camper van up to Scotland...For the trip, Gerry has provided them with three family photo albums and a bottle of single malt whisky.But will the journey help banish their ghosts and turn them back into a family? Or will it show them exactly why they've stayed apart for so long?* * * * * * *Praise for Jamie Fewery:'Moving, honest, sad and hopeful' MIRANDA DICKINSON'Will melt your heart' VERONICA HENRY'Clever, moving, funny, insightful' ZOE FOLBIGG'Made me do a proper ugly cry' DOMESTIC SLUTTERY
The Way Back: The funny, insightful and hopeful family adventure you need in 2021
by Jamie FeweryA moving, funny, sweeping and emotional family drama perfect for fans of David Nicholls, Beth O'Leary, Mike Gayle and Caroline Hulse.* * * * * * *If you're reading this, my funeral must have just finished. I've got something to ask of you...Who knows, you might even enjoy it?The Cadogan children haven't spoken to each other for three years. But their father, Gerry, has a plan to bring them together. To scatter his ashes, they must first drive his old camper van up to Scotland...For the trip, Gerry has provided them with three family photo albums and a bottle of single malt whisky.But will the journey help banish their ghosts and turn them back into a family? Or will it show them exactly why they've stayed apart for so long?* * * * * * *Praise for Jamie Fewery:'Moving, honest, sad and hopeful' MIRANDA DICKINSON'Will melt your heart' VERONICA HENRY'Clever, moving, funny, insightful' ZOE FOLBIGG'Made me do a proper ugly cry'DOMESTIC SLUTTERY
The Way Back: The funny, insightful and hopeful family adventure you need in 2021
by Jamie FeweryA moving, funny, sweeping and emotional family drama perfect for fans of David Nicholls, Beth O'Leary, Mike Gayle and Caroline Hulse.* * * * * * *If you're reading this, my funeral must have just finished. I've got something to ask of you...Who knows, you might even enjoy it?The Cadogan children haven't spoken to each other for three years. But their father, Gerry, has a plan to bring them together. To scatter his ashes, they must first drive his old camper van up to Scotland...For the trip, Gerry has provided them with three family photo albums and a bottle of single malt whisky.But will the journey help banish their ghosts and turn them back into a family? Or will it show them exactly why they've stayed apart for so long?* * * * * * *Praise for Jamie Fewery:'Moving, honest, sad and hopeful' MIRANDA DICKINSON'Will melt your heart' VERONICA HENRY'Clever, moving, funny, insightful' ZOE FOLBIGG'Made me do a proper ugly cry' DOMESTIC SLUTTERY
The Way Champs Play
by Naomi OsakaIn a rhythmic celebration of sport and play, four-time Grand Slam champion and tennis superstar Naomi Osaka shares key steps to becoming a true champ, including being kind, working as a team, doing your best, and most importantly, having fun.At Play Academy,We love to move. That’s why we play.We are champs and we play all day!Inspired by Osaka’s game-changing program Play Academy, which instills confidence in and provides resources to young girls through sports, The Way Champs Play is an exciting and inspiring anthem for all kids in and out of the classroom who want to PLAY ALL DAY!Use this book to:Discuss different types of sports.Talk with children about good sports(wo)manship.Encourage kids to engage in sport and play for their overall health and happiness.And more!
The Way Home: Scenes from a Season, Lessons from a Lifetime
by Henry Dunow: When Henry Dunow signs up to coach his son Max's Little League team on Manhattan's Upper West Side, he finds himself looking back on his own childhood and his father, Moishe, a Yiddish writer and refugee from Hitler's Europe, who had considered recreation like playing catch with his son narishkeit, "foolishness." Determined to be a different kind of parent to his first grader, Dunow bumbles through a self-test of fatherhood on the scruffy fields of New York's Riverside Park, playing coach, cheerleader, father, and friend to a ragtag bunch of seven-year-olds, many of whom are discovering baseball for the first time. The Way Home is the affecting and ironic story of Dunow's journey of discovery as he watches his relationship with Max evolve over the course of a Little League season, and comes to understand what being a father to his son can teach him about the man who was his own father.
The Way Home Looks Now
by Wendy Wan-Long ShangFrom the award-winning author of THE GREAT WALL OF LUCY WU comes a beautifully written and poignant story of family and loss, healing and friendship, and the great American pastime, baseball.Twelve-year-old Chinese American Peter Lee and his family always shared a passion for baseball, bonding over backlot games and the Pittsburgh Pirates. But when a devastating tragedy strikes, the family flies apart and Peter's mom becomes paralyzed by grief, drifting further and further from her family. Hoping to lift his mother's spirits, Peter decides to try out for Little League. But his plans become suddenly complicated when his strict and serious father volunteers to coach the team. His dad's unconventional teaching methods rub some of Peter's teammates the wrong way, and Peter starts to wonder if playing baseball again was the right idea -- and if it can even help his family feel less broken. Can the game they all love eventually bring them back together, safe at home?Acclaimed author Wendy Wan-Long Shang brings her signature warmth, gentle humor, and wisdom to this poignant story of healing and loss, family, and the great American pastime, baseball.
The Way It Looks from Here: Contemporary Canadian Writing on Sports
by Stephen BruntIn the first ever anthology of its kind, Canada's premier sportswriter -- Globe and Mail columnist and author of the internationally acclaimed bestseller Facing Ali -- brings together the best writing on sport in this country, with a strong contemporary flavour. It's all here: classic reports on Canada's great sporting triumphs, from Joe Carter's World Series-winning home run for the Toronto Blue Jays in 1993 to the excitement of the back-to-back men's and women's hockey gold medals in Salt Lake City. Stephen Brunt gives an entire section to writers who, unlike those covering other beats, must work tightly by the clock, submitting their stories just as soon as the action for the day is over. But he has also chosen our best writers' more thoughtful pieces on our national obsessions -- such as Ed Willes on the WHA's seven tumultuous years and Wayne Johnston on the Original Six -- and a good sampling of the great sportswriters such as Trent Frayne, Peter Gzowski and Milt Dunnell. The net effect is an examination of the deep role sport plays in our lives and imaginations, in our sense of self and nationhood.Stephen Brunt has cast his net widely. He includes superb stories of lower profile Canadian sports such as wrestling and horse racing, even Monster Truck battles, and allows space for his own unequalled and unforgettable profiles of Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson, as well as his postmortem on Ben Johnson's fall from grace. Full of triumph and heartbreak, great writing and great passions -- and a few wonderful surprises -- this book will be essential reading for every serious sports fan.Including: * Ian Brown on the stud-horse business * Christie Blatchford on the 2003 Women's Olympic Hockey Gold * Rosie DiManno on the Men's * James Christie on Ben Johnson's 1988 Olympic triumph in Seoul * Michael Faber on Pat Burns * Red Fisher on Lemieux and Gretzky at the 1987 Canada Cup * Trent Frayne on Canadian Open golf champ Ken Green deciding to play Sun City during apartheid * Bruce Grierson on Canada's best squash player * Peter Gzowski on the Oilers with Gretzky * Tom Hawthorn on John Brophy's last brawl * Brian Hutchinson on Owen Hart's widow's revenge * Wayne Johnston on the Montreal Canadiens * Guy Lawson on curling * Allan Maki on the 1989 Hamilton-Saskatchewan Grey Cup * Dave Perkins on the biggest home run in World Series history * Mordecai Richler on snooker's Cliff Thorburn * Steve Simmons on Donovan Bailey * Mike Ulmer on Cujo's charm and more.
The Way It Was: My Autobiography
by Stanley MatthewsThe classic football memoir, now available as an ebook‘An absolute magical player. I loved him’ Sir Bobby Charlton‘A god to those of us who aspired to play the game’ Brian Clough‘The man who taught us the way football should be played’ PeléSir Stanley Matthews was the most popular footballer of his era and the game’s first global superstar. He was the first footballer to be knighted, the first European Footballer of the Year (aged 41), and he played in the top division until he was 50. His performance in the ‘Matthews final’ of 1953, when he inspired Blackpool to victory over Bolton, is widely considered the finest in FA Cup history.Here, in his own words, and showcasing his unique humour, is a sporting gentleman who epitomised a generation of legendary players: Sir Tom Finney, Nat Lofthouse, Billy Wright and many more. The Way It Was: My Autobiography is filled with characters, camaraderie, drama and insight, and is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how football, and society, have changed over the last century. It is a fascinating memoir of a great footballer, and the remarkable story of an extraordinary life.Praise for The Way it Was‘A ticket to a different era, when the game wasn't saturated with money and men like Sir Stanley upheld sporting ideals’ The Times‘There is a heartfelt, elegiac quality [to] The Way It Was… it is only a pity he is not here to see it published’ Independent‘Brings vividly to life some of the greatest games of the time and features his perceptive analysis of the characters who illuminated the age’ Independent‘A gracefully crafted autobiography filled with entertaining anecdotes reflecting an age when the game was uncorrupted by greed’ Birmingham Post‘A fascinating and amusing insight into the inner workings of football during its golden era’ Daily Telegraph‘It is impossible to imagine any of today’s football stars ever producing a memoir half so interesting’ Mail on Sunday
The Way of a Ship
by Derek LundyFrom the author of Godforsaken Sea -- a #1 bestseller in Canada and "one of the best books ever written about sailing" (Time magazine) -- comes a magnificent re-creation of a square-rigger voyage round Cape Horn at the end of the 19th century.In The Way of a Ship, Derek Lundy places his seafaring great-great uncle, Benjamin Lundy, on board the Beara Head and brings to life the ship's community as it performs the exhausting and dangerous work of sailing a square-rigger across the sea.The "beautiful, widow-making, deep-sea" sailing ships could sail fast in almost all weather and carry substantial cargo. Handling square-riggers demanded detailed and specialized skills, and life at sea, although romanticized by sea-voyage chroniclers, was often brutal. Seamen were sleep deprived and malnourished, at times half-starved, and scurvy was still a possibility. Derek Lundy reminds readers what Melville and Conrad expressed so well: that the sea voyage is an overarching metaphor for life itself. As Benjamin Lundy nears the Horn and its attendant terrors, the traditional qualities of the sailor -- fatalism, stoicism, courage, obedience to a strict hierarchy, even sentimentality -- are revealed in their dying days, as sail gave way to steam.Derek Lundy tells his gripping tale with the kind of storytelling skill and writerly breadth that is usually the ken of our finest novelists, and in so doing, imagines a harrowing and wholly credible history for his seafaring Irish-Canadian ancestor.From the Trade Paperback edition.