Quick Book Reviews Blog

Pirate stories have fascinated mankind, especially children, probably ever since all their murderous antics and unhygienic lifestyles were forgotten. Though there may have certainly been much less glory and cleanliness to the stories of famous pirates than we were led to believe, it doesn't change a fact that some of them have managed to achieve downright legendary things, at least from a criminal's perspective.

We are used to sports players being on the receiving end of untold amounts of fame and riches for their ability to play their game and entertain the crowd. However, it is far less common for animals to be awarded the same honor, but that didn’t stop the entire nation from falling in love Seabiscuit, the racing horse whose life is the quintessential underdog story.

When it comes to how popular sports are, it was always assumed, at least by most people, that casual fans are only interested in the highest professional levels, while the more hardcore fans watch a sport at lower levels as well. Perhaps this was true for a while, but with the meteoric rise in popularity college football has seen in the United States, it no longer is.   Hundreds of thousands of stadium seats are filled on Saturday college football games, with the final’s viewership only being trumped by the Super Bowl . 

If you would ask random people on the street who they believe the best hockey player in the history of the sport to be, chances are that an overwhelming majority of them would answer with the name Wayne Gretzky . However, the man’s grandiose exploits may very well have overshadowed the accomplishments of superb players who could be equally-deserving of that title, with one of them being Bobby Orr. 

Many people scoff at the idea of partaking in unreasonably-challenging activities and competitions, but what they ignore is that such trials are the ones which shape people and help them ascend to what can be basically described as a greater level of existence.  Such was the experience of Gary Paulsen as he undertook the unnecessarily-cruel and challenging race called Iditarod, which basically involves going all the way from Anchorage to Nome (that’s about 1150 miles) with your only method of transportation being winter dog sleds. The experience was chronicles in a book very appropriately titled Winterdance .

Though mountain climbing may be one of the most dangerous sports/hobbies in this entire world, we don’t hear much talking about climbers. However, what happened on May 1996 on the Mt. Everest sent shockwaves rippling across the entire world as five people lost their lives to a storm. Many questions popped up surrounding the events which transpired on that infamous day, with the main one being: whose fault really was it? Well, this is something Jon Krakauer attempts to elucidate in his first-hand account of the events in Into Thin Air .

While most people only watch tennis when there is no American football, soccer, basketball or hockey playing, dismissing it as being a lighter sport with less intrigue. However, there are many others who have taken the time to learn about the sport, its history as well as its players, and they know the emotions don’t run lower than in any other professional sport. Andre Agassi was one of the greatest tennis players of his time, having won a total of eight Grand Slams and claiming victories over some of the sport’s greatest athletes. Open: An Autobiography is Andre Agassi’s tale, detailing the life he led to becoming one of the greatest tennis players of all time. It starts with his childhood during which he was already groomed to become a tennis champion by a demanding father. 

While it seems as if the sport of cycling isn't really popular in North America, chances are that very few people out there haven’t heard of the name Lance Armstrong , who many consider to be the face and frontier man of the sport.  Having won more championships than anyone and overcome more harsh conditions than most, if not all of his teammates and competitors, Lance was on top of the world for some time. However, the threads started to unravel and it was discovered that Lance used performance enhancing drugs during his career.