Sports Books

Good basic book explaining the essentials in stance, bow handeling and marksmanship +, helped this beginner a lot and i would reccomend it for anyone who has , or is learning the sport on their own.

I learned the basics of archery. It was very helpful in setting up a program.

`The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook' tackles some unavoidable questions everyone has asked themselves in some form. Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht have tackled these questions and came up with some clever answers - and logic behind it. They attempt to answer some of man worst fears head-on - while convincing this reader they know what they are writing about

For instance, how to escape from Quicksand? How to wrestle an alligator - and live to tell about it? How to land airplane? How to take a punch?

With simple prose and illustrations, Piven and Borgenicht have put some people's worst fears to task. In 5 chapters, their collection of survival skills will surely give you the knowledge you need to escape from sometimes bizarre situations.

The book's writers make convincing suggestions and realistic reasons. This book performs no comedy, no jokes, or any hypothetical situations. It's true to its form.

I recommend this book to anyone looking for quick survival tips and anyone who has pondered life's dire situations and wishes to walk away in one piece from them.

The `Worst Case Scenario Survival Book' is invaluable!

I purchased this for my 10 year old son to listen to in the car. He really liked it although he didn't understand some of the car and motercycle stunts. Now he thinks he knows what to do if he encounters an alligator or shark. Adults may not find it as fasinating.

The odds may not be very good that you'll end up in some of these situations, but if you ever do, you'll be glad you read this book. If you never need these skills, then it's great for a laugh.

I read the book. I saw a car accident. I can't go into further details because it is illegal to perform medical procedures without a degree in medicine. The boy didn't survive (he was brain dead immediately (happens when your head takes a cars bumper)) but his body did and was used to keep two other kids alive.

My worst case scenario, as a former SAR (Search And Rescue) team member, is recovering some poor jerk who had this book in his pack. Hmmm, now why didn't he survive? This book is entertaining, but I'd no more read it for survival information that I'd read the Enquirer for news. Has the author ever tried to punch anything underwater? Not very effective on sharks or anything else for that matter.It is downright dangerous for the person who feels this skimpy book gives him/her the knowledge to survive their way out of a paper bag let alone a real survival situation. The fact that it sells well is an abject lesson in the miracles of marketing and the desire of people to feel secure in their "knowledge" without actually doing anything. Being prepared takes effort! Laugh about, joke about it but don't depend on it, as it says on the back " CAUTION: This book will explode if scanned."

We really like the book sitting on our coffee table so we can flip through it and dream of sailing in all the beautiful places. The only complaint we have is that the images are often poor, with very low resolution and some of the 50 locations don't even get an image, which is sort of ridiculous for a book like this. It's certainly not an expert guide, though it gives some great descriptions, tips, and stories of sailing, including quotes and tales from professional and competitive sailors. Overall, a fun coffee table book.

Other reviews more aptly describe the disappointing aspects of this book: dreadfully small quantity of photographs, not useful/practical information to travel to said location, etc.
That said, the book has made fair bedtime reading. Just do as I did, check it out from the library instead. It's worth reading, but not owning.

I am an avid sailer and dream of sailing around the world or being a crew member of an America's Cup team. I thought this book sounded facinating and ordered two (2) copies: one for myself and one for my brother, another water warrier.

I was disappointed in the lack of images. How can you talk about Hong Kong Harbor and not have an image? I assumed this was a coffee-table book which I think with added imagery would make it all the more enjoyable. Reading the passages was informative, but you had to read the bio of the author fist to understand why the place they chose was important to them.

Am finding it slow to get through - and disappointing.

what a wonderful book to get started!!! my husband has read it front to cover and has learned many important points.

We cruise extensively in Australia and on the Med. We bought the book hoping that it would introduce us to new, exciting sailing grounds. Sadly, the book largely fails to do so.
To start with, it lists the locations in alphabetical order: California, China, Chile, Colorado etc instead of geographical grouping. The individiual sections are crammed with general information to fill the pages. Twenty percent of each section is typically dedicated to the writer's CV! Very little information is specific to sailing conditions.
For example the Antarctica section doesn't say a word about the special cruising challenges. The Fremantle/Australia section describes how the US won the America's Cup here - but not a word about the magic beaches and crystal clear waters.

This book is a great early step in understanding suspensions. No one book can tell you how to build a sports car suspension, but this one is easy to read, and left me in a place where I was beginning to be able to ask intelligent questions, and also assuaged a signifigant amount of my fear. Ackerman effect, castor, camber, toe-in, anti-dive, anti-squat, and much more will be demystified in this fine book.

book starts with basics of suspension. if your planning modifying or completely design a suspension this is a nice book to add to the library.

Tons of information, Good explanations of suspension angles and the effects on tire attitude, handling, and weight transfer.

I recently purchased this book and have read it twice from front to back. It had a lot of good solid information, however the title is decieving in the fact that it has the word "engineering" in it. This book touches lightly on the subject of engineering, however it stops there. This book is mainly designed for those with Camaros or Corvettes and doesnt really give much information regarding independent suspensions or anything else besides what may be found on those two vehicles. I am by no means an engineer but I do know a thing or two about mechanics and this book does not help me to understand the complete dynamics involved in a vehicle chassis. It barely goes into detail about shocks or springs and the only information that seems relevant to that is "How to cut your springs". This book is written more for the back-yard mechanic than for the aspiring automotive engineer.

Book goes over a lot of information in a very short time, but not much of that information is worth anything unless you're building a circle-track or drag car. Took the hit and ordered Stanforth's Competition Car Suspension.

If you are a triathlete or you are looking to become a triathlete this is the best training book/program available.

This book have all the information you need for have a good training you can choose whatever your condition, there are very goods training plans for everyone, this book do not have 5 stars,because i did not found any measure to see my performance, i mean time, so if i run 10 km in 30min. or 40min. or 1 hour, i would like to receive a status of my training.

I bought this book for more access to training plans. The variety of plans and number of different fitness levels it offers is great. The key in it is great and fairly user friendly. I found that the plan I chose based on my "fitness level" according to the book seems a little ambitious so I found myself editing a lot of the plan. Also, some of the training plans require knowing where a 5-6% grade hill is that takes at least 1 min to bike up. I don't really know where one is and so that makes some of the workouts unable to do or extremely limiting. I also find some of the swimming workouts get to be very redundant, just adding on one extra hundred yards to the same workout every week. More importantly, I feel that for a beginner swimmer, these workouts require a lot of yardage and perhaps pushing too hard, too soon. I have been a competitive swimmer for 14 years so I can tune these practices to the ability of the swimmer, but if my boyfriend would've picked up the book and tried to do some of these workouts I think he might injure himself (shoulders). Overall, great book to get ideas, but some of the workouts are a little difficult to make it easy to fit into your schedule and location.

Go to Google books, and google will show a few pages.
The author gives honor to his teacher with a picture included.
That doesn't prove that it is real, but worth a read.

Another picture shows the basic standing posture, which is taught in
other books. Postures seem correct.
Can you achieve the same level as the master, the old man? Takes at least 4 years to see results, and 10 years to complete. How many of you have the patience?

Thanks to the internet, and other distractions, I didn't have the patience. No I don't have an IPOD, if I have that, I wouldn't be
doing my Tai chi everyday.

The information in this book is great for a beginner because it focuses so much on the very basic breathing exercises, and proper alignment. I have spent a month just practicing those things without even reading about the dynamic physical exercises.

This hopefully will prevent the common problem of people trying to skip important steps when learning from a book.

This book was eye opening for me. I learned that exercise is more than sweat and pain. The whole Chi movement is well explained and made understandable for a beginner.

I was looking for something that spoke in plain language and answered my questions for me. This was it. A lot of other books were just too complicated or advanced. This helped me to correct my posture, understand what was going on and feel like I was on more solid ground with my practice.

I've been interested in Chi-Gung and Taoist things for a number of years. Took a few classes, etc, but nothing has been as detailed and to the point as this material from Mr Frantzis.

Honestly, most chi-gung books and many classes out there just teach you some physical movements or "standing like a tree".. stand in different poses and hold it without a whole lot of additional instruction as to what goes with it. Mr Frantzis sheds some (in my opinion) much needed light as to what you are really supposed to be doing, the "internal details" of what you are supposed to be doing with your body and with your mind in a clear and straightforward way. Just the first third or so of the book up until the part where he talks about standing is easily worth the price of admission.

I say "potentially life changing" because for a period of maybe a few months I began to do the standing practices (not any of the swings) every morning and every night. After a few days with it, I found that my mind was a lot calmer and I was feeling physically stronger and more vibrant. After a week or two, I felt like I was floating on air.. Ease of movement made me feel like a dancer floating on the clouds, and the sense of wellbeing just continued to increase. It was quite amazing. I was involved in martial arts at the time, and my teacher commented how much better I was getting.. it had nothing to do with the martial arts training though, but just with the standing and dissolving practice. It made my meditation that I was trying to do every day just a whole lot easier.

I let myself get distracted, and stopped doing 1 1/2 - 2 hours a day like I used to. However, you don't have to be that hard-core (though the author said he did 6 hours a day for a time.. if that is whaco or dedication I don't know). I think once a day for 30 minutes or so would produce great results as well, the same as mine eventually just somewhat slower. But there is plenty of material here to get you motivated to put time and effort into the practice. That is another great thing about this book. Not only is the Author obviously very, very knowledgeable, but his story and his presentation is very straightforward and actually kind of inspirational. A must have book for anyone interested in alternative health, chi-practices, or Taoism in general.

Outstanding look at the whacky, wonderful and seldom thought about behind the scenes life of a caddy on the pro tour.

Rick Reilly at his best--humor, sincerity, and warmth...a splice of life, the good life, the real life.

You will come away with a new and greater appreciation of those who play the greatest game of all, the "loopers" who help them play it, and, in the last chapter, the game itself, why we all love it so.

An excellent book...Don't miss this one!

Who's your Caddy? By Rick Reilly - A Review.

Rick Reilly, the long time, highly popular sportswriter from the famous Sports Illustrated magazine, and author of "Missing Links" and "The Life of Reilly" hooks you like a stoutly struck drive off the first tee on a glorious summer's morning, in " Who's your Caddy?" his latest book.

Rather like the famous travel writer Bill Bryson, Rick is honest, normal and down to earth in his description and assessment of himself and regales us constantly with little jokes about all his monster mess-ups while researching for this book. To garner material for "Who's your Caddy?" Rick assumes the persona of a `caddy-for-a-day', to the "great, the near great and the reprobates of golf", getting into the skin of a "looper" (as caddies are known in the land of Mac Burgers and Coke) and thus, getting closer to the `larger than life heroes' of the golf course. Written in a semi hard-boiled, often irreverent and typical American style, Rick manages to infuse each page with a peculiar brand of humour, all his own.

The book moves at a fast pace through the golfing and other celebrity lives we all know about, read about, wonder about and hear about on the leader board and otherwise. Beginning with Grouchy old Tommy Aaron, the 1973 Masters Champion and moving to the humongous hamburger and diet coke swilling, but hugely capable John Daly, the book then picks up a great deal of speed, trumpeting loudly through the equally loud and ostentatious golfing life of Donald Trump, who it appears, habitually lives life at a 100 miles an hour and is as noisy about himself to boot! (Rather a cad and a crass sort of chap, I thought.)

We receive an interesting insight into the polite, gentlemanly and generous Tom Lehman, whose children really appear to be his life, panning then to a sensitive portrayal of the reclusive and garbo-esque David Duval and his long estranged father Bob with his apparent flamboyance and style which only exists in order to shield from the public gaze, the dark side of his terrible personal tragedy of losing his son, David's older brother Brent, to aplastic anemia.

There is an interesting series of anecdotes about the Las Vegas Hustler and super gamblin' man Dewey Tomko and his buddies who play stakes far beyond the dreams of avarice and indeed earn far more than the super golfers of competitive golf today but with a whole new twist to the Royal and Ancient Rule book! I learned here, a whole new meaning to the expression `greased lightnin' - apparently Dewey and his high rollin' pals grease up the grooves of their drivers, to enable really long and really straight shots, since the grease apparently cuts off the spin imparted to the ball on impact which causes a typical slice! (I may tell you by the way, that this doesn't really work - I tried it this morning and where normally I'd have thunked my trusty Cleveland straight down the middle, I ended up slicing it into some trees on the edge of the fairway, so according to me, it ain't such a good idea, after all and anyway it is a completely illegal practice.)

The chapter on one of my all-time personal favourites, the "Golden Bear" is one of Reilly's best, ever, extolling Nicklaus's legendary politeness with the press, his devotion to his kids, to the extent of missing tournaments to watch his kid play in a ball game and with a particularly moving anecdote about his generosity to his long time real life caddy, the perpetually improvident inveterate gambler, Angelo Argea.

Deepak Chopra on Golf, like most else about the New Age Guru, came across as, "Well, listen to him, sure, but hey, I'll kind of reserve my own opinion" and indeed, proves to have feet of clay, (as far as golf is concerned anyway), since apparently he needs to check with his coach Wendy Werley the former LPGA Pro, before he does anything, anything at all, including keeping his mind and eye on the ball, when he's on the course!

Appropriately named "Hell on Wheels", comes an excellent and sensitive series of snippets on the tragically physically disadvantaged but superbly resilient and spirited Casey Martin - a real moving chapter, I may say, with his frightful disability and having to battle against the insensitive attitudes of the powers that be on the PGA Tour, apart from the pressure to perform on the Golf course.




A whole raft of information on the famed and mysterious "Bel-Air Club" follows, with all its big timer celebrity members through the ages, information shared with Rick who is now caddying for the super polite, self-effacing Bob Newhart - so much so that you begin to wonder how such a diffident man as Bob is a such a celebrity under the arc lights as a TV Personality! The quintessential opposite of Donald Trump- (in this book the chapter is aptly named "The Anti-Trump" - Brilliant!)

The penultimate chapter on Jill McGill, the only top LPGA golfer Rick caddies for, comes as a bit of a surprise and a bit of a let down, because at first blush, while humorous, it appears just a tad chauvinistic. However, Rick contrives to redeem himself by sharing the truth with us about the fact that while the lady golfer may not hit very long, in a manner calculated to put the wind up a typical testosterone filled Macho Man, she is still incredibly accurate and that's what drops those vital strokes off her game, leaving Macho Man in the garage cleaning the old irons, as it were!

The best is saved until the last with Rick's glowing tribute in a deeply moving chapter on a blind Vietnam Veteran, Bob Andrews, his never-say-die spirit, his movie star good looks, tragically marred by his loss of sight, his beautiful manners on and off the tee, the enduring and endearing mutual devotion between Bob and his wife Tina and the fact that for a Blind golfer, the Caddy is the equivalent of a "seeing -eye dog".

The book is absolutely, side-splittingly funny and at the same time, achingly painful as well, with a healthy mix of both pathos and bathos liberally interspersed with a strange language called caddy -speak, which frankly sounds like Double-Dutch to the un-initiated, but thankfully, Rick provides the key below each such example.

Rather like a master conductor with his orchestra, Reilly manages to take you up and bring you down, with a touch as light as a feather and with the style unique to him, one of the most popular sports writers in the world!

All in all, a very good book, heartily recommended for your library list and I would certainly agree with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in that it goes down faster than a cool Bud on a 100-Degree day!

This was another gift for my grandson and he hasn't had a chance to read it yet but if it has to do with golf, he'll love it!

As I finished the book, I realized that it annoyed me that Reilly took up caddying without really trying to learn how to do it. He started at the Masters with no experience and didn't do very well. He didn't seem to improve much . . . even with experience. I thought he showed a fundamental disrespect for his craft, the game and for the golfers he served by taking this approach. Thinking about my reaction, I thought about the responsibility we all have to do our best to serve others when that is our task. I'll try to do it much better after reading this book.

For years, I've been hearing that Sports Illustrated magazine features the crispest writing on the newsstand. I don't spend a lot of time watching or tracking sports, so SI wasn't exactly a "must read" for me.

Rick Reilly, it turns out, is one of SI's one of the reasons for the magazine's reputation. He's a terrific writer. Not only that, he's funny. Who's Your Caddy? serves as Reilly's journal as he "loops" for an impressive string of famous people from David Duvall to Bob Newhart on some of the most beautiful golf courses in the world.

The funniest chapter recounts the time Reilly spent with John Daly. You don't have to be a golfer to enjoy this book, but you should probably have a sense of humor.