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For the first time, the legendary Hall of Fame hockey player and six-time Stanley Cup champion tells the impressive story…
of his life and career, and shares the lessons he's learned about leadership. Mark Messier is one of the most accomplished athletes and dynamic leaders in the history of professional sports. He won the Stanley Cup five times with the Edmonton Oilers during their dynasty years, and once more with the New York Rangers, ending the team's fifty-four-year championship drought. He is second on the all-time career lists for playoff points, and third for regular season games played and for regular season points. Notably, he is the only player to have captained two different NHL franchises to championships. The amazing records are there for anyone to see, but few people know the real Mark Messier. This is his story. Messier reveals the astonishing journey he took to making NHL history, and the leadership philosophy he learned along the way. He recounts never-before-told tales from his childhood as the son of a hockey player, coach, and special education teacher; his years as a teammate and friend of Wayne Gretzky; and his evolution from a brash eighteen-year-old rookie to a distinctive captain and champion. Though bruising on the ice, he led teams with a deep understanding of what inspires and motivates people. He shares the advice he got from the inspirational leaders who had the greatest influence on him, and the lessons he gleaned from the pivotal successes—and sometimes failures—of his career. More than a book about hockey, No One Wins Alone demonstrates what it means to build a life, achieve dreams, and support the people around you. "My real wish," Messier says, "is to inspire people to reach their full potential."
Former army captain recalls returning stateside with numerous physical injuries--including traumatic brain injury--and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after two tours…
in Iraq. Describes acquiring a service dog named Tuesday and ways the canine helped him recover. 2011
Arizona congresswoman Giffords and her husband, astronaut Kelly, describe their lives before and after the near-fatal shooting of Giffords in…
January 2011. They discuss their anguish over the other victims, Kelly's support during Giffords's recovery, and Giffords's determination to return to work. Some violence and some strong language. Bestseller. 2011
Biography of American artist Chuck Close (born 1940), famous for his larger-than-life photo-imitative portraits. Close discusses his learning disabilities, his…
marriage to his former student Leslie Rose, the bohemian 1960s New York, the challenges of balancing career and family, his paralysis at age forty-eight, and his return to painting. 2010
Award-winning journalist candidly recounts his relationship with his son Walker, who was born with cardiofaciocutaneous syndrome (CFC), a rare genetic…
mutation. Discusses raising Walker at home and the heart-rending decision to place teenaged Walker in a care facility. Reflects on the value of human life. Some strong language. 2009
Autobiography of blind musician, composer, and social worker Altschul. Describes his youth in New York state, education at Princeton University…
and the New England Conservatory, and career and marriage. Also discusses his experience obtaining dogs through the Guiding Eyes for the Blind. 2012
Former New York Times editor chronicles her own hearing loss and relates the experiences of others with the condition. Investigates…
the causes, effects, and management--with hearing aids and cochlear implants--of this disability. Also discusses tinnitus, vertigo, and research into biological cures. Offers communication tips. 2013
Award-winning author pens his memoir using second- and third-person narratives. Describes a "special child" with a disability growing up in…
the 1960s South, wearing a full-body cast, experiencing a rebellious and dissolute period, becoming a published writer, and finding faith. Some strong language. 2011
After accepting her diagnosis of Lou Gehrig's disease in 2011, forty-five-year-old Palm Beach Post journalist quit her job and took…
seven journeys with friends and family to celebrate her life and create memories. She also met her birth mother, adopted a dog, and got permanent makeup. Some strong language. 2013
Author recounts being blinded during a near-fatal grizzly bear attack in Alaska in 2003 at age twenty-five. Details his recovery…
and his attendance at a center for the visually impaired. Discusses earning a master degree, changing careers, and reuniting with--and marrying--his girlfriend. Some strong language. 2013
Rehabilitation physician discusses BrainGate, the microelectrode system that operates by recognizing thought patterns that can manipulate a computer screen. Recounts…
implanting the device in the brain of Matthew Nagle, a twenty-one-year-old who suffered a stab wound in his neck that severed his spinal cord and made him a quadriplegic. 2012
Writer and National Public Radio commentator's memoir of growing up with spinal muscular atrophy, a hereditary neurological disorder that causes…
progressive muscle weakness. Discusses his college career at Harvard (1980-84), his marriage, and fatherhood. Covers the disability rights movement and its effects on his life. Some strong language. 2012
A love letter to a sport that's losing itself, from one of Canada's best sports writers.Canadian hockey is approaching a…
state of crisis. It's become more expensive, more exclusive, and effectively off-limits to huge swaths of the potential sports-loving population. Youth registration numbers are stagnant; efforts to appeal to new Canadians are often grim at best; the game, increasingly, does not resemble the country of which it's for so long been an integral part. These signs worried Sean Fitz-Gerald. As a lifelong hockey fan and father of a young mixed-race son falling headlong in love with the game, he wanted to get to the roots of these issues. His entry point: a season with the Peterborough Petes, a storied OHL team far from its former glory in a once-emblematic Canadian city that is finding itself on the wrong side of the country's changing demographics. Fitz-Gerald profiles the players, coaches and front office staff, a mix of world-class talents with NHL aspirations and Peterborough natives happy with more modest dreams. Through their experiences, their widely varied motivations and expectations, we get a rich, colourful understanding of who ends up playing hockey in Canada and why. Fitz-Gerald interweaves the action of the season with portraits of public figures who've shaped and been shaped by the game: authors who captured its spirit, politicians who exploited it, and broadcasters who try to embody and sell it. He finds his way into community meetings full of angry season ticket holders, as well as into sterile boardrooms full of the sport's institutional brain trust, unable to break away from the inertia of tradition and hopelessly at war with itself. Before the Lights Go Out is a moving, funny, yet unsettling picture of a sport at a crossroads. Fitz-Gerald's warm but rigorous journalistic approach reads, in the end, like a letter to a troubled friend: it's not too late to save hockey in this country, but who has the will to do it?
A historian's memoir of becoming the first blind Rhodes Scholar in the mid-1950s. Describes the deterioration of the author's eyesight…
during his first year at Oxford and his determination to press on. Relates his subsequent personal and educational achievments, including a PhD from Harvard and a distinguished forty-four-year teaching career. 2017
Profiles of forty-five people who are blind or have low vision, including Larry Johnson, a longtime DJ in Mexico, and…
Michael Hingson, a 9/11 survivor who wrote about his lifesaving guide dog in Thunder Dog (DB 73300). Natalie Watkins, who has retinitis pigmentosa, is profiled twice, six years apart. 2019
A contestant on the television program Dancing with the Stars talks about her experience of losing her legs after contracting…
bacterial meningitis. She nearly died, and the experience left her with a new sense of spirituality and determination. 2014
Pistorius explains how, in 1988 at age twelve, a mysterious illness left him mute and in a wheelchair. Misdiagnosed, he…
lived in care centers for severely disabled children for ten years. Describes how he was finally able to communicate that his mind was fine, reclaim his life, and fall in love. 2013
Autobiography of Joseph Dean Klatt and the challenges he faced when he lost his eyesight in a tragic car accident…
at the age of nineteen. Discusses his determination to achieve independence, his academic years, his seven Seeing Eye dogs, and his personal life. 2013
Paralympian Pagels discusses being paralyzed in a 1984 tree-cutting accident, his recovery, becoming involved in wheelchair sports, and eventually going…
to the Paralympics in Albertville, France, and winning gold medals. Explains how he then went on to climb mountains using a specialized chair. 2014
Memoir of a nurse who worked on the pseudonymously named island of Papavray off the coast of Scotland in the…
1970s. Details the culture shock of moving to Papavray after living in southern England, island life, and the challenges of raising two young boys. 2012