The 2024 Summer Olympics begin today, and for the next two weeks, viewers around the world will be riveted by the drama of elite athletes going for the gold. Of course, the history of the Olympics is filled with stories that are just as compelling as the games themselves. If you’d like to read some of those stories, here is a list of nonfiction books about Olympians & the Olympics that you can check out using your Livingston Library card. (Descriptions provided by the publishers.)
Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe by David Maraniss
Jim Thorpe rose to world fame as a mythic talent who excelled at every sport. He won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, was an All-American football player at the Carlisle Indian School, in the first class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and played major league baseball for the New York Giants. But despite his colossal skills, Thorpe’s life was a struggle against the odds. As a member of the Sac and Fox Nation, he encountered duplicitous authorities who turned away from him when their reputations were at risk. At Carlisle, he dealt with the racist assimilationist philosophy Kill the Indian, Save the Man. His gold medals were unfairly rescinded because he had played minor league baseball. His later life was troubled by alcohol, broken marriages, and financial distress. But for all his travails, Thorpe did not succumb. The man survived, complications and all, and so did the myth.
Just Add Water: My Swimming Life by Katie Ledecky
Katie Ledecky is one of the best swimmers ever to compete. She has won more individual Olympic races than any female swimmer in history. A three-time Olympian, a seven-time gold medalist, a twenty-one-time world champion, eight-time NCAA Champion, and world record-holder in individual swimming events, Ledecky shares what it takes to compete at an elite level. Again and again, Katie Ledecky has broken records: those of others and, increasingly, her own. She is both consistent and innovative-consistent at setting goals and shattering them, and innovative in the way she approaches her training. A true competitor, she sets her goals by choosing the ones that feel the scariest. But, crucially, she never sacrifices the joy of competition, even in the face of adversity. Her positive mental outlook and a great support system provides the springboard to her success. This candid and inspiring memoir charts Ledecky’s life in swimming.
Little Wonder: The Fabulous Story of Lottie Dod, the World’s First Female Sports Superstar by Sasha Abramsky
Lottie Dod was a truly extraordinary sports figure who blazed trails of glory in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dod won Wimbledon five times, and did so for the first time in 1887, at the ludicrously young age of fifteen. After she grew bored with competitive tennis, she moved on to and excelled in myriad other sports: she became a leading ice skater and tobogganist, a mountaineer, an endurance bicyclist, a hockey player, a British ladies’ golf champion, and an Olympic silver medalist in archery. In her time, Dod had a huge following, but her years of distinction occurred just before the rise of broadcast media. By the outset of World War I, she was largely a forgotten figure; she died alone and without fanfare in 1960. Little Wonder brings this remarkable woman’s story to life, contextualizing it against a backdrop of rapid social change and tectonic shifts in the status of women in society.
The Watermen: The Birth of American Swimming and One Young Man’s Fight to Capture Olympic Gold by Michael Loynd
In the early twentieth century, few Americans knew how to swim, and as a competitive sport, it 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 and 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 to rival the British Empire’s seventy-year domination of the sport. Interwoven with the story of Charles’s struggle 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 1908’s fourth Olympiad, Charles’s hard-fought rise climaxed in a gold-medal race where British judges set 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.
The Tigerbelles: Olympic Legens from Tennessee State by Aime Alley Card
The Tigerbelles tells the epic story of the 1960 Tennessee State University all-Black women’s track team, which found Olympic glory at the 1960 games in Rome. The author tells a story of desire, success and failure–of beating the odds–against the backdrop of a changing America, but tells it in an intimate way. Readers will come to know the individuals’ unique struggles and triumphs, while also understanding how these dreams emerged and solidified just as the country was struggling to leave the Jim Crow era behind. Coach Edward Temple pushed each team member to the limit and saw the possibilities in them that they often did not see themselves. The elite group of talent included Wilma Rudolph, Barbara Jones, Lucinda Williams, Martha Hudson, Willye B. White and Shirley Crowder: women who once were and should still be known world-wide. Ultimately the team’s drive was for more than medals: Coach Temple and the Tigerbelles wanted to change the world’s perception of what a group of young Black women in the Jim Crow south were capable of. Tigerbelles is a multi-layered inspirational tale of triumph over adversity. Based on memoirs and interviews with surviving team members, including Coach Temple, this is the story of an impossible dream come true.
Dream Team: How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the Greatest Team of All Time Conquered the World and Changed the Game of Basketball Forever by Jack McCallum
They were the Beatles of basketball, the Mercury Seven in sneakers. In Dream Team, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum delivers the untold story of the greatest team ever assembled: the 1992 U.S. Olympic Men’s Basketball Team that captivated the world, kindled the hoop dreams of countless children around the planet, and remade the NBA into a global sensation. As a senior staff writer for Sports Illustrated, McCallum enjoyed a courtside seat for the most exciting basketball spectacle on earth, covering the Dream Team from its inception to the gold medal ceremony in Barcelona.
Olympic Pride, American Prejudice: The Untold Story of 18 African Americans Who Defied Jim Crow and Adolf Hitler to Compete in the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Deborah Riley Draper
Set against the turbulent backdrop of a segregated United States, sixteen Black men and two black women are torn between boycotting the Olympic Games in Nazi Germany or participating. If they go, they would represent a country that considered them second-class citizens and would compete amid a strong undercurrent of Aryan superiority that considered them inferior. Yet, if they stayed, would they ever have a chance to prove them wrong on a global stage? To be better than anyone ever expected? Five athletes, full of discipline and heart, guide readers through this harrowing and inspiring journey. There’s a young and sometimes feisty Tidye Pickett from Chicago, whose lithe speed makes her the first African American woman to compete in the Olympic Games; a quiet Louise Stokes from Malden, Massachusetts, who breaks records across the Northeast with humble beginnings training on railroad tracks. We find Mack Robinson in Pasadena, California, setting an example for his younger brother, Jackie Robinson; and the unlikely competitor Archie Williams, a lanky book-smart teen in Oakland takes home a gold medal. Then there&;s Ralph Metcalfe, born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, who becomes the wise and fierce big brother of the group. Drawing on over five years of research, Draper and Thrasher bring to life a timely story of perseverance and the will to beat unsurmountable odds. From burning crosses set on the Robinsons’s lawn to a Pennsylvania small town on fire with praise and parades when the athletes return from Berlin, Olympic Pride, American Prejudice is full of emotion, grit, political upheaval, and the American dream. Capturing a powerful and untold chapter of history, the narrative is also a celebration of the courage, commitment, and accomplishments of these talented athletes and their impact on race, sports and inclusion around the world.
The Longest Race: Inside the Secret World of Abuse, Doping, and Deception on Nike’s Elite Running Team by Kara Goucher
Kara Goucher grew up with Olympic dreams. She excelled at running from a young age, and though she was confronted with serious challenges including the death of her father and struggles with disordered eating, her prospects were bright. She won high school cross country championships in Minnesota, NCAA track and field championships at the University of Colorado, and when she graduated from college, Nike offered her a sponsorship deal. Alberto Salazar was a legend of American distance running. He ran at the University of Oregon, made two Olympic teams, and won the New York and Boston marathons in the 1980s. In the early 2000s he was hired by Nike as a coach to build a team that would reestablish the United States as a distance running powerhouse. Dubbed the Nike Oregon Project, it would be based at the company’s spectacular headquarters near Portland. In 2004, Kara and her Olympian-runner husband, Adam, were invited by Alberto to move to Oregon and join the elite team. It seemed the opportunity of a lifetime and the start of her dreams coming true. But behind the scenes, Salazar was hiding dark secrets beneath his charming persona. Narcissistic and power hungry, he demanded complete control over his runners, pushing and then crossing the limits of anti-doping rules and even promoting a culture of abuse. Told with stunning honesty, The Longest Race is an unforgettable story and a call to action. Overcoming the powerful forces compelling her to remain silent, Kara became a key witness helping to get Salazar banned for life from professional coaching, as well as a crusader for female athletes. Ultimately, she reveals how she broke through the fear of losing everything she ever worked for, took back control of her life and career, and reclaimed her love of the sport of running.
Butterfly: From Refugee to Olympian, My Story of Rescue, Hope, and Triumph by Yusra Mardini
When young Syrian refugee Yusra Mardini realized her boat’s engine shut down as she was traveling from Syria to Greece with other refugees, there was no hesitation: she dove into the water. Surfacing, she heard desperate prayers and sobbing from the passengers in the sinking boat above her. Between the waves, her elder sister Sarah screamed at her to get back on the boat. But Mardini was determined. She was not going to let Sarah do this alone. Grabbing the rope with one hand, she began kicking up the black water, inching the boat towards the distant shore. This bold act of bravery saved the lives of a boatload of refugees heading to Turkey from Syria. After her arrival in Greece, Mardini, focused and undeterred, worked toward a lifelong goal: to compete in the Olympics. She succeeded, and competed in 2016 on the Refugee Olympic Team in Rio de Janeiro. Butterfly tells her story, from Syria to the Olympics to her current work with the UN as a Goodwill Ambassador.
Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World by David Maraniss
An account of the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome reveals the competition’s unexpected influence on the modern world, in a narrative synopsis that pays tribute to such athletes as Cassius Clay and Wilma Rudolph while evaluating the roles of Cold War propaganda, civil rights, and politics.
Unbroken: An Olympian’s Journey from Airman to Castaway to Captive by Laura Hillenbrand
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War. The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown. Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.
—Joe, Adult Services & Acquisitions