Winter Sports Books - Page 6

The Last Place on Earth

Roland Huntford

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Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Norway

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 77 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the South Pole was the most coveted prize in the fiercely nationalistic modern age of exploration. In the brilliant dual biography, the award-winning writer Roland Huntford re-examines every detail of the great race to the South Pole between Britain's Robert Scott and Norway's Roald Amundsen. Scott, who dies along with four of his men only eleven miles from his next cache of supplies, became Britain's beloved failure, while Amundsen, who not only beat Scott to the Pole but returned alive, was largely forgotten. This account of their race is a gripping, highly readable history that captures the driving ambitions of the era and the complex, often deeply flawed men who were charged with carrying them out. THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH is the first of Huntford's masterly trilogy of polar biographies. It is also the only work on the subject in the English language based on the original Norwegian sources, to which Huntford returned to revise and update this edition.

The bravest dog ever: The true story of Balto

Natalie Standiford

By: Seedlings Braille Books for Children Amazon Marketplace: 1 new & used starting at $205.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Neither Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Snow, Nor Gloom of Night... 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

...can keep these packs of hardy huskies and malamutes from delivering the antitoxin to Nome during the 1925 Diptheria Epidemic!

No train can get through due to the snow. The train that was originally transporting the medicine got mired in snow, more than 700 miles from its destination. Only a sled team of hardy dogs can reach the stricken town. Balto, the lead dog on one of the latter legs of that fateful run led a team of hardy malamutes and huskies some 53 miles. He led the team through adverse weather and land conditions including blizzards and a froxen river. The curly tailed dog is credited for seeing the medicine through; it is on his run that the medicine arrived 10 days ahead of schedule.

This book will delight and excite young readers who will wait with baited breath (even though they know the malamute team will reach the town like the Calvary). The delightful illustrations make a good thing even better. The history of the hardy Eskimo dog, the sled dog driver and the dog teams will provide a part of history that will be revived and discussed for a long time to come. Adding the map of the dog sled trail was an excellent teaching device.

Editorial Review:

This is the true story about a very brave dog who, in 1925, led his team 700 miles through blinding snowdrifts, over a frozen river, and around cracking ice to save two diphtheria-stricken children.

Snowboarding Skills: The Back-To-Basics Essentials for All Levels

Cindy Kleh

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Subjects -> Sports -> Winter Sports -> Snowboarding

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

With its breakneck speed, upstart attitude and stunning locales, snowboarding is the definitive sport for those who thrive on adrenaline rushes and winter activities. No longer the exclusive province of renegade hot-doggers, huckers and shredders, snowboarding earned its own venue for the 1998 Nagano Olympics and was very popular at the Salt Lake City Olympics 2002. Today people of all ages are participating in this sport of athletic prowess and extreme spirit.

The number of snowboarders is exploding and will likely exceed downhill skiers. Whether you are a novice, an experienced snowboarder, Snowboarding Skills will help you improve your technique on the hills. Features include:
- Pointers from the top pros
- Action photo sequences with diagrams to explain technique
- Step-by-step lessons to improve your skill
- Safety and equipment tips

From the basics of standing up and stopping to the challenges of pivoting and jumping, Snowboarding Skills covers everything you need about the sport.

Antarctica (Country Guide)

Jeff Rubin

Amazon Price: $18.71 List Price: $25.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Lonely Planet Amazon Marketplace: 33 new & used starting at $17.77

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Subjects -> Travel -> Polar Regions -> Antarctica

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Future trip to Antarctica 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 15 people found this review helpful.

My friend and I are off on an adventure to Antarctica in February and this book offered by Lonely Planet and authored by Jeff Rubin has been very informative and helpful in many aspects. I purchase all my travel books printed by Lonely Planet.

Travel Research for Antarctica 2 out of 5 stars.
5 of 8 people found this review helpful.

This book is a good start in discovering the many and varied ways to explore Antarctica. While the southern continent is not the usual destination for the weak of heart or wallet, Lonely Planet does give a very good presentation on the possibilities of travel to the deep south. While it mostly concentrates on the Penninsular side of Antarctica, it does give sufficient information to plan a trip there, as well as the difficulties and options for travel. Most travellers to the southland will find it to be quite expensive, though for many it is a worthwhile trip to see such a magnificent place that so few have had the opportunity to visit.
Unfortunately it does not always give the most up to date information, particularly for the rest of the continent. It also glosses over the various scientific research projects that go on down there sponsored by the many countries that operate research stations on the continent. While Antarctica is an amazing place, increased tourism will likely lead to damage and pollution to this mostly pristine environment. The upcoming International Polar Year research will undoubtedly renew interest in the Antarctic.

Editorial Review:

Discover Antarctica

Feel the salty kiss of sea mist when nearby whales exhale their startlingly loud 'ffffffffffffffffff' next to your boat
Sneak a peak a the secret harbor of Deception Island, where you can sail inside a restless volcano
Pay homage to intrepid explorers at their base camps, where objects remain eerily preserved a century later

In This Guide

Five authors, 30 specialists, a supporting cast of thousands of emperor penguins
Expanded coverage of environmental issues, climate change and ways travelers can make a difference
Complete pre-trip planning information for visits by air, private yacht, cruise ship or resupply vessel
Content updated daily - visit lonelyplanet.com

Ice Hockey Made Simple: A Spectator's Guide (4th Edition) (Spectator Guide Series)

P. J. Harari, Dave Ominsky

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A perennial favorite now in its third edition, Ice Hockey Made Simple: A Spectator's Guide helps guide viewers through the rules of the fast-moving and often confusing sport of ice hockey. This book helps answer the questions the growing number of people who would like to learn about hockey are afraid to ask!!

This soft-covered handbook covers everything a new fan needs to know to understand and appreciate hockey. Short, easy-to-understand chapters along with diagrams and action photographs explain: *The object of hockey
*The simplified rules of the game
*Strategy
*What viewers should look for during the game
*Biographies of famous hockey personalities, past and present

The book also helps guide the reader through the confusing jumble of numbers and statistics published in the sports page every day.

The existing hockey fan will also be attracted to this book for its coverage of the lates t National Hockey League (NHL) rule changes and updated statistics. With the growing popu larity of this sport all over the United States, especially in California, Florida, Texas and Colorado where newly established teams are flourishing, this book is a must.

Follow the action with this handy reference guide.

A complete glossary and index makes finding information a snap Makes a great gift Pocket-sized - take it to the game

Shooting from the Lip: Hockey's Best Quotes and Quips

Chris McDonell

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Subjects -> Sports -> Hockey -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

An all-star collection of wise, sarcastic and hilarious quotes.

Shooting from the Lip is full of the off-the-cuff comments that keep millions of fans not only watching games, but also avidly reading the sports pages. They're fresh, they're frank, and they're all about hockey. For example:

• You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take. (Center Wayne Gretzky)
• I was kind of hoping it would straighten it out. (Center Rod Brind'Amour, after suffering his fourth broken nose)
• I'm not dirty, just aggressive. Fighter pilots have machine guns. I have only my mask and stick. (Goalie Gerry Cheevers)
• I don't want to tell you half truths, unless they're completely accurate. (Coach Alain Vigneault).

There are 300-plus quotes representing 50 years of hockey, further enlivened with colorful graphics and photographs of the featured players, coaches and other personalities.

The book is organized into a wide range of topics, including attitude, blowouts, coaching and fans, hockey hair, injuries and feuds, penalties and goons, taking shots, and winning and losing.

Whether consumed in random nibbles or devoured in one sitting, Shooting from the Lip will entertain hockey fans of all ages.

Snow Sense: A Guide to Evaluating Snow Avalanche Hazard

Jill A. Fredston, Doug Fesler

Amazon Price: $8.95 List Price: $8.95 In stock soon. Order now to get in line. First come, first served. By: Alpen Amazon Marketplace: 9 new & used starting at $8.95

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Review in Backpacker Magazine, May 1995 5 out of 5 stars.
18 of 18 people found this review helpful.

"Here's a book you should have. I know, I know, everybody says that but this is different. This book lays out what avalanches are and how they happen, and it will save your life. Now notice I didn't say this is a book you should have on your bookshelf. This one should be in the top pocket of your pack. Simply put,"Snow Sense" is a pocket guide to safe snow travel, whether you're hiking, backpacking, skiing, snowshoeing, or mountaineering in high risk areas.

Avalanches don't simply explode out of nowhere. The ones that kill people are usually started by the victims. This book will teach you that such catastrophes are avoidable. You can learn to recognize and evaluate avalanche hazards. You can learn to "read" the snowpack, "read" the mountains, and save your skin. "Snow Sense" is a hands-on, explicit, clear-thinking, hard-hitting field guide that teaches you how. By studying the book's "bulls-eye" clues to snowpack stability, hardness tests, shear block tests, weather analysis, simple physics, and hazard checklists, you'll come away with all you need to know about avalanches and how to avoid being caught by one.

Read it once. Read it again. Take it into the field and practice the skills it teaches. Every time I hear of another avalanche-caused death in the Rockies, I wish the victim had read this book. The survivors must read it.

Editorial Review:

"Snow Sense" is the best-selling, easiest to read, most informative avalanche safety book available. Intended for skiers, snowmachiners, snowboarders, climbers and others who work and play in avalanche country, "Snow Sense" is written to help backcountry travelers learn to recognize, evaluate, and avoid snow avalanche hazards.

Avalanche accidents do not happen by accident; they happen for particular reasons. "Snow Sense" addresses the critical terrain, snowpack, and weather variables that make it possible for a slope to avalanche along with the human factors that allow most accidents to happen. If you don't want to become an avalanche victim, read this book.

The New Guide to Skiing: A Step-by-Step Guide in Color, Revised Edition

Martin Heckelman

Amazon Price: $15.61 List Price: $22.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: W. W. Norton & Company Amazon Marketplace: 33 new & used starting at $10.89

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

By one of the world's leading instructors, a step-by-step guide to mastering the new shaped skis. Fat boys, carving skis, cross skis, extreme shaped skis: that is the new language of alpine skiing. This best-selling classic has been completely rewritten to explain what makes the shaped skis so revolutionary--and so exciting, especially for beginners. With over 300 specially commissioned color photographs showing step by step how to turn and how to maintain control easily under all conditions, and with its clear text, this is the book for a new generation of alpine skiers. Featuring more than eighty unique stop-action photographic sequences, The New Guide to Skiing shows how to ski with greater ease, precision, and control while obtaining optimum performance from shaped skis. Based on the newest and least stressful methods, it demonstrates how to deal with skiing off trail or in deep powder and illustrates the eleven specific turns needed to master difficult conditions, including ice and moguls. 300 color photographs.

Mawson's Will: The Greatest Polar Survival Story Ever Written

Lennard Bickel

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Bickel's Gift 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

Rarely has fiction served the truth so well. Rarely has the truth served fiction so well.

Mawson's own account of his ordeal, in "The Home of The Blizzard", seems relatively matter of fact. We may not have marvelled at Mawson's accomplishment in surviving if we relied only on his way of telling it. Although a good writer, his specialities were geography and exploration.

Bickel's presentation here in "Mawson's Will" makes Mawson's accomplishment more touching than Mawson's own presentation. But it took an extraordinary writing accomplishment by Bickel to convey Mawson's accomplishment. Poetic license? To fail to understand how much faithful art it took to go from Mawson's diaries and book to Bickel's account would be to not appreciate how much effort and skill it took for Bickel to bring Mawson's tale so fully alive. If Bickel hadn't taken poetic license, this tale may have been of more interest to the most purist historian but it would have been of far less human interest. Sensitive to our lack of understanding of the Antartic experience, Bickel put us there in a way we never could have gotten from Mawson's own account. The last one hundred pages of "Mawson's Will" are as riveting as anything I've read in years.

Bickel's faithfulness to Mawson has made this a special work of art. Because of Bickel, we can be amazed at how Mawson survived and understand something profound about the human will.

P.S. I wake up the next day to find the story is still strong on my mind. Mawson returned to Australia to find his beloved waiting, married her, in time actually returned to the Antartic for exploration, and lived til 73. While we may never face as extreme a challenge as he did, there seems lessons here in the value of perserverence, in the benefits of careful self-management, and in the role of loved ones in making life worth living. This is an unusual book and Mawson and Bickel have made a special contribution far beyond whether land was claimed through exploration.

Editorial Review:

Australian Sir Douglas Mawson chose not to go with Robert Scott to the South Pole in 1911, but instead set out on a less prestigious expedition to chart Antarctica's coastline. Mawson was not inexperienced - in 1908 he had led an important expedition to the South Magnetic Pole - but nothing could have prepared him for what happened on this trek. Mawson's task was to chart 1,500 miles of coastline and claim it for the British crown. Setting out in a party of three, he faced mountains, crevasse-filled glaciers, and 60-mile-per-hour winds. Six weeks and 320 miles out, one man fell into a crevasse, along with the tent, most equipment, and all but a week's supply of food. After losing his other companion and the dogs, Mawson fought his way back home alone through horrific wind, snow, and cold to leave his own mark in history.

Balto and the great race (Houghton Mifflin reading)

Elizabeth Cody Kimmel

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Subjects -> Sports -> Winter Sports -> Iditarod & Dog-Sledding

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A teacher in PA 5 out of 5 stars.
19 of 19 people found this review helpful.

This is an excellent book if you are interested in the Iditarod race in Alaska.The book helps young children understand the importance of perserverence and is a great introduction to history for the very young (6-8).A true story that inspires people to understand the bond between animals and people.

Balto: not just for kids 5 out of 5 stars.
14 of 15 people found this review helpful.

We purchased this book after seeing the real Balto (courtesy of the art of taxidermy) at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Our quest in Northeast Ohio, where Balto enjoyed his senior years, was prompted by my seven year-old daughter's love-affair with the animated film about this dog, who navigated a lost sled team carrying life-saving medicine through Alaska in 1925. I hereby confess publicly that, after myself reading the book, which is aimed at the 9 year-old set, I cried, much as I had done 35 years before after reading "Lassie Come Home." This account, however, is much more compelling than "Lassie" or "Old Yeller," because it entirely factual (possibly excepting the subjective thoughts imputed to the protagonist).

The author did her homework researching this story about a sled dog who was just one of the pack facing poor odds against daunting weather and unrequiting expanses of blinding snow and ice. When the alpha dog loses the trail, and another refuses to lead, the team turns to Balto to bring them and their cargo safely to rest in Nome.

Perhaps Balto deserves an authentic, grown-up biography, but this one will serve in the meantime. It appears to be the definitive account.

Editorial Review:

When dozens of children in a remote 1925 Alaska town become seriously ill with diphtheria, they can only be saved if Balto the Siberian husky successfully leads a team of sled dogs through a dangerous blizzard to deliver their medicine. Simultaneous.