Biographies

In the early 1980s, a golden generation of volleyball players joined the United States men’s national team. With the Olympics coming to Los Angeles, California, in 1984, the pressure was on to build a winning program around these exceptional athletes. Could a group of individuals put aside their egos and play as a true team to achieve Olympic gold in their home country?

When Betty Robinson assumed the starting position at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, she was participating in what was only her fourth-ever organized track meet. She crossed the finish line as a gold medalist and the fastest woman in the world. This improbable athletic phenom was an ordinary high school student, discovered running for a train in rural Illinois mere months before her Olympic debut. Amsterdam made her a star.

Set in the early days of a rapidly changing 20th 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.

This is the first in-depth biography of Nipsey Hussle, the hip-hop mogul, artist, and activist whose transformative legacy inspired a generation with his motivational lyrics and visionary business savvy—before he was tragically shot down in the very neighborhood he was dedicated to building up. For Nipsey Hussle, “The Marathon” was more than a mixtape title or the name of a clothing store; it was a way of life, a metaphor for the relentless pursuit of excellence and the willpower required to overcome adversity.