5 comments about Mi Vida Loca: The Crazy Life of Johnny Tapia.

1. Mi Vida Loca is a very chilling read. Johnny Tapia has gone through more highs and lows than most people go through in five lifetimes. It certainly is a tale of perseverance as the odds were against him from the start. He never met his father, watched as his mother was taken to her death when he was 8, and grew up poor in a house of close to 20 relatives where any resistance was met with a beating. Hard way to grow up. Many of his mistakes later on were indeed his own, especially his drug dependencies. After reading this, you wonder how he was able to keep it together in the ring. But then you go back to what he says in the book repeatedly: The ring is my only peace. This isn't a history of Johnny's biggest fights as many of them are just given a glancing look. It is the story of a good man at heart who is trying to find peace while the fear of the wheels falling off is always close by. It is indeed one crazy life. Johnny is lucky to have found his wife, Teresa. How they've stayed together through the high and low times speaks volumes of the love they have for one another. Having said all of this, the book is poorly written, filled with so many grammatical and punctuation errors (and even a blatant repeat of a paragraph in the last chapter) that it wouldn't get a passing grade in a 6th grade writing class. If you can get past the writing, Mi Vida Loca is a good biography. As a longtime fan, I hope Johnny finds peace.



2. An articulate, soulful, heartbreaking and often brutal peek into the life and times of Johnny Tapia. This book transcends boxing. Tapia's lived a "life less ordinary" and the struggles and triumphs he lived through could fill two lifetimes.



3. I LOVE READING LIFE STORYS AND JOHNNY TAPIAS STORY IS RAW AND HEARTRENDERING, THE STRUGGLES HES FACED AND OVERCOME ARE TRUELY TOUCHING, I COULDNT STOP READING FROM THE MOMENT I OPENED THE BOOK. A LIVING LEGEND AND CHAMP NOT ONLY IN THE RING BUT IN HIS PERSONAL LIFE ASWELL. PEOPLE COULDNT EVEN IMAGINE THE PAIN AND TURBULENT LIFE THIS LITTLE MAN HAS FACED. A FANTASTIC READ AND ONLY ONE WORD CAN DESCRIBE HIM. LEGEND.



4. The title of this book should be "Feel Sorry For Me, No wait! I Mean Don't Feel Sorry for Me". He truly can't make up his mind. The stories have a true ring to them but the emblishment is so far fetched that I found myself throwing the BS flag over and over. Still,it makes for a quick read and I found myself laughing out loud more than once. I am a female boxing fan from New Mexico and I used to live in Albuquerque so the details were fun. The "lingo" seemed authentic and if you have ever watched an interview with Tapia you will agree this book was written the same way he speaks.



5. As much as Johnny Tapia has led a crazy life, the grammar in this book is appalling. This book was obviously written firstly in Spanish & then translated over into English. It has been translated over very badly & reads in Pigeon English most of the way through. For what can be read, yes of course this book is good because Johnny Tapia has thrown caution to the wind in his approach to life ever since the terrible experience he went through at such an early age. I cannot help but wish him well though. To update you, he did have an overdose (approx. Feb / Mar 2006) which I understand now, 23rd April, he is hanging in there, Bless Him.

5 comments about You Go Girl! Winning the Woman's Way.

1. I just got my copy of You Go Girl in the mail. I am Mom who traveles in her van all over town to attend her kids sports activities, and this book has been with me all week. I liked the way Charlie and Kim told the personal stories along with professional truimphs. I think woman of all ages would enjoy reading this book. It has truly been a hit in our household.



2. The book "You Go Girl" is a must have for female athletes of all ages. As you read through each chapter, the steps and obstacles of becoming a successful athlete are presented in the stories of women in the world of sports. The greatest part is you can pick up the book and begin reading any story! I am a teenager playing 3 sports in high school and can easily apply the lessons these women present into my daily routine. I have recommended this book to my friends and cannot wait to show my coaches!



3. These amazing women athletes all made the decision to set a goal, to have the right attitude, to have faith and determination, and to make sacrifices in order to reach their dreams/goals in life. This book is very uplifting and inspirational - full of wisdom, optimism, gratitude and joy. It is truly a gift that makes you feel so good after reading just a few pages. I had the opportunity to share some of the stories with my male friends and they enjoyed it as much as I did. My five star recommendation goes out to both Kim and Charlie. Thanks for being able to share all these inspirational stories with us!



4. A must reading for females and males a like. I bought it for my 2 girls, ages 10 and 7 and started to read it before them. It is not just about sports but rather how we all should approach things in our life and situations that arise... I am making sure my 2 boys and wife also read it and I am recommendeing it to my students



5. I flipped through this book at a local book store and was impressed with the life lessons Doren and Jones have presented in a wonderfully readable fashion. I gave "What makes winners win?" to my grandson, I'll give my grandaughter "You go girl" and hope they both read it!

3 comments about Distance to the Green: A Caddy's Lessons in Life, Business and Golf.

1. I don't know why I thought this book would actually be about golf. It is more about "life lessons" which is great for the younger crowd, I'm sure. As for me, I've had all the life lessons I need for a lifetime so the book didn't work for me.



2. I really enjoyed this light read. What I really like is that it isn't a heavy motivator. There were no forceful attitudes like other motivational books I have read. It simply stated through an intelligent and humourous read that we can all learn values from others and then share our knowledge and values to help people with finding their own paths in life. Well done to the authors.



3. A fun book with an interesting format. Scotty, the caddy, learns much that everyone needs to know. The golf stuff is accurate and the "lessons" are ones we all need to learn. This isn't quite self help, but it helped me in several ways . . . I highly recommend it!

No comments about Chelsea FC: The Official Biography: The Definitive Story of the First 100 Years.

No comments about Winning's Only Part of the Game: Lessons of Life and Football.

4 comments about Anything For A T-shirt: Fred Lebow And The New York City Marathon, The World's Greatest Footrace (Sports and Entertainment).

1. Book was received right away. It was a new copy, but the print on some of the pages is too light to read.



2. While the subject is quiet interesting, the book is poorly written and edited. The author keeps on repeating himself over and over and over and over again. And again. One is reminded of college papers where a student is stretching a 2 page point over 10 pages to fulfill the length requirement, constantly restating the same thought with synonymous nouns and adjectives. Could have been a much more fun 150 page read with some good editing, or a great 10 page New Yorker article. The book does improve in the second half.



3. 
   "ANYTHING for a T-Shirt" captures Fred's character as an artist might do with a brush and paint. While describing Fred's life, the author delves into his motivation and goals. He skillfully shows how Fred Lebow, an immigrant from Romania, progresses to developing the most exciting mass participation sporting event in the world.
   
   If you run, read this book! This is the best book ever written on Fred Lebow and marathon running.



4. I got to "meet" Fred Lebow and learn about his creation of the New York City Marathon and his impact on the world of distance running while working with author Ron Rubin's extensive material. "Fred Lebow was a dreamer...the kind of dreamer who pursued his dream and made it a reality. And today, more than thirty years later, the world is still reaping the rewards of his vision and hard work.... Fred Lebow's life was [truly] a story just waiting--and deserving--to be told." -- From the book's Preface.
   
   Exactly what Fred's vision was and how he worked to bring it to fruition--the history of the marathoning culture as we know it today--is developed in the first 11 chapters of the book.
   
   > According to KATHRINE SWITZER, who knew Lebow well:
   "Lebow's lifetime creation, the New York City Marathon, parallels his life story, and nobody's told it better than Ron Rubin in 'Anything for a T-Shirt...'. Rubin shows us how this modest but complex man, who was himself exhilarated with the transforming effects of fitness, took an obscure footrace and turned it into an extravagant festival that brought joy to the world's most glamorous and competitive city and attracted millions of everyday people to distance running. It is a case study in sports marketing, event management and psychology..."
   
   The remainder of the book is dedicated to the heartwarming story of Lebow's struggle with cancer and his momentous first running of his own marathon in 1992 -- a cancer survivor accompanied by a host of friends led by Grete Waitz.
   
   > SWITZER's review of these final chapters states:
   "The book's climax is superb, reeling the reader up very dramatically, day by day, then mile by mile. Rubin pulls no punches as to how Fishl-the name I always called him and the one he would return to before he died-ran in his own creation for the first time, between bouts with the brain cancer that eventually took him from us, on guts and will. 'Anything' paints a vivid picture of Lebow's inherent survival determination, heard from a dozen concerned voices in his entourage. While the whole book is well-written, this chapter is dazzling."
   
   As Dick Traum wrote in his amazon review, "If you run, read this book!" As a non-runner who had never heard of Fred Lebow before working with the book, I can add:
   
   "EVEN IF YOU DON'T RUN, read this book." I came to know both Fred & Fishl through the eyes of the 120-plus people Dr. Rubin interviewed and the numerous authors of articles and stories written during Lebow's illustrious life and in his memory. His life is an uplifting story of hope and inspiration.
   
   Everything I've heard so far indicates that this book is truly the inspiring, motivating & heartwarming tribute to Fred Lebow that Ron Rubin set out to create. A relatively non-athletic, academic-type university professor, Rubin is himself one of the millions of middle- and back-of-the-pack runners who would have never considered attempting a marathon had it not been for Lebow's "creation." He wound up running NY six times!
   
   I look forward to reading what YOU think -- about my review and about the book!

No comments about Beyond XS and OS: My Thirty Years in the NFL.

No comments about Ali in Action: The Man, The Moves, The Mouth.

5 comments about Catch This!: Going Deep with the NFL's Sharpest Weapon.

1. Terrell Owens came off so well in this book. Here is a guy with spectacular football abilities, wealth and charisma, yet he comes off as down to earth and a well-grounded individual.
   
   I think it would be easy to criticise a big-time athlete and say that their books are self-serving and full of lies and half-truths but until one gets to actually be in their shoes and feel the pressures that they have to perform for us, we cannot grumble.
   
   Is TO a saint? No, I am sure he is difficult in the locker room and has (as he admits) his moods, but don't we all?
   
   A good read on an exciting athlete.



2. This book was very inspirational and gives the reader a glimpse into the life of Terrell Owens that you won't see in the media.



3. He clearly does not practice what he preaches. This book is just a facade for arrogance and self-serving attitude. He's probably looking for more money since he wasn't able to get it out of Philadelphia. Once a fan of his in his early Niners years, I have learn to not respect someone who does not respect the game, his teammates or anyone else he works with but himself. He's miles below the great players of this game in terms of character and sportsmanship.
   
   This book is a poor attempt at recovering whatever was left of his reputation, thinly veiled and clearly self-serving. Other naïve readers might buy it, but I'll believe it when I see him stopping being "all about me".



4. Living as an Eagle fan in CA can be trying. When the Eagles signed TO all of my 49er friends said that it wouldn't last. TO's true colors would show sooner or later. I then read the book and encouraged them to do the same. TO does an excellent job of portraying himelf as the victim. He claims to need the money for his family and his future. My family could easily live off his paycheck now and well into the future. After reading this book, I was sold on TO and as an Eagle fan I thought he was the answer but then his true colors came out just as my 49er friends said they would. This book should be changed to fiction.



5. Get over it Jerry Rice is the past TO is the future.

4 comments about Reading Water: Lessons from the River (Capital Discoveries) (Capital Discoveries).

1. This lovely book seems simple enough on the surface (the memoirs of a woman river rafting guide), but, like water itself, there's much more going on beneath the surface. Reading Water is part of the Capital Discoveries Book Series from Capital Books, chosen for their focus on "journeys of self-discovery, transformation, inner awareness, and recovery." This book is a perfect fit for that series.
   
   Lawton weaves many threads into each essay, much like the interwoven currents of the braided rivers she describes in one essay. Some threads are past, present, and further past; others are experience, observation, and research. These threads feel somewhat unrelated until the questions gradually flow over the reader like a gentle sprinkle as opposed to a downpour of forced epiphany.
   
   Her writing style is beautiful and poetic (with the minor exception of an undue fondness for sentence fragments). Her style takes a few pages to get used to, but then it becomes hypnotic. To pose an obvious metaphor, her phrasing pulls the readers along with the sureness and variety of a peaceful river with occasional rapids.
   
   Lawton's greatest strength as a writer is how she combines a scholar's depth of knowledge with a romantic's depth of feeling. She does a great job of interlacing fact and experience. The curious patterns in the lives of salmon might be discussed objectively in one passage, followed closely by the delight of feasting on their flesh in the next. Turning the pages of Reading Water, like reading the best of memoirs, is a learning *and* feeling experience.
   
   As a memoir or as an investigation of the power of moving water to affect human beings, Reading Water is strongly recommended.



2. "reading water" is the river runner's term for seeing things below the surface, things that might leave only a subtle sign on the surface but may be crucial to your survival. Lawton is a trustworthy guide to the subtle signs--signs of time and geological forces and biological creativity and poetic wonders and human truths--that are easily missed but which make life far more wonder-ful. This is a gem of literary nature writing, with a keen poetic eye, but unlike much of the genre, in which writers may have spent too many years in the classroom and then tried to impose too many abstractions or too many other writer's styles onto nature, Lawton's classroom has been the roaringly real and deep and raw and beautiful nature of the Grand Canyon and other wilderness rivers, where river guides must face real matters of life and death and meaning, and she has allowed it to speak to her directly and meaningfully.



3. This collection of essays, in which Rebecca Lawton recounts adventures she's had in her many years as a boatman on Western rivers, is lovely. Though her descriptions of nature are not particularly lush, they capture memorable scenes with a brief, snapshot effect that leaves detailed images in the reader's mind. She fleshes out her descriptions with scientific and geologic facts--her writing is not burdened by science, but rather enlivened by it.
   Lawton tells of how she nearly drowned a friend of hers with her own hubris; how she learned to get out of swift eddies; and how she became a boatman in the first place, despite the bias against females in that profession.
   She also talks about her failed marriage, her mother's death from cancer, and a faithless lover. She draws life lessons from the characteristics of rivers, and although a few of the lessons seem too pat, or contrived to fit the river motif, many of them seem right on the money.
   And always Lawson's writing has a sincere, honest tone, as if she is not trying to make herself look good so much as pondering what she has learned, from life and the river.
   I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about lives they will never live, or who values the wisdom others have worked hard to attain.



4. Rebecca Lawton's collection of essays is lovely. She describes her rafting trips, the geology of the rivers she loves so much and draws comparisons to how rivers are like life. I thoroughly enjoyed the tales of her adventures and learned a lot about life by reading "Reading Water."