100 books like Will It Make the Boat Go Faster?

I’m a people-pleaser. I can’t say ‘No’ to anyone and in the past it has destroyed me.

This book reminds us all that we only have a limited amount of time, energy, and money and we should only spend them on things that make us happy and don’t annoy us. We need to stop caring what other people think. We can’t make everyone like us but we can make them respect us, and there is a way to get off going to your great uncle’s 90th birthday without being rude.

Trust me – this book will change your life.   

I can’t be the only one who settles down to watch TV next to my husband – both of us on our phones aimlessly scrolling. He sends me a DM. I message him back. Even my spaniel knew my phone was more exciting than he is. Something had to change.

This book, written by the men who made Google and YouTube as addictive as possible, showed me how to live in this digital age without being glued to my phone. Work before e-mails. Family before Instagram. No more phones in the bedroom. It was a real wake-up call.

I’m an eternal pessimist. My cup is always half-empty and I imagine the worst. Not at all helpful when you’ve had cancer three times.

But one day at a medical conference I heard Andy Cope speak and he blew my mind. I can choose to wake up as excited as a five-year-old. I want people to talk about me behind my back for all the joy I bring to their lives and I don’t to waste the precious time I have left being miserable.

Some days it’s hard and I’ll be honest, I do quite like wallowing in misery from time to time, but this book always snaps me out of it

Have you ever been lost for words? You know what you want to say but it sounds silly when you say it out loud? That was me when my mum died. I was burning with grief and couldn’t find a way out.

And then a friend told me about Donna and her poems. Her book, Loss, sang to me as I cried myself to sleep, and her new book, Wild Hope, gives me daily inspiration. It literally creates magic.

Let the book open to a random page and I guarantee it will give you the boost you need to keep going, step by step, moment by moment, ever hopeful. 

This book reshaped my view of leadership and what it takes to build an unbeatable team. Coach K is a proven master at maximizing both individual performance and team performance by focusing on fundamentals such as character and respect… and why success, achievement, and winning are a by-product of doing the little things right every single day. 

I love how Malcolm, a kid who doesn’t like sports despite his athletic dad’s enthusiastic encouragement, finally finds a place to call his own in mini-golf. Malcolm has always felt like a loser but once he signs up for lessons and meets some friends, he slowly improves, in his game and in his opinion of himself. Unfortunately, Malcolm also carries the weight of feeling it’s up to him to keep his parents’ troubled marriage together. With tournaments and family problems mounting high, this is an exciting read. The eighteen chapters, set up like holes on a golf course, are a fun addition.

The uncertainty of the result is a bedrock of sport. Yet, although it should not be pre-determined, it does happen. Gambling interests, the very people who developed rules for many early sports, can persuade competitors (by threats or bribes) not to perform to the best of their abilities. The book shows that cheating to lose has a long history dating back to Antiquity, when fines on cheating competitors paid for statues to commemorate the gods. I have never believed in the purity of sport and its participants. Sport may well breed character, a mantra of the sports lobby, but, I suggest, not necessarily good character. The book appeals to me as it shows how historians can dig out evidence on activities which, to be successful, must be covert.

Published in 1979, Anderson’s collection of columns preserves seminal sports moments, primarily from that decade. Anderson’s on-deadline work for The New York Times revisits Hank Aaron’s 715th MLB home run, which broke Babe Ruth’s all-time record. He was in the right place at the right time for an interview with Negro Leagues pitching legend Satchel Paige in 1976, a column in which the old fireballer praised Slim Jones, Bob Feller, and Dizzy Dean as the “best pitches I ever saw.” Jimmy Connors, Joe Namath, Gordie Howe, Julius Erving, and Muhammad Ali are among the icons that Anderson highlights with exceptional portraiture, capturing Howe’s career as he approaches his 50th birthday. Anderson also produces a splendid profile of Wilt Chamberlain playing volleyball.

Like many of the premier sports journalists of the post-World War II era, Anderson traveled widely and covered prominent events throughout the United States and around the… show more.

This book takes the wisdom of Tao into the world of sports, combining Chung-liang Al Huang’s calligraphy and insights as a T’ai Ji master with sports psychologist Jerry Lynch’s use of Tao principles to coach professional, Olympic, and recreational athletes. Offering lessons from the enduring wisdom of Tao, along with exercises, affirmations, and encouragement, this book helps readers transcend the limits of Western dualism to discover a new path of joy and meaning in their athletic endeavors, careers, and personal lives.

John Schulian, one of the premier American sports journalists from the 1970s to the present, has recommended The Red Smith Reader with unsparing enthusiasm: “Quite simply the most thorough collection ever of the master’s work... a joy to everyone who picks it up.” A compilation of 131 Smith columns published in 1982, the year of his death, the book showcases his literary prose, which elevated the profession. The biggest games (Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series, Reggie Jackson’s three home runs on three consecutive at-bats in the 1977 Fall Classic) and individuals (Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, Secretariat) are the foundation of Smith’s invaluable contributions to the understanding and appreciation of sports culture. His profiles of boxing and horse racing trainers are also exceptionally astute portraits.

Red Smith was a deadline artist, crafting timeless columns. As a fan of good writing and an admirer of his literary… show more.