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8 Alberta Books About Sports

This month Read Alberta has curated a list of sports and athletic-themed books for the sports enthusiasts and sideline cheerleaders! These books explore different sports and outdoor activities, such as fly fishing, wrestling, bicycling, hiking, and hockey. 

Visit your local indie bookstore or ReadAlbertaeBooks.ca to find these titles!

SOUTH AWAY
By Meaghan Marie Hackinen

South Away: The Pacific Coast on Two Wheels follows Meaghan Marie Hackinen and her sister in the adventure of a lifetime: bicycling from Terrace, BC, down the West Coast to (almost) the tip of the Baja Peninsula. Along the way, Hackinen battles with the elements in Vancouver Island’s dense northern forests and frigid Mexican deserts; encounters strange men, suicidal highways and monster trucks; and makes some emergency repairs as tires and spokes succumb to the ravages of the journey.

South Away: The Pacific Coast on Two Wheels

Meaghan Hackinen (CA)

Published: Oct 15, 2019 by NeWest Press
ISBN: 9781988732633

WRITING THE BODY IN MOTION
Edited by Angie Abdou and Jamie Dopp

Writing the Body in Motion: A Critical Anthology on Canadian Sport Literature includes introductory essays on the most commonly taught Canadian sport literature texts. The contributions sketch the state of current scholarship, highlight recurring themes and patterns, and offer a variety of ways to read, consider, teach, and write about sport literature.

Writing the Body in Motion: A Critical Anthology on Canadian Sport Literature

Published: May 30, 2018 by Athabasca University Press
ISBN: 9781771992282

HOCKEY RULES FOR KIDS
By Peter Boer

Hockey Rules for Kids breaks down the rules and insider tips of the game. Young readers will learn about the parts of the rink, types of penalties, and different referee signals, as well as the trade secrets of how to score goals and make saves! Perfect for children who want to learn to play the game or improve their technique.

Hockey Rules for Kids: How to Play the Game

Peter Boer (CA)

Published: Sep 15, 2020 by Folklore Publishing
ISBN: 9781897206218

CANADIAN ROCKIES TRAIL GUIDE
By Brian Patton and Bart Robinson

The Canadian Rockies Trail Guide is one of Canada’s longest-running, still in publication hiking guides. The 10th edition covers descriptions of 227 Canadian Rockies hikes and routes, stunning photographs, colour topographic maps, trail logs, GPS coordinates for all trailheads, and additional sources for information, maps, backcountry lodging, and transportation. With everything you need, this reference guide is the perfect companion for your next hiking adventure!

Cover of Canadian Rockies Trail GuideCanadian Rockies Trail Guide

Brian Patton and Bart Robinson (CA)

Published: May 20, 2022 by Summerthought Publishing
ISBN: 9781926983530

TROUT TRACKS
By Jim McLennan

Fly fishing is considered perhaps the most reflective and graceful of outdoor pursuits, and author Jim McLennan agrees – for the most part. Drawn from 55 years of excessive obsession with trout, water, streams, and flies, this collection of essays reveals the depth of engagement that this sport engenders. You won’t learn from this book how to cast farther or tie a knot faster, but if you’ve ever fly fished – or if you want to – you’ll smile and understand more clearly the seduction of wild trout in wild places.

Trout Tracks: Essays on Fly Fishing

Jim McLennan (CA)

Published: May 31, 2022 by RMB | Rocky Mountain Books
ISBN: 9781771603652

OVERCOMING THE NEUTRAL ZONE TRAP
Edited by Cheryl A. MacDonald and Jonathon R.J. Edwards

In this engaging interdisciplinary collection, the metaphor of the neutral zone trap is used to explore how traditional ways of thinking and practices have often kept marginalized players from succeeding in hockey. By peeling back assumptions and common understandings of hockey culture, Overcoming the Neutral Zone Trap: Hockey’s Agents of Change opens up discussions of underexplored topics as they relate to the women’s game, Indigenous participation, viable career pathways, masculine identities, hockey parents, mental health, and social media to help create a more inclusive vision of hockey.

Overcoming the Neutral Zone Trap: Hockey’s Agents of Change

Published: Oct 28, 2021 by University of Alberta Press
ISBN: 9781772125795

FIRST NATIONS HOCKEY PLAYERS
By Will Cardinal

People of Mi’kmaq Nation in Nova Scotia were playing a type of ice hockey in the late 1600s, and since then, the role of the First Nations in hockey has been marked by innate ability, enthusiasm and many challenges. First Nations Hockey Players tells the stories of great hockey players and NHL stars with First Nations roots.

First Nations Hockey Players

Will Cardinal (CA)

Published: Dec 22, 2008 by Eschia Books
ISBN: 9780981094212

BETWEEN CLAY AND DUST
By Musharraf Ali Farooqi

In Between Clay and Dust, Musharraf Ali Farooqi presents extraordinary characters— a great wrestler framed for his strength and unmatched technique and a courtesan renowned for her beauty and the power of her singing— in the twilight of their lives. Their skills are no longer what they once were, new challengers to their eminence have risen, and the adoring crowds and followers are long gone. Through these characters, this novel explores love, honour, redemption, and the strength that great souls find to go on when all is lost.

Between Clay and Dust

Musharraf Farooqi (CA)

Published: Sep 02, 2014 by Freehand Books
ISBN: 9781554812073