Binge-then-Read: Winter Olympics

You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott

This year the Olympic games were marred in scandal and controversy. If you can't get enough of the drama we recommend this thriller about the cutthroat world of Olympic gymnastics. 

How far will you go to achieve a dream? That's the question a celebrated coach poses to Katie and Eric Knox after he sees their daughter Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful, compete. For the Knoxes there are no limits—until a violent death rocks their close-knit gymnastics community and everything they have worked so hard for is suddenly at risk.

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

Even if your only exposure to hockey is every four years at the Olympics, we think even non-sports lovers will love this heartwarming hockey story by Fredrik Backman. By the lake in Beartown is an old ice rink, and in that ice rink, Kevin, Amat, Benji, and the rest of the town's junior ice hockey team are about to compete in the national semi-finals—and they actually have a shot at winning. 

This is a story about a town and a game, but even more about loyalty, commitment, and the responsibilities of friendship; the people we disappoint even though we love them; and the decisions we make every day that come to define us. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.

Beijing: From Imperial Capital to Olympic City by Lillian Li

In 2022 Beijing became the first city to host both the Summer and the Winter Olympics. Published before the 2008 games, Li creates an engaging portrait of the city's history that spans thousands of years, from the Mongols to the Communist Revolution to present day. Beijing is the first book in English to trace this vibrant city's history from its earliest days to the present. It highlights recent changes in the city as its more than fifteen million people live through record-level economic growth and intensive preparations for the 2008 Olympics.

Every Reason We Shouldn't by Sara Fujimura

One of the most-watched sports in the Winter Olympics is figure skating. Enjoy delightful banter in this young adult romance on the ice between two Olympic hopefuls. Sixteen-year-old figure skater Olivia Kennedy's Olympic dreams have ended. She's bitter, but enjoying life as a regular teenager instead of trying to live up to expectations of being the daughter of Olympians Michael Kennedy and Midori Nakashima, until Jonah Choi starts training at her family's struggling rink. Jonah's driven, talented, going for the Olympics in speed skating, completely annoying, and totally gorgeous.

Munich 1972: Tragedy, terror, and triumph at the Olympic Games by David Clay Large

The Olympics don't always run smoothly. There was plenty of drama in Beijing, but that is small compared to what happened at the Munich games in 1972. This compelling book provides the first comprehensive history of the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, notorious for the abduction of Israeli Olympians by Palestinian terrorists and the hostages' tragic deaths after a botched rescue mission by the German police. 

One by One by Ruth Ware

Maybe the Olympics inspired you to take up a winter sport like skiing. This thrilling mystery set at a luxurious, rustic ski chalet high in the French Alps might make you think twice. Getting snowed in, in such a beautiful location doesn't sound like the worst problem in the world. There's a breathtaking vista, a full-service chef and housekeeper, a cozy fire to keep you warm, and others to keep you company. What more could you want? Unless that company happens to be eight coworkers...each with something to gain, something to lose, and something to hide. When someone goes missing in the wake of an avalanche the stakes are raised to life and death.

Powder Days: Ski bums, ski towns, and the future of chasing snow by Heather Hansman

Do you love the outdoors and winter weather? Enjoy an electrifying adventure into the rich history of skiing and the modern heart of ski-bum culture from one of America's most preeminent ski journalists.

Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse

If you like to watch winter sports but not participate, this mystery set in the Swiss Alps might be up your alley. Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the formerly abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel in the Swiss Alps. When two women go missing, the hotel goes from a glamorous mountain retreat to a house of horrors.

Speed Kings: The 1932 Winter Olympics and the fastest men in the world by Andy Bull

Bobsledding is one of the most dangerous sports in Olympic history. In the 1930s, as the world hurtled toward war, speed was all the rage. Bobsledding, the fastest and most thrilling way to travel on land, had become a sensation. Exotic, exciting, and brutally dangerous, it was the must-see event of the 1932 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, the first Winter Games on American soil. Speed Kings will take you on a thrilling ride through the eyes of the American bobsled contestants in the 1932 games.

The Boys of Winter: The untold story of a coach, a dream, and the 1980 US Olympic hockey team by Wayne Coffey

Once upon a time, they taught us to believe. They were the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, a blue-collar bunch led by an unconventional coach, and they engineered perhaps the greatest sports moment of the twentieth century. Their “Miracle on Ice” has become a national fairy tale, but the real Cinderella story is even more remarkable. It is a legacy of hope, hard work, and homegrown triumph. It is a chronicle of everyday heroes who just wanted to play hockey happily ever after. It is still unbelievable.

The Finder by Will Ferguson

From the Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning novelist of 419 comes a spellbinding literary adventure novel about precious objects lost and found including  an Olympic medal.

The world is filled with wonders, lost objects--all real--all still out there, waiting to be found:

· The missing Fabergé eggs of the Romanov dynasty, worth millions
· The last reel of Alfred Hitchcock's first film
· Buddy Holly's iconic glasses
· Muhammad Ali's Olympic gold medal

Will Ferguson takes readers on a heroic, imaginative journey across continents, from the seas of southern Japan, to the arid Australian Outback, to the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, after the earthquake. Prepare to meet Gaddy Rhodes, a brittle Interpol agent obsessed with tracking "The Finder"—a shadowy figure she believes is collecting lost objects; Thomas Rafferty, a burnt-out travel writer whose path crosses that of The Finder, to devastating effect; and Tamsin Greene, a swaggering war photographer who is hiding secrets of her own.

The Second Season by Emily Adrian

The Olympics wouldn't be the Olympics without the sports broadcasters who tell us the play-by-play of the games and competitions. In The Second Season, Emily Adrian takes us behind the scenes in this engaging novel about a female sportscaster.

Ruth Devon starred for Georgetown Basketball back in college—until she injured her knee, married her coach, and found a new career calling games on the radio. Twenty years later, Ruth and her now-ex-husband, Lester, are two of the most famous faces in sports media. When Lester decides to retire from the announcers' booth, Ruth goes after his job. If she gets it, she will be the first woman to call NBA games on national television.

The Suspect: An Olympic bombing, the FBI, the media and Richard Jewell, the man caught in the middle by Kent Alexander

The masterful true-crime account of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing that captured the world's attention, and the heroic security guard-turned-suspect at the heart of it all.

What really happened that evening during the Olympic Games? The attack left a mark on American history, but most of what we remember is wrong. In a triumph of reporting and access in the tradition of the best investigative journalism, former U.S. Attorney Kent Alexander and former Wall Street Journal reporter Kevin Salwen reconstruct all the events leading up to, during, and after the Olympic bombing from mountains of law enforcement evidence and the extensive personal records of key players, including Richard himself.

Winners by Danielle Steel

Even the most perfect lives can be shattered in an instant. In this moving, emotionally charged novel, Danielle Steel introduces readers to an unforgettable cast of characters striving to overcome tragedy and discover the inner resources and resilience to win at life—once again.

• Lily Thomas is an aspiring ski champion training for the Olympics, a young woman with her heart set on winning the gold. But in one moment, Lily's future is changed forever, her hopes for the Olympics swept away in a tragic accident.
• Dr. Jessie Matthews, the neurosurgeon who operates on her that night, endures a tragedy of her own, and instantly becomes the sole support of her four young children, while her own future hangs in the balance.
• Bill, Lily's father, has pinned all his hopes on his only daughter, his dreams now shattered.

From the ashes of their lives, six people fight to alter the course of destiny and refuse to be defeated. When Bill builds a remarkable rehab facility for his daughter, countless lives are forever altered, and each becomes a winner.

Always Only You by Chloe Liese

Sports and romance intersect in Always Only You, an opposites-attract, forbidden love hockey romance. Meet a nerdy, late-blooming hockey star, Ren, and his hard-to-read coworker, Frankie, who keeps both her soft side and her autism diagnosis to herself and their growing attraction to each other.