Running Sideways: The Olympic Champion Who Made Track and Field History

Davis debuts with an exhilarating look at her remarkable life and career, from her youth in the Bahamas to her success across five Olympic games. Dedicated to “Bahamaland,” the book opens with an account of Davis’s childhood in the 1960s and ’70s in Bain Town, in a clapboard house “miles from the [island’s] idyllic white sand beaches.” In spite of her family’s poverty, Davis’s “raw talent” as a runner got her noticed in the seventh grade and she quickly ascended in the track world, going on to excel in the 1984 CARIFTA games. After becoming a NCAA National Champion in 1989, she won a series of Olympic medals, including a silver in the 1996 Atlanta games and two golds in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. In addition to regaling readers with stories from that era, she reminisces on the fallout surrounding American sprinter Marion Jones, whose doping scandal and disqualification in the 2000 Olympics overshadowed Davis’s wins, later inspiring her to join the World Athletics council to protect and regulate “mankind’s most fundamental sport.” While her narrative is bracing, most admirable is Davis’s unflagging love for her homeland: “Everything I have done in my life has been for [my] country.” This tale of determination will enthrall athletes and humanists alike. (Feb.)