Hockey Books For The Kindle, Kobo

Are you looking for a good electronic book to cuddle up with with your Kindle?

That's funky talk for saying Amazon.com's new Kindle book reader now has a number of hockey titles listed for download. The best part - the books are mostly under 10 bucks.

Amazon.ca and Amazon.com both have an amazing collection of hockey e-books from your favorite authors including: Don Cherry, Ken Dryden, Stephen Brunt, Don Weekes, Todd Denault, Bob McKenzie and many, many more!

Hockey Books For Kobo

Canadian book giant Chapters is certainly hoping you hear a lot about Kobo in the coming months. Formerly known as ShortCovers, it is their attempt to conquer the e-book market and grow sales internationally.

Unlike Amazon, Chapters isn't interested in selling readers, just the e-books (although a Kobo Reader is coming). Their service includes free downloadable software for many forms of e-book reading, including iPhone/iPod (and presumably iPad shortly), Blackberry, Palm Pre, and, thanks to Adobe Digital Editions software, on any computer. As I understand it, the Adobe software even allows pdf conversions so you can use the Kindle.

Check out Chapters' Kobo section today for e-books

Major Award For Sawchuk Poems

Randall Maggs, author of Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems, has won a major literary prize. In addition to being named the 2010 winner of the Kobzar Literary Award, Maggs was also given $25,000 in prize money.

Canadian Gold by Andrew Podnieks

Coming March 15th, Andrew Podnieks is churning out a must have 2010 Olympics keepsake for Canadian hockey fans.

Buy The Book: Amazon.ca - Chapters

Also, keep your eye out for commemorative magazines issued, including this one by Sports Illustrated:


And this one by Sports Illustrated Canada


And of course The Hockey News:

Now Is The Winter: Thinking About Hockey

Now is the Winter is simply a fantastic collection of essays that, as the book's subtitle suggests, makes you think about hockey.

Buy The Book: Amazon.ca - Chapters - Amazon.com

Edited by university professors Jamie Dopp (University of Victoria) and Richard Harrison (Mount Royal University), the book is a collection of essays that looks at different aspects of the sport from social, political, and environmental vantage points.

The essayists are wide-ranging. They are historians, literary writers and sociologists from across Canada, the United States and even New Zealand.

Now don't fret. These essays may be written by University high-brows, but for the most part the book is far from a true academic read. Richard Gruneau and David Whitson's Hockey Night In Canada is fascinating but incredibly hard to read with it's unnecessary wordiness. Now is the Winter does not suffer the same pitfall. While the themes are not tied together like Hockey Night, the book is imminently easier to read and therefor more enjoyable.

Topics covered include globalization of hockey, community identity, sexism in women's hockey and the game in Canadian culture.

One of the more interesting articles compares the Stanley Cup's symbolism to that of Superman's. I also really enjoyed hockey's role in American sports fiction from 1890 to 1940.

This book is one of the few hockey books that truly achieves what all good books should do, but few hockey books ever do: that is to engage the reader into thinking about it's chosen topic. The essayists who contributed to Now is the Winter all achieve that to a fair degree.

Individual readers will find different essays more thought-provoking than others, but bottom line is readers will be compelled to think about what the game is, has been and can be.

Trail of the Stanley Cup

This is the ultimate must-have piece for any hockey book collector:

This three volume set is Charles Coleman's historical compendium called Trail of the Stanley Cup. Coleman thoroughly researched hockey history to compile the history the Stanley Cup from 1893 to 1967.

These leather bound volumes are worth hundreds of dollars, or more. There were 1,000 leather bound editions. They were never offered for sale but rather issued to key NHL players and VIPs. This particular issue of "Trail," #97 out of 1,000, belonged to Norm Ullman.

You can purchase this hot collectors item at ClassicAuctions.net. It includes a scroll like label inside the front cover that reads "Presented to Norm Ullman with the compliments of the National Hockey League."

Previous ClassicAuctions.net offerings of Trail of the Stanley Cup have fetched as much as nearly $3,200!

Timeless Trivia by Scott Madore

As a bit of a rule I am not a huge fan of trivia books. They're fun and all, but the problem is they tend to get out of date pretty quickly. Records are made to be broken, and that means many trivia questions need to be updated over time. It's tough to update a book I bought 5 years ago, and buying books that date quickly gets tiring and expensive after awhile.

Enter Scott Madore. He recognizes this main flaw with the trivia book market, and fixes it with his new hockey trivia book Timeless Trivia: Hockey Facts That Will Never Be Obsolete.

Madore accomplishes this by looking at famous firsts, fascinating milestones, all time bests and past winners. In doing so he compiled 100s of great hockey trivia questions in this 178 page offering.

Interestingly, Madore only focuses his quizzes on big name players. There are no one-feat wonders who no one has ever heard of, only big name stars including most of the games all time greats.

These questions are challenging, too. I like to think I know a thing or two about hockey, but I was constantly surprised by the answers. It was a wonderful way to jog some old memories and to appreciate some more of hockey's amazing history.

I also like how Madore does not just give you the answer, but actually engages the reader with a short dissertation about the event or person, putting the amazing feat into proper context.

So if you're looking for a challenging and fun hockey trivia book, Scott Madore's Timeless Trivia is an excellent choice. You can purchase the title from the author's website.