Audiobooks by Tim Crothers

The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess, and One Extraordinary Girl

Based on a popular ESPN Magazine article-optioned by Disney films, a finalist for a National Magazine Award and chosen by Dave Eggers for inclusion in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011-the astonishing true story of Phiona Mutesi, a teenager from the slums of Kampala, Uganda, who-inspired by an unlikely mentor, a war refugee turned missionary-becomes an international chess champion. Phiona Mutesi sleeps in a decrepit shack with her mother and four siblings and struggles to find a single meal each day. Phiona has been in and out of school her whole life because her mother cannot afford it, so she is only now learning to read and write. Phiona Mutesi is also one of the best chess players in the world. One day in 2005, while searching for food, nine-year-old Phiona followed her brother to a dusty veranda where she met Robert Katende, another child of the Ugandan slums, who works for an American organization that offers relief and religion through sports. Robert introduced Phiona to the game of chess and soon recognized her immense talent. By the age of eleven Phiona was her country's junior chess champion and at fifteen, her country's national champion. In September of 2010 she traveled to Siberia, just her second time ever on an airplane, to compete in the Chess Olympiad, the world's most prestigious team chess event. Phiona's dream is to one day become a grandmaster, the most elite title in chess, and to blaze a trail out of Katwe that other children in Robert's chess community can follow. But to reach that goal, she must grapple with everyday life in one of the world's most unstable countries, a place where girls are taught to be mothers, not dreamers, and the threats of AIDS, kidnapping, and starvation loom over the people of Katwe. Acclaimed sports journalist Tim Crothers has written a riveting and inspiring account of one girl's improbable journey to becoming a chess champion. The Queen of Katwe will thrill every listener who loves a great underdog story.

Tim Crothers (Author), Robin Miles (Narrator)

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Hard Work: A Life On and Off the Court

Roy Williams, head coach of the University of North Carolina men’s basketball team, the Tar Heels, has the highest winning percentage in NCAA history. Over the last seven years, the 58-year-old Asheville, N.C., native—who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2007—has won 205 games, including 24 in the NCAA Tournament. That’s more Final Fours, more wins, and more NCAA Tournament victories than any basketball coach in the nation. Hard Work tells the story of Roy Williams’ life that few people know, in Williams’ own distinct and colorful way—his troubled upbringing, his college years, his years of trying to make ends meet before becoming a head coach. It reveals how determination took him from an impoverished home in the mountains of North Carolina to the very pinnacle of coaching success, culminating in the 2009 NCAA National Championship (his second in five years). And it pulls back the curtain on one of college basketball’s most guarded programs as witnessed by one of the most successful, dominant coaches, at the prime of his power. Coach Williams describes himself as the most competitive person on earth, admitting that he once got into a game of pool with Michael Jordan that nearly ended in a fistfight. In addition to providing a fresh look at Jordan, Hard Work will chronicle Williams’ connection with such basketball luminaries as Paul Pierce, Kirk Hinrich, Jacque Vaughn, Phil Ford, James Worthy, Sam Perkins, Sean May, and Rashad McCants, along with Tyler Hansbrough and Ty Lawson, all of whom Williams credits with having earned him the highest winning percentage in NCAA history. Hard Work is an inspirational story of what can be achieve by anyone who commits to a dream.

John Grisham, Roy Williams, Tim Crothers (Author), Alan Winter, Rick Adamson (Narrator)

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