The Walk

The first book in the inspiring New York Times bestselling series about an executive who loses everything he holds dear and embarks on a walk across America that changes his life forever. What would you do if you lost everything—your job, your home, and the love of your life—all at the same time? When it happens to Seattle ad executive Alan Christoffersen, he’s tempted by his darkest thoughts. Instead, he decides to take a walk. But not any ordinary walk. Taking with him only the barest of essentials, Alan leaves behind all that he’s known and heads for the farthest point on his map: Key West, Florida. The people he encounters along the way, and the lessons they share with him, will save his life—and inspire yours. A life-changing journey, both physical and spiritual, The Walk is the first of an unforgettable bestselling series of books about one man’s search for hope.

Now a major motion picture directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, an artist of the air re-creates his six-year plot to pull off an act of incomparable beauty and imagination. More than a quarter century before September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center was immortalized by an act of unprecedented daring and beauty. In August 1974, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit boldly—and illegally—fixed a rope between the tops of the still-young Twin Towers, a quarter mile off the ground. At daybreak, thousands of spectators gathered to watch in awe and adulation as he traversed the rope a full eight times in the course of an hour. In The Walk, Petit recounts the six years he spent preparing for this achievement, a tour de force of imagination and tenacity. Petit’s achievement made headlines around the world. In this stunning book, Petit tells the dramatic story of this history-making walk, from conception and clandestine planning to the performance and its aftermath. It draws on Petit’s own journals, in which he sketched and scribbled everything from his budgets to his strategies for rigging a high wire between two of the most secure towers in the world. It is a fitting tribute to those lost-but-not-forgotten symbols of human aspiration—the Twin Towers. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

The story of a daring tightrope walk between skyscrapers, as seen in Robert Zemeckis's The Walk, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. In 1974, French aerialist Philippe Petit threw a tightrope between the two towers of the World Trade Center and spent an hour walking, dancing, and performing high-wire tricks a quarter mile in the sky. This picture book captures the poetry and magic of the event with a poetry of its own: lyrical words and lovely paintings that present the detail, daring, and--in two dramatic foldout spreads-- the vertiginous drama of Petit's feat. The Man Who Walked Between the Towers is the winner of the 2004 Caldecott Medal, the winner of the 2004 Boston Globe - Horn Book Award for Picture Books, and the winner of the 2006 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Children's Video.

How do we walk with Christ—daily follow him, grow in him, and faithfully serve him? In the Gospels, Jesus modeled for us the Christian spiritual life. The apostles taught it in their writings. And the Church has, through the last 2,000 years, sought to pursue this Christian spiritual life. In The Walk, Adam Hamilton focuses on five essential spiritual practices that are rooted in Jesus’ own walk with God and taught throughout the New Testament. Each of these practices is intended as part of our daily walk with Christ while also being an essential part of growing together in the church. In each chapter, Hamilton explores one of these practices, its New Testament foundation, and what it looks like to pursue this practice daily in our personal life and together in the life of the church. Deepen your walk with Christ as we explore the five essential practices of worship, study, serving, giving, and bearing witness to our faith. Additional components for a six-week adult study include a comprehensive Leader Guide and a DVD featuring the engaging teachings of author and pastor Adam Hamilton. Also available are resources for children and youth.

An artist of the air re-creates his six-year plot to pull off an act of incomparable beauty and imagination One late-summer day, a feat of unimaginable audacity was perpetrated on the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The year was 1974. A hundred thousand people gathered on the ground to watch in awe as twenty-four-year-old high wire artist Philippe Petit made eight crossings between the all-but-completed towers, a quarter mile above the earth, over the course of nearly an hour. Petit's achievement made headlines around the world. Yet few who saw or heard about it realized that it was the fulfillment of a dream he had nurtured for six years, rekindling it each time it was in danger of expiring. His accomplices were a motley crew of foreigners and Americans, who under Petit's direction had conpired, connived, labored, argued, rehearsed, and improvised to make possible an act of unsurpassed aerial artistry. In this visually and verbally stunning book, Petit tells for the first time the dramatic story of this history-making walk, from conception and clandestine planning to the performance and its aftermath. The account draws on Petit's journals, which capture everything from his budgets to his strategies for rigging a high wire in the dead of night between two of the most secure towers in the world. It is animated by photographs taken by two of Petit's collaborators, and by his own wonderfully evocative sketches and unquenchable humor.

A transformative collection of essays on the power of walking to connect with ourselves, each other, and nature itself. In 2010, Jonathon Stalls and his blue-heeler husky mix began their 242-day walk across the United States, depending upon each other and the kindness of strangers along the way. In this collection of essays, Stalls explores walking as waking up: how a cross-country journey through the family farms of West Virginia, the deep freedom of Nevada’s High desert, and everywhere in between unlocked connections to his deepest aches and dreams--and opened new avenues for renewal, connection, and change. While most of us won’t walk or roll across the country, the deep wisdom and insights that Stalls receives from the people, land, and animals he meets on his pilgrimage have profound impacts for each of us. He shares how walking deepened his relationship to himself as a gay man, offering deep and clarifying emotional medicine. He confronts the systemic racism, classism, and ableism that shape and reshape the communities he walks through. And he invites readers to become awakened activists, to begin healing our culture’s profound separation from the natural world. WALK is for those who crave to feel and embody, not just know and study, their way through complex themes that live in each chapter: vulnerability, human dignity, presence, mystery, and resistance. With dedicated practices--like connecting to Earth stewardship, moving into vulnerability, and walking and rolling with intention--Stalls’ WALK is an urgent and glorious call to slow down, look around, and engage with the world in front of us. It awakens us to what we miss when we’re driving by, flying over, and rushing past what surrounds us. It’s an invitation to move, to connect, to participate deeply in the world--and to dissolve the barriers that disconnect us from each other and the living Earth.

The WALK: Footsteps of My Journey By: Wayne Mabry A young kid from Smalltown, Mississippi has big dreams and isn’t afraid chase them across the country to make them a reality. It’s a story like many others but with a distinct spirituality and positivity that resides in all people. Surpassing time and generations, subtle lessons are learned, experiences are had, and wisdom shared as the walk continues. Readers from all walks of life will find inspirations and be able to reflect on where their own journey began and the lives they’ve touched along the way.

Bestselling sportswriter John Feinstein kicks off a new series for middle grade featuring Alex Myers, a student athlete who tries to take on the sports establishment in his new town. Alex Myers is a quarterback, but from the first day of football practice, it’s clear that that position is very much filled by the coach’s son, Matt. Alex has the better arm, but Matt has more experience—and the coach’s loyalty. Alex finally gets a chance to show what he can do when Matt is injured, and he helps win a key game to keep the Lions’ bid for the state championship alive. But just when his star is rising, Alex gets blindsided—the state has started drug testing, and Alex’s test comes back positive for steroids. Alex knows that’s not right. But he doesn’t know if it’s a mistake—or if someone wants to make sure he can’t play. . . . John Feinstein has been praised as “the best writer of sports books in America today” (The Boston Globe), and this first installment in the Triple Threat series is his most thrilling and suspenseful novel yet. Fans of Mike Lupica, Tim Green, and Paul Volponi will want to check out The Walk On, and its companion, The Sixth Man. “A cliffhanger of a football novel bristling with social, personal, familial and ethical issues to complement the gridiron action. . . . All the goods for the sports enthusiast—and more.” —Kirkus Reviews