A Brief History of the Olympic Games, by David C. Young. Seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, the first Greek Olympiads began, as competitions among individuals, not teams or nations. If you want to find out about the games as they were before the modern era, this is the book for you, spanning over a thousand years of Greek Olympic Games.

Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936, by David Clay Large. In this first book to include research from the Olympic archives and German city and state archives, Large highlights the political and public relations triumph that Hitler achieved in the 1936 Olympics, as well as those aspects he kept less visible—virulent discrimination against blacks and Jews, government subsidies for Aryan athletes, and an unparalleled propaganda machine.

Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler’s Olympics, by Jeremy Schaap. The definitive biography of Jesse Owens, considered by some to be the greatest Olympian ever, Schaap’s book looks not only at Owens’ victories on the field, but at his greatest battles – against the poverty, discrimination and racism that prevented him from turning his athletic successes into a career that could support his family.

Rome 1960 --The Olympics that Changed the World, by David Maraniss. The 1960 Games, Maranis says, were more significant than we remember: the first Olympics to be broadcast on TV; the first where athlete doping became an issue; the first where issues of apartheid, civil rights and anti-colonialism became more than superficially apparent; the first in which it became clear that the definition of amateur status was not clear at all. While Soviet athletes racked up a medal score surpassing the U.S., American athletes were urged to bring home a defector as well as a medal. This is a great bit of sports history, perfectly timed.

The Olympic Games Quilts: America's Welcome to the World, by the Quiltmakers of Georgia. For the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the quilters of Georgia created a series of unique art quilts, one for each participating country, designed to highlight both the countries illustrated and the talents of their creators. Far more than a crafting project, these labors of love were friendship messages sent across political, religious, ethnic and national boundaries in the highest spirit of the Olympic Games.

Never Stop Pushing: My Life from a Wyoming Farm to the Olympic Medals Stand, by Rulon Gardner. Gardner, one of nine children in a poor Mormon family, won an Olympic wrestling gold medal in the 2000 games by upsetting Russian legend Alexander Karelin and repeated with a bronze medal in the 2004 Olympics despite losing part of each foot to hypothermia in 2002. This inspirational autobiography tells the world his attitude – it’s the work that is admirable; the triumphs are just a by-product.

Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel's Deadly Response by Aaron J. Klein. The massacre of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches at the 1972 Munich Olympics by Palestinian members of Black September, the first instance of terrorism at the Olympics, shocked the world. This book details the initial attack and the resulting response from Israel, which grew from the original determination to avenge the killings into a systematic Mossad counter-terror campaign that put terrorists on the defensive for decades.

The Boys Of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team, by Wayne Coffey. Is there anyone born before 1970 that does not remember the incredible victory of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, a rag-tag bunch of mostly college age amateurs with little history playing together, who yet managed to wrest victory from a seasoned and professionally trained Soviet hockey team on their way to a gold medal? After 28 years, Al Michaels’s cry of Do you believe in miracles? Yes! still echoes.