Seabiscuit

By Jesse Birnbaum

Never was there so unlikely a horse-racing champion as Seabiscuit. He was undersize, injury prone, had a flayed foreleg and a broken-boned, one-eyed jockey. Yet, thanks to a gifted trainer, Seabiscuit topped his career by beating War Admiral in a sensational meeting in 1938. Hillenbrand's prose is often breathless and overwrought, but readers should ride this one to the wire.

--By Jesse Birnbaum