Newly updated for the gathering in Sydney, The Olympic Games is a coffee table-sized, gold medal effort that has a complete training facility between its covers. Letting its tremendous cache of recent and vintage photos perform the heavy lifting, it looks both forward and back, running the Olympian gamut from the grand and glorious to the trivial and arcane. Sydney is previewed in detail with a full schedule and a look at the venues and some of the athletes worth keying on, but The Olympic Games's real strength is its focus on the Games' rich past and enduring legacy.

Each Olympics--summer and winter--since the 1896 revival comes with an incisive recap of the major events and personalities that defined it, followed by several wonderful pages of portraits and action shots with remarkably informative captions. The archival pictures are particularly priceless. They give faces to names and accomplishments that deserve remembering. Even better, the evolution in their very style conveys just how much so many of the sports have changed from lonely pursuits of personal excellence to international arenas for instant stardom. The book's last 100 pages are devoted to results and statistics--every gold, silver, and bronze medalist gets his or her due, and for those utterly immersed in Olympic trivia, the lighter of each Olympic torch is noted as well. --Jeff Silverman