Playing Hard is a tribute to the power of play in all its forms — a searching personal account of how play, games, and sports sanctify life and give it meaning. In this moving and wide-ranging examination, Peter Unwin reflects on life and relationships through the countless acts of play and the many unexpected places it is found.

Through a shared love of games, the author reconnects with his terminally ill father and is exposed to the complexities of his father’s past, of his experience of war and violence, and of a different but equally powerful commitment to the life of play.

From Snakes-n-Ladders to shooting pool, to an improbable soccer game in the Sahara, to first memories of playing baseball under catalpa trees — Peter Unwin examines the irresistible urge to have fun, reminding us that to live is to play, and to play hard is to live well.

Peter Unwin was born in Sheffield, England, and raised in Southern Ontario. He studied at Carleton University in Ottawa. His fiction includes the short story collection The Rock Farmers, which was shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, and the novel Nine Bells for a Man. His non-fiction includes The Wolf’s Head: Writing Lake Superior and Hard Surface: In Search of the Canadian Road. He has travelled extensively in the Canadian north. Currently, he is a Master’s candidate in Culture and Communications at York and Ryerson universities. An avid practitioner of martial arts, baseball, and literature, he lives in Toronto with his wife and two daughters.

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“Playing Hard is a beautifully written collection of personal essays examining family, loss, history and culture viewed through the language of sport — which so often is also the language of men, when conversations around a game are really conversations about everything else.”

Stephen Brunt, author of Facing Ali and Searching for Bobby Orr

"As a sports-illiterate reader in possession of nothing approaching athleticism, I nonetheless found Playing Hard irresistible. In his eloquent prose Unwin has fashioned the rules of play into a moving elegy for the passing of time, of a parent, and of the life well-played.”

Gail Sidonie Šobat, Author, Performer, Founder of Youthwrite