Non-Fiction Silver Award

Nonfiction Book Awards · Nonfiction Authors Association

Chasing Legends earns the Silver Medal

Chasing Legends: Motorcycle Stories from the Podcast Trail, Aaron Pufal's road story of motorcycle pioneers, global races, and the pull of the open highway, has been recognized with a silver award from the Nonfiction Book Awards, a program of the Nonfiction Authors Association.

As featured in

This book started the way most of the important things in my life have started, because everything else had just been taken away and getting on a bike was the only plan I had left. Three seasons of the ADV Cannonball Podcast gave me hundreds of hours of conversation with people I still can't quite believe let me sit across from them, Ted Simon, Austin Vince, Charley Boorman, Elspeth Beard, riders and filmmakers who built this entire world out of nothing but stubbornness and a full tank. Turning those conversations into Chasing Legends meant admitting how much of my own story was tangled up in theirs. A silver medal from the Nonfiction Authors Association tells me the tangling worked, that a book about other people's roads can also be honest about mine.

Aaron Pufal, author

The rumble, the open road, the adventure, that's what Aaron Pufal captures in this book that's part history of worldwide motorcycle adventuring and part adoration for the pioneering riders of the bikes and global races that have shaped this sport. Motorcycle enthusiasts, gearheads, and adventure riders (even weekend warriors) will find plenty to geek about when it comes to the wild rides and riders. Based on the author's podcasts but expanded interviews around the world provide detail and insider bios crafted as chapters.

NFAA judging panel

“

There is lots I loved about this book. It's the type of book you keep around because you'll want to read it again. I highlighted many sentences and phrases because the writing is beautiful and full of wisdom. The author is an exceptional storyteller who introduces fascinating people from his podcast and weaves their stories into something much bigger than motorcycles. Though there is a lot of technical motorcycle stuff, it's about life, the journey, travels, resilience, healing, and the people who choose to get out there and explore. It's also a great reference and starting point for anyone wanting to learn more about motorcycle adventures and travel.

“

While I have never owned a motorcycle, nor will I in the foreseeable future, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Not because it was filled with facts and details of motorcycle adventures (which are interesting enough) and the people who were part of them, but because it speaks to a higher order. It is a book about passions and people who follow their own, and is inspirational in its own right.

“

I enjoyed riding through this unique narrative on a true adventure sport and the riders and bikes who have shaped it. I felt the author's perspective, based on his podcast interviews and additional interviews, brought a slice of history to this sport. As if the author's own life story wasn't adventuresome enough.

The book

Chasing Legends

Built from three seasons of the ADV Cannonball Podcast and expanded with new reporting, the book moves in four parts, from Pufal's own path (a sixteen-year-old on a scraped-together Honda CB750, two decades as a yacht captain, then back onto two wheels) through the filmmakers, writers, and rally racers who shaped adventure motorcycling: Ted Simon, Austin Vince, Charley Boorman, Elspeth Beard, Lyndon Poskitt, and dozens more. Running underneath every profile is Pufal's own account of a career that collapsed overnight, and the argument, made one interview at a time, that the answer to loss is simple. You get on the bike and start moving.

The award

What a silver medal means

The Nonfiction Book Awards do not pit entries against one another. Every submission is scored on its own merits, on the strength of the writing and the care taken in producing the book, editing, structure, and design included. A title earns bronze, silver, or gold only if it clears that bar, and many entries earn no award at all. A silver medal places Chasing Legends among a limited number of nonfiction books judged, purely on craft, to be genuinely well made.

The association

Nonfiction Authors Association

The medal comes from the Nonfiction Authors Association, founded in 2013 by author Stephanie Chandler, three years after she launched the Nonfiction Writers Conference entirely online. What started as a conference has grown into a community that today supports thousands of nonfiction writers, running the Nonfiction Book Awards year-round alongside its education and mentorship programs.

Chasing Legends by Aaron Pufal

Silver award, Nonfiction Book Awards