I've mentioned this before, but I have always liked the story of the race to be the first person to sail around the world solo and nonstop. Robin Knox-Johnston did it in 1967, beating out a bunch of the world's best sailors, including Bernard Moitessier, who quit the race at the end and decided to just keep going around the world till he got to Tahiti. Moitessier's book, The Long Way, is probably the most famous piece of writing to come out of that race, but my favorite is the book Knox-Johnston wrote, called A World Of My Own.
Last week I finally ordered a copy from Amazon and it arrived in the mail today. I paid something like $1.90 for the 1969 first edition. And when I opened it up, I found that it was autographed by Knox-Johnston on the title page. Not worth anything money-wise, but to me it's pretty cool.