Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Top 10 sports books
Work is pretty quiet at the mo - none of my supervisors are back yet - so here's another book list (with the sports in brackets if not obvious).
- The Willow Wand by Derek Birley (cricket)
- Football Against the Enemy by Simon Kuper (see some very fine excerpts from this and other Kuper books)
- How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer
- Ball Four by Jim Bouton (baseball)
- Moneyball by Michael Lewis (baseball)
- Beyond a Boundary by C.L.R. James (cricket) - James once said, "What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?
- Brilliant Orange by David Winner (football)
- Full Time: The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino by Tony Cascarino as told to Paul Kimmage(football) - I haven't (obviously) read every sports autobiography but I cannot imagine there's a better one than this
- The Glory Game by Hunter Davies (football)
- A Season with Verona by Tim Parks
Honourable mention (because it ain't a book): David Foster Wallace's essay "Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional Artistry as a Paradigm for Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness", collected in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, is awesome.
I note that, the Wallace aside, there are only 3 sports on that list. Nothing about boxing, rugby, athletics, etc. I don't even know if there are any good books on rugby. If anyone has recommendations of other sports books that are as good as those on the list, please send them along.
