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A Season on the Brink.
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I was introduced to sports, specifically basketball, at a very young age and have been obsessed ever since. My first dream was to make it to the NBA, but I realized fairly early on that 1) I’m of average height, which means I’m very small for basketball, and, more importantly, 2) I’m not good enough to play in the NBA. So, I pivoted to writing and have been extremely fortunate to carve out a career that combines my two greatest passions. I’ve worked for SLAM Magazine, Sports Illustrated, the New York Post, and the NBA. I don’t know much, but I know sports books. Really hope you enjoy these!
More than anything, I loved this book because Agassi was honest, detailed, and, well, uncensored.
I’m not a huge fan of tennis, so I was skeptical when I first started reading—but Agassi’s life and career are so fascinating that I eventually couldn’t put it down. This autobiography is different from any other I’ve ever read; Agassi opens up about issues that most athletes shy away from discussing, including his search for identity and peace amid a remarkable career.
He is one of the most beloved athletes in history and one of the most gifted men ever to step onto a tennis court - but from early childhood Andre Agassi hated the game.
Coaxed to swing a racket while still in the crib, forced to hit hundreds of balls a day while still in grade school, Agassi resented the constant pressure even as he drove himself to become a prodigy, an inner conflict that would define him. Now, in his beautiful, haunting autobiography, Agassi tells the story of a life framed by such conflicts.
I was introduced to sports, specifically basketball, at a very young age and have been obsessed ever since. My first dream was to make it to the NBA, but I realized fairly early on that 1) I’m of average height, which means I’m very small for basketball, and, more importantly, 2) I’m not good enough to play in the NBA. So, I pivoted to writing and have been extremely fortunate to carve out a career that combines my two greatest passions. I’ve worked for SLAM Magazine, Sports Illustrated, the New York Post, and the NBA. I don’t know much, but I know sports books. Really hope you enjoy these!
Fader’s book presents a side of Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo that I never knew about, focusing less on his stellar NBA career and more on his family and all the hardships he has faced, from growing up in immense poverty to grappling with his identity to struggling to adjust to life in America.
Through outstanding reporting, Fader tells a story that is both heartfelt and inspiring in ways I didn’t expect when I first dove in. This is one of my favorite books ever.
As the face of the NBA's new world order, Giannis Antetokounmpo has overcome unfathomable obstacles to become a symbol of hope for people all over the world; the personification of the American Dream. But his backstory remains largely untold. Fader unearths new information about the childhood that shaped "The Greek Freak"-from sleeping side by side with his brothers to selling trinkets on the street with his family to the racism he experienced. Antetokounmpo grew up in an era when Golden Dawn, Greece's far-right, anti-immigrant party, patrolled his neighborhood, and his status as an illegal immigrant largely prevented him from playing…
I was introduced to sports, specifically basketball, at a very young age and have been obsessed ever since. My first dream was to make it to the NBA, but I realized fairly early on that 1) I’m of average height, which means I’m very small for basketball, and, more importantly, 2) I’m not good enough to play in the NBA. So, I pivoted to writing and have been extremely fortunate to carve out a career that combines my two greatest passions. I’ve worked for SLAM Magazine, Sports Illustrated, the New York Post, and the NBA. I don’t know much, but I know sports books. Really hope you enjoy these!
As avid readers and sports lovers likely already know, Pearlman is an amazing storyteller, and he perfectly captures the drama and craziness surrounding the Lakers dynasty from 1996-2004, defined by the dynamic duo of Kobe and Shaq.
This book is packed with details and insights—gleaned from hundreds of interviews and extremely in-depth reporting—that kept me engaged from start to finish.
The story of the Lakers dynasty from 1996 through 2004, when Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal combined—and collided—to help bring the Lakers three straight championships and restore the franchise as a powerhouse
In the history of modern sport, there have never been two high-level teammates who loathed each other the way Shaquille O’Neal loathed Kobe Bryant, and Kobe Bryant loathed Shaquille O’Neal. From public sniping and sparring, to physical altercations and the repeated threats of trade, it was warfare. And yet, despite eight years of infighting and hostility, by turns mediated and encouraged by coach Phil Jackson, the Shaq-Kobe duo…
I was introduced to sports, specifically basketball, at a very young age and have been obsessed ever since. My first dream was to make it to the NBA, but I realized fairly early on that 1) I’m of average height, which means I’m very small for basketball, and, more importantly, 2) I’m not good enough to play in the NBA. So, I pivoted to writing and have been extremely fortunate to carve out a career that combines my two greatest passions. I’ve worked for SLAM Magazine, Sports Illustrated, the New York Post, and the NBA. I don’t know much, but I know sports books. Really hope you enjoy these!
In a lot of ways, this book provided the blueprint for my own book as McCallum brilliantly captures an NBA season from the inside, detailing coaches’ meetings, film sessions, locker-room interactions, and more.
As a kid watching the NBA (I specifically remember watching the Phoenix Suns team McCallum covers!), I always wondered what was going on behind the scenes. This book answered all of my questions.
Sports Illustrated's chief NBA writer, Jack McCallum, only planned to spend the preseason with the Phoenix Suns as an "assistant coach" -- and then write a story about his experiences. Instead, he stayed on with the Suns throughout their exciting and controversial 2005-2006 season. Gaining access to everything from locker-room chats with superstar point guard Steve Nash, to coaches' meetings with maverick coach Mike D'Antoni, McCallum learned what makes this wildly popular, innovative, and international assemblage of talented players and brilliant coaches tick -- making Seven Seconds or Less an all-access look at one of the greatest shows in sports.
I’m a storyteller and jack of all trades who grew up on a family farm in Indiana. I can operate a combine, analyze data, or edit a book. Writing about sports can create great stories, but the true beauty lies in the people and circumstances, not the stats and game highlights. Most of my works are nonfiction—personal interest, sports, history, and sports history. I enjoy unearthing untold stories, especially when they involve equal rights, underdogs, hidden history, and non-famous people. Everyone has a story to tell.
Mike Roos did a great job telling this true story of Indiana high school basketball. Roos’s father was the high school principal that hired that crazy coach referenced in the title. He used extensive interviews and years of rewrites to recreate meetings, locker room pep talks, and dialogue. Not only is this a good story, but Roos showed readers what is wonderful about creative nonfiction. It reads like a novel, but it’s genuine nonfiction.
In the summer of 1962, the peripatetic and irrepressible Pete Gill was hired on a whim to coach basketball at tiny Ireland High School. There he would accomplish, against enormous odds, one of the great small-town feats in Indiana basketball history. With no starters taller than 5'10", few wins were predicted for the Spuds. Yet, after inflicting brutal preseason conditioning, employing a variety of unconventional motivational tactics, and overcoming fierce opposition, Gill molded the Spuds into a winning team that brought home the town's first and only sectional and regional titles. Relying on narrative strategies of creative nonfiction rather than…
I had a rotten childhood. Stuck in bed with asthma, I couldn’t do sports; but I could roam space and time with books, especially science fiction. Yet when I tried to re-read my beloved sci-fi titles as an adult, I got a shock. The books with sound science had terrible writing; the well-written books were full of scientific schlock. I realized that if I wanted sci-fi that was both technically astute and rewarding to read, I’d have to write it myself. And so I did.
My friends and I discovered Raintree County as undergrads, and found in it everything that matters – history, character, politics, and above all action. Here is life with all its pleasure and horror, apostasy and faith, sacrifice and victory. Here too is the core of American democracy, its glories and fiascos: a love letter to the Republic, more than ever relevant in the factional bitterness of today. An unforgettable novel from a man who killed himself at 34.
Throughout a single day in 1892, John Shawnessy recalls the great moments of his life—from the love affairs of his youth in Indiana, to the battles of the Civil War, to the politics of the Gilded Age, to his homecoming as schoolteacher, husband, and father. Shawnessy is the epitome of the place and period in which he lives, a rural land of springlike women, shady gamblers, wandering vagabonds, and soapbox orators. Yet here on the banks of the Shawmucky River, which weaves its primitive course through Raintree County, Indiana, he also feels and obeys ancient rhythms. A number-one bestseller when…
I’ve been hooked on adventure stories since I started reading. When I became serious about writing for young readers, I couldn’t resist creating fearless kids out to tackle. Indiana Jones-sized dangers. While I love writing these kinds of stories, I can’t resist reading them either. If there’s an added element of magic or sci-fi time-travel, I have to find out what happens and how. The most fun is to read these stories aloud to the young readers in my family in hopes they’ll also fall in love with adventure/fantasy—maybe one of them will even write a few of these books. That would be fabulous.
I loved the young female Indiana Jones character in this book, and it’s a great read for adventure-seeking readers between eight and twelve whether they are boys or girls. The story is fast-paced and intriguing. I got caught up in this one and I’m not a middle-grade-age reader.
Indiana Jones meets The Lost Property Office in this action-packed mystery about a young girl searching for her father from the author of Mrs. Smith's Spy School for Girls-the first in a new series!
Having a world-traversing archaeologist dad means twelve-year-old Lola Benko is used to moving around and not putting down roots anywhere. But every day and every hunt for something hidden is an adventure, and no matter what, she and her dad are an unbeatable team.
Then her father disappears. The official story is that he was caught in a flash flood, but Lola's research shows the day…
When I first moved to Portland, Oregon, I heard about the 1988 murder of an Ethiopian student by skinheads of the White AryanResistance. A famous trial subsequently bankrupted that white supremacist organization. When I began writing my trilogy, set in 1923, I learned about the strength of the Oregon KKK during the 1920s. I could see a direct line between the bigotry of that era and contemporary Portland. The more I studied the Klan of the 20s, the more I knew this information had to be part of my novels. Besides these book recommendations, I read numerous articles about Klan history. Everyone should learn this history.
I couldn’t have written my trilogy without reading this book. It taught me so much about the women in the KKK, their attitudes and beliefs, their social status and background, their activities and support for the Klan, and so much more. The book is so deeply researched that it provides keen insights into the gender politics of the 1920s, the differing ways of thinking between the men in the Klan versus the women in the Klan, and their dissimilar approaches to carrying out “Klanishness.” The women that Blee describes held the typical mainstream views of white, Protestant, native-born Americans, who were the overwhelming majority in their communities. This book enhanced my understanding of Klan women so that I could create realistic Klan women characters in my novels.
Ignorant. Brutal. Male. One of these stereotypes of the Ku Klux Klan offer a misleading picture. In "Women of the Klan", sociologist Kathleen Blee unveils an accurate portrait of a racist movement that appealed to ordinary people throughout the country. In so doing, she dismantles the popular notion that politically involved women are always inspired by pacifism, equality, and justice. "All the better people," a former Klanswoman assures us, were in the Klan.During the 1920s, perhaps half a million white native-born Protestant women joined the Women's Ku Klux Klan (WKKK). Like their male counterparts, Klanswomen held reactionary views on race,…
For the past two decades, I have written about the intersection of people and place, particularly as viewed through the lens of geology and how it influences our lives. My nine books include Too High and Too Steep: Reshaping Seattle’s Topography, Cairns: Messengers in Stone, and Homewaters: A Human and Natural History of Puget Sound. All of them have a goal of helping people develop a better connection with the natural world around them.
Not only does geology shape the land, it can also shape the lives of those who quarry the stone. Rarely is this relationship between human and rock better portrayed than in Scott Russell Sanders’ thoughtful essays about the limestone country around Bedford, Indiana. With graceful and respectful prose, he tells the stories of a “piece of earth where the accidents of geology have yielded a special kind of stone, and where landscapes, towns, and the people themselves bear the mark of that stone.” And, if you seek to see this story on film, I can also recommend one of my favorite movies, Breaking Away, a humorous and passionate portrayal of life and biking in limestone country.
From a patch of land in southern Indiana has come the stone for many of the country's most famous buildings, including the Washington Cathedral, the Pentagon, the Empire State Building, and Chicago's Tribune Tower. If you live anywhere within the lower forty-eight states you probably live within walking distance of library, bank, monument, church, house or skyscraper built with Indiana limestone. In Limestone Country is the story of the stone, from its geologic origins through its mining history to the present. Sanders records the folklore, the craft, the distinct culture that has grown up around Indiana limestone. Above all we…
Ghost stories were always a part of my childhood. I believe most people wonder about what comes ‘after’. I have tried to keep up with the latest information regarding the unusual. I was a paranormal searcher and spent much time in the woods and forests. I have seen a few unusual, unexplained things. Curiosity and the thirst for knowledge still burn inside me. I suppose the mundane and redundant characteristics of my job gave me a desire to keep my mind searching for answers to difficult questions.
As if Illinois wasn’t weird enough. This book continues with local lore, legends, and unexplained from across the stream with Vincennes as my way point. It is apparent how much effort was put into researching these stories. Not only paranormal and cryptids are featured but, history and unique locations of interest are exhumed. The photography and graphics are top notch and lure the reader further into the book. Weird Illinois and Indiana are both works of art and full of stories to interest the most skeptical reader.
Enjoy a relaxing picnic in Shades of Death Park. Witness those eerie glowing spots known as Moody's Light. Slap another layer of color onto the world's biggest ball of paint, and yes, that really is a pink-spectacled elephant drinking a martini on the side of the road! From a town called Santa Claus to Indiana's most upright citizen--buried that way for almost 200 years--Weird Indiana proves that the Crossroads of America is also the Crossroads of the Weird!
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