Here are 92 books that In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle fans have personally recommended if you like
In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle.
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I’m a narrative nonfiction writer whose subjects range from politics to professional football, from racial conflict to environmental destruction, from inner-city public education to social justice to spinal cord injury. The settings for my books range from the Galapagos Islands to the swamps of rural Florida, to Arctic Alaska. I typically live with and among my subjects for months at a time, portraying their lives in an intimately personal way.
This book is similar to mine, following a team of high school basketball players through a season, but it’s set in an urban environment: Brooklyn’s Coney Island. The boys it focuses on are African-American, the off-court struggles they and their community face (crime, violence, drug use, the lure of the streets, and the corruption of college basketball recruiters) differ from those that challenge the kids in remote Alaska, but the joy and solace they find in the game itself are the same. The writing is terrific—lucidly and intimately bringing to life the four boys whose lives it focuses on.
Darcy Frey chronicles the aspirations of four young men as they navigate the NCAA recruitment process, their only hope of escape from a life of crime, poverty, and despair.
It ought to be just a game, but basketball on the playgrounds of Coney Island is much more than that. In The Last Shot, the aspirations of a few of the neighborhood's most promising players reveal that what they have going for them (athletic talent, grace, and years of dedication) may not be enough to defeat what's working against them: woefully inadequate schooling, family circumstances that are often desperate, and the…
I’m a narrative nonfiction writer whose subjects range from politics to professional football, from racial conflict to environmental destruction, from inner-city public education to social justice to spinal cord injury. The settings for my books range from the Galapagos Islands to the swamps of rural Florida, to Arctic Alaska. I typically live with and among my subjects for months at a time, portraying their lives in an intimately personal way.
While the titles mentioned so far focus on high school teams spending their winters inside gymnasiums with referees on the court and fans in the bleachers, this one, written vibrantly by a staffer for Sports Illustrated magazine, shifts outside, to a blistering hot summer on the asphalt courts of Flatbush in Brooklyn, where teenage boys (including future legends Fly Williams and Albert King) and full-grown men play a tougher game, replete with trash-talking, flashy in-your-face moves, and tests of manhood that often turn to violence, with no officials to enforce order or rules, and few bystanders besides aging ex-athletes betting a few dollars on the outcomes, and other pickup teams waiting to take on the winners. As on inner-city playgrounds across the country, the game of basketball offers a rare respite from otherwise grim lives framed by poverty and the almost complete absence of hope.
In 1974, Rick Telander intended to spend a few days doing a magazine piece on the court wizards of Brooklynâs Bedford-Stuyvesant. He ended up staying the entire summer, becoming part of the playersâ lives and eventually the coach of a loose aggregation known as the Subway Stars. Telander tells of everything he saw: the on-court flash, the off-court jargon, the late-night graffiti raids, the tireless efforts of one promoter-hustler-benefactor to get these kids a chance at a college education. He lets the kids speak for themselves, revealing their grand dreams and ambitions. But he never flinches from showing us how…
I’m a narrative nonfiction writer whose subjects range from politics to professional football, from racial conflict to environmental destruction, from inner-city public education to social justice to spinal cord injury. The settings for my books range from the Galapagos Islands to the swamps of rural Florida, to Arctic Alaska. I typically live with and among my subjects for months at a time, portraying their lives in an intimately personal way.
Bill Bradley was as far from a typical college and NBA superstar as can possibly be imagined. He was 6’5” but could barely dunk. In a race between the tortoise and the hare, he would be the tortoise. Yet, with an uncanny set of shooting, passing, and rebounding skills, he became the nation’s top high school prospect, with more than 70 colleges, including every powerhouse in the sport, offering him a scholarship. Instead, he chose to play at lowly Princeton, in one of the game’s weakest conferences—the Ivy League—where he averaged more than 30 points a game over the course of his career, becoming a two-time first-team All-American and, in his senior season, national player of the year, leading the Tigers to the 1965 NCAA tournament’s Final Four, in which he scored an unheard of 58 points against Wichita State and was named the tournament’s MVP—the only player to this…
The first book from the legendary New Yorker writer John McPhee, tells about Bill Bradley when he was the best basketball player Princeton had ever seen.
When John McPhee met Bill Bradley, both were at the beginning of their careers. In A Sense of Where You Are, McPhee delineates for the reader the training and techniques that made Bradley the extraordinary athlete he was, and this part of the book is a blueprint of superlative basketball. But athletic prowess alone would not explain Bradley's magnetism, which is in the quality of the man himself—his self-discipline, his rationality, and his sense…
I’m a narrative nonfiction writer whose subjects range from politics to professional football, from racial conflict to environmental destruction, from inner-city public education to social justice to spinal cord injury. The settings for my books range from the Galapagos Islands to the swamps of rural Florida, to Arctic Alaska. I typically live with and among my subjects for months at a time, portraying their lives in an intimately personal way.
In this thoughtful, philosophical autobiography, the winningest player in NBA history uses his storied career with the Boston Celtics as a cogent window into the broken promises—mostly racial—of the American Dream. Co-written with historian Taylor Branch, whose trilogy on the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., won the Pulitzer Prize, Russell, who has devoted as much of his life to activism in the cause of social justice as to the game of basketball, shares the life lessons he has learned on the court, from his schoolboy days in Louisiana to his All-American stint at the University of Seattle, to his record-setting career with the Celtics, where he won an astounding eleven championship rings in thirteen years. This book was published in 1979, but its insights are as relevant and penetrating today as they were then.
The perceptive, controversial, and idiosyncratic basketball star recounts the decisive events of his life and career, offers an inside look at professional basketball, and sounds off about freedom, race, marriage, religion, and American culture
I was a very active kid – the kind of kid who was constantly told to sit still and be quiet. Growing up in the 1960s, I had few opportunities to engage in athletics, other than neighborhood games of tag and kick-the-can. But when I got to high school, our school district had just begun offering competitive sports for girls. Finally, my energy and athletic ability were appreciated (at least by my coaches and teammates). So I guess it was inevitable that when I began writing books for young readers, I would start with a book about a girl who loves sports.
Today’s young readers can’t believe that when I was in high school, our basketball team was only allowed in the gym when the boys weren’t using it. They can’t believe there was a time when people thought girls shouldn’t play competitive sports. But really, who could believe it? Who could believe it would take an act of Congress – the 1972 law known as Title IX – to guarantee girls and women the right to equal opportunities in every academic field and in athletics? I love this book because it tells the story of Title IX, a law that mandated academic equity for girls and women, and changed the world for girls who love sports.
Can girls play softball? Can girls be school crossing guards? Can girls become lawyers or doctors or engineers? Of course they can... today. But just a few decades ago, opportunities for girls were far more limited, not because they weren't capable or didn't want to, but because they weren't allowed to. Ages 8-12.
God gave me a life-long calling to help anyone affected by sexual violence. Words often fail when I try to describe the pain that results from sexual abuse and what it truly means to me to make a positive difference in the lives of survivors. My heart and soul break for those who are suffering from evil crimes, and yet I continuously see people disclosing, expressing, growing, and healing. From my many years working as a counselor and advocate, I've learned that very often people just need someone to be with them and listen. I'm committed to supporting others in this area for as long as I can be helpful.
I had the good fortune to meet Kenny Rogers at the Gaithersburg Book Festival and I was immediately struck by his kindness and gentle spirit.
Raped Black Male: A Memoir is a moving book that offers vivid details of his childhood rape, but the book is about more. Rogers also provides compelling fictional anecdotes and reflections on his internal struggles—from homelessness to what it means to be a black man in America.
Rogers is a powerful human being and his story is another reminder that a person can overcome the painful effects of sexual violence to live a healthy and productive life.
Raped Black Male tells my story of being homeless and struggling to overcome depression while coming to terms with being sexually assaulted by my sister at age eight. Beginning in my middle school years, the novel weaves its way through the '90s to present day, as the stress of exceeding expectations of what it means to be a black male and the crippling unspoken belief that says (without saying) - it's impossible for a man to be raped - has forced one mental breakdown after another, resulting in thoughts of suicide. This memoir is filled with depth, humor, and honesty…
Basketball has always been important to me. I was never very good at playing, but watching always moved me. I grew up worshipping Michael Jordan. I still remember seeing him play at the old Chicago Stadium, a monumental moment for a kid from the South. Basketball was always something that brought my friends and family together. Later, when I grew up, the camaraderie that came with experiencing the game dissipated, but my passion for it remained. It is an urban game associated with the working class and race in a way that none of our other major sports are.
As someone who spends most of his professional life studying Black history, the story of the Negro Leagues of professional basketball has been so important to me. Unlike the Negro Leagues of professional baseball, people don’t pay as much attention to basketball teams.
I love learning more about them. They often played games in nightclubs, bringing the stories into the heart of the Harlem Renaissance and tying them to the interwar culture of jazz and prohibition.
A groundbreaking, timely history of the largely unknown early days of Black basketball, bringing to life the trailblazing players, teams, and impresarios who made the game From the introduction of the game of basketball to Black communities on a wide scale in 1904 to the racial integration of the NBA in 1950, dozens of African American teams were founded and flourished. This period, known as the Black Fives Era (teams at the time were often called "fives"), was a time of pioneering players and managers. They battled discrimination and marginalization and created culturally rich, socially meaningful events. But despite headline-making…
I am the head coach of Excelsior Athletic Development Club. I set this up after working with professional sports teams and young international athletes for a decade. I saw how poorly prepared they were and how many dropped out of the sport. I wanted to do something better for my children and the local people that had the focus on development and support rather than the prevailing ‘win on Saturday’ at all costs mentality. Many good practitioners do this under the radar but are lost in the race to win medals and secure funding. I hope this list shows coaches there is a better way.
Brian is a basketball coach with experience coaching in the USA and Europe. This is a collection of essays and articles about coaching, teaching, athletic development, and session planning. While Brian draws heavily on basketball examples, the lessons, and warnings are easily transferred to other sports.
I dipped into this book, finding it easy to read. The 63 essays are just the right length to give me time to think and reflect.
Free Play: A Decade of Writings on Youth Sports is a collection of 70 columns and 6 blogs written around themes of play, learning, and the complexity of athlete, child, skill, and talent development for the parents of young athletes between 2007 and 2016. These columns were published originally in Los Angeles Sports & Fitness and subsequently on various blogs, and now are collected into one book organized around 11 themes: Nature vs. nurture, talent identification, play and physical activity, motivation, early specialization, injuries, long term athlete development, the coach’s role, the parent’s role, learning, and athletic genius.The book is…
Basketball has always been important to me. I was never very good at playing, but watching always moved me. I grew up worshipping Michael Jordan. I still remember seeing him play at the old Chicago Stadium, a monumental moment for a kid from the South. Basketball was always something that brought my friends and family together. Later, when I grew up, the camaraderie that came with experiencing the game dissipated, but my passion for it remained. It is an urban game associated with the working class and race in a way that none of our other major sports are.
Halberstam tells the story of the 1979-1980 Portland Trailblazers season, but it does so much more. I read this book before reading George Plimpton or Gay Talese, so Halberstam's personal relationships with the team were my first exposure to that kind of sports journalism.
I love that he didn’t choose the team’s championship season but instead covered the team’s breakdown and dissolution. It gives the book so much more character and turns it away from traditionally triumphalist sports narratives.
A New York Times bestseller, David Halberstam's The Breaks of the Game focuses on one grim season (1979-80) in the life of the Bill Walton-led Portland Trail Blazers, a team that only three years before had been NBA champions. More than six years after his death David Halberstam remains one of this country's most respected journalists and revered authorities on American life and history in the years since WWII. A Pulitzer Prize-winner for his groundbreaking reporting on the Vietnam War, Halberstam wrote more than 20 books, almost all of them bestsellers. His work has stood the test of time and…
When Jay Rosenstein and I started writing Boxed Out of the NBA, we thought we were writing a light collection of mostly humorous anecdotes from old ballplayers about playing in the minor league. But as we interviewed the old Eastern Leaguers and understood how the league gave a home to players who couldn’t make the NBA in large part because of race, we realized we had a much more important and socially significant story. It’s been our privilege to get to know these gentlemen, and feel like they have entrusted us to tell their story. We want to help them get the respect and recognition they deserve while they are still here to appreciate it.
OK, I’m stretching a bit to include this on my list.
John Thompson made his mark on basketball as a college coach, not from his two years as Bill Russell’s back-up with the Celtics. But I’ve got a personal interest here: I was a student sportswriter at Georgetown from Coach Thompson’s second year as coach, and as a junior and senior got to attend his weekly press conferences with the student press. I’ve often said I learned more about life from those meetings in Coach’s office than I did from any other class at Georgetown.
I feel the same about this book, written with Andscape senior writer Jesse Washington. If you read this book you probably won’t agree with all of it, but I have no doubt that you’ll learn from it.
The long-awaited autobiography from Georgetown University’s legendary coach, whose life on and off the basketball court throws America’s unresolved struggle with racial justice into sharp relief
John Thompson was never just a basketball coach and I Came As a Shadow is categorically not just a basketball autobiography.
After three decades at the center of race and sports in America, the first Black head coach to win an NCAA championship is ready to make the private public. Chockful of stories and moving beyond mere stats (and what stats! three Final Fours, four times national coach…
