97 books like The Legend of Bagger Vance

This book is an absolute classic and should be in the library of every golfer who has ever touched those extraordinary moments we call the zone or flow. Murphy’s encounter with the enigmatic teacher Shivas Irons, has him questioning reality as he understands it with his logical mind. As their encounter unfolds, Murphy begins experiencing an opening of his perception to a deeper and more profound awareness of the forces and energies that can align to help create the perfect shot. This book shows how important it is to ‘get out of your own way’ and find your inner swing. 

Dan Jenkins (1928-2019) was a quintessential sportswriter who wrote for newspapers in his native Texas as well as for Sports Illustrated and many others. In 1974, he published this ribald classic about the pro golf tours, starring Kenny Lee Puckett, a down on his luck pro who has more luck getting in trouble with the ladies than he does making tough putts.

If you don’t laugh while reading this book, then you need a humor transplant.

John Updike, writing about golf? Well, why not? This novel, from one of America’s greatest writers, is something of a riff on Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, in a story about a disgraced minister sent off on a sabbatical. He keeps a daily journal, which is what makes up the novel.

Naturally, this being Updike, there are stories about his affairs, his drinking, his family relationships, and more. But there are also wonderful passages about his golf game. Like much of Updike’s work, this book is thought-provoking and an interesting window into the American mind of the 20th century.

J. Michael Veron is a trial lawyer and avid golfer who has written a trilogy of legal thrillers (he’s been called the John Grisham of golf) that all have a strong golf theme. The Greatest Player was the first, featuring a summer intern at an Atlanta law firm who finds an old file of correspondence between the legendary Bobby Jones (who was, when not winning most of the golf tournaments between 1920 and 1930, when he retired from tournament golf, an Atlanta attorney) and a fictional teen-aged golf prodigy named Beau Stedman.

There’s a murder mystery and a court case and a lot of golf from the Golden Age of the sport.

Erasure’s book within a book set up targets publishing, contemporary society, and, without mentioning her name, Oprah Winfrey. The plot is terrific. An African American author who is told his work isn't “Black enough” knocks out a satirical retelling of Richard Wright’s Native Son under a pseudonym. The book “My Pafology” — which he retitles “Fuck” —  is boosted by a TV personality and becomes a huge hit, its satirical elements lost on the world. Hilarity ensues. The novel echoes literary scams like James Frey’s Million Little Pieces, but Everett, an under-recognized genius, roasts everyone. 

I found Michelle Alexander’s book a potent reminder that the past is never really past, and that older practices of racial subjugation and use of the criminal law against minorities can be repurposed in later eras to serve the same or related ends.

The book raises the question of whether Jim Crow has really ended in all institutions in American society.

I read Imperium in an Afro-American Literature course in college. The instructor was excellent. I was the only non-Afro-American male in the class. I sat in the back. As soon as I finished reading Imperium I said to myself “This would make a great movie.” About ten years later I adapted the book into a screenplay. I typed it myself on my old typewriter. There was gunk on some of the keys and they needed cleaning. I realized that around Scene Five. If you ever read my old manuscript, I apologize for the first twenty pages. You can tell Sutton Griggs I’m sorry, also.

I have always considered Philip Roth to be a master stylist and, even more, a brilliant author of the way that characters think and feel. This book is also wonderful for the way its ironies unfold in a story that is riveting, disturbing, and revealing.

I am intrigued by the way that Roth can confront important social issues. Even though this was written several years ago, I find it to be particularly relevant to the debates about diversity that seem to concern us most as a society today.

I’m pretty certain Invisible Man is The Great American Novel. Some lines make me laugh aloud: “I would remain and become a well-disciplined optimist and help them to go merrily to hell.” But the moments that really sing for me are those that ring with humor, horror, tragedy, and beauty all at once.

Near the end, during a moment when the nameless narrator hides and listens to some men telling a story, he aches with the urge to laugh while realizing what’s been said isn’t only funny: “It was funny and dangerous and sad.” The book reminds me that all of those things can be held in my head at once. 

Butler argues that the large increase of police assaults and killings of black men is not a breakdown in law enforcement or the activities of a few rogue cops. The system is doing what it has been designed to do. Police hurt black men, according to the author because “that is what they are paid to do.” Butler maintains that the Chokehold “is a way of understanding how American inequality is imposed.” It is a tool of oppression. One outcome of the Chokehold is mass incarceration. The construction of the thug is a means of justifying the Chokehold. Butler traces the “Ape” or “dehumanization” thesis.

The book contains loads of data showing how in city after city black people are disproportionately targeted by police officers. Programs such as Obama’s My Brothers’ Keeper ignores women and plays into perpetuating stereotypes of black men as the primary victims of racism.