A witty reference book that aims to settle sports’ most existential questions.
A debut nonfiction work defines what makes a sport a sport.
The term sport has long lacked a concrete definition. People will categorize any game, competition, or physical activity as a sport, often for no other reason than to lend it some credibility. Bayley and Di Serio have strong opinions about what rises to the level of sport and what does not. In fact, they have intense views regarding a whole host of related questions. “Why do sports play such a dominant role in our society?” they ask in their introduction. “Is weightlifting a sport? Are bowlers and bridge players athletes? How could baseball be a sport if many players are overweight?...And why do people become defensive and hostile when their favorite activity is perceived as a hobby rather than a sport?” The authors are not afraid of making readers defensive and hostile. In addition to defining the sports, they rank the best ones, naming the greatest sport in the world (at least, according to them). Beyond mere argument-starting fare, they also contemplate the cultural position of sports, from the basic human desires they satisfy to the way they are perceived by society. The authors set forth their exhaustive criteria of evaluation before examining in detail a mammoth list of activities that could potentially be considered sports. The prose is energetic, clever, and meticulous, as here where they go after golf for its lack of drama: “The crowds that politely applaud Dustin Johnson just as his ball curls into the 18th hole are a picture of reserve and restraint. There is nothing wrong with being a conservative spectator, but dramatic moments in true sport provoke unbridled emotions and make moderation and prudence impossible.” Bayley and Di Serio are Canadians, which matters only insofar as ice hockey’s suspiciously high rank on their greatest sports list. Otherwise, they strike the perfect tone for a book like this, marrying encyclopedic knowledge with serious pedantry. The fact that the volume is a whopping 1,000 pages speaks to the brilliance and folly of the project—a combination any sports fan will know well.
A witty reference book that aims to settle sports’ most existential questions.Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77-707360-2
Page Count: 1012
Publisher: Line O' Fire Publishing Co.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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