by Adharanand Finn ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 2016
An elegant, well-written pleasure even for readers with no particular interest in foot racing.
Guardian editor and amateur runner Finn marks his second embedded experience with distance racers.
In the first, Running with the Kenyans (2012), the author trained in a country renowned for running skills in every known competitive event. But Japan, it turns out, is even more smitten with running; as he writes, if every major race seems to be “won by a seemingly endless succession of superfast Kenyans and Ethiopians,” the Japanese are “at least putting up a fight.” Unlike everywhere else on the planet, it seems, Japanese towns and companies offer runners team positions and salaries, allowing them to cultivate the skills of ekiden full-time. Finn, nearing 40 as he writes, takes a George Plimpton–esque tack and runs alongside them, though he finds that the world of Japanese running is insular in the extreme and the willingness of coaches and runners to bare their souls to him pretty well nonexistent. Finn explores the place of running in Japanese culture, taking sidelong looks at some of its expressions—one is literary, found in the work of Haruki Murakami, a running fanatic. It’s a wonderful adventure, and it’s not far-fetched at all to liken it to one of Plimpton’s escapades, even if Finn seems to be a better runner than Plimpton was a football player. More than being a deep look into a sport—though it is surely that—the book is a lively travelogue and a depiction of a culture that does not give up its secrets easily. “For Hatsuyume,” he writes of a certain holiday, “it is considered a good omen to dream of Mount Fuji, along with an eagle and an aubergine. I’m not sure where those last two come in, but right here, in its full glory, across the lake, is Mount Fuji….It brings a dreamlike quality to the finish of the race. It’s no wonder people are crying.”
An elegant, well-written pleasure even for readers with no particular interest in foot racing.Pub Date: June 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-68177-121-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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by Larry Bird & Earvin “Magic” Johnson Jr. with Jackie MacMullan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 4, 2009
Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.
NBA legends Bird and Johnson, fierce rivals during their playing days, team up on a mutual career retrospective.
With megastars LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and international superstars like China’s Yao Ming pushing it to ever-greater heights of popularity today, it’s difficult to imagine the NBA in 1979, when financial problems, drug scandals and racial issues threatened to destroy the fledgling league. Fortunately, that year marked the coming of two young saviors—one a flashy, charismatic African-American and the other a cocky, blond, self-described “hick.” Arriving fresh off a showdown in the NCAA championship game in which Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans defeated Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores—still the highest-rated college basketball game ever—the duo changed the course of history not just for the league, but the sport itself. While the pair’s on-court accomplishments have been exhaustively chronicled, the narrative hook here is unprecedented insight and commentary from the stars themselves on their unique relationship, a compelling mixture of bitter rivalry and mutual admiration. This snapshot of their respective careers delves with varying degrees of depth into the lives of each man and their on- and off-court achievements, including the historic championship games between Johnson’s Lakers and Bird’s Celtics, their trailblazing endorsement deals and Johnson’s stunning announcement in 1991 that he had tested positive for HIV. Ironically, this nostalgic chronicle about the two men who, along with Michael Jordan, turned more fans onto NBA basketball than any other players, will likely appeal primarily to a narrow cross-section of readers: Bird/Magic fans and hardcore hoop-heads.
Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-547-22547-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2009
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by Bill Walton ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 8, 2016
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.
A basketball legend reflects on his life in the game and a life lived in the “nightmare of endlessly repetitive and constant pain, agony, and guilt.”
Walton (Nothing but Net, 1994, etc.) begins this memoir on the floor—literally: “I have been living on the floor for most of the last two and a half years, unable to move.” In 2008, he suffered a catastrophic spinal collapse. “My spine will no longer hold me,” he writes. Thirty-seven orthopedic injuries, stemming from the fact that he had malformed feet, led to an endless string of stress fractures. As he notes, Walton is “the most injured athlete in the history of sports.” Over the years, he had ground his lower extremities “down to dust.” Walton’s memoir is two interwoven stories. The first is about his lifelong love of basketball, the second, his lifelong battle with injuries and pain. He had his first operation when he was 14, for a knee hurt in a basketball game. As he chronicles his distinguished career in the game, from high school to college to the NBA, he punctuates that story with a parallel one that chronicles at each juncture the injuries he suffered and overcame until he could no longer play, eventually turning to a successful broadcasting career (which helped his stuttering problem). Thanks to successful experimental spinal fusion surgery, he’s now pain-free. And then there’s the music he loves, especially the Grateful Dead’s; it accompanies both stories like a soundtrack playing off in the distance. Walton tends to get long-winded at times, but that won’t be news to anyone who watches his broadcasts, and those who have been afflicted with lifelong injuries will find the book uplifting and inspirational. Basketball fans will relish Walton’s acumen and insights into the game as well as his stories about players, coaches (especially John Wooden), and games, all told in Walton’s fervent, witty style.
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-1686-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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by Bill Walton with Gene Wojciechowski
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