This fine collection of sportswriting honors the genre’s ability to create word pictures not only of athletes and their achievements but also of their individual era. Pulitzer Prize—winning author Halberstam (Playing for Keeps, 1999, etc.) and series editor Glenn Stout take a slight detour from the annual edition to cull what they believe to be the century’s best sportswriting from newspapers and magazines. Because all the prominent sports figures are not covered—and, unfortunately, none of the 59 articles has a female athlete as its main subject—this anthology fails as a definitive study of sports in the 20th century. Nevertheless, the chosen articles are examples of excellent storytelling and feature more than 40 of the best sports journalists, among them Red Smith, Frank Deford, Murray Kempton, and Grantland Rice, as well as writers such as Gay Talese (on Joe DiMaggio), Tom Wolfe (on racer Junior Johnson), John Updike (on Ted Williams), and Norman Mailer (on Muhammad Ali). Baseball and boxing are the sports most widely covered; also included are football, hockey, tennis, golf, racing (stock-car and horse), fly-fishing, mountain climbing, bodybuilding, and chess. Some articles touch on issues such as racism, steroid abuse, and being gay in the sports world. The most enlightening pieces humanize the athlete, showing “the man out there is no longer just another great athlete, an idealized hero, but only a man—only ourself” (a line from Roger Angell’s 1975 article about the pitcher Steve Blass). Everyone, not just sports fans, will admire Sal Maglie’s grace after his difficult loss, be fascinated by Bobby Fischer’s extraordinary fears, and be moved by the fates of athletes such as Ali, Tony Conigliaro, Steve Michalik, and even Secretariat. An enjoyable volume of quality sportswriting. Readers who want to read more will be aided by the participating writers’ biographical notes and the list of additional selected notable works and sportswriters.
Pub Date: May 27, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-94513-5
Page Count: 816
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1999
At this rate, Tyson may write a multivolume memoir as he continues to struggle and survive.
An exhaustive—and exhausting—chronicle of the champ's boxing career and disastrous life.
Tyson was dealt an unforgiving hand as a child, raised in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn in a "horrific, tough and gruesome" environment populated by "loud, aggressive" people who "smelled like raw sewage.” A first-grade dropout with several break-ins under his belt by age 7, his formal education resumed when he was placed in juvenile detention at age 11, but the lesson he learned at home was to do absolutely anything to survive. Two years later, his career path was set when he met legendary boxing trainer Cus D'Amato. However, Tyson’s temperament never changed; if anything, it hardened when he took on the persona of Iron Mike, a merciless and savage fighter who became undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. By his own admission, he was an "arrogant sociopath" in and out of the ring, and he never reconciled his thuggish childhood with his adult self—nor did he try. He still partied with pimps, drug addicts and hustlers, and he was determined to feed all of his vices and fuel several drug addictions at the cost of his freedom (he recounts his well-documented incarcerations), sanity and children. Yet throughout this time, he remained a voracious reader, and he compares himself to Clovis and Charlemagne and references Camus, Sartre, Mao Zedong and Nietzsche's "Overman" in casual conversation. Tyson is a slumdog philosopher whose insatiable appetites have ruined his life many times over. He remains self-loathing and pitiable, and his tone throughout the book is sardonic, exasperated and indignant, his language consistently crude. The book, co-authored by Sloman (co-author: Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss, 2012, etc.), reads like his journal; he updated it after reading the galleys and added "A Postscript to the Epilogue" as well.
At this rate, Tyson may write a multivolume memoir as he continues to struggle and survive.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-16128-5
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
While the author may attempt to mirror this ideal, the result is less than satisfying and more than a little irritating.
A disjointed debut memoir about how competitive swimming shaped the personal and artistic sensibilities of a respected illustrator.
Through a series of vignettes, paintings and photographs that often have no sequential relationship to each other, Shapton (The Native Trees of Canada, 2010, etc.) depicts her intense relationship to all aspects of swimming: pools, water, races and even bathing suits. The author trained competitively throughout her adolescence, yet however much she loved racing, “the idea of fastest, of number one, of the Olympics, didn’t motivate me.” In 1988 and again in 1992, she qualified for the Olympic trials but never went further. Soon afterward, Shapton gave up competition, but she never quite ended her relationship to swimming. Almost 20 years later, she writes, “I dream about swimming at least three nights a week.” Her recollections are equally saturated with stories that somehow involve the act of swimming. When she speaks of her family, it is less in terms of who they are as individuals and more in context of how they were involved in her life as a competitive swimmer. When she describes her adult life—which she often reveals in disconnected fragments—it is in ways that sometimes seem totally random. If she remembers the day before her wedding, for example, it is because she couldn't find a bathing suit to wear in her hotel pool. Her watery obsession also defines her view of her chosen profession, art. At one point, Shapton recalls a documentary about Olympian Michael Phelps and draws the parallel that art, like great athleticism, is as “serene in aspect” as it is “incomprehensible.”
While the author may attempt to mirror this ideal, the result is less than satisfying and more than a little irritating.Pub Date: July 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-15817-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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