A collection of essays (some reprinted from Outside and other magazines) certain to provide vicarious thrills for even the most hardened adventure reader, laced with humor and cogent observations about modern-day wilderness exploration. Clambering under, over, and through a variety of exotic settings ranging from the Himalayas to the Brooks Range in Alaska, Roberts (In Search of the Old Ones, 1996, etc.) is not easily daunted. He makes a wintry ascent of an Icelandic peak, participates in a media-emcumbered rafting trip down a previously untraveled river in Ethiopia, and spelunks through previously untrodden passageways deep in a New Mexican cave. Roberts writes with equal vigor about the adventures of colleagues, including an acquaintance who attempts to become the first to scale the infamous north face of the Eigar, in Switzerland, in winter, alone and without climbing bolts. As a climber with numerous firsts himself, Roberts has a knowledge of the sport that lends added shivers to his already strong prose. He profiles a mountaineer who has reached the summit of Everest four times, the last time solo and without oxygen, and who comes across the bodies of friends recently perished on the mountain. A former Outward Bound instructor, Roberts challenges the commonly held belief that participation by wayward youth or business executives in currently popular wilderness outings produces any measurable positive effect in later life. Hiking the backcountry around Moab, Utah, and interviewing long-time residents, Roberts finds little basis for environmentalists' claims that this area has been spoiled by tourists and mountain bikers, the vast majority of whom stay on limited, well-beaten trails. Across the world, in Mali, he climbs to previously unvisited and nearly unreachable cave burial sites and granaries of the Tellem, a long-vanished tribe. As educational as it is exciting, written with wit and compassion, this is highly recommended reading for adventure enthusiasts of all stripes.
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-89886-509-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In Indiana, Gildea shows, the yearly high-school basketball tournament is nothing less than an affirmation of the Hoosier way of life, one made of ``industrious, hospitable, down-home folk who enjoy popcorn, race cars and BASKETBALL.'' Every year since 1911, all high schools—from small towns to big cities—have gone head-to-head in the state championship tournament. Starting with this season, however, the Davids and the Goliaths must go their own ways in four tourneys bracketed by school enrollment. During the 199697 season, Washington Post sportswriter Gildea (When the Colts Belonged to Baltimore, 1994) criscrossed Indiana to follow the fortunes of players and schools in the final version of ``Hoosier Hysteria.'' Along the way, he immersed himself in tournament lore, gauged Hoosiers' sentiments about the new tournament's format, and assessed how it would alter Indiana's essential character. Gildea's story is steeped in nostalgia, and as he tells it, one can't help but imagine clean-cut boys in black canvas hightops lobbing set shots, just as they did in 1954 when fabled Milan High toppled all comers on the way to their improbable state crown. However, as Gildea points out, modern-day realities take a significantly different form: Schools occasionally ``recruit'' students from other communities or, in the case of Bloomington North High, students of other nations. And many standout players are already looking to take their game to the next level. Attendant inequities aside, some things never change. The '96'97 tourney, like so many before it, saw the Cinderella team of Delta High (student body 916) capture the state's imagination by playing its way into the finals (where it was crushed by a bigger, deeper, more talented team). Regardless of the outcome, this game only served to underscore what Indiana basketball stands to lose in the future: the chance each year to witness a potential legend in the making. As a veteran of the Milan championship squad said: ``David doesn't beat Goliath very often, that's why it's still a good story.''
Pub Date: Dec. 8, 1997
ISBN: 0-316-51967-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The fifth annual offering in this series edited by Stout features stories selected by Jenkins (You Gotta Play Hurt, 1991, etc.), this year's editor, and as usual, the results are mostly impressive. Looking back with the talented writers whose work festoons this volume, one quickly is reminded that 1994 was a dismal year for sports: the major-league baseball strike, Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, Jennifer Capriati's brush with the law and drug rehab, O.J. Simpson's arrest. Not surprisingly, the generally ugly tone of the year in sports is reflected in a volume dominated by these unpleasant topics. Jenkins mercifully only includes one piece on the O.J. trial, a brutal concoction by James Ellroy that is as savage and bleak in tone as any of that estimable neo-noir author's novels. It was a bad year for humor, judging from the contents of this collection, which is bookended by two excruciatingly unfunny pieces by Bob Verdi (on the baseball strike) and Ian Thomsen (on TonyaGate). The highs and lows of the collection are amply demonstrated in the book's foreword and introduction, respectively, a heartfelt tribute to a little-known black writer by Stout and a sour, mean-spirited diatribe against intellectuals who write on sports by Jenkins. Once you are past Jenkins, however, there is a multiplicity of rewards here. Particularly worthy are Dave Kindred's visit with Ted Williams, shortly after the great hitter's stroke; Gary Smith's superb reporting on a gathering of most of the world's living record-holders in the mile; and Gary Cartwright's recollection of a vanished high school football legend from his hometown. This book proves once again that although sports may be falling apart under the relentless pressure of corporate meddling, greed, drugs, racism, and the rest of the real world, sportswriters are still reporting that downfall with keen intelligence and art.
Pub Date: Nov. 15, 1995
ISBN: 0-395-70070-1
Page Count: 265
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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