A sprawling, vibrant book about soccer in Argentina, a country where the sport is every bit as important and reflective of...
The history of soccer and its singular place in Argentine society.
Guardian and Sports Illustrated journalist Wilson (The Anatomy of Liverpool: A History in Ten Matches, 2013, etc.) is one of the most accomplished journalists and popular historians of soccer. In this ambitious book, he shows the development of Argentine soccer from the 19th century, when a large British expatriate community introduced it, through its spread across Argentina and its rapid emergence as the sport of the masses and to its place as one of the country’s most visible cultural phenomena. From the national team’s early (and still fertile) rivalry with Uruguay to its enduring struggle with Brazil for continental glory, Wilson explores not only the revered Albiceleste (named after the colors that make up the national team’s uniforms) and its many successes (and occasional droughts), but also the leagues and teams that Argentineans support and the players who have gone on to become international icons. These include superstars Alfredo Stéfano Di Stéfano, Diego Maradona, and Lionel Messi, all three of whom would be on just about any serious list of the top 10 players of all time. Wilson also interweaves the developments in Argentine soccer with larger trends in the country’s sometimes-optimistic, often tragic history. The author has a fine eye for detail and a solid grasp of the big picture. He writes confidently about the sport, including tactics and strategies, but also about social and political questions, and he reveals how the three have been inextricably linked over generations. In the run-up to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, a number of good books on Latin American soccer appeared, with most naturally focusing on the host nation. Here’s an insightful contribution about the other giant of Latin American soccer.
A sprawling, vibrant book about soccer in Argentina, a country where the sport is every bit as important and reflective of the society as it is anywhere in the world.Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-56858-551-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Nation Books
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 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
BOOK REVIEW
Never especially challenging or provocative but pleasant enough light reading.
Former Dirty Jobs star Rowe serves up a few dozen brief human-interest stories.
Building on his popular podcast, the author “tells some true stories you probably don’t know, about some famous people you probably do.” Some of those stories, he allows, have been subject to correction, just as on his TV show he was “corrected on windmills and oil derricks, coal mines and construction sites, frack tanks, pig farms, slime lines, and lumber mills.” Still, it’s clear that he takes pains to get things right even if he’s not above a few too-obvious groaners, writing about erections (of skyscrapers, that is, and, less elegantly, of pigs) here and Joan Rivers (“the Bonnie Parker of comedy”) there, working the likes of Bob Dylan, William Randolph Hearst, and John Wayne into the discourse. The most charming pieces play on Rowe’s own foibles. In one, he writes of having taken a soft job as a “caretaker”—in quotes—of a country estate with few clear lines of responsibility save, as he reveals, humoring the resident ghost. As the author notes on his website, being a TV host gave him great skills in “talking for long periods without saying anything of substance,” and some of his stories are more filler than compelling narrative. In others, though, he digs deeper, as when he writes of Jason Everman, a rock guitarist who walked away from two spectacularly successful bands (Nirvana and Soundgarden) in order to serve as a special forces operative: “If you thought that Pete Best blew his chance with the Beatles, consider this: the first band Jason bungled sold 30 million records in a single year.” Speaking of rock stars, Rowe does a good job with the oft-repeated matter of Charlie Manson’s brief career as a songwriter: “No one can say if having his song stolen by the Beach Boys pushed Charlie over the edge,” writes the author, but it can’t have helped.
Never especially challenging or provocative but pleasant enough light reading.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-982130-85-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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