A varied but reliably intriguing book of conversations on success in the arts and in competition.
Journalist and author Bishara seeks out the secret skillset behind successful athletes/musicians in this collection of interviews.
It’s hard to make it as a professional musician, and it’s perhaps even more difficult to make it as a professional athlete. Hardest of all is managing to do both. In this book, Bishara, who’s written for CNN, ESPN, and the Guardian, profiles 15 athletes/musicians who’ve achieved success in both arenas. These aren’t just people who’ve parlayed their superstardom into making a few disposable records, either, à la Shaquille O’Neal or Terry Bradshaw. Bishara is specifically interested in those who’ve demonstrated unquestionable success in music, such as winning awards or selling out prestigious venues. His list includes well-known figures, such as Bernie Williams, the Yankees’ All-Star center fielder and Grammy-nominated guitarist; Damian Lillard, the rare NBA player whose hip-hop efforts have been met with critical plaudits; and Yannick Noah, the tennis legend who enjoyed a second career as a pop star in his native France. There are athletes readers may not have heard of, as well, such as an English cricketer-turned–rock musician and a San Jose skateboarder who switched to jazz guitar. Bishara is eager to learn the secrets behind these remarkable career transitions, and he soon realizes a lot of the things that help make a successful athlete help in creating music. Flow, improvisation, grit, poise: All these things contribute to a winning performance, be it on the ski slope, tennis court, baseball diamond, or concert stage.
The book is well constructed, with many full-color photos by the author and others and a handsome layout. Bishara is a competent interviewer, though his bubbly writing skills are on better display during the profiles that proceed each interview: “For the past seven years this has been [Swedish footballer Kevin Walker’s] life, a situation he compares to living like Batman and his alter ego Bruce Wayne. One day he performs as a veteran leader in Sweden’s top tier of football, and the next as one of the county’s most endearing singer-songwriters.” The most engaging stories are the lesser-known ones, such as the case of Kyle Turley, an NFL lineman–turned–country musician who opens up about the mental health issues he’s experienced as a result of his many career concussions. Others have insights into specific elements of success; as Bronson Arroyo, a World Series–winning pitcher–turned-guitarist, puts it, it’s all about getting in the zone: “It’s where you’re so comfortable in a situation that would normally bother someone else but isn’t bothering you at all. You’re just having a pleasant time inside of what seems like it could be a very nerve-racking environment.” Despite the author’s insistence otherwise, several of the musicians profiled, such as Arroyo or the New York Liberty’s Essence Carson, are trading mostly on their athletic fame and haven’t accomplished much in music. Even so, the book succeeds as an investigation of a truly impressive phenomenon.
A varied but reliably intriguing book of conversations on success in the arts and in competition.Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-80378-029-0
Page Count: 246
Publisher: Cranthorpe Millner Publishers
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Infectiously enthusiastic appraisals of NBA and WNBA stars.
Revering roundball royalty.
Fervor fuels this impressionistic celebration of basketball’s greatest performers. Serrano, the author of bestsellers about sports and pop culture, sticks with what’s made him successful, peppering this collection of essays about LeBron James, A’ja Wilson, and others with go-for-broke adjectives and references to rappers and action movies. You might not agree that Kobe Bryant’s final game was “monumental” or that the Golden State Warriors’ record 73 wins was a “godly” achievement, but Serrano is irresistibly passionate, a fan-writer who greets each game as a chance to be awed. Its title notwithstanding, this effervescent book isn’t about player contracts or billion-dollar revenue streams. To the author, “expensive” is synonymous with virtuosity. Ray Allen’s textbook jump shot was expensive. Though Serrano quotes William Carlos Williams in a chapter about WNBA all-timer Sue Bird, he’s more apt to cite blockbuster films, prestige TV, and hip-hop. Often, this works nicely. His inspired paean to Giannis Antetokounmpo is probably the first time that a streaky free-throw shooter has been likened to “cool-as-fuck” Helen Mirren’s unlikely appearance in The Fate of the Furious. Conversely, Serrano’s long list of memorable rap lyrics adds little to his Stephen Curry chapter. The author is appealingly self-effacing—a footnote calls attention to his “dorkiest” sentence—and watchful for manifestations of unbridled athletic joy, like the gleeful “little jump-skip thing” Dwyane Wade did after tossing an alley-oop pass. His support of the WNBA is just as strong as his love of the men’s game. DeWanna Bonner, Brittney Griner, and Diana Taurasi “are sledgehammers covered in scorpions.” Wilson “is a goddamn basketball obliteration monster.” Serrano is great at exploring how fans’ memories of their favorite players intermingle with important events from their lives. That’s the subject of his affable chapter about former San Antonio Spur Tim Duncan.
Infectiously enthusiastic appraisals of NBA and WNBA stars.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781538755228
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
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