Unless you’re 7’4” and a once-in-a-generation talent, you probably can’t play basketball like San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama. But the city’s library system says that you can read like him.
The San Antonio Public Library has launched a “Read Like Wemby” campaign, urging Alamo City residents to check out books that the French phenom enjoys, according to the Athletic.
The library’s flagship central location—known to locals for its bold “enchilada red” color—has a display near its circulation desk with a “Read Like Wemby” sign. It features novels by some of Wembanyama’s favorite authors, including N.K. Jemisin’s The World We Make, Brandon Sanderson’s Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and SenLinYu’s Alchemised.
Wembanyama has long been known by Spurs fans as a voracious reader, particularly of science fiction and fantasy. A Reddit thread from December 2024 centered around a copy of Sanderson’s Wind and Truth he was holding during a postgame interview; another from seven months ago sought to identify the book he was holding in a photograph. It turned out to be a French-language edition of The Well of Ascension by—you guessed it—Sanderson.
The library’s campaign comes as Spurs fever is gripping San Antonio: The team is locked in a 3-3 playoff series against the Oklahoma City Thunder, with the winner set to take on the New York Knicks for the NBA championship.
Scott Williams, the library’s marketing manager, told the Athletic, “Library people, we’ve been paying attention to those moments. We just love the fact that there’s this NBA star, this international superstar right in our own backyard, who also happens to be a voracious reader. To work for a library in a city where somebody who is that publicly supportive of what reading and literacy can mean for someone is really inspirational.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
