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The Best American Sports Writing of the Century (Best American Sports Writing)
The Barnes & Noble Review: "The front page chronicles man's defeats. The sports page chronicles man's triumphs." So the adage goes, never more true than when surveying 100 years of American history through its coverage of sports. From Bobby Knight to Bobby Fischer, from Secretariat to Sugar Ray, from Butkus to the Babe, the 20th century abounds with classic figur...more
Paperback, 776 pages
Published
June 16th 1999
by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
(first published May 27th 1999)
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A great collection of short works by some of the best writers of the century, whether cut from the journalist's or novelist's cloth. Many of these pieces were jumping off points for long-form explorations of their subjects, Mailer's The Fight, Stump's excellent biography Cobb, Krakauer's Into the Wild, etc.
One glaring omission from this omnibus collection, made all the more obvious by the name of the author in question plastered across the cover, is the work of David Halberstam. Per...more
One glaring omission from this omnibus collection, made all the more obvious by the name of the author in question plastered across the cover, is the work of David Halberstam. Per...more
Eric
rated it
Recommends it for:
people who like sports and read playboy for the articles
Shelves:
other
Time casts a foggy hue on all people and events. Though primary sources may lack the perspective that only the passage of time can imbue, too much perspective can throw a shadow across the true meaning of events for the people that experienced them. If you want to understand what an event meant when it happened, you can't rely on what a distant, cloistered history tells you.
This collection is fantastic. Mostly focused on biography, it features many marvelous writers, sports writer...more
This collection is fantastic. Mostly focused on biography, it features many marvelous writers, sports writer...more
The best single-volume collection of American sportswriting, with a mix of old and new, long and short, serious and playful pieces.
Some real gems in here - especially the Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio stories (which are also available online).
Read Basketball section. Great sports writing.
an entire anthology of what i want to become.
Matthew Kreisher
is currently reading it
Amazing sports articles
Great Book !!!
Worth it alone for the story on DiMaggio, and Hunter S. Thompson's "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent And Deparaved."
Edit: Still reading this bohemoth. Would also add the piece on Ty Cobb in the "worth it alone for..." category.
If you can appreciate the sort of dry prose of print media writing from the 40s through the 70s...you'll really enjoy this collection. Writing/reporting of this sort scarcely exists today.
Edit: Still reading this bohemoth. Would also add the piece on Ty Cobb in the "worth it alone for..." category.
If you can appreciate the sort of dry prose of print media writing from the 40s through the 70s...you'll really enjoy this collection. Writing/reporting of this sort scarcely exists today.
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Whether or not you are a sports fan, this anthology contains some of the finest examples of Twentieth Century journalism. Although many are seemingly about sports, when you peel the layers away, the consistent theme is the triumphs and defeats of the human spirit. The piece on Bobby Fischer is a marvelous example of the kind of journalism that seems to have been driven out by Fox News.
Glorious, lives up to the title! Smashed my highest expectations with definitive pieces that put so much Internet journalism to shame. On my short list of books for a desert island or a new civilization. What can I say? The raw heart of victory and defeat, fate and chance, strength, sweat, brilliance, blood, and folly beats steady in these pages.
this is a must for every book shelf. The title is exact: these are the best sports stories and columns of the century. Award winning stuff here. A great book to pick up whenever you have fifteen minutes to spare and want to indulge terrific writing
James
is currently reading it
This is a pretty fun book so far. I've only read a couple of the essays so far, but the Joe DiMaggio one is great.
Please check the display cases/shelves in the collection
... and I don't even enjoy sports.
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David Halberstam (April 10, 1934–April 23, 2007) was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author known for his early work on the Vietnam War and his later sports journalism.
Halberstam graduated from Harvard University with a degree in journalism in 1955 and started his career writing for the Daily Times Leader in West Point, Mississippi. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, ...more
More about David Halberstam...
Halberstam graduated from Harvard University with a degree in journalism in 1955 and started his career writing for the Daily Times Leader in West Point, Mississippi. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, ...more
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