As the NCAA basketball tournament approaches, passions are running high in the book world, too. After a heated early round contest between Foul!: The Connie Hawkins Story and The Breaks of the Game, a new favorite has emerged from the pack:
"OK, after pieces on this subject in the last two days, I have to weigh in. While I admit to not having read Foul!: The Connie Hawkins Story, someone has to speak up for John McPhee's portrait of Bill Bradley, A Sense of Where You Are (FSG), widely regarded as one of the best sports books ever penned."--Kevin Morrissey, managing editor, Virginia Quarterly Review.
"The best basketball essay ever: A Sense of Where You Are, John McPhee's portrait of Bill Bradley, then a Princeton undergrad, originally pubbed in the New Yorker and his book. As I recollect, from 40-plus years ago, the best scene, he's watching Bradley practice by himself. After a few throws, Bradley announces that the basket is one-quarter inch too low. He gets a ladder and tape measure. It is. Worst scene: Bradley psyches himself before every game with a playing of "Climb Every Mountain." You may remember his NCAA playoff farewell: a quarterfinal 50 points that many say stands as one of the great individual efforts. The basketball book which moved me the most, though, is Counting Coup by Larry Colton, about a Native American woman basketball star--very sad."--Chris Kerr of Parson Weems.
"A must read for any true fan of basketball is John McPhee's A Sense of Where You Are. Period."--Tim Huggins
And, as a future contender:
"It's impossible not to jump on this challenge, especially when we’re all about to be swept up in wagering our few remaining pennies on the NCAA tourney. Making bets is in the air, and I just want to give readers of Shelf Awareness some inside intel. The frontrunner for the best basketball book ever written is yet to come, but it’s coming this fall in When the Game was Ours by Larry Bird and Earvin Magic Johnson, with Jackie MacMullan. In this irresistible collaboration, two of basketball’s greatest icons open up to a veteran sportswriter as never before to deliver a fascinating and intimate narrative of their decades-long rivalry cum friendship. It is, on the one hand, a provocative portrait of three decades in counterpoint. On the other hand it is a wild ride through professional basketball’s best times--short shorts, bad hair and some of the most amazing basketball ever played."--Susan Canavan, executive editor, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which will publish the book in November.