What’s in it
Tap a tag: ❤ = this matters to me · tap again ✕ = don’t care · again to reset. The list below updates each time.
24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorThe Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever
John Feinstein · 375 pages
When a fistfight broke out between the Houston Rockets and the Los Angeles Lakers one night in 1977, All-Star Rudy Tomjanovich raced to break it up. He was met by Kermit Washington, a good player with a great reputation, and by an astonishingly ferocious punch, a single blow that has reverberated in both men's lives ever since. With his unerring insight into the deeper truths of professional sport
The Breaks of the Game
David Halberstam · 400 pages
The story of one season with the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team touches on many aspects of professional sports: stars, salaries, the media, fans, ethics, drugs, and racial tension.
Michael Jordan: The Life
Roland Lazenby · 708 pages
Traces the life of one of the most legendary basketball players in the history of the sport, drawing upon interviews with Jordan's friends, family, and teammates, and following his career from college to the NBA.
The Jordan Rules: The Inside Story of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls
Sam Smith · 333 pages
The Boys of Summer
Roger Kahn · 445 pages
"A ... narrative of growing up within shouting distance of Ebbets Field, working for the Herald Tribune in the Jackie Robinson years ... and what's happened to everybody since."
The Greatest: My Own Story
Richard Durham, Muhammad Ali · 424 pages
The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football
Jeff Benedict, Armen Keteyian · 432 pages
A revelatory account based on the authors' unprecedented access to the NCAA's highest-level programs throughout the 2012 season describes its high-powered system of billion-dollar television deals, high-priced coaches, football "hostessing," castoff athlete-students and paid test takers.
The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
Michael Lewis · 345 pages
Follows one young man from his impoverished childhood with a crack-addicted mother, through his discovery of the sport of football, to his rise to become one of the most successful, highly-paid players in the NFL.
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
Christopher McDougall · 287 pages
Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world's greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we tho
True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson
Kostya Kennedy
True is a probing, richly-detailed, unique biography of Jackie Robinson, one of baseball's—and America's—most significant figures. For players, fans, managers, and executives, Jackie Robinson remains baseball’s singular figure, the person who most profoundly extended, and continues to extend, the reach of the game. Beyond Ruth. Beyond Clemente. Beyond Aaron. Beyond the heroes of today. Now, a half
When the Game Was Ours
Larry Bird, Earvin Johnson, Jackie MacMullan · 340 pages
With intimate, fly-on-the-wall detail, "When the Game Was Ours" transports readers to an electric era of basketball and reveals for the first time the inner workings of two players--Larry Bird and Earvin "Magic" Johnson--dead set on besting one another.
Ball Four
Jim Bouton · 472 pages
Twentieth-anniversary edition of a baseball classic, with a new epilogue by Jim Bouton. When first published in 1970, Ball Four stunned the sports world. The commissioner, executives, and players were shocked. Sportswriters called author Jim Bouton a traitor and "social leper." Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force him to declare the book untrue. Fans, however, loved the book. And seriou
Invictus: Nelson Mandela and the Game that made a Nation
John Carlin · 288 pages
Soon to be a major motion picture from Academy Award(r)—winning director Clint Eastwood, starring Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman. After being released from prison and winning South Africa's first free election, Nelson Mandela presided over a country still deeply divided by fifty years of apartheid. His plan was ambitious if not far-fetched: Use the national rugby team, the Springboks-long an embodi
Dream Team: How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the Greatest Team of All Time Conquered the World and Changed the Game of Basketball Forever
Jack McCallum · 352 pages
"They were the Beatles of basketball, the Mercury Seven in sneakers. In Dream Team, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum delivers the untold story of the greatest team ever assembled: the 1992 U.S. Olympic Men's Basketball Team that captivated the world, kindled the hoop dreams of countless children around the planet, and remade the NBA into a global sensation. As a senior staff writer for
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
Daniel James Brown · 416 pages
Daniel James Brown’s robust book tells the story of the University of Washington’s 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans. The sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the boys defeated elite rivals first from eastern and British universities and finally the German crew rowing f
Pre!
Tom Jordan · 168 pages
For five years, no American runner could beat him at any distance over a mile. But at the age of 24, with his best years still ahead, long-distance runner Steve Prefontaine finally lost. Driving alone at night after a party, Prefontaine crashed his sports car, putting a tragic, shocking end to the life and career of one of the most influential, accomplished runners of our time. From his humble ori
Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig
Jonathan Eig · 432 pages
Secretariat: The Making of a Champion
William Nack · 362 pages
Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success
Phil Jackson, Hugh Delehanty · 384 pages
The Last Season: A Team In Search of Its Soul
Phil Jackson, Michael Arkush · 304 pages
King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero
David Remnick · 326 pages
There were mythic sports figures before him - Jack Johnson, Babe Ruth, Joe Louis, Joe DiMaggio - but when Cassius Clay burst onto the sports scene from his native Louisville in the 1950s, he broke the mold. He changed the world of sports and went on to change the world itself. As Muhammad Ali, he would become the most recognized face on the planet. This unforgettable story of his rise and self-cre
Seabiscuit: An American Legend
Laura Hillenbrand · 453 pages
Retraces the journey of Seabiscuit, a horse with crooked legs and a pathetic tail that made racing history in 1938, thanks to the efforts of a trainer, owner, and jockey who transformed a bottom-level racehorse into a legend.
The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods
Hank Haney · 272 pages
Hank Haney's insightful account of th six-year journey with Tiger Woods, during which the amazingly gifted golfer collected six major championships and changed golf history.