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How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization
Franklin Foer · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorThe 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.
Soccernomics
Simon Kuper, Stefan Szymanski · 448 pages
Using insights and analogies from economics, statistics, psychology, and business to cast a new and entertaining light on how the game of soccer works, "Soccernomics" reveals the often surprisingly counterintuitive truths about the world's most popular game. An essential guide for the 2010 World Cup.
Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
David Winner · 260 pages
Against Football: One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto
Steve Almond · 178 pages
Argues that not only is American football hazardous to players' health, and especially to their brains, but also that American support of the sport encourages violence, prejudices, and other ethically troubling behavior.
Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream
H.G. Bissinger · 367 pages
Return once again to the timeless account of the Permian Panthers of Odessa--the winningest high-school football team in Texas history. Odessa is not known to be a town big on dreams, but the Panthers help keep the hopes and dreams of this small, dusty town going. Socially and racially divided, its fragile economy follows the treacherous boom-bust path of the oil business. In bad times, the unempl
Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Road Trip into the Heart of Fan Mania
Warren St. John · 288 pages
Author's first person account of events occuring during a season of Alabama football focusing on travel, game day tailgating, and post-game celebrations or mourning. Focuses on the fans of the team, why they follow the team, and why they choose to attend games.
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.
Counting Coup: A True Story of Basketball and Honor on the Little Big Horn
Larry Colton · 434 pages
In Native American tradition, a warrior gained honor and glory by "counting coup" -- touching his enemy in battle and living to tell the tale. This is a modern story of...COUNTING COUPIn this extraordinary work of journalism, Larry Colton journeys into the world of Montana's Crow Indians and follows the struggles of a talented, moody, charismatic young woman named Sharon LaForge, a gifted basketba
The Best Team Money Can Buy
Molly Knight · 336 pages
"The inside-the-clubhouse story of two tumultuous years when the Los Angeles Dodgers were re-made from top to bottom, from the ownership of the team to management to the players on the field, becoming the most talked-about and most colorful team in baseball"-- In 2012, an investment group bought the Los Angeles Dodgers from Frank McCourt, who had driven the team into bankruptcy in the midst of an
Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong
Juliet Macur · 480 pages
Death to the BCS: The Definitive Case Against the Bowl Championship Series: Totally Revised and Updated 2011 Edition
Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter, Jeff Passan · 238 pages
Reinvigorates the old argument against the BCS with new evidence and pulls back the curtain on the inner workings of college sports' most despised postseason.
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner · 320 pages
*A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything* Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime? These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But
The Majors
John Feinstein · 476 pages
"Feinstein accompanies a dozen top golfers as they play [the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship], revealing what it is that makes them so demanding -- and what it takes to win such exalted prizes. He takes us onto the courses and into the back rooms to show us how decisions are made on what players will be paired together and where the holes will be placed on differ
Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life
Richard Ben Cramer · 553 pages
"In this biography, Richard Ben Cramer presents a stunning, often shocking portrait of the hero nobody knew. It is a story that sweeps through the twentieth century, bringing to light along the way not just America's national game, but her movie stars, mobsters, pols, writers...the birth (and the price) of modern national celebrity.". "This is the story Joe DiMaggio never wanted to tell - and nev
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
Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong
David Walsh · 426 pages
Traces the journalist's efforts to uncover the truth behind cycling's biggest star.
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
In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle
Madeleine Blais · 266 pages
The Fight
Norman Mailer · 247 pages
In 1974 in Kinshasa, Zaïre, two African American boxers were paid five million dollars apiece to fight each other. One was Muhammad Ali, the aging but irrepressible “professor of boxing.” The other was George Foreman, who was as taciturn as Ali was voluble. Observing them was Norman Mailer, a commentator of unparalleled energy, acumen, and audacity. Whether he is analyzing the fighters’ moves, int
Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series
Eliot Asinof · 302 pages
The Formula: How Rogues, Geniuses, and Speed Freaks Reengineered F1 into the World's Fastest-Growing Sport―A High-Octane History of Formula 1's Rise in America, Racing Culture, and Engineering Marvels
Joshua Robinson · 304 pages