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The Breaks of the Game

David Halberstam · back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

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Sports HistorySportsAthleteInvestigative Journalism
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The 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

Sports HistorySportsAthleteInvestigative Journalism
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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

Sports HistorySportsAthleteInvestigative Journalism
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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.

Sports HistorySportsAthleteInvestigative Journalism
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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.

SportsSports HistoryAthleteInvestigative Journalism
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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

SportsAthleteSports HistoryInvestigative Journalism
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The Greatest: My Own Story

Richard Durham, Muhammad Ali · 424 pages

Sports HistorySportsAthleteNonfiction
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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

Sports HistorySportsAthleteNonfiction
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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

Sports HistorySportsAthleteNonfiction
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Sports HistorySportsAthleteNonfiction
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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

Sports HistorySportsAthleteNonfiction
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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."

Sports HistorySportsAthleteNonfiction
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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.

Sports HistorySportsAthleteNonfiction
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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.

Sports HistorySportsAthleteNonfiction
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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.

Sports HistorySportsAthleteNonfiction
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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

SportsSports HistoryAthleteNonfiction
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Sports HistorySportsAthleteNonfiction
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Secretariat: The Making of a Champion

William Nack · 362 pages

Sports HistorySportsAthleteNonfiction
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The Last Season: A Team In Search of Its Soul

Phil Jackson, Michael Arkush · 304 pages

SportsSports HistoryAthleteNonfiction
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Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success

Phil Jackson, Hugh Delehanty · 384 pages

Sports HistorySportsAthleteNonfiction
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Drive: The Story of My Life

Larry Bird, Bob Ryan · 259 pages

SportsAthleteSports HistoryNonfiction
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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

Sports HistorySportsAthleteNonfiction
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SportsSports HistoryAthleteNonfiction

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