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THE BEST OF THE YEAR

On Sports: Best books of the year

By Bill Littlefield

 |   

  December 18, 2011

I’d read each of these books again. Or at least I’d read around in them. All are about sports but have much to offer beyond statistics. They have something to say about what it’s like to be alive on the planet. Each author demonstrates that storytelling can inform us about the particulars of football or basketball or soccer or daredevil motorcycle-riding, but it can also encourage our appreciation of communities beyond our own experience, surprise us, outrage us, and make us laugh. These books also offer an opportunity to understand what motivates and sustains our athlete-entertainers and what sometimes destroys them, and why we care.

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