The 33 Best Sports Books Ever Written | Esquire

We’re not the first to observe that the thing about sports is that it comes with a built-in narrative arc. There will be heroes and there will be villains. There will be triumphs and there will be disappointments. There will be winners and there will be losers (unless it’s a sport like football which, to Ted Lasso’s continued bewilderment, allows for a “tie”). but what happens off the court, or off the field, or courtside, can often be just as dramatic, if not more so, than what happens on it, as it takes a certain type of person to excel in the sport: gifted, motivated, and sometimes, yes, a little psychotic.

Documentary makers have found a rich vein to tap in retelling sports narratives recently and looking at some of the most exceptional characters to come to the fore (with the last dance being the most prominent example, though there have been there have been many other good ones), but nothing can delve into the intricacies of the mind of a great athlete like a book, especially in the hands of a great writer. here we recommend some of our favorites from this century and the past, which will keep you hooked until the final whistle.

You are reading: Best sport books of all time

bad days: a surfing life of william finnegan (2015)

finnegan’s pulitzer prize-winning memoir of his lifelong obsession with surfing: started in california as a kid, then hawaii as a teenager, and took him all the way to present-day new york (a place lesser-known surf scene, no doubt) – is a searing and surprising anthem for the sport. yes, it may seem pointless, and yes, it may be a punishment, but finnegan is able to encapsulate the feeling of freedom and exhilaration like few others, while also describing his own meandering personal story, which somehow transformed him from a smoker in his twenties surfing into a renowned political journalist for the New Yorker, particularly for his reporting since the apartheid era in South Africa.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

Bloodhorses: Notes from a Sportswriter’s Son by John Jeremiah Sullivan (2004)

Like many of the titles on this list, John Jeremiah Sullivan’s first book, first printed in the UK in 2013 following the success of his brilliant 2012 collection of essays, Pulphead, is a house of sports betting, but also something else. It began as a consideration of the life of his late father, Mike Sullivan, who had been a sportswriter for a Kentucky newspaper, and whose fascination with sports in general, and horse racing in particular, his son had never quite understood. altogether. Telling the story of the legendary racehorse secretary, one of whose Kentucky Derby victories his father attended, he unveils a sport that is both fascinating and puzzling in equal measure.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

Land of Second Chances: The Impossible Rise of the Rwanda Cycling Team (2013)

If sport can be accused of providing long-winded narrative arcs (see introduction!), or well-defined heroes and villains, lewis’s award-winning exploration of the attempt, by a group From former American professional cyclists, to setting up a cycling team in Rwanda a decade after the genocide in which 1 million people were massacred, is as nuanced and fascinating as it gets. esquire contributing editor lewis spent time in rwanda with aspiring cyclists, including the talented adrien niyonshuti, who lost six brothers in the 1994 genocide, as well as the pros who arrived by helicopter to form the country’s first team , but who, in the case of coach jock boyer, turns out to have a dark past of his own.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

football against the enemy by simon kuper (1994)

financial times columnist simon kuper wrote this quirky and accomplished soccer travel book when he was still in his early 20s. and it is remarkably good; It is arguably the first and even the best of the now not-so-new wave of ‘literary’ football tomes that have followed in ever-increasing numbers. Kuper travels to 22 countries to discover how football has shaped individual national politics and culture, and vice versa, meeting players, politicians and collecting anecdotes and observations along the way. We all know soccer as a global obsession, but these fascinating stories, from the tragic to the bizarre, show just how far its reach extends.

touching the void by joe simpson (1988)

Simpson’s harrowing account of his and Simon Yates’ calamitous 1985 assault on Siula Grande, Peru has rightly transcended the sport of climbing and become a legendary fable of what humans are capable of. to do to survive. It focuses, of course, on one of the most astonishing escapes ever achieved: with Simpson hanging hopelessly from one end of a rope, Yates is faced with cutting it to save them both from death. Somehow Simpson survives the fall. but alone in a crack with a shattered leg, his situation is dire. what follows is an amazing story of will and courage that also addresses the eternal question of what drives people to climb mountains in the first place. As Churchill said, “When you’re going through hell, keep going.”

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

a good ride gone bad: days and nights on the pga tour by john feinstein (1995)

Even if you’re not a golf fan, though it certainly helps if you are, this groundbreaking account of the ups and downs of the 1993/4 season on the American pro circuit is ultimately a human drama. With unprecedented access to stars (Greg Norman, Nick Price, John Daly, and Nick Faldo, to name just a few) and rookies alike, it reveals the disparate personalities and personal tribulations behind the television images and how they mesh with the particular demands of a sport where the margins between success and failure are so narrow. a gripping and consistently entertaining tale of what can justifiably be called the cruelest sport of all, whatever your level.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

tony adams addict (1998)

adams was still an arsenal and england regular when his astonishing and frank autobiography was published at the start of the 1998-99 season. His drinking problem destroyed him personally, but it didn’t seem to affect his football (using garbage bags under training gear to sweat alcohol out did the trick). if some stories were left out, they must have been really horrible. here are memories of rummaging through jeans on the bedroom floor to find the least piss-soaked pair to wear. he expects fights, prostitutes, broken lives, redemption.

george plimpton paper lion (1966)

For millennial sportswriters who never leave the office (or the couch) to blog sports live on TV, plimpton (“that ugly descriptive,” in their words) participatory journalism must seem absurd and grandiose. That plimpton himself seemed slightly ridiculous and grandiose was not lost on the man himself, who prodded that public persona with a terrifyingly witty and inquisitive style of writing that worked best applied to sport. Of his five books on how to engage in professional-level matchups in boxing, baseball, ice hockey, golf, and football, Paper Lion, on the latter, is the best.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

gordon burn pocket money (1986)

burn, known for his mix of fiction and non-fiction in the style of new journalism, spent a year documenting billiards during the heyday of the mid-1980s and produced one of the lesser-known classics of British sports writing. Reading it now, Burn isn’t the hunter with the green baize: his writing is as direct as Steve Davis’s cue action, but all the better for it. every endorsement deal, every shitty hotel room from stoke to guangzhou, every hour on the practice table, every string pulled by promoter barry hearn: burn recorded it all with great skill.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

as long as you don’t kiss me: 20 years with duncan hamilton’s brian clough (2007)

“A spurious intimacy develops between you,” Hamilton writes, of the relationship between a soccer club reporter and the club’s manager. in his case, from the age of 18 for two decades in nottingham, with clough, “an extraordinary journey with a contradictory, idiosyncratic, eccentric, totally unpredictable Chinese man”. clough’s one-liners are great, for example, in a time before general player representation: “the only agent back then was 007, and he slept with women, not entire football clubs.” Hamilton’s moving and revealing book is a marvel.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

i think then andrea pirlo game (2013)

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i am zlatan bills itself as the foreign footballer’s must-read memoir, but while the Swede’s book is entertaining, the time spent rubbing against his ego isn’t nearly as enlightening. Pirlo, however, has the kind of insight you’d expect from the best player of his generation of the thinking man. “You won’t believe me, but it was right at that moment”, about to take the first penalty in the 2006 world cup final, “I realized how wonderful it is to be Italian. It’s a truly priceless privilege.” he also learned: he loves video game football and always plays like barça.

laughing in the hills by bill barich (1980)

as midlife crises roll on, 35-year-old barich is special. five rejected novels, mother-in-law and mother-in-law dead of cancer five weeks apart, no money, no job, wife with suspected brain tumor. her longing for structure, she found her only studying the daily form of racing, methodically choosing horses and placing small bets. then he told his wife (tumor: false alarm) that he was moving to a motel next to san francisco’s golden gate fields racetrack, “convinced there was something special about racing and that he wanted to get to the heart of the race.” affair”. there was. He did. his account of that time is spectacularly good.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

jim bouton four ball (1970)

At first glance, a diary from the 1969 season written by a second-string pitcher for the Seattle Pilots baseball team, the only year that team existed, doesn’t jump to the top of the book stack. slopes. but the utter candor in terms of locker room conversations, player drug use and womanizing, bad blood, cunning, and other off-topic matters means this is the most inside book on a team I’ve ever read. It offended baseball so much that the 1971 bouton follow-up was called I’m Glad You Didn’t Take It Personally. david simon, creator of the cable, put ball four in his six favorite books of all time.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

the damned utd by david paz (2006)

brian clough (see elsewhere on this list) spent 44 days as manager of leeds united in 1974. peace’s self-proclaimed “fiction, based on fact” reveals this mistake through clough’s relentless internal monologue that bring the great man vividly. to the life. (The Clough family and Johnny Giles of Leeds disagreed, the latter obtaining an apology in court.) as a study of partisanship in football, one of the game’s most important emotions, it is astounding. Gordon Burn said (see elsewhere in the list), “If the English novel needs a kick in the pants… consider it kicked wholeheartedly.”

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muhammad ali for several

The biggest one has a whole shelf to himself in the sports library (including, naturally, the best coloring book of all time). four books in particular stand out, together they cover every angle you could wish for. Ali: A Life (2017) by Jonathan Eig is the best cradle-to-grave story, as good at its flaws as it is at its fabulous. David Remnick’s King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero (1999) focuses on the Clay-Becomes-Ali era of the early 1960s. The Fight (1975) is Norman Mailer’s astonishing account of the jungle fight, and Taschen’s giant, brilliant Greatest Book of All Time (2003; 2010 reprint) is the tabletop book that tops them all. everyone.

killing the badger: lemond, hinault and the greatest tour de france in history by richard moore (2011)

the badger, or more correctly, le blaireau, is bernard hinault, the last frenchman to win the tour de france and one of the cycling greats of all time. Catching him is his American teammate Greg Lemond, who finished second to Hinault in the 1985 tour and wants the result reversed in the 1986 race. Reliving the last contest, Moore forces the reader to choose sides—gray-haired veterans. versus young upstarts, old ways versus new ways, America versus France—which only adds to the drama. journalistic props for esquire contributor moore, too, for locating both men more than 25 years later to illuminate the postscripts.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

opened by andre agassi (2009)

according to the new york times: “one of the most passionate unsportsmanlike books ever written by a superstar athlete.” Agassi says: “I knew that in the book I had to expose everything”. then: the incessant work, from child to champion, that kept him from loving tennis, or anything else, until he met his second wife, steffi graf. his first failed marriage to brooke shields, crystal meth: it’s all here. Props to Agassi and his search for the truth, and also to his ghost, Jr Moehringer, who got 250 hours of interview time with his subject instead of the typical 30.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

all performed by pete davies (1990)

english football’s second best hour, italy ’90, led to his best book. Having spent the year before the World Cup winning the trust of England players and manager Bobby Robson, Davies entered the camp during the tournament. he also closely watched the press, fans and hooligans. an epic journey for the crew and its reporter, beautifully told with sharp reporting, dry humor and real feeling. In 2010, the book was retitled One Night in Turin, to link it to the documentary of the same name.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

shehan karunatilaka chinese man (2011)

first, to preempt any twitter storm, we acknowledge bible wisden cricket’s (greatest annual sportsbook in history, of course) decision to stop using the term “chinaman” to describe a slow turn of wrist with the left arm. bowler. Such a player is one of cricket’s rare gems, and this novel is about a failed journalist trying to find a slow, left-arm wrist-twisting player who has faded from the spotlight. The author knows a lot about cricket, but he also knows a lot about myth, mystery, obsession, drinking, and noble activities undertaken by the ignoble.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

Mysterious Roulette: The Jack Iverson Story by Gideon Haigh (2002)

hold your right hand in front of you, palm facing you, fingers apart, then bend your middle finger at the knuckle. now try throwing a cricket ball held between your thumb and middle finger. jack iverson dominated him and so fooled the batsmen that when he played for australia, the captain, also the captain of iverson’s club, would move players from other clubs onto the pitch so they couldn’t see iverson up close. This biography, written by the writer many believe to be the greatest cricketer today (they’re right), reveals, sometimes poignantly, why Iverson didn’t become an all-time player.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

fever release by nick hornby (1992)

hornby could not have imagined that his book would be relevant to the experience of football fans 26 years after its first publication. (That it is still in print, after several years of bestselling, would also be a surprise to him). It’s harder for fans to follow Hornby’s best advice: be seen reading the back pages of newspapers in the early days of a new job. , to attract other fans, but he absolutely achieves the inexorable attraction of the football fan. and he had to do it all with a dull and boring arsenal.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

levels of the game by john mcphee (1969)

This writers’ favorite began life, like most of its author’s books, as an article in the new yorker. It is an account of the 1968 US Open semi-final between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner, a profile of both men and their place in American society at the time. ashe is black, democrat, studious, skinny; graebner the opposite. all sports journalists have played the card of sport is life and life is sport. In this slim volume, which far exceeds his weight, McPhee plays him better than anyone.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

the miracle of castel di blood by joe mcginniss (1999)

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Castel di Sangro is a small football club that miraculously rose through the Italian pyramid to the second tier of Serie B in the 1996-97 season. Equally extraordinary was the presence of McGinniss, an American writer famous for an eye-opening book on Richard Nixon and the thresholds of true crime, as the head of the upstarts. He had fallen in love with soccer after the 1994 World Cup and moved to Italy to document the fairy tale. instead: corruption, cocaine smuggling, car accidents, and conspiracy to get away with the calcium.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

jon bradshaw’s fast company (1975)

Brilliant and evocative profiles of winning players, including Bobby Riggs (from the 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match), billiards legend Minnesota Fats, and Tim Holland, the greatest backgammon of all time. The author, who wrote for Esquire, New York magazine and Vogue, understood these scoundrels because he admired and shared their qualities. In his introduction to a later edition, writer Nik Cohn recalls Bradshaw’s “conscious mischievousness,” a Rothmans hanging perpetually from one corner of his mouth, and that lopsided shark grin covering the other. he wore turnbull & asser silk shirts and gucci loafers, gold lighters and a piaget watch.” touche.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

beware of the dog by brian moore (2010)

The 64-cap male prostitute from England begins this second account of his life by effectively apologizing for the insincere nature of the first, then describes the sexual abuse he endured as a child, why he came to deal with it as an adult, and what what happened when he told his mom. It is really impressive. but this book is not on this list due to only one chapter. Everything that follows, including the pissed-off rugby stories, personal and professional ups and downs, feels like it’s in the book for the same reasons as the prologue: honest, insightful, and crucial to Moore’s life.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

the hand of god: the life of diego maradona by jimmy burns (1996)

burns was the right choice to crack diego in the post-rush wave of sports writing pitch. As a former man who lived in Buenos Aires, he knew Argentina and his favorite son perhaps better than any other English-language writer. the beats of the player’s life are the narrator’s gold: shantytown upbringing, 17-year-old national team, 22-year-old fc barcelona (when he also took his first line of coke), 25-year-old world cup winner years old, roaring into a camera at the world cup, full of illegal stimulants, 33 years old. also: mafia, money, mutilation. burns weaves it all together magnificently.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

the blindside: evolution of a game by michael lewis (2006)

lewis’s moneyball, on baseball’s disruptive analysis, often appears on such lists, but the blindside is more entertaining, with an uninventable human interest core that some felt was overcome. egged on in the film version starring sandra bullock. In the book, two stories are told: how a black U.S. high school football prospect (mother addicted to crack, father murdered in prison) changes after being adopted by a wealthy white family, and how the game itself has changed with respect to the “blind side”, a peculiarity of the growth and tactics of the players.

a life too short: the tragedy of robert enke by ronald reng (2011)

reng and enke planned to write a book together; Reng wrote it only after Enke committed suicide in November 2009. Three months earlier, Enke had scored for Germany for the last time. three years earlier, his two-year-old daughter later died of lifelong heart problems. more than once, the pressure of high-level football had come down hard. Rene uses Enke’s diaries, interviews with the Guardian’s wife and family, and the material the two men generated together in a masterful and moving account of the Depression and its devastating aftermath. once read, never forgotten.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

the death of ayrton senna by richard williams (1995)

williams, former editor of melody maker and sports writer-in-chief of the guardian, is the man you want on your shoulder when playing trivia hq and the kind of writer who can make you listen to, or care about, someone you didn’t have. . interest before reading his opinion of them. of course, senna is loved; Even more so since the 2010 documentary biopic. Williams impartially dispels the myths surrounding the Brazilian’s remarkable life, his tragic death, and the afterlife of his legend, yet maintains his heroic aura through concise and insightful analysis. .

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

the illustrated history of football by david squires (2016)

squires just completed his fourth season of football cartoons for the keeper, with no signs of diminishing quality or hilarity. (The panel’s seasonal tribute to Arsène Wenger at Arsenal is especially good, even by Squires’ ridiculously high standards.) His first book, a history of the game with an entirely new work, is the funniest tome of football since Viz’s Billy the Fish Football Yearbook, published 26 years earlier. Last year’s second volume, The Illustrated History of Football: Hall of Fame, is more of the same.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

full time: the secret life of tony cascarino by paul kimmage (2000)

everything you’d think the 21st-century footballer is advised to leave out of an autobiog is here: infidelity, detailed career earnings, dialogue with the inner voice of paralyzing doubt (“you pathetic son of a bitch, cascarino! “), mysterious injections from the club’s physiotherapists and, more honestly, the fact that you weren’t really qualified to play for your country. “tony goal”, as the (perhaps) centre-forward from the republic of ireland was known in france, teamed up with irish writer paul kimmage, whose rough ride cycling book and rugby book engage, had a chance to be on this list .

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

lots of hard yakka, triumph and torment by simon hughes (1997)

“there is nothing exceptional about me; It never was,” Hughes asserts, in what is the only goofy note in a book that proves his statement wrong. his lifting the lid on the working cricketer’s lot is a celebration of shortcomings, on and off the field. after all, what is sport but mostly mediocrity punctuated by rare moments of glory and despair? hughes has none of those. she has uniform sponsors who reward improved performance with “a couple of short-sleeved casual shirts” and that time she interrupted intercourse to hand out donna’s summer ribbon. very funny things

my dad and other working class soccer heroes by gary imlach (2005)

stewart imlach played for scotland in the 1958 world cup and won the fa cup with nottingham forest a year later. now you know as much about stewart as his son gary when the old man died. Holding a cigarette card from his father at a collector’s fair a few months after the funeral, Gary laments, “How did I manage to let him die without properly putting together the details of his career, his life story, ?” Surely doubly irritating to Gary, the TV sportswriter, who had probably investigated thousands of other sports lives. This book triumphantly repairs his neglect.

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See Also: Laurell K. Hamilton | Lincoln City Libraries

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