Maravich, The Baseball Economist and Sports Misery!
A round up of the latest news and reviews
Two recent biographies of Pete Maravich are reviewed in the New York Times (free registration may be required). The first, Maravich, by Marshall Federman and was released towards the end of last year and the second Pistol, is a recent release by acclaimed author Mark Kriegel. Neither of them get entirely positive reviews, although it seems the reviewer was objecting to Kreigel's verbose language rather than the book itself.
In a nice feature, the first chapter of each title available is available online. The Federman extract can be read here and the Kreigel extract can be read here.
Another publication generating quite a bit of interest is The Baseball Economist. This is the work of author of the popular Sabrenomics site. Not sure that too many titles get their reviews in the Wall Street Journal a month before publication, but full marks for the promotion! The book is schedule for release on March 15 - we'll have to wait for ours until then!
And now for some misery
You may have read some footballers' autobiographies and become miserable but now we have news that some publishers are deliberately setting out to make us miserable! An article in The Bookseller tells us that the publisher Headline is releasing a new 'sports misery' series beginning with Peter Marinello's book and also encompassing Paul Canoville later in the year. Seems a bit harsh to call them "half-forgotten footballers". I would have thought their names would bring instant recognition for many fans - whether that'd be for positive reasons is more debatable.
Other titles in the news
The Sunday Times had a positive review for Hands of Stone: The life and Legend of Roberto Duran
John Amaechi appeared on Gary Richardson's Sportsweek show on 5Live yesterday to talk about The Man in the Middle. It's available on the Listen again facility (for a 7 day period I think).
You've read the book, seen the film, now for the TV show
Friday Night Lights is one of my favourite ever sports books. I chop and change about exactly where I put it in my all time favourite list, but it's safe to say that it always occupies a top 5 berth. However, news that it's coming to our TV screens (the pilot episode is scheduled to be shown on ITV4 on Friday 23) leaves me wondering whether it's a step too far for the FNL franchise. Too early to judge obviously as we haven't seen it, but we start the viewing from a position of doubt. We'll return with a judgement.....
About This Entry
‘Maravich, The Baseball Economist and Sports Misery!’ was posted by Liam Doyle on Mon, 19th February 2007 at 11:19:13 GMT and filed under baseball, basketball, boxing, football, in the news, john amaechi.
