Ships from: Geneva, IL
Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Ships from: Naperville, IL
Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Want a NOOK? Explore Now
David Halberstam was one of America's most distinguished journalists and historians. After graduating from Harvard in 1955, he covered the beginnings of the Civil Rights movement, then was sent overseas by the New York Times to report on the war in Vietnam. The author of fifteen bestsellers, including The Best and the Brightest, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his Vietnam reporting at the age of thirty. He was killed in a car accident on April 23, 2007, while on his way to an interview for what was to be his next book.
His books were loaded with anecdotes, metaphors, suspense, and a narrative tone most writers reserve for fiction. The resulting books -- many of them huge bestsellers -- gave Halberstam heavyweight status (he won the Pulitzer for international reporting in 1964) and established him as an important commentator on American politics and power.
Halberstam was also known for his sports books. In The Breaks of the Game, which a critic for The New York Times called "one of the best books I've ever read about American sports," he took on professional basketball.
In The Amateurs, he examined the world of sculling; in Summer of '49 and October 1964, he focused on two pivotal baseball events: the Boston Red Sox's exasperating near victory over the New York Yankees for the 1949 pennant, and the 1964 season, when the Yankees lost the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals. In 1999's Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made, Halberstam documented the making of a legend.
Always happy to extend his reach well beyond the subject at hand, Halberstam packed his books with social commentary as well as sports detail.
His writing routine was as strenuous and disciplined as that of any of the athletes he wrote about. To sustain his steady output of extensively researched, almost-always-massive books, he allows no unscheduled interruptions: "Most of us who have survived here [New York] after a number of years have ironclad work rules. Nothing interrupts us. Nothing," he once wrote in The New York Times. "We surface only at certain hours of the day."
Anonymous
Posted March 22, 2013
This book rocks.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted April 3, 2009
I Also Recommend:
I purchased this book after reading Halberstam's "Education of a Coach," which I found entertaining and informative, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I think I liked this book as much as I did because Halberstam was embedded with the team and was able to give an honest account of what he saw without bias. Essentially, Halberstam tells the Portland Trailblazers story, during the course of a year, from the perspective of the players, coaches, and owners. Though I was not familiar with many of the players as I would be today, Halberstam was able to introduce the reader to the characters well. The book spends substantial portions on Bill Walton's story as well as Jack Ramsay's, both of which were fascinating. In addition, I liked the shorter stories Halberstam writes about some of the other players such as Kermit Washington and Maurice Lucas.
Though I have not read an extensive amount of sports books, I would place this book alongside "Friday Night Lights" by H.G. Bissinger as my favorites due to the fact both writers were with the teams and told the story as they saw it. Today, with reporters unable to gain the access these two writers had, I find these two books to be refreshing.
Anonymous
Posted November 8, 2009
No text was provided for this review.
Anonymous
Posted February 4, 2010
No text was provided for this review.
Overview
David Halberstam, best-selling author of THE FIFTIES and THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST, turns his keen reporter's eye on the sport of basketball — the players and the coaches, the long road trips, what happens on court, in front of television cameras, and off-court, where no eyes have followed — until now.