A Holiday Message to Sports Biblio Digest Readers

Thanks So Much For Your Readership!

Dec. 21, 2015

As I mentioned in the previous edition of the Sports Biblio Digest, the newsletter is on holiday hiatus for the next two weeks. It’s hard to believe it's been six months since I first published the Digest as I prepared to launch the Sports Biblio website. I have thoroughly enjoyed putting this together.

The Digest is a curator’s delight: there’s so much on the web about sports books, history and culture that I can’t include everything I find, and that readers pass along to me. If I did, this newsletter would be twice as long!

Thanks so much to all of you for subscribing and for your kind words. I really appreciate it.

If you’ve signed up fairly recently, I invite you to read my about page and my initial post summing up the philosophy behind Sports Biblio. I’m also linking to my post about the sports book that has influenced me like perhaps no other. I realize this dates me and makes me sound really old-fashioned, but so what?

For me, and I know for many of you, sports isn’t about entertainment. I’ve felt this way as long as I can remember, first as a young athlete, then as a sports journalist and most of all as a fan and devotee.

Neither can sports be reduced to mere politics, as is being attempted (poorly, I think) more frequently these days. As the author of "The Joy of Sports" has memorably written:

"The world of sports is no escape from evil. Nor is it an escape from virtue, excellence and grace. In sports, we meet our humanity."

I really do think sports and the arts come from the same place, and as the sports historian Allen Guttmann has argued, it’s worthy of exploration.

In addition to taking a holiday break, I also am preparing some new features, including podcasts. Initially I will be doing short audio segments, previewing new books and making book recommendations. Eventually I want to interview sports authors, historians, artists and journalists.

After nearly three months of publication, I’m deeply honored to have built a modest following of readers, and I want to continue to cultivate a community of people I consider sports connoisseurs.

Maybe that sounds a bit pretentious, but I love that word. Connoisseur! I think it perfectly captures the essence of what I’m striving to do here. As a local radio jazz host likes to say when he’s spinning Coltrane, Bird, Billie and Diz, “I’m suffering from acute attack of good taste!”

I’m also eager to expand the global reach of Sports Biblio. Since I launched this project I have picked up readers from around the mostly English language-speaking world. While the focus of my work has been North American sports, I want to go beyond those parameters.

I’ve covered the Olympics and the soccer World Cup, but I’m less up to speed on cricket, rugby, Aussie rules and other sports that aren’t as prominent in the U.S., so I hope you’ll educate and enlighten me.

As always, please feel free to contact me at sportsbiblio@gmail.com with feedback, suggestions, book recommendations and more. Let me know what you'd like to see here on the newsletter, as well as on the blog.

Thanks again for being a part of the Sports Biblio community. The Digest will resume on Jan. 10, 2016. Merry Christmas, Happy holidays and a very Happy New Year!

— Wendy Parker

Sports Biblio: The Website | Facebook | Twitter | Newsletter