Sports Biblio Digest 10.1.17: The Fall 2017 Sports Books Guide, Part 1

News, Views and Reviews About Sports Books, History and Culture

In This Issue: Ali Biography; Tailgates, Mascots and Groundskeepers; Sportswriting Anthologies; The Last Negro League World Series; An Irish Writer's Childhood Memoir

Welcome to the Sports Biblio Digest, an e-mail newsletter delivered each Sunday. You can subscribe here and search the archives.

This is Digest issue No. 98, published Oct. 1, 2017. The Digest is a companion to the Sports Biblio website. To view this newsletter in a browser, click here.

I’d love to hear what you think about the Digest, and Sports Biblio. Send feedback, suggestions, book recommendations, review copies, newsletter items and interview requests to Wendy Parker at sportsbiblio@gmail.com. You can also follow Sports Biblio on Twitter and hit the “like” button on Facebook.

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This newsletter is taking a departure from the usual format this week since I am unveiling my fall sports books guide.

I’ll get back to the standard fare next week, including great reads from the world of sports—and there’s so much going on with the baseball playoffs, the latest scandal roiling college basketball and NFL protests.

I’ve always found fall to be the most enjoyable of seasons, lately because of the baseball postseason. I’m as giddy about this October as I’ve been in years, even with my Atlanta Braves on the sidelines.

This also my busiest time as a sports book reader, even more so than the summer. Since the fall is the confluence of most of the North American sports seasons, publishers are at their busiest, and what I’m including in this guide is much more than I intended.
This week alone is a colossal publishing week for new sports books, and I can't wait to get cracking reading and writing about them. Many of them are included in this guide.

The 50 books I’m profiling over the next few days can hardly do justice to the fantastic collection of new releases, updates and paperback reissues of books that are out there. But I had to draw the line somewhere, selecting across a broad range of sports (familiar and obscure), nations and topical variations.

I want this guide to appeal to the sports book omnivore, to general readers wishing to dive in serendipitously to an unfamiliar subject and to reflect the sheer variety of longform reading matter that gives context, historical depth and human connection to sports experiences. We desperately need to go beyond the daily, here-and-now churl cranked out in contemporary media, and this is my humble offering to those of like minds.

Starting today and continuing through Thursday, I will provide thumbnail sketches of the books in this guide, 10 titles in each post, with links to publishers and authors information, reviews, excerpts, interviews, podcasts and more.

I’m doing this in alphabetical order, and leading off today with books that include a new full-scale biography of Muhammad Ali, Best American—and now Canadian—sports writing anthologies, histories of the last Negro League World Series and American heavyweights, and a childhood memoir of a gifted Irish sportswriter whose perspectives are being shaped by his residence in the United States.

Here’s Part 1 of the Fall 2017 Sports Books Guide. I'll collect all the links in this series here in next week’s newsletter. I hope you enjoy this special feature. It’s part of some long-planned changes at Sports Biblio that include more daily posting and a makeover for the site.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost two years since I launched Sports Biblio, and I think it’s time for a new look and focus. As always, thanks for subscribing and let me know what you think! Happy reading!