My review of Jacques Steinberg’s You Are an Ironman appeared this past Sunday.
Archive for the 'Reviews' Category
Forgot to post earlier that I reviewed Robert Lipsyte’s memoir, An Accidental Sportswriter, in the New York Times Book Review back in June. He helped usher in a new era in sportswriting, one that viewed sports through a gimlet eye, but one of the best parts of the book is his touching valedictory for his father, Sidney.
Tom Hoffarth, sports media columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News, leads with Carry the Rock in his recommendations of notable sports books of the year, mentioning best-sellers like the Mickey Mantle biography, but also focusing on “under-the-radar but still-fresh sports page-turners out there.” Thanks, Tom.
The Los Angeles Times published its sports book gift guide today and included Carry the Rock. We agree that Angelinos will like it.
In preparation for the four-day feast of turkey and football, the Huffington Post has compiled a list of nine football books for when you want to rest your eyes on the printed page instead of the TV screen. I’m thrilled for Carry the Rock to have been inlcuded with Paper Lion, The Blind Side and Friday Night Lights. One of my own additions would have been Willie Morris’s The Courting of Marcus Dupree, about the transcendent Mississippi high school running back who was the recent subject of one of ESPN’s 30-for-30 documentaries, The Best That Never Was. It brings the story to the present day and is well worth watching - touching, sad and hopeful, all at the same time.
This morning, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette surveyed the reviews and press coverage so far of Carry the Rock on the front page of the paper’s Style section, and writer Jack Schnedler concluded that the book had an “engaging narrative” and that it “richly rewards reading or browsing during a pigskin autumn or any other season of the year.” The full story is only available for subscribers, but here’s a link to the opening.
Arkansas Times columnist Graham Gordy wrote, very nicely, about Carry the Rock today.
The New York Times Book Review has weighed in on Carry the Rock, online now and in print on Sunday. It’s a serious, substantial review.
Took a drive up to Blytheville yesterday to speak to the Rotary Club and visit the great bookshop there, Mary Gay Shipley’s That Bookstore in Blytheville, a place where books and writers are celebrated and spoiled. It’s comforting to know that in a small town in mostly rural northeast Arkansas, there’s a place where you can find a new copy of David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet. Mary Gay suggested I also stop at Osceola on the way back, and I’m glad I did, touring the funky but fascinating historical society and marveling at the blues legends that came out of the area, including Son Seals and Albert King, not to mention Dale Evans and Billy Lee Riley. Down the road farther, the town of Dyess, where Bernie Cox was born and where Johnny Cash grew up, has won a grant to restore its 1930s buildings to the way they were when the government created the cooperative farming community. The guest book at the current city government building has signatures from all over – Sweden, Germany, Canada – from people who’ve made the pilgrimage to see Cash’s house. Much more is in the works and will provide needed jobs for the community.
Carry the Rock News:
* Reviews: Word through the grapevine is that a review of Carry the Rock will appear in the New York Times Book Review on September 19, 2010. Be on the lookout. Other rumored reviews include those upcoming in the Wall Street Journal and the October issue of BookPage (available at bookpage.com and, for the print edition, at your local libraries and bookstores).
* Television: In addition to the appearances listed under that section, I’ll be popping up on your television on Little Rock’s KTHV on September 14 (publication day) and the next week on KARK’s morning program on September 22.
Related news:
* On Thursday night, in Ouachita Baptist University’s 70-0 win over Texas College, former Central star A.J. Williams, a major figure in the book, returned a punt 56 yards for a touchdown.
* In Central’s first game of the 2010 season, the beginning of the Scooter Register era at the school, the Tigers lost to Texarkana 37-19 after leading at halftime 19-16. There’s talent at the skill positions for the Tigers, who scored on a 76-yard run by Marvell Harris.
