Author: Miles Wray

Review: Circus Maximus by Andrew Zimbalist
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Review: Circus Maximus by Andrew Zimbalist

Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup Andrew Zimbalist Brookings Institution Press, 2015 175 pages Buy: book | ebook In a way, everything about Andrew Zimbalist’s Circus Maximus is great. The book is thoroughly researched, thoroughly argued—hard to find a hole in its logic. And yet: how devastating. Zimbalist draws from…

Review: Out of My League by George Plimpton
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Review: Out of My League by George Plimpton

Out of My League: The Classic Hilarious Account of an Amateur’s Ordeal in Professional Baseball George Plimpton Lyons Press, 1961 150 pages Buy: book There is, surrounding George Plimpton, the same world-traveled air that surrounds the fictional beer-selling sliver of a character The Most Interesting Man in the World (TMIMITW). TMIMITW gains his fictional interesting-ness via…

Review: CHAMIQUE by Chamique Holdsclaw
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Review: CHAMIQUE by Chamique Holdsclaw

Chamique: On Family, Focus, and Basketball Chamique Holdsclaw with Jennifer Frey Scribner, 2000 189 pages Buy: ebook Much like Brittney Griner’s In My Skin, Chamique is a slapped-together memoir by a college basketball wunderkind, Chamique Holdsclaw, following the player’s uneven rookie year in the pros. Where In My Skin charmed with Griner’s honesty and desire for self-improvement, Chamique broke hearts…

Review: Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism
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Review: Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism

Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism Walter LaFeber W.W. Norton, 1999 191 Pages Buy: book | ebook It doesn’t take very long for a revolution to seem quaint. In 1999, the year that Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism was published by Cornell Professor Emeritus of history Walter LaFeber, the concept of a…

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Review: Zen Bow, Zen Arrow by John Stevens

Zen Bow, Zen Arrow: The Life and Teachings of Awa Kenzo John Stevens Shambhala, 2007 101 pages $12.95 Buy: book | ebook In John Stevens’ half-biography/half-koan-medley Zen Bow, Zen Arrow, we visit bamboo-fenced dojos, learning from early 20th-century Japanese master Awa Kenzo how archery can be a vessel that improves a whole person. In particularly…

Review: THE QB by Bruce Feldman
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Review: THE QB by Bruce Feldman

The QB: The Making of Modern Quarterbacks Bruce Feldman Crown Archetype, October 2014 304 pages $27.00 Buy: book | ebook Like the casting of James Bond or the election of presidents, the styles, moods, and values of the NFL’s starting quarterbacks in any given generation provide a meaningful reflection of where American masculinity is oriented….

Why a Football Coach Reads a Tennis Instructor: On The Inner Game of Tennis

Why a Football Coach Reads a Tennis Instructor: On The Inner Game of Tennis

The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance Timothy Gallwey Random House, 1997 122 pages $8.75 Buy: book | ebook Perhaps this moment feels like the second half of a joke that starts, “You know you’re in Seattle when . . . ” but it really happened: I…