Iâm a lifelong basketball nut. I played through high school and college and have been a fan for as long as I can remember. After earning a PhD in History from Purdue University (Boiler Up!), I began to do research and write books about basketball. The books on this list are my favorite of the hundreds Iâve read on the topic and will give you a great start on learning about hoop's history!
I wrote
Kings of the Garden: The New York Knicks and Their City
Fans of the HBO drama Winning Time know about the rise of the Los Angeles Lakers of the early 1980s powered by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson. Like the show, this book is about more than basketball.
It is a look inside the lives of high-profile athletes in the decade of decadence, and the money, drugs, sex, and egos that defined the eighties are here in full force. The show was greatâthe book is better.
The New York Times bestselling author of Sweetness and Gunslinger delivers the first all-encompassing account of the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers, one of professional sportsâ most-reveredâand dominantâdynasties.  The Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s personified the flamboyance and excess of the decade over which they reigned. Beginning with the arrival of Earvin âMagicâ Johnson as the number-one overall pick of the 1979 draft, the Lakers played basketball with gusto and pizzazz, unleashing coach Jack McKinneyâs âShowtimeâ run-and-gun style on a league unprepared for their speed and ferocityâand became the most captivating show in sports and, arguably, in all-around AmericanâŚ
The American Basketball Association (ABA) epitomized the swinging 1970s, and this book, set up as a series of interviews with players and coaches, lets you hear first-hand from the men who experienced it.
The modern NBA owes much of its exuberance and excitement to this oft-forgotten league. Learning about how the ABA transformed professional basketball makes me love this book so much.Â
What do Julius Erving, Larry Brown, Moses Malone, Bob Costas, the Indiana Pacers, the San Antonio Spurs and the Slam Dunk Contest have in common? They all got their professional starts in the American Basketball Association.
What do Julius Erving, Larry Brown, Moses Malone, Bob Costas, the Indiana Pacers, the San Antonio Spurs and the Slam Dunk Contest have in common? They all got their professional starts in the American Basketball Association.
The NBA may have won the financial battle, but the ABA won the artistic war. With its stress on wide-open individual play, the adoption of the 3-pointâŚ
This is the Inspiring true story of a young girl surviving Mengeleâs hell. This is an incisive, harrowing, and touching memoir of Eva Mozes Kor and her twin sister Miriam, who are sent to Auschwitz only to be torn from their parents and given to Josef Mengele, "The Angel ofâŚ
Come for the artwork, stay for the quirky pop culture vibe. A sampling: thereâs a cartoon drawing of Kurt Rambis having a tea party with Kevin McHale, a list arguing for inductees into a fictitious âBasketball Villain Hall of Fame,â and recommendations for pickup basketball game etiquette.
About every six months, I flip this open and read a couple of pages. It will always be on my desk!
A hardcover edition featuring new content for fans of the #1 New York Times bestseller
Any fan of Shea Serrano's unconventional, hilarious, and insightful writing will want to add this hardcover edition of his wildly popular Basketball (and Other Things) to their collection. The book will feature a new cover and two new chapters as well as removable art that showcases Serrano's trademark creativity and Arturo Torres's inimitable illustration style. First released as a paperback in 2017, the book went on to become a #1 New York Times bestseller. This edition will be a keepsake for Serrano fans andâŚ
After reading about the Knicksâ struggles from the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s, you should absolutely read about when they were the best team in the NBA. Many of the names will be familiar to hoops headsâWalt Frazier, Willis Reed, Bill Bradley, and Phil Jacksonâbut the way these teams connected to New York City is the real reason to love this book.Â
In the tradition of The Boys of Summer and The Bronx Is Burning, New York Times sports columnist Harvey Araton delivers a fascinating look at the 1970s New York Knicksâpart autobiography, part sports history, part epic, set against the tumultuous era when Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, and Bill Bradley reigned supreme in the world of basketball. Perfect for readers of Jeff Pearlmanâs The Bad Guys Won!, Peter Richmondâs Badasses, and Pat Williamsâs Coach Wooden, Aratonâs revealing story of the Knicksâ heyday is far more than a review of one of basketballâs greatest teamsâ inspiring storyâit is, at heart, a stirringâŚ
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctorâand only womanâon a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I disagree with a lot of what Bill Simmons writes about in this bookâand that is part of what makes it so wonderful! Simmons is a great storyteller, and this book feels like a bunch of basketball fans arguing about the best player or greatest team of all time.
This is the perfect book for someone who loves basketball and wants to learn more about the history of the game.Â
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ⢠The wildly opinionated, thoroughly entertaining, and arguably definitive book on the past, present, and future of the NBAâfrom the founder of The Ringer and host of The Bill Simmons Podcast
âEnough provocative arguments to fuel barstool arguments far into the future.ââThe Wall Street Journal  In The Book of Basketball, Bill Simmons opensâand then closes, once and for allâevery major NBA debate, from the age-old question of who actually won the rivalry between Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain to the one about which team was truly the best of all time. Then he takesâŚ
Part travelogue, part buddy story, part memoir, The Twenty is a journey across a rugged island of stunning beauty, little known outside Europe.
Marianne Bohr and her husband, about to turn sixty, are restless for adventure. They decide on an extended, desolate trek across the French island of Corsica ââŚ
Ancient Evenings is a study of consciousness presented as a series of fictional philosophical dialogues set at the height of the Roman Empire. These dialoguesâon good and evil, truth and falsehood, life and deathâare historical re-enactments of what persons representing the major Hellenistic schools of philosophy might actually have saidâŚ
