Here are 88 books that Baller Boys fans have personally recommended if you like
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Ghanaian-born, I came to Britain aged twelve with my family and was always a lover of stories. Now a PhD-educated mum of three, it niggled that there weren’t many novels with a Black child as the protagonist, especially a Black British one. As a creative who’d acted and performed poetry in the past, I set out to write a story about a Black child in Britain overcoming challenges. Inspired by anecdotes of children remaining with relatives in their home country as their parents moved to Britain to make a life before sending for them, I was interested in writing a story about such a child after they arrived in Britain.
What I love about Happy Here is the positivity of the stories contained in the anthology. Although the stories are written by 10 different Black British authors in their own way, the stories all center around Black children learning something about themselves, growing in confidence, and overcoming the challenges they face. The range of writers from Alexandra Sheppard to Patrice Lawrence allows the reader to experience different styles of Black British storytelling. Happy Here is really worth checking out.
With an introduction from bestselling author Sharna Jackson, HAPPY HERE features stories and poems by 10 Black British authors for readers aged 7+. Exploring themes of joy, home and family through a wide range of genres and styles, each author has been paired with a different illustrator to spotlight Black British artistic talent.
With stories by Dean Atta, Joseph Coelho, Kereen Getten, Patrice Lawrence, Theresa Lola, E.L. Norry, Jasmine Richards, Alexandra Sheppard, Yomi Sode, and Clare Weze.
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
Ghanaian-born, I came to Britain aged twelve with my family and was always a lover of stories. Now a PhD-educated mum of three, it niggled that there weren’t many novels with a Black child as the protagonist, especially a Black British one. As a creative who’d acted and performed poetry in the past, I set out to write a story about a Black child in Britain overcoming challenges. Inspired by anecdotes of children remaining with relatives in their home country as their parents moved to Britain to make a life before sending for them, I was interested in writing a story about such a child after they arrived in Britain.
I love this empowering story about Jaz, a sensitive, caring Black British girl who sets up a girls’ football team to prove to her mum that she is a star so that her mum will return home. As a reader, I found myself rooting for Jaz as she got into trouble (unfairly) and faced challenge after challenge. Priscilla, the writer, deals sensitively with issues of anxiety, fear, and rejection. Though girls football features heavily in the book, you don’t have to be into football to enjoy the book—I know next to nothing about it. A heart-warming and uplifting read.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE CHILDREN'S SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022
The first book in THE DREAM TEAM series.
'Exciting, original and heart-warming' - Jacqueline Wilson
'Priscilla Mante is an author to watch' - Aisha Bushby
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A relatable, inclusive story about families, unlikely friendships and girl power. Perfect for fans of Ella on the Outside and Jacqueline Wilson.
Ola! I'm Jasmina Santos-Campbell (but you can call me Jaz). You've probably heard of me and my football team the Bramrock Stars before. No? Well, you will soon because we're almost famous!
Ghanaian-born, I came to Britain aged twelve with my family and was always a lover of stories. Now a PhD-educated mum of three, it niggled that there weren’t many novels with a Black child as the protagonist, especially a Black British one. As a creative who’d acted and performed poetry in the past, I set out to write a story about a Black child in Britain overcoming challenges. Inspired by anecdotes of children remaining with relatives in their home country as their parents moved to Britain to make a life before sending for them, I was interested in writing a story about such a child after they arrived in Britain.
This novel is the story of Leonard. The book starts with a focus on Jamaica but most of the story is about life after Leonard arrives in the UK with his mother to join his estranged father, who left Jamaica when Leonard was a baby. I found this to be a thought-provoking but easy-to-read historical novel about leaving the home you know where you feel loved and starting again somewhere that doesn’t feel so warm and welcoming. The story is about family, the Windrush generation and the history of Jamaica and Great Britain. An interesting read drizzled with Benjamin Zephaniah’s poetry.
In this heart-stopping adventure, Benjamin Zephaniah shows us what it was like to be a child of the Windrush generation.
Leonard is shocked when he arrives with his mother in the port of Southampton. His father is a stranger to him, it's cold and even the Jamaican food doesn't taste the same as it did back home in Maroon Town. But his parents have brought him here to try to make a better life, so Leonard does his best not to complain, to make new friends, to do well at school - even when people hurt him with their words…
Delve into this internationally best-selling series, now complete! A fast paced laugh-out-loud mix of Urban Fantasy and Mystery.
I can tell when you’re lying. Every. Single. Time. I’m Jinx, a PI hired to find a missing university student, I hope to find her propped up at a bar–yet my gut…
Ghanaian-born, I came to Britain aged twelve with my family and was always a lover of stories. Now a PhD-educated mum of three, it niggled that there weren’t many novels with a Black child as the protagonist, especially a Black British one. As a creative who’d acted and performed poetry in the past, I set out to write a story about a Black child in Britain overcoming challenges. Inspired by anecdotes of children remaining with relatives in their home country as their parents moved to Britain to make a life before sending for them, I was interested in writing a story about such a child after they arrived in Britain.
This is the story of Black British teen Whelton Blake on the worst day ever when everything seems to be going wrong. I adored this first-person narrative where the author Alex Wheatle skillfully explores first love, teenage awkwardness, problems at school, and figuring out your way in the world as a young teen. Humorous and engaging.
Welton Blake has done it! He's asked out Carmella McKenzie - the best-looking girl in school - and she's only gone and said yes!
But just as he thinks his luck is starting to change, Welton's phone breaks, kick-starting a series of unfortunate and humiliating events. With bullies to avoid, girls ready to knock him out and all the drama with his mum and dad, life for Welton is about to go very, very wrong ...
Hilarity follows disaster in this sharp-witted tale of the trials of teen life from award-winning author Alex Wheatle.
I have spent four decades studying the sports business. A lifelong sports fanatic and a trained antitrust lawyer, I originally approached the problem as a straightforward cartel by owners. When consulting for a UK government investigation into sports, I learned how often owners “leave money on the table” because they can’t agree on how to divide things up, and how often league decisions are not responsive to consumer preference. The book is part of a career of analyzing how the structure of sports governance fails to meet the expectations of fans and the general public.
I loved the clear and accessible way that a leading sports economist explains economic concepts to sports fans.
The explanation of why global soccer is characterized by continued dominance in each league (I loved how he shows this is not only true in France but in the Faroe Islands), and how he incorporates important economic insights to explain our current situation.
Modern soccer is big business. From the ill-received takeover of Manchester United by the Glazer family to Paris Saint Germain's current shopping spree for the best footballers on the planet, soccer finance has become an increasingly important part of the game.Barely a summer goes by now without a cherished club going into administration or a wealthy businessman funding a mid table team's ascension to Champions League competitor. Meanwhile, the twice-annual multi-million dollar merry-go-round of transfer season sees players (and now managers) signed for sums thought impossible just a decade ago. Understanding soccer finance has become essential for comprehending the beautiful…
Growing up I was fanatical about football - playing, watching, reading and talking about it. I was also a little obsessed with its numbers, and apparently liked to recalculate league tables and goal differences in my head as the results came in on the BBC vidiprinter. Fast forward to University in the 1980s - a time when studying football’s business aspects was not common - I wrote my dissertation on the ‘Capital structure of Scottish football’. A Scottish perspective has remained present in much of my work, and I hope it also allows a little more distance when reflecting on the success and challenges faced by football in England.
I came upon this title quite early in my academic career while working in an Accountancy and Finance Department and struggling to convince myself, and I suspect my then boss, that there was a lot of mileage in the business of sport as an area of research activity.
Wray Vamplew’s book – a systematic economic analysis of the emergence of mass spectator sports in the UK in the years leading up to the First World War based on primary financial and other records – played a major part in convincing me, at least, that there was indeed a future as well as a past in this type of study!
If you want to understand where many of football’s current developments arose from, this is a great place to begin.
Based on a vast range of club and association records, Pay Up and Play the Game, first published in 1988, presents a systematic economic analysis of the emergence of mass spectator sport during the years prior to World War I. It explores the tensions behind an increasingly commercialised activity that was nonetheless suffused with 'gentlemanly' values at many levels, and highlights the retreat of the latter as working-class consumption and participation became predominant, symbolised most dramatically by the celebrated victory of proletarian Blackburn Olympic over the Old Etonians in the FA Cup final of 1883. Wray Vamplew examines the linkages…
On the morning of December 26, 2004, an undersea earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. The resulting tsunami killed an estimated 230,000 people across fourteen countries, from Indonesia to Sri Lanka to Thailand to the Maldives to India and all the way to East Africa.…
I'm a writer and filmmaker based in Cairo for over a decade. I was inspired to move to Egypt when I visited during the 2011 Revolution and fell in love with the vibrance of the city. Since then Cairo has changed and I have lived through an extraordinary history with some difficult times but always with a sense of curiosity for stories. My book, Cairo’s Ultras, began as a documentary film project in 2012 and I have found many other interesting topics during my time in this enigmatic and fascinating place. I will publish a second book next year, called Decolonising Images, that looks at the photographic heritage and visual culture of Egypt.
I found this book very informative when I started researching my book on the Ultras fans in Egypt. It is an in-depth look at the football history in the Middle East and North African region.
The author, James Dorsey, has real-life experiences of Cairo and other places in the region when he worked as a journalist for decades before turning to his attention to soccer. This book grew out of a blog of the same name with a wide readership and this is the most significant book on the football politics available. The section on Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood comes from an expert’s eye as he picks up the details and explains the situation to the reader. The book is a journey around the troubled landscape of the Middle East to discover the mix of history, cultures, and politics of the Arab world through soccer.
James M. Dorsey introduces the reader to the world of Middle Eastern and North African football - an arena where struggles for political control, protest and resistance, self-respect and gender rights are played out. Politics was the midwife of soccer in the region, with many clubs being formed as pro- or anti-colonial platforms and engines of national identity and social justice. This book uncovers the seldom-told story of a game that evokes deep-seated passions. Football fans are shown to be a major political force and one of the largest civic groups in Egypt after the Muslim Brotherhood: their demands for…
As a boy, I wanted to play baseball professionally. But, alas, talent was not within me, and I became one of the few people in the world who chose physics as a career because something else was too hard. Part of my career as a scientist is learning new things; another part is teaching and, hopefully, imbuing students with a love of science. The sports science books here all taught me a great deal, and I have recommended them to several of my students. Sports can be an excellent vehicle for learning some science, and such learning about a sport one loves can make watching the sport even more fun.
How could I be a sports physicist and know next to nothing about soccer, the world’s most popular sport? After a student wanted to research soccer physics with me, I knew I had to get up to speed on the beautiful game. Wesson’s book was my choice, and it was a smart choice! From the simple, like the bounce of the ball, to the complex, like the flight of the ball during a free kick, Wesson touches on all the important aspects of soccer.
Anyone can read the book, and for those of us who yearn for the mathematical details, Wesson’s last chapter does not disappoint.
Updated and revised throughout, this new edition of The Science of Soccer applies scientific analysis to football, giving us the answers to questions like "what's the chance of a team that wins the Premiership also winning the Cup? Can you predict how many goals will be scored? What's the best height for footballers? Is the team that wins the league the best team?"
Starting with a qualitative description of the basic physics that relate to the ball and its bounce, the author then moves through kicks and throws, to a simple account of the more complex physics of a ball…
My passion for power and leadership in global sports began with leading a study abroad program at the 2004 Athens Olympics, sparking a tradition of involvement in every Summer Games since. In 2011, I gained unique insight into global sports politics as a featured speaker at the World Olympians Association Forum in Lausanne, Switzerland. The event included a high-stakes Presidential election, with intense political maneuvering and Olympians delivering 60-second appeals in a "Minute to Win It" style presentation. Beyond the Olympics, my interest has been enriched by trips to Thailand (four), China, and Bahrain to lead workshops for hundreds of national sports federation administrators. This fascination with global sport leadership continues to inspire me.
While familiar with the infamous 2015 FIFA scandal, I was quickly captivated by the depth of storytelling and new details about the inner workings of one of the most powerful sports organizations in the world. The narrative unfolded like a novel, vividly describing the locations and powerful people behind the schemes that led to Qatar surprisingly being awarded the World Cup and FIFA's descent into deep corruption that dismantled the organization.
The authors painted scenes that allowed readers to imagine the actual interactions and decisions in the true story of deceit, hypocrisy, bribery, and more. Secrets and lies are unveiled in ways that make it clear how greed and disregard for ethics can escalate to such disastrous levels.
I found revelations about England’s spy network and the Sheikhs who rule the Persian Gulf entertaining. This is a compelling read that proves that even if you think you know the story…
“The book that reminds you exactly what’s wrong with FIFA” (Esquire UK): This meticulously reported account by two award-winning, investigative journalists at Britain’s The Sunday Times explains how the 2022 World Cup was secured for Qatar—a key element in the ongoing, international FIFA controversy.
When the tiny desert state of Qatar won the rights to host the 2022 World Cup, the news was greeted with shock and disbelief. How had a country with almost no soccer infrastructure or tradition, a high terror risk, and searing summer temperatures, beaten more established countries with stronger bids? The story behind the Qatari success…
Nelson West, a former Chicago homicide detective, is hired by wealthy heir Lionel Bing to discreetly help “fix” scandals and legal problems for his father’s wealthy friends.
Bing, a brilliant but troubled investigator, suffers from PTSD symptoms as a result of being kidnapped and witnessing the murder of his mother…
For almost thirty years, I have studied and tried to understand Latin America and the Caribbean. As a historian I have worked with manuscripts and newspapers and books, in archives and libraries and private collections, but I’ve learned my most important lessons elsewhere: on the baseball diamond in Holguín, Cuba, at pick-up cricket matches in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, and in soccer stadiums in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Buenos Aires. These books help give us a sense of the power of such places, the power of sports to reveal the region, and as such they’re a great place to start to understand it.
As is the case everywhere, sports in Latin America are deeply political, and students of Latin America have noticed how leaders like Juan Perón and Fidel Castro have used sports to gain followers and shape their nations. In her impressive work on Chilean soccer, Brenda Elsey demonstrates that it is not only charismatic leaders who have understood sports’ political utility. She shows how Chilean workers and labor activists used soccer to construct their communities and defend their class interests in the midst of rapid capitalist expansion during the twentieth century, reminding us that sports are not only arenas of athletic activity; they are also always venues for practicing citizenship.
Futbol, or soccer as it is called in the United States, is the most popular sport in the world. Millions of people schedule their lives and build identities around it. The World Cup tournament, played every four years, draws an audience of more than a billion people and provides a global platform for displays of athletic prowess, nationalist rhetoric, and commercial advertising. Futbol is ubiquitous in Latin America, yet few academic histories of the sport exist, and even fewer focus on its relevance to politics in the region. To fill that gap, this book uses amateur futbol clubs in Chile…
