41 Books Like Countdown to Super Bowl

This book was the first (many followed since this book’s publication in the early 1970s) that broke the sacred rule of major league baseball to whit: “What happens in the locker room stays in the locker room.” Major league pitcher Jim Bouton wrote about his descent from a coveted, fireballing starting pitcher on champion New York Yankees’ teams and his attempt to regain a place in MLB by transitioning to a knuckleball pitcher.

Along the way, he talks about what he saw and heard from and about his teammates and opposing players. His revelations about Mickey Mantle, in particular, made major headlines and caused him to be excluded from Yankee Old Timers Day celebrations until the last years of his life.

Babe Ruth's status as baseball's greatest all-around player (hitter–714 home runs, 342 batting average, a . 474 on-base percentage–and pitcher–94-46, 2.28 ERA, 147 Games Started, 107 CG, 17 Shutouts) remains cemented among historians (until Shohei Ohtani potentially proves himself the Babe's equal over time).

Creamer's book overflows with anecdotes about the many memorable moments in Ruth's gaudy career.

I read this book because, in the annals of football history (up until the decades of Super Bowl success by Bill Belichick), Vince Lombardi and the Green Bay Packers made him the runaway choice as pro football’s greatest coach.

He was considered coaching’s ultimate leader, motivator, and fundamentals technician. This book filled in the very little I knew about Lombardi’s lengthy history before he landed in Green Bay.

As I was preparing to write my own book in 2016, I felt it was incumbent on me to discover the history of the New York Jets’ franchise before new ownership acquired the team in 1963. The team’s first three seasons–1960 to 1962–occurred under a different name, the New York Titans.

I knew nearly nothing about the situations that drove the Titan's finances into the ground, and I needed and wanted to understand what had happened as the foundation of my work. This book is the sole report on those forgotten three years.

I highly recommend this book because it takes a uniquely scientific yet imaginative approach to the question of extraterrestrial life.

Instead of relying on speculation alone, Pickover blends biology, physics, and astronomy to explore what alien life might realistically look like, how it could evolve, and the environments it might inhabit. He examines possibilities ranging from microbial organisms to advanced civilizations, grounding each scenario in scientific principles while still leaving room for wonder.

This makes the book both intellectually stimulating and accessible, appealing to readers who want more than just UFO anecdotes—they want a thoughtful exploration of life beyond Earth.  

In a work that is almost as much cultural history as pro football history, Michael McCambridge looks at the growth of the National Football League from the end of World War II to the 21st century

This well-researched and well-written book covers the league’s inner workings as well as the on-the-field highlights. The establishment of the NFL Players Association is treated equally with the establishment of the Super Bowl.

I had the good fortune to meet Kenny Rogers at the Gaithersburg Book Festival and I was immediately struck by his kindness and gentle spirit.

Raped Black Male: A Memoir is a moving book that offers vivid details of his childhood rape, but the book is about more. Rogers also provides compelling fictional anecdotes and reflections on his internal struggles—from homelessness to what it means to be a black man in America.

Rogers is a powerful human being and his story is another reminder that a person can overcome the painful effects of sexual violence to live a healthy and productive life. 

Goldstein’s and Weiner’s history of Jews of Baltimore is an unconventional account of this border city. Jews in Baltimore were definitely located in the middle between white Christians on the one hand and Blacks on the other. The book does not flinch from uncovering just what this middle ground meant, how the antisemitism that pervaded Baltimore propelled some Jews toward conservatism (including the support of slavery) and others toward progressivism (including abolition). At the same time, the book explores the rich diversity of Jewish religious life in the city that parallels Jewish participation in building important elements of Baltimore’s economy. I loved learning about a city that was new to me.

In The Wire and Homicide: Life on the Streets, David Simon, also an author of nonfiction books about Baltimore, depicted Baltimore cops as Sisyphean figures trying to fight an endless wave of crime and failing. Baynard Woods and Brandon Soderberg tell a much less positive story about the police. They examine an elite unit called the Gun Trace Task Force which became, under its leader Wayne Jenkins, a criminal syndicate. Using their badges as weapons, these police officers robbed drug dealers of tens of thousands of dollars, planted weapons and evidence, and terrorized Black Baltimore residents.

As media pundits were wringing their hands about whether Baltimore’s people had gone out of control when they rioted after Freddie Gray’s death, we learn that these cops were literally robbing prescription drugs to sell them on the street. Even if you’re suspicious about the role of police in inner-city communities, this book… show more.

Martha Grimes is one of my favorite authors. I love both her style and her penchant for pairing the twists and turns of murder investigations with hijinks to create a three-dimensional world. The twelfth book in Grimes’ Richard Jury series brings the Scotland Yard detective to America, where he’s confronted with killings in a Pennsylvania cabin and on the streets of Baltimore.

This book is named for a real-life saloon in Baltimore’s Fells Point neighborhood. I moved to the Baltimore suburbs not long after reading this book. When I first saw the establishment, its front windows were filled with copies of Grimes’ novel.