There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib
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Web ID: 17868230A great read
Hanif Aburraqib has quickly become one of my favorite authors. His discussions of basketball and moving through adulthood in Ohio is portrayed beautifully in this book. I love how this book was set to the pace of a basketball game and how it payed homage to the many greats from Ohio. Regardless of whether or not you love basketball of Ohio, this book is great for all readers.
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4.5 lovely, poetic stars
I am Not a basketball fan. (I especially detest the squeak of the shoes on the floor.) But I did love There’s Always this Year by Hanif Abdurraqib. The author tells his story through his fascination with basketball, particularly Ohio basketball. The essays touch on winning and losing, homelessness and hope, family and friends, hope, racism, hair, aging, prison, faith, hope, championships and losses, oh, yeah, did I mention basketball? I could relate to Hanif’s musings despite our differences and me not being a basketball fan. He puts things eloquently, but never pretentiously. I love that each ‘quarter’ of the book counts down the seconds and includes a time-out. Clever. “Yes, praise be to the underdogs and those who worship in the church of slim chances.” The writing can be very serious, speaking of black men murdered by law enforcement officers. The fabulous writing is vivid and visual. I could see the action along with the rhythmic prose. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Geared to a target audience
There's Always This Year By Hanif Abdurraqib This book is a paean to basketball and black men. It speaks to the writer's love affair with the sport – and such stars as Michael Jordan and the Fab Five at Michigan in the 1990s. While most of this book was outside my area of interest, the author did make one statement that resonated: "So much of the machinery of race-and/or culture-driven fear relies on who is willing to be convinced of what."
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Another Win
I will read anything Hanif Abdurraqib writes. Yeah this book talks about basketball but that’s just the court in which the author puts all these other societal players on to create a larger commentary. I have the writing chops to properly describe how immense the writing is. P.S. the audiobook is absolutely stunning to listen to
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
I Think I've Found Our Next Book of the Year
I try to read a variety of genres to be well rounded but never would I have thought I would love a book about basketball this much; and to say it's just about basketball is not giving it the credit it deserves. I have never watch a basketball game in its entirety in my life, but this book was something else entirely. As I was reading this, I felt like I sat down on a park bench somewhere in Ohio and a real "O.G" sat down and started dropping line after line of just...the most pure and heartfelt story of growth, love, misery, struggles and triumphs. I hesitated writing a review because how could it compare to the pure poetic verse that I just read? I kept stopping to re-read lines and making notes of things I wanted to share with literally anyone who would listen. When I finished I was depressed with the realization that there are people who won't get a chance to read this. I find myself at a loss with closing this review, I'm not sure if I articulated how wonderful this book is. I guess I'll leave it with: I will recommend this book to anyone who would listen, and even to those who wont.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Gorgeous and observant
There's Always This Year is the most beautiful book I will ever read about basketball. The fact that I know this is both a testament to Abdurraqib's prose, which is as perceptive and illuminating as his poetry, and to my own reading habits, which skew decidedly away from sports writing. Someone who cares more about the Cleveland Cavaliers, and about LeBron James in particular, would likely find treasures of insight that I missed. Still, there is a lot that is beautiful and important here, even for the sports-averse. Abdurraqib weaves together stories from his youth and young adulthood with analysis of the cultural artifacts that shaped his growing up--basketball, mostly, but also music and movies. I particularly loved moments when his talent as a writer and observer was brought to bear on his own memories: of sneaking into LeBron's high school games to watch a phenom-in-progress play, of throwing a pair of socks at a jail ceiling to will himself to sleep, of returning home both to watch the Cavaliers play with other fans and to march against police brutality. Other sections, less connected to the concrete, felt slower, in the way that reading poetry often feels like more of an intellectual exercise than reading prose. I left this book with a sense of profound appreciation for Abdurraqib's dedication to the place he's from, as complex and layered as that place might be. A world where we all felt similarly loyal to the geography of our childhood would be a better one, I think.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
A Story About Basketball, Home, Memories, and Love
Never having read this author, I wanted to read this as one of the younger members of my family is obsessed with basketball and to see if it would be one he would enjoy. Instead, I found an author whom I’ve never read before that took me on a journey I never expected would move me to tears at times, both for the beauty of his writing, and for his story. This is a story about basketball, but it is also so much more than that. It is a story about home, the place where you became whoever you are as the years passed - and the good, and bad, memories it holds. It is composed of a countdown and four quarters, as an ode to the game, and perhaps the way our lives are divided by our ages and the wisdom we collect as the years pass, if we’re lucky. Set in Columbus, Ohio for the most part, a place I’ve never lived but have visited several times as one of my friends lives there, this is an ode to Columbus, the people who he grew up with, the highs and lows of living there, the city itself, as well as some heartbreaking moments of tragedy. And yet, despite what some may think of all the negative aspects of this place, it is still home, the place we came from is always home, our first home. This book was an unexpected blessing for me, one that is filled with and about love at its heart, a beautiful introduction to a new author, for me, and I can’t wait to read more of his books. Many thanks for the ARC provided by Random House Publishing Group - Random House, Random House
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