Sports writing from United States rich in depth and quality

LIKE IN every industry, in every walk of life, there are workers with a wide variety of skills. These skill sets can differ across the globe, with the way someone completes their craft often markedly different from one side of the world to the other.

Sports writing is the same; everyone will have their favourites, styles they prefer to read over others, and this reviewer is no different.

It’s something I have mentioned before in these reviews, while delving into books from around the world.

I have said on record that my preference is to read sports writing from across the Atlantic, when time allows to sit back and delve into what’s on offer.

It’s not necessarily because they have more talent than the best this side of the pond has to offer, I feel there are other reasons.

Obviously there’s a deep talent pool, with a top drawer education to match in most cases. But for me it’s often simply down to the fact that the top level talent have more of an opportunity to work on a piece, to take their time, chip away and create something memorable.

There are things about American writing that grated on me too, rules they use that fly in the face of what is the norm here, but over the years I’ve become used to their quirks and it tends to aggravate less and less.

So with that in mind, what would be the perfect book for me to spend a Covid-ruined weekend afternoon perusing?

Well, that would be ‘The Best

American Sports Writing’, on this occasion the 2018 edition edited by Jeff Pearlman.

The premise of these publications are pretty clearly explained by the title. It is a collection of articles, deemed the best of the previous year, snuggled together in a tidy paperback.

While topical categories clearly have an impact (this edition has a lot of work on concussions, CTE and the effects), the fact that each edition is edited by someone different allows the publication to keep a freshness a single editor might lose.

Writers featured here include Howard Bryant, Tom Junod, Jane Bernstein and Jim Owczarski. Wright Thompson, writer of the foreword in last week’s ‘Chaos is a Friend of Mine’ is also included, while a personal favourite was Reid Forgrave’s ‘The Concussion Diaries: One High School Football Player’s Secret Struggle with CTE’.

Not only do the 25 stories that make up the 300-plus pages of sports writing gold make this book a great read, but the five pages at the end that list a treasure trove of quality work that just missed the cut pushes it to another level.

Here series editor Glenn Stout gives readers all the details needed to go searching out these titles, including author, publisher, date of publication and title of the piece, which gives a little insight into the content of the article.

Being the best American sports writing, most of the stories are based on U.S. sports so that will turn some people off right away.

However, if that is something you can look past, and just enjoy reading really well-written pieces of journalism, then there is no specific market for this. Anyone who can appreciate a good article can meander their way through these stories and get engrossed.

Then, if this is something you enjoyed, the next step is to start making your way through other ‘years’ in the series.

DEAN GOODISON

Note: With The Book Centre currently closed due to Covid-19 restrictions, we’ll be taking a break from our weekly reviews for a while. Happy reading until this column returns!