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4.47 AVERAGE
4.47 AVERAGE
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
hanif abdurraqib's writing is a gift most of us do not deserve. so much heart, so much depth, so much energy & so much sensibility!!!!! this one will be kept close to my heart. and if you never stopped to watch basketball in your life—worry not. never have i. but the language of sports can be universal like any language written in the spaces of devotion.
medium-paced
emotional
funny
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
If, one day, I find myself able to write 1/10 as well as Abdurraqib, I think I will be satisfied with my prowess.
He's so good that I, well, I deliberately sought out and listened to a book about basketball which, if you know me, tells you all you need to know.
And it's not that the book is about so much more than basketball - which it is - or that Abdurraqib has a gorgeous sense of rhythm in his prose - which he does. It's that even the basketball sections were beautiful and compelling when he told them.
He's so good that I, well, I deliberately sought out and listened to a book about basketball which, if you know me, tells you all you need to know.
And it's not that the book is about so much more than basketball - which it is - or that Abdurraqib has a gorgeous sense of rhythm in his prose - which he does. It's that even the basketball sections were beautiful and compelling when he told them.
i love the way that hanif abdurraqib uses language. he’s able to craft a memoir that allows me to see who he is, rather than only the things that have happened in his life. through repetition, and a conversational tone as if he’s speaking directly to me, he’s allows me to create connection to things that i otherwise wouldn’t. in this book, they’re things like growing up in ohio, going to prison, and playing basketball. there are also things about his life that felt all too relatable to me, such as faking my way through wudu and salah as a kid, and assigning personal meanings to fall out boy lyrics. there’s always next year is a wonderfully written book that shows, through the lens of basketball, his life, and all of ours.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I grew up in Ohio around the same time as Abdurraqib. I got to see LeBron play basketball in high school, like he did. And–like Abdurraqib–I watched from out of state with teary eyes as LeBron won Cleveland a championship in 2016, the first championship for Cleveland in any sport in our lifetime. Beyond that, our experiences as young men in Ohio were very different. I never experienced homelessness, never had to run from the cops or meet with a parole officer. So reading Abdurraqib's memoir of life and basketball in Ohio helped me see these shared experiences of basketball events through the new eyes of someone who had very different experiences beyond the game. Abdurraqib has a lyrical cadence to his writing that reminds me of Ta-Nehisi Coates, and his stories and attitudes remind me so much of his, so I may need to do what I did with Coates and read through everything he's ever written! I really enjoyed this book. It was a great way to kick off the summer.