There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension
bdurraqib uses one subject as a lens through which he views the culture at large — it's about hoops, sure, but it's also about so much more. It's another remarkable book from one of the country's smartest cultural critics ... Abdurraqib's chronicle of the game is fascinating, but it's his analysis of James — as a person, a baller, a phenomenon — that shines ... Another brilliant book from Abdurraqib, who has firmly established himself as one of the country's most original and talented authors. It's also a piercing look at how we consider others, as well as ourselves.
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Abdurraqib’s willingness to pile everything he’s able into his quasi-autobiographical, proto-philosophical inquiry into turn-of-the-twenty-first-century basketball ... In no way a conventional biography or appreciation of one athlete’s career. It is more a portrait of Abdurraqib-the-artist as a young man ... He is a poet. He is also, in this book, more formally audacious with prose than he’s ever been before.
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Abdurraqib has found an entertaining way to make the act of watching sport akin to witnessing miracles. If you are looking to read something that 'pushes against the door of reality and offers an elsewhere', I recommend this title.
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