best sports biography books of all time

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The 35 Best Sports Books Ever Written

Fill the gaps between watching sport with the greatest writing about Muhammad Ali, Brian Clough, Diego Maradona and more

We’re not the first to observe that the thing about sport is that it comes with a built-in narrative arc. There will be heroes and there will be villains. There will be triumphs and there will be disappointments. There will be winners and there will be losers (unless it’s a sport like football which, to Ted Lasso’s continuing befuddlement, allows for a “tie”). But what happens off the pitch, or outside the field, or court-side, can often be as dramatic – if not more so – than what happens on, as it takes a certain type of person to excel at sport: gifted, driven, and sometimes, yes, a little psychotic.

A Woman's Game: The Rise, Fall and Rise Again of Women's Football by Suzy Wrack (2022)

Timed to land just as the Lionesses started their tilt at winning the Euros and immortality, the Guardian's Suzy Wrack traces women's football from the mid-Great War, post-Suffragette days when huge crowds would flock to see women's teams – Dick, Kerr's Ladies drew 53,000 to Goodison Park on Boxing Day 1920 – to a backlash that saw women banned from playing on FA pitches between 1921 and 1971 on the grounds that football was "unsuitable for females". Then, the slow climb back to prominence, and a big decision to make: does women's football try to 'catch up' with the global reach of the men's game, or make the most of what makes it different and joyful? This is a thorough run through a backstory which rarely used to make the back pages.

The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football by David Goldblatt (2014)

In the men's game, however, things have rarely been more weird. At the time of writing, Manchester United may still be bought out by former Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Jassim, and the season has stretched into late June thanks to a mid-winter World Cup. How did we get here? Goldblatt shows how English football as we know it was liquidated and reformed as an entertainment product to beat them all in the wake of the Thatcher years, knitting it together with the ways England itself has changed in the 21st century. A lot has changed in the last decade – Chelsea cop a lot of flak, despite the ownership now looking positively quaint next to Manchester City and Newcastle United – but to understand how we got here, start with this.

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan (2015)

Finnegan’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning memoir about his lifelong obsession with surfing – starting in California as kid, then Hawaii as a teen, taking him right though to New York in the present (a lesser-known surf spot, certainly) – is a searing and startling paean to the sport. Yes it can seem pointless, and yes it can be punishing, but Finnegan is able to encapsulate the feeling of freedom and euphoria like few others, while also describing his own meandering personal history, which somehow transformed him from a twentysomething stoner surf-bum into a renowned political journalist for the New Yorker, particularly for his reporting from Apartheid-era South Africa.

Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter’s Son by John Jeremiah Sullivan (2004)

Like so many of the titles on this list, John Jeremiah Sullivan’s first book – printed in the UK for the first time in 2013 after the success of his brilliant 2012 essay collection, Pulphead – is a sports book but also something more. It began as a consideration of the life of his late father, Mike Sullivan, who had been a sportswriter for a Kentucky newspaper, and whose fascination with sport in general, and with horse racing in particular, his son had never quite managed to understand. In telling the story of the legendary racehorse Secretariat, one of whose Kentucky derby wins his father attended, he unpicks a sport that is both fascinating and mystifying in equal measure.

Land of Second Chances: The Impossible Rise of Rwanda’s Cycling Team by Tim Lewis (2013)

If sport can be accused of providing neat story arcs (see intro!), or clear-cut heroes and villains, Lewis’s British Sports Book Award-winning exploration of the attempt – by a group of American former professional cyclists – to set up a cycling team in Rwanda a decade after the genocide there in which 1 million people were slaughtered, is as nuanced and fascinating as they come. Lewis, a contributing editor to Esquire , spent time in Rwanda with the would-be riders, including the talented Adrien Niyonshuti, who lost six brothers in the 1994 genocide, and also the professionals who helicopter in to set up the country’s first team, but who, in the case of coach Jock Boyer, turns out to have a dark past of his own.

Football Against The Enemy by Simon Kuper (1994)

Football against the enemy.

Financial Times columnist Simon Kuper wrote this accomplished and quirky footballing travelogue when he was still only in his early 20s. And it's remarkably good; arguably the first and even best in the now-not-so-new wave of 'literary' football tomes that have followed in ever-greater numbers. Kuper travels to 22 countries to find out how football has shaped individual national politics and culture – and vice versa – meeting players, politicians and picking up anecdotes and observations along the way. We all know football as a global obsession, but these fascinating tales – from the tragic to the bizarre – show just how far its reach extends.

Touching The Void by Joe Simpson (1988)

Simpson's harrowing account of his and Simon Yates's calamitous assault, in 1985, on Siula Grande, Peru, has rightly transcended the sport of climbing and become a legendary fable for what humans are capable of doing to survive. It centres, of course, on one of the most amazing escapes ever achieved: with Simpson hopelessly hanging off one end of a rope, Yates is faced with cutting it to prevent them both being killed. Somehow, Simpson survives the fall. But alone in a crevasse with a shattered leg, his situation is hopeless. What follows is a staggering tale of will and courage that also addresses the perennial question of what drives people to climb mountains in the first place. As Churchill said: "When you're going through hell, keep going".

A Good Walk Spoiled: Days And Nights On The PGA Tour by John Feinstein (1995)

Even if you're not a golf fan – though it certainly helps if you are – this groundbreaking account of the highs and lows of the 1993/4 season on the American pro circuit is ultimately a human drama. With unprecedented access to the stars – Greg Norman, Nick Price, John Daly and Nick Faldo to name just a few – and rookies alike, it reveals the disparate personalities and personal travails behind the TV images and how these combine with the particular demands of a sport where the margins between success and failure are so thin. A gripping and always entertaining account of what can justifiably be called the cruellest sport of all, whatever your level.

Addicted by Tony Adams (1998)

Harpercollins pub ltd addicted.

Adams was still a regular for Arsenal and England when his jaw-droppingly frank autobiography was published at the start of the 1998–99 season. His drinking problem destroyed him personally yet seemed to leave his football unaffected (wearing bin bags under training kit to sweat out the booze served him well). If any stories were left out, they must have been truly hideous. Here are remembrances of picking through jeans on the bedroom floor to find the least-piss-soaked pair to wear. Expect fights, prostitutes, broken lives, redemption.

Paper Lion by George Plimpton (1966)

To millennial sportswriters who never leave the office (or sofa) to live blog sport on TV, Plimpton’s participatory journalism (“that ugly descriptive”, in his words) must seem preposterous and grand. That Plimpton himself came across ever so slightly preposterous and grand was not lost on the man himself, who pricked that public persona with a terrifically witty, inquisitive writing style that worked best applied to sport. Of his five books about taking part in pro-level match-ups in boxing, baseball, ice hockey, golf and US football, Paper Lion , on the latter, is the finest.

Pocket Money by Gordon Burn (1986)

Burn, known for his mixing of fiction with non-fiction in the New Journalism style, spent a year documenting snooker during its mid-Eighties’ boom, and produced one of the lesser-known classics of British sportswriting. Reading it now, Burn is not the Hunter S of the green baize: his write-up is as straight as Steve Davis’s cue action, yet all the better for it. Every endorsement deal, every shit hotel room from Stoke to Guangzhou, every hour on the practice table, every string pulled by the promoter Barry Hearn: Burn recorded the lot with great skill.

Provided You Don't Kiss Me: 20 Years With Brian Clough by Duncan Hamilton (2007)

“A spurious intimacy evolves between you,” writes Hamilton, of the relationship between a football club reporter and the club’s manager. In his case, from the age of 18 for two decades in Nottingham, with Clough, “an extraordinary journey with a contradictory, Chinese box of a man — idiosyncratic, eccentric, wholly unpredictable.” Clough’s one-liners are magnificent, for example, on a time before blanket player representation: “the only agent back then was 007 — and he shagged women, not entire football clubs.” Hamilton’s poignant, revealing book is a wonder.

I Think Therefore I Play by Andrea Pirlo (2013)

Sh123 andrea pirlo: i think therefore i play.

I Am Zlatan is held up as the foreign footballer’s must-read memoir, but entertaining though the Swede’s book is, time spent rubbing up against his ego isn’t so enlightening. Pirlo’s, however, has the sort of insight you’d expect from the thinking man’s Greatest Player of his Generation. "You won’t believe me, but it was right in that very moment," about to take the first penalty in the 2006 World Cup Final shoot-out, "I understood what a great thing it is to be Italian. It’s a truly priceless privilege." Also learned: he adores video-game football and always plays as Barça.

Laughing in the Hills by Bill Barich (1980)

As mid-life crises go, Barich’s, aged 35, is special. Five rejected novels, mother and mother-in-law dead of cancer five weeks apart, no money, no job, wife with suspected brain tumour. Craving structure, he found it only studying the Daily Racing Form , picking horses methodically and placing small bets. He then told his wife (tumour: false alarm), he’d be moving to a motel next to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Fields racetrack, “convinced there was something special about racing and I wanted to get to the heart of the matter.” There was. He did. His write-up of that time is spectacularly good.

Ball Four by Jim Bouton (1970)

On the face of it, a diary of the 1969 season by a second-string pitcher for the Seattle Pilots baseball team, the only year that team existed, does not leap to the top of the to-read pile. But the total frankness in terms of locker-room talk, player drug use and womanising, bad blood, gamesmanship and other off-topic matters means this is the most inside-a-team book you’ll ever read. It offended baseball so much, Bouton’s 1971 follow-up was called I’m Glad You Didn’t Take It Personally . David Simon, creator of The Wire , put Ball Four in his six all-time favourite books.

The Damned United by David Peace (2006)

Faber & faber the damned utd.

Brian Clough (see elsewhere on this list) spent 44 days as manager of Leeds United in 1974. Peace’s self-styled “fiction, based on a fact” unpacks this mistake via an unrelenting Clough inner monologue that brings the great man vividly to life. (The Clough family, and Leeds’ Johnny Giles disagreed, the latter winning an apology though the courts.) As a study of football partisanship, one of the game’s most important emotions, it is astonishing. Said Gordon Burn (see elsewhere on the list), “if the English novel needs a kick up the pants... consider it wholeheartedly kicked.”

Muhammad Ali by various

Taschen gmbh greatest of all time: a tribute to muhammad ali.

The Greatest has a whole shelf to himself in the sporting library (including, naturally, The Greatest Coloring Book of All Time ). Four books in particular stand out, together covering every angle you could wish for. Jonathan Eig’s Ali: a Life (2017) is the best cradle-to-grave account, as good on the flaws as the fabulous. King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero (1999) by David Remnick focuses on the Clay-becomes-Ali era of the early Sixties. The Fight (1975) is Norman Mailer’s amazing retelling of the Rumble in the Jungle, and the giant, glossy Greatest of all Time (2003; 2010 reprint) by Taschen, is the coffee table book to top them all.

Slaying the Badger: LeMond, Hinault and the Greatest Ever Tour de France by Richard Moore (2011)

The badger, or more correctly, Le Blaireau , is Bernard Hinault, the last Frenchman to win the Tour de France and one of cycling’s all-time greats. Out to get him is his American teammate Greg LeMond, who finished second to Hinault in the 1985 Tour and wants the result reversed in 1986’s race. Reliving the latter contest, Moore forces the reader to pick sides — grizzled veteran versus young upstart, old ways versus new ways, USA versus France — which only heightens the drama. Journo props to Esquire contributor Moore, too, for tracking down both men more than 25 years later for illuminating postscripts.

Open by Andre Agassi (2009)

According to The New York Times : "one of the most passionately anti-sports books ever written by a superstar athlete." Says Agassi: "I knew in the book I had to expose everything." So: the unceasing slog, from toddler to champ, that prevented him from loving tennis, or anything, until he met his second wife Steffi Graf. His failed first marriage to Brooke Shields, crystal meth: it’s all here. Props to Agassi and his quest for truth, and also his ghost, JR Moehringer, who got 250 hours of interview time with his subject instead of the typical 30.

All Played Out by Pete Davies (1990)

English football’s second-finest hour — Italia ’90 — led to its finest book. Having spent the year before the World Cup earning the trust of the England players and manager Bobby Robson, Davies was let into the camp during the tournament. He also observed, close-up, the press, fans and hooligans. An epic journey for the team and their chronicler, superbly told with sharp reportage, dry humour and real feeling. In 2010, the book was retitled One Night in Turin , to tie in with the documentary of the same name.

Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka (2011)

First, to get ahead of any Twitterstorm, we recognise the decision of cricket bible Wisden (the greatest annual sports book ever, of course) to stop using the term “chinaman” to describe a slow left-arm wrist-spin bowler. Such a player is one of cricket’s rare gems, and this novel is about a washed-up journalist trying to find a slow left-arm wrist-spinner who has faded from the spotlight. The author knows a lot about cricket, but he also knows a lot about myth, mystery, obsession, drinking and noble pursuits undertaken by the ignoble.

Mystery Spinner: the Story of Jack Iverson by Gideon Haigh (2002)

Hold your right hand out in front of you, palm facing you, fingers spread, then bend your middle finger at the knuckle. Now try bowling a cricket ball held between thumb and middle finger. Jack Iverson mastered it, and bamboozled batsmen so much that when he played for Australia, the captain, also Iverson’s club captain, would move players from other clubs around in the field so they couldn’t watch Iverson up close. This biography, by the writer many think is cricket’s current best (they’re correct), reveals, at times movingly, why Iverson didn't become an all-timer.

Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby (1992)

Hornby could not have imagined that his book would be relevant to the football fan’s experience 26 years after it was first published. (That it is still in print, after several bestselling years, would also be a surprise to him.) It’s harder for fans to follow Hornby’s best piece of advice — be seen reading the papers’ back pages on the first days of a new job, to attract fellow supporters — but he absolutely nails the inexorable pull of football fandom. And he had to do it all with boring, boring Arsenal.

Aurum Press Ltd Levels of the Game (Sports Classics)

Levels of the Game by John McPhee (1969)

This writers’ favourite began life, as most of its author’s books do, as an article in The New Yorker . It is an account of the 1968 US Open semi-final between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner, a profile of both men and their place in US society at the time. Ashe is black, Democrat, bookish, skinny; Graebner the opposite. Every sportswriter ever has played the sport-is-life-and-life-is-sport card. In this slim volume, which punches far beyond its weight, McPhee plays it best of all.

The Miracle of Castel Di Sangro by Joe McGinniss (1999)

Castel Di Sangro is a small-time football club that miraculously rose through the Italian pyramid to Serie B’s second tier for the 1996–97 season. Equally extraordinary was the presence of McGinniss, a US writer famous for a revealing Richard Nixon book and true-crime doorsteps, as the upstarts’ Boswell. He had fallen hard for soccer after the 1994 World Cup and moved to Italy to document the fairy tale. Instead: corruption, cocaine smuggling, car crashes and conspiracy to go with the calcio .

Fast Company by Jon Bradshaw (1975)

Brilliant, evocative profiles of winning gamblers including Bobby Riggs (of the 1973 'Battle of the Sexes' tennis match), pool legend Minnesota Fats and Tim Holland, backgammon’s best ever. The author, who wrote for Esquire , New York magazine and Vogue , understood these rascals because he admired and shared their qualities. In his introduction to a later edition, writer Nik Cohn remembers Bradshaw’s "conscious roguery, a Rothmans perpetually dangling from one corner of his mouth, and that lopsided shark’s grin plastering the other. He sported Turnbull & Asser silk shirts and Gucci loafers, flashed gold lighters and a Piaget watch." Touché.

Beware of the Dog by Brian Moore (2010)

England’s 64-cap hooker begins this second account of his life by effectively apologising for the less-than-candid nature of the first, then describing the sexual abuse he endured as a child, why he came to deal with it as an adult and what happened when he told his mum. It’s genuinely stunning. But this book is not on this list because of just one chapter. Everything that follows, including pissed-up rugby tales, personal and professional highs and lows, feels like it’s in the book for the same reasons as that prologue: honest, insightful and crucial to Moore’s life.

The Hand of God: the Life of Diego Maradona by Jimmy Burns (1996)

Burns was the right choice to decode Diego in the post- Fever Pitch wave of sportswriting. As the former FT man in Buenos Aires, he knew Argentina and its favourite son perhaps better than any other English-language writer. The beats of the player’s life are storyteller’s gold: shantytown upbringing, national team aged 17, FC Barcelona aged 22 (when he also had his first line of coke), World Cup winner aged 25, roaring into a camera at the World Cup, full of illegal stimulants, aged 33. Also: mafia, money, mayhem. Burns weaves it all together magnificently.

The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis (2006)

The blind side: evolution of a game.

Lewis’s Moneyball , about disruptive baseball analysis, often appears on lists of this sort, but The Blind Side is more entertaining, with a you-couldn’t-make-it-up human-interest core that some felt was over-egged in the film version starring Sandra Bullock. Back in the book, two stories are told: how a black US high-school football prospect (crack addict mother, dad killed in prison) changes after adoption by a rich white family, and how the game itself has changed with respect to the “blind side”, a quirk of player growth and tactics.

A Life Too Short: the Tragedy of Robert Enke by Ronald Reng (2011)

Reng and Enke were planning to write a book together; Reng wrote it alone after Enke killed himself in November 2009. Three months peviously, Enke had kept goal for Germany for the last time. Three years earlier, his two-year-old daughter died after lifelong heart problems. More than once, the pressure of top-level football had come down hard. Rene uses Enke’s diaries, interviews with the keeper’s wife and family and the material the two men generated together in a masterful, moving account of depression and its devastating consequences. Once read, never forgotten.

The Death of Ayrton Senna by Richard Williams (1995)

Williams, former editor of Melody Maker and chief sportswriter of The Guardian , is both the man you want over your shoulder when playing HQ Trivia and the sort of writer who can make you listen to, or care about, someone you had no interest in before reading his take on them. Of course, Senna is beloved; even more so since the 2010 documentary biopic. Williams even-handedly dispels the myths surrounding the Brazilian’s remarkable life, his tragic death and the afterlife of his legend, yet maintains his heroic aura through concise, insightful analysis.

The Illustrated History of Football by David Squires (2016)

Squires has just completed another season of football cartoons for The Guardian , with no sign of let-up in quality, hilarity or niche Simpsons references. His first book, a history of the game with all-new work, is the funniest football tome since Viz ’s Billy the Fish Football Yearbook , published 26 years earlier. The second volume, The Illustrated History of Football: Hall of Fame , is more of the same excellence.

Full Time: the Secret Life of Tony Cascarino by Paul Kimmage (2000)

Everything you’d think the 21st-century footballer is advised to leave out of an autobiog is here: infidelity, itemised career earnings, dialogue with the internal voice of crippling self-doubt (“you pathetic fucker, Cascarino!”), mystery injections from club physios and, most candidly, the fact you were not really qualified to play for your country. “Tony Goal”, as the Republic of Ireland (perhaps) centre-forward was known in France, teamed with Irish writer Paul Kimmage, whose cycling book Rough Ride and rugby book Engage , had a shot at being on this list.

A Lot of Hard Yakka, Triumph and Torment by Simon Hughes (1997)

A lot of hard yakka.

“There’s nothing exceptional about me; never was,” claims Hughes, in what is the only duff note in a book that proves his statement incorrect. His lid-lift on the jobbing cricketer’s lot is a celebration of shortfalls, on and off the pitch. After all, what is sport if not mostly mediocrity punctuated by rare moments of glory and despair? Hughes has neither of those. He has kit sponsors rewarding improved performance with “a couple of short-sleeved casual shirts” and that time he interrupted coitus to turn over the Donna Summer tape. Very funny stuff.

My Father and Other Working-Class Football Heroes by Gary Imlach (2005)

Stewart Imlach played for Scotland at the 1958 World Cup and won the FA Cup with Nottingham Forest a year later. Now you know about as much about Stewart as did his son Gary when the old man died. Holding a cigarette card of his dad at a collectors’ fair a few months after the funeral, Gary laments, “How had I managed to let him die without properly gathering together the details of his career, his life story?” Surely doubly galling for Gary, the TV sports journalist, who had likely researched thousands of other sporting lives. This book triumphantly redresses his oversight.

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The Best Sports Memoirs, According to Sports Journalists

Whether you’re a sports fan or just a history buff, looking back at sporting events has produced some of the world’s finest journalism. But it could be argued that no outside observers’ perspective can compare to being inside the heads of those who scored that game-winning point, series-winning run, or tournament-winning goal (or coached any teams that did). Which is why, with so many of our favorite sports still on pause as their leagues figure out how to resume competition, we realized getting lost in a good sports memoir could be the next best thing to spending hours watching a game itself. But with so many sports memoirs ghostwritten or scribbled in a hurry as a valedictory rite of passage, which ones are actually up to snuff?

To find out, we asked 17 experts — including sportswriters, broadcasters, and professors — for their recommendations. While their responses included memoirs written by many athletes who are household names, we also learned about stories told by others that the spotlight may have missed, and a few written by coaches or superfans with perspectives that are just as gripping as those of athletes who actually took the field. Read on for their picks, which we’ve organized by sport. In the tradition of our other reading lists, we’ve named any books with two or more recommendations as best overall. But we’ve also included titles emphatically recommended by just one person, for those who may want to dive further into any category.

Best tennis memoirs

Best overall tennis memoir.

Three people raved about this memoir, which journalist Jonathan Eig, the author of Ali: A Life , says “may be the all-time best-written memoir by a major athlete.” All who recommended it praised the book’s “shockingly” candid nature, pointing out Agassi’s honesty is especially rare for an athlete who was one of the most popular of his generation. “Few autobiographies have dared to show athletes so naked,” writer Sam Diss, the head of content at London-based soccer magazine Mundial , says, adding that Agassi is “not writing this book to stick the boot into old foes or people who screwed him out of money.” Instead, Diss says he’s “passed over, gone clear, and reveals his trauma and grudges with equal parts pain and catharsis, in a way that doesn’t feel point-scoring, but freeing.”

More recommended tennis memoirs

According to Dr. Amira Rose Davis, a Penn State professor of history and African-American studies who also co-hosts the feminist sports podcast Burn It All Down , “the long history of black women in sport” is often obscured in sportswriting. But memoirs by black female athletes, which allow them to “narrate their own careers,” can “push us all to consider whose voices we are missing when we tell sports stories.” One of those women is tennis champion Althea Gibson, who wrote two memoirs that Davis recommends. “Gibson broke the color line at Wimbledon and was the first African-American Grand Slam champion,” she tells us. The first, I Always Wanted to Be Somebody, chronicles Gibson’s journey from childhood to the majors, while the follow-up, So Much to Live For, chronicles Gibson’s transition from the game to a golf career and beyond. Davis considers both essential reading, but notes that the details of Gibson’s post-career struggles in the latter work are especially poignant, and “serve as a reminder that being the queen of the tennis court is all well is good” but, as Gibson writes, “you can’t eat a crown.”

Editor’s note: These two books are now out of print and therefore priced higher than others on this list.

Another historic player, Arthur Ashe, remains the only black male tennis player to win Wimbledon (among other major titles). Marshall Jon Fisher, author of A Terrible Splendor says Ashe’s memoir has been one of his favorites since he was 12 years old. “Ashe told his life story in the context of a diary of one year on the tennis tour — Wimbledon 1973 to Wimbledon 1974,” Fisher tells us. “If only he’d known he would finally win the hallowed tournament in ’75, he might have waited a year. But then we wouldn’t have the same searching, melancholy masterpiece.”

This 1978 memoir of playing the world tennis circuit in the late 1950s and early 1960s is a “hilarious and poignant gem,” Fisher tells us. “In those days, the tour was more collegial, as well as more attainable for a cast of colorful characters more interested in seeking life experience than in becoming multimillion-dollar ground-stroke machines.” And lucky for readers, Forbes jotted down observations while he toured that “should entertain tennis fans forever,” according to Fisher.

Best baseball memoirs

Best overall baseball memoirs.

Three people told us about pitcher Jim Bouton’s book about his career with the New York Yankees and other teams in the ’60s. According to writer Daniel Okrent (who is credited with inventing the scoring system for fantasy baseball), it is “the memoir that broke the mold, earning Bouton the enmity of his fellow players and the applause of generations of fans” for its honest details of legendary players’ drunkenness, womanizing, and prodigious drug use (including some tales that, Okrent admits, “are less hilarious today”). Mark Kram, Jr., the author most recently of Smokin’ Joe: The Life of Joe Frazier , calls it a “bawdy tell-all” and an “instant sports literary classic.” Bouton was known for his wild knuckleballs, and Eig says that he “tossed the perfect knuckleball with this.”

This memoir by the one-time owner of the Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Browns, and Chicago White Sox was recommended to us by both Kram and former Grantland editor Rafe Bartholomew . “Baseball owners were a hidebound and altogether humorless bunch until Bill Veeck crashed the party,” according to Kram, who tells us that, “with a wooden leg, Veeck lugged home from the South Pacific in World War II, sent a dwarf to the plate, gave us the exploding scoreboard, and cooked up countless other promotional stunts that imbued a gray game with jump and color.” Kram says that Veeck’s memoir is “full of colorful tales and big ideas,” adding that he was fortunate enough to spend time with Veeck on a few occasions and that he “emerges in his book just as he was in person. One can almost hear his gravelly chuckle.”

More recommended baseball memoirs

Pitcher Jim Brosnan’s memoir focuses on his time playing for the St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds in 1959. Okrent says that the memoir about Brosnan’s “unexceptional season with two unexceptional teams remains the most honest — and, I suspect, most accurate — account of the daily life of a ballplayer that we’ve ever seen.” It wasn’t meant to be a book filled with shocking revelations, according to Okrent, but is now thought of as one thanks to Brosnan’s inclusion of the Cardinals’ trainer “distributing an early form of steroids and amphetamines to the players.”

This bittersweet memoir tells the story of Pat Jordan’s promising, yet unfulfilled career as a pitcher. According to Kram, it’s a “hall-of-fame, lyrical memoir of youth ascendant and the hard luck that spares only the fortunate few.” Jordan began his career as a highly regarded schoolboy pitcher in 1950s Connecticut before, as Kram tells it, “signing with the Milwaukee Braves and spending three years toiling in bush league outposts such as McCook, Davenport, Waycross, Eau Claire and Palatka.” Then, 13 years after the Braves handed him his unconditional release, he revisited that period to write this — and later become “one of our preeminent sports journalists.”

Dirk Hayhurst succeeded where Pat Jordan did not, according to Kram, who notes he actually pitched in the big leagues (albeit briefly). Kram calls this, his second memoir, a “small gem,” noting it unfolds around and during his 2008 season with the San Diego Padres and offers a “candid account of the obstacles that he faced during his climb to the highest league, including conflicts with his eccentric grandmother, alliances and tensions with teammates, and the jitters he overcame when he finally got the call and discovered he was indeed out of his league.”

Best basketball memoirs

Best overall basketball memoirs.

Seven people recommended basketball memoirs, with two directing us to this one by NBA great and former U.S. senator from New Jersey, Bill Bradley. Both Bartholomew and Mike Tollin , an executive producer of ESPN’s The Last Dance , recommend the 240-page book that chronicles just 20 days in the life of Bradley’s time as a professional basketball player. Tollin, who told us he first learned about Bradley’s prowess by reading John McPhee’s famous 1965 profile of Bradley’s college basketball career at Princeton, says that reading the memoir “gave me an even greater appreciation for his humanity, and rare insight.”

“This classic deserves a much wider audience,” Eig tells us (Bartholomew is also a fan, as is Barack Obama, who called it the “best basketball book I’ve ever read.”) At the time he wrote it, Rick Telander was a faded football prospect who spent his time freelance writing and playing pickup basketball games in New York City. The memoir tracks his time observing and playing games at Flatbush’s Foster Park in the mid-1970s, and Telander rotates between observer, player, and team coach, reflecting throughout on the darker reality his fellow players from low-income neighborhoods would return to once the sun went down. “I remember Telander’s beautiful sentences, which feature his keen eye for detail, and his effortless blend of sociology and sport,” Eig says.

More recommended basketball memoirs

New York Times basketball and culture writer Sopan Deb recommends this 1980 memoir by legendary Boston Celtics center Bill Russell (who is regarded as the NBA’s first black superstar). “ Second Wind , in which he famously refers to Boston as a ‘flea market’ of racism, is an honest accounting by one of the most important athletes in the history of mankind,” Deb says.

Editor’s note: Due to this book’s recent popularity and the fact that it hasn’t been reissued (yet), we’re seeing it priced higher than others on this list.

Northwestern University’s director of sports journalism , J.A. Adande (who also appears on ESPN as a contributor), told us this is not only his favorite sports memoir, but that Abdul-Jabbar’s “fascinating perspectives” on race, religion, love, and America itself from the 1950s through the 1980s make it one of his favorite books ever. According to Adande, even though Abdul-Jabbar is one of the greatest players of all time, “basketball feels almost like an afterthought” in this book, or “something he pursued because he was tall and suited for it, but not something he felt as passionately about as, say, jazz.” Adande notes that Abdul-Jabbar has gone on to write dozens of books and essays on timely topics, and that “you can see the genesis of those in Giant Steps .”

Sports journalist and broadcaster Taylor Rooks told us about this memoir written by Tim Grover, a basketball trainer. But she assures he’s not just any trainer: “Tim Grover is the legendary trainer to athletes like Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, and Dwyane Wade.” The book, according to Rooks, focuses on the mental practices Grover taught these athletes (and others) to ensure they didn’t just have good seasons, but good careers. “It’s full of anecdotes and stories that make you feel closer to the players we all grew up watching,” she says, adding that it includes a favorite quote: “The only difference between feedback and criticism is the way you hear it.”

“My sports life has been consumed by two seminal NBA dynasties: the Michael Jordan Bulls and the Kobe-Shaq-Gasol Lakers,” sports and culture writer Dave Schilling says, adding that “those teams have one thing in common: head coach Phil Jackson.” According to him, anything Jackson wrote would have been a must-read given his shepherding of some of the greatest basketball players of all time, but Eleven Rings , which Schilling describes as memoir–cum–self-help book, goes the extra mile. “It gives an insight into how Jackson motivated his teams, which included a collection of massive egos, some of whom were not prone to taking orders,” he says. “It’s sort of a classic ‘Dad Lit’ book where the author delivers meme-able motivational insights.”

Best football memoirs

Best overall football memoir.

Four folks recommended books about American football, with three specifically highlighting George Plimpton’s memoir of his weeks-long athletic career (Plimpton, of course, is best known for helping to start the Paris Review). Diss describes the book as “the perfect encapsulation of a classic conversation starter: How long could you last in a match at professional level?” Spoiler alert: The answer, Diss points out (without giving the story away), is not long. “But Plimpton’s eloquence and brio propels this dive into American football in a way that’s both very funny and dredges up a newfound respect for even the lowliest pro athlete,” he explains. Okrent is also a fan, telling us “Plimpton’s weeks in uniform in the Detroit Lions’ training camp may have been a stunt, but the book is a gem. However bad Plimpton was as an NFL quarterback, he was that good as a writer — a truly winning combination.”

Another recommended football memoir

According to Rooks, this memoir, written by “one of the more polarizing figures in sports, forces us to ask many questions, especially ‘When does a person who did bad things qualify for the public’s forgiveness?’” Finally Free , Rooks says, tackles Vick’s search for that answer as he goes through his many controversies. “It stuck with me,” she says, “because it speaks to the idea that the bad things that happen to us shape us just as much as the good.”

Best soccer memoirs

Best overall soccer memoir.

While High Fidelity author Nick Hornby spent even less time playing professional sports than George Plimpton (a.k.a. no time at all), Fever Pitch was recommended to us as the ultimate fan’s memoir by three people, two of whom say they weren’t really fans of soccer before picking it up. The book “reads like a letter from a friend,” according to Diss, who describes the plot as “a fan in conversation with himself, in a doomed romance with his club, and asking what it all means to have those men chasing after a ball and those people standing there in the freezing cold and rain watching them do so.” Schilling says Fever Pitch was his entrée into the world of obsessive soccer fandom, telling us the prose “played right into my young-adult-male belief in intellectual and emotional purity. If you are going to love something — Arsenal, the Smiths, comic books, sketch comedy — you better love it to the point that it damages your ability to function in society or hold a job.” Sports journalist Sarah Baicker adds that you “probably don’t even have to care about sports to love the book, but if you do, as I do, you’ll recognize yourself in Hornby’s fandom.”

Another recommended soccer memoir

Wambach’s autobiography came recommended to us by sports reporter and commentator Kate Fagan . According to Fagan, the former star forward of the U.S. women’s national team “isn’t here to build her brand or make you love her, she’s here to be honest about her life, about her drinking, and about the inside workings about the peaks and valleys of being a professional athlete.” For that reason, she says that “if you want to really understand the grind of an athlete — read this.”

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13 Of The Best Sports Biographies Ever Written

Ali: A Life by Jonathan Eig

Muhammad Ali needs no introduction. This book draws on more than 500 interviews with those who knew him best, including friends, family members and mentors. Thanks to some specially commissioned research, it paints a vivid picture of one of the most significant personalities of the 20th century. Readers are taken inside the ring for some of the most famous bouts in boxing history, before learning about Ali’s activism, conversion to Islam, personal life – which included several affairs and controversies – and his decline from Parkinson’s disease. 

Available here

Provided You Don't Kiss Me: 20 Years With Brian Clough by Duncan Hamilton

Brian Clough made a name for himself as the outspoken non-nonsense manager of Nottingham Forest during the mid-70s. Those who knew him say he was unpredictable and volatile, relying on alcohol to deal with failure and success on and off the pitch. Duncan Hamilton was a young journalist in the middle of Clough’s empire who saw it all. In this book, he paints a vivid portrait of Clough, from Nottingham Forest's double European Cup triumph to his descent into alcoholism.

The Death of Pantani by Matt Rendell

Italian cyclist Marco Pantani is widely regarded as one of the sport’s greatest. His unrivalled stamina and climbing abilities led to historic wins at the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia in 1998 – becoming one of only seven men to win both in the same year. Just six years later, Pantani was found dead in a cheap hotel. The autopsy revealed he had cerebral edema and heart failure as a result of cocaine poisoning. It transpired that he’d been addicted to coke for 15 years. This account includes exclusive interviews with his psychoanalysts, family and friends, who paint an indelible picture of an extremely talented – and flawed – athlete. 

Proud by Gareth Thomas

In 2009, Gareth Thomas made headlines around the world when he announced he was gay. One of the few top athletes to have come out, Thomas made news again a decade later when he revealed he was HIV positive. For years, he’d been hiding who he really was, but on the pitch, he had it all – national hero, sporting icon, leader of men, and captain of Wales and the British Lions. For Thomas, rugby was an expression of cultural identity, but his secret was slowing killing him, and he was scared what would happen to his wife and family if news got out. Thomas’ inspiring and moving story has given him – and his readers – a fresh perspective on what masculinity really means. 

Open. An Autobiography by Andre Agassi

Andre Agassi is one of the greatest tennis players of all time. But, as talented as anyone, he quickly came to hate the game. Coaxed to swing a racket while still in the crib, forced to hit hundreds of balls a day by his violent father, Agassi resented the constant pressure, even as he drove himself to become a prodigy. After winning the Wimbledon Championships in 1992, he became a fan favourite. What makes this book so captivating is Agassi’s near-photographic memory – every pivotal match is described as if it took place yesterday, while personal highlights (like his brief fling with Barbra Streisand) are colourfully recounted. 

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan

This book won the Pulitzer Prize for biography and made its way onto Obama’s summer reading list back in 2016. For many, surfing is an adrenalated hobby, but for some it’s more than that. New Yorker writer William Finnegan started surfing as a young boy in California and Hawaii. Barbarian Days takes readers on a journey through a life spent chasing waves across the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Africa and beyond. Describing the intense relationship between himself, the board and the water, Finnegan details his most dangerous surfs and razor-sharp survival instincts in the water. A fascinating and compelling read from a man battling a “beautiful addiction”.

Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

His career wasn’t always plain sailing, but Sir Alex Ferguson eventually became the greatest football manager of his generation. A player back in the 60s and 70s, Ferguson went on to manage a string of Scottish teams before taking charge of Manchester United for nearly 30 years. Here, he reflects on a managerial career that included unprecedented European success for Aberdeen and many triumphant seasons with United, and reveals how he stayed sane at the peak of his profession. An entertaining, insight-filled must-read for all football fans. 

Put Me Back On My Bike by William Fotheringham

Tom Simpson was one of Britain’s most successful cyclists until his tragic death on the barren moonscape of the Mont Ventoux during the 1967 Tour de France – aged just 30 years old.  A man of contradictions, Simpson was one of the first cyclists to admit to using banned drugs, and was accused of fixing races, but he still managed to inspired awe and affection. Put Me Back on My Bike revisits the places and people associated with Simpson to show how he became a sporting legend in just a few short years.

Coming Back To Me by Marcus Trescothick

England cricketer Marcus Trescothick surprised fans and teammates when he prematurely ended his international career. At 29, Trescothick was widely regarded as one of the batting greats. With more than 5,000 Test runs to his name and eternal status as a 2005 Ashes hero, he’d already achieved more than he’d set out to. On Saturday 25th February 2006, four days before leading England into the first Test against India, Trescothick walked from the field in the midst of a mental breakdown. In the dressing room, he broke down in tears, overwhelmed by a blur of anguish, uncertainty and sadness he had been keeping at bay for longer than he knew. His account of performing at the top highlights an important conversation about the unique pressures and mental struggles many athletes face.

Undisputed Truth by Mike Tyson

No doubt Mike Tyson was a phenomenal boxer. But some of his antics in and outside the ring are much more questionable. There’s the rape conviction early in his career, the biting off of Evander Holyfield’s ear, and the cocaine addiction which led to his bankruptcy in the early noughties. In his own words, Tyson’s talks openly and movingly about a troubled childhood (he was arrested 38 times before he was 13), his financial ruin, and playing up to his ‘bad boy’ persona on a world stage.

The Accident Footballer by Pat Nevin

Pat Nevin never wanted to be a professional footballer, but went on to captivate audiences around the world with his quick footwork in the wing. Growing up in Glasgow's East End, he loved playing football, but he also loved reading classic literature, nights out with his mates, and listening to indie music until the early hours. With spells at Chelsea and Everton, Nevin became a household name, but here he discusses the joys of professional football alongside its contradictions and conflicts – and what it means to be defined by your job.

Lewis Hamilton: The Biography by Frank Worrall

Sir Lewis Hamilton has redefined British racing, and what it means to be a Black athlete at the top of the game. In this new biography, Frank Worrall charts his rise to stardom, starting with Hamilton's debut season in 2007, which won him fans around the world. Hamilton’s performance on the track has led to legendary status, but his personal life has also landed him on the front pages of the tabloids time and again. Then in 2021 he received a knighthood, making his unexpected journey to the top even more unbelievable. 

The Mamba Mentality: How I Play by Kobe Bryant

American basketball great Kobe Bryant spent his entire 20-year career with the LA Lakers. Then, in January 2020 he tragically died alongside his daughter and seven others in a helicopter crash in California. Known as ‘Black Mamba’, he was a master of mental preparation and using a unique game plan to win time and again. Written before his untimely death, this book takes readers inside the mind of one of the most intelligent, analytical and creative sportsmen ever.

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24 Best Sports Biographies Books of All Time

Our goal : Find the best Sports Biographies books according to the internet (not just one random person's opinion).

• Type "best sports biographies books" into our search engine and study the top 5+ pages.
• Add only the books mentioned 2+ times.
• Rank the results neatly for you here! 😊 (It was a lot of work. But hey! That's why we're here, right?)

(Updated 2024)

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Last Updated: Monday 1 Jan, 2024

• Best Sports Biographies Books

An Autobiography

Andre Agassi

Born to Run

A hidden tribe, superathletes, and the greatest race the world has never seen.

Christopher McDougall

The Blind Side

Evolution of a game.

Michael Lewis

A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

Phil Knight

The Final Pitch

Barbarian Days

A surfing life.

William Finnegan

Eleven Rings

The soul of success.

Phil Jackson

Tiger Woods

Jeff Benedict

Michael Jordan

Roland Lazenby

The Boys in the Boat

Nine americans and their epic quest for gold at the 1936 berlin olympics.

Daniel James Brown

A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Laura Hillenbrand

The Mamba Mentality

Kobe Bryant

Touching the Void

Joe Simpson

An American Legend

Rafael Nadal

Alone on the Wall

Alex Honnold

Mariano Rivera

The Captain

The journey of derek jeter.

Ian O'Connor

My Autobiography

Steven Gerrard

The Story of My Life

Coming Back Stronger

Unleashing the hidden power of adversity.

The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero

David Maraniss

• The 33 Best Sports Books Ever Written | Esquire www.esquire.com
• The best sports books and autobiographies - Pan Macmillan www.panmacmillan.com
• The 25 Best Sports Books of All Time To Read in 2021 – SPY spy.com
• 50 Great Sports Biographies - Sports Management Degree Guide www.sports-management-degrees.com
• 100 Best Sports Biography Books of All Time (Updated for 2021) www.shortform.com

How was this Sports Biographies books list created?

We searched for 'best Sports Biographies books', found the top 5 articles, took every book mentioned in 2+ articles, and averaged their rankings.

How many Sports Biographies books are in this list?

There are 24 books in this list.

Why did you create this Sports Biographies books list?

We wanted to gather the most accurate list of Sports Biographies books on the internet.

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12 Game-Changing Sports Biographies and Memoirs

These winning reads smash the competition.

A great sports story gets everyone on their feet — whether you just finished your 10th marathon or you prefer to race through your TBR stack. The following sports biographies and memoirs are packed with athletic drama that every reader will enjoy, from underdog wins and buzzer-beater finishes to the off-court scandals and triumphant personal comebacks of the greatest athletes of our time.

Magic: The Life of Earvin "Magic" Johnson

By roland lazenby.

From Roland Lazenby, the renowned biographer of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Jerry West, comes Magic, the definitive sports biography of basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson. Johnson reached dazzling new heights over the course of his career on the court, transforming American basketball into top-tier entertainment with his exciting playing style and leading the Los Angeles Lakers to greatness during the team’s Showtime era. Yet Johnson also faced his share of scandals and controversies, including his extravagant lifestyle and shock retirement from basketball in the wake of his HIV diagnosis. Lazenby draws on hundreds of interviews with teammates, coaches, rivals, and more to capture every facet of this complex figure, offering a gripping and comprehensive account of the renowned player and his extraordinary career.

By Andre Agassi

A striking story about the double-edged sword of success, Open by Andre Agassi tracks the tennis star’s astounding triumphs, failures, and battles both on and off the court. Agassi went pro at the age of 16; by his early 20s, he was a tennis legend. Yet with worldwide success came pain, doubt, and relentless media scrutiny. Agassi opens up about it all in this candid and bestselling sports memoir, delivering a fascinating read for fans and newcomers alike. And if that isn’t enough to draw you in, note that Open is cowritten by J. R. Moehringer, one of the all-time ghostwriting greats, whose success with this narrative paved the way for his teaming up with Prince Harry on his recent smash memoir . 

Michael Jordan: The Life

Michael Jordan transcends the sports world. You know him even if you know nothing about basketball — and if you grew up in the ’90s, he was practically everywhere you looked. In Michael Jordan: The Life, Roland Lazenby tracks Jordan’s career from college kid to NBA superstar and beyond. Along the way, Lazenby complicates our collective understanding of the sports icon, countering Jordan’s on-court image with the darker sides of his character, his rocky relationships, and his merciless ambition.

By Abby Wambach

In Forward, soccer luminary and two-time Olympic gold medalist Abby Wambach shares her journey from being put on the boys’ soccer team at the age of seven to becoming one of the all-time greatest soccer players in the history of the sport. Wambach’s compelling account is suffused with grit and determination, and it speaks to the unique challenges women face in their quest for athletic greatness. It’s a must-read for sports fans and indeed anyone in need of inspiration. For a double dose of empowerment, check out Wolfpack , Wambach’s #1 New York Times bestseller from 2019 that encourages women to join together and unleash their inner potential.

Path Lit by Lightning

By david maraniss.

Written by David Maraniss, a two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and the biographer of such figures as Barack Obama and Roberto Clemente, Path Lit by Lightning tells the fascinating story of Jim Thorpe, a renaissance athlete whose rise and fall took on mythic proportions. Thorpe was one of the best all-around athletes the world had ever seen; he won medals in the decathlon and pentathlon in the 1912 Olympics, was an All-American football player, and played baseball for the New York Giants. Yet as a member of the Sac and Fox Nation, he also faced intense racism and discrimination that hobbled his career and ultimately led to a life of hardship. Maraniss movingly chronicles Thorpe’s life in this landmark sports biography, breaking down the myth to reveal the man at its core.

The Mamba Mentality

By kobe bryant.

Kobe Bryant’s presence on the court was legendary — and it belied a complicated and often troubled life off the court. In The Mamba Mentality, Bryant shares his outlook on life and basketball and delves into his famous “Mamba Mentality” philosophy, an approach to playing that’s built on passion, tenacity, and the singular pursuit of athletic excellence. It’s a fascinating look at the gone-too-soon powerhouse player and his thorny relationship with success, fame, and sports.

By Billie Jean King, Johnette Howard, and Maryanne Vollers

The world of sports would not be the same without Billie Jean King, a legend both in tennis and for her work breaking down barriers for women athletes. All In chronicles King’s career from her formative years through the 1973 Battle of the Sexes exhibition match against Bobby Riggs and the creation of the women’s pro tennis circuit to King’s acknowledgment of her sexual identity and coming out at the age of 51. At once a story of one person’s impact on tennis and a cultural revolution in the sports world, this winning memoir offers insight and guidance on issues from political activism and personal relationships to finding your true self.

Tiger Woods

By jeff benedict and armen keteyian.

In Tiger Woods, sportswriters Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian deliver a fully realized portrait of the eponymous golf titan. The bestselling sports biography draws on interviews with more than 250 people to chronicle Woods’s meteoric rise, scandalous fall, and triumphant return to world-class athletics. The unsparing narrative also shines a light on the damage parents can do in their single-minded quest to turn their children into star athletes, drawing connections between Woods’s unparalleled achievements on the golf course and his parents’ obsession with success. 

The Last Folk Hero

By jeff pearlman.

Bo Jackson was a one-man sports phenomenon in the 1980s and ’90s, excelling in football and baseball, and starring in one of the most successful ad campaigns in Nike history. In addition to his athletic triumphs, wild tales about Jackson leaping over parked cars and helping land a plane in distress elevated the sports star to mythical levels, like a modern-day Paul Bunyan. In The Last Folk Hero, sportswriter Jeff Pearlman tells the story of the man behind the myth. Drawing on more than 700 interviews, this fascinating sports biography is a must-read for Jackson superfans and for those eager to find out more about this larger-than-life American sports icon.

Good for a Girl

By lauren fleshman.

In the bestselling Good for a Girl, elite runner Lauren Fleshman draws on her own story and the work of psychologists and physiologists to advocate for a radical transformation of sports for young women. Competing in institutions that aren’t built for them, women athletes are held back from the beginning and plagued by sexism, eating disorders, and physical and mental injuries. Many would-be elites drop out before they can truly achieve greatness. Fleshman argues that we’re long overdue for a change. Readers will find plenty to love in Fleshman’s rousing narrative, which blends sports memoir with a manifesto and demonstrates a passion for personal success as well as creating a world in which all women athletes are allowed to thrive.

Ali: A Life

By jonathan eig.

Jonathan Eig’s bestselling and award-winning biography of Muhammed Ali turns the facts of Ali’s life and career into a harrowing story of courage, activism, and athletic excellence. The storied heavyweight boxer was not just an accomplished athlete but a natural performer, civil rights activist, and political protester. Drawing on interviews, FBI files, and archival recordings, Eig weaves a gripping tale of Ali’s boxing career, his political victories and personal triumphs, and his lasting impact on American culture.

By Jeff Benedict

We round out our list with a living legend who’s playing at the top of his game. In LeBron, Jeff Benedict chronicles LeBron James’s layered and inspirational story, from his early years of struggle as the son of a young mother to becoming the No.1 overall draft pick in the NBA straight out of high school and his transformation into the greatest basketball player of the 21 st century. Based on three years of research and more than 250 interviews, Benedict’s sweeping narrative goes well beyond James’s success on the court, exploring his relationship to fame and his dual identity as a celebrity and an activist fighting for social justice .

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The 25 Best Sports Books of All Time

By Camille Hove

Camille Hove

Contributor

• Share This Article

We all miss the way sports used to be, but what better way to reconnect than with one of the best sports books of all time? The greatest books transport you to another world, and sports books are no exception.

Take a deep dive into the life of your favorite players, coaches and legends through a classic sports biography, memoir or even a playbook. Sports novels are another great way to experience your favorite game in a new way, especially when told through the lens of a sports fanatic who also happens to be a novelist. Or, if you’re more interested in bettering yourself, coaches like Pete Carrol have written how-to guides to help you improve your mental game on and off the field. Whatever it is you love about sports, be it the entertainment factor, the history or hometown pride, there’s a book here for you.

Get back into the game with the best sports books ever written. These 25 books are also great gifts for sports fans . So whether you love baseball, basketball, football or more obscure sports like trail running, we’ve got something for every type of player and fan.

1. Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

What better way to start a new hobby than with one of the most beloved American brands? Reading about the beginning and lasting legacy of Nike is an astute form of sports knowledge and entertainment. You’ll have plenty of fun facts and trivia to impress your friends with by the time we can all watch a game together again. Knight went on to sell his Nike shoes from the back of his car to being a worldwide phenomenon. His story is intriguing and brilliantly told: you won’t regret picking up a copy of this enthralling life story of the man behind the brand.

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Psa: adidas golf gear is up to 67% off on amazon right now, this pickleball paddle set is just $25 on amazon today, $9.08 $20.00 55% off, 2. born to run by christopher mcdougall.

If you’re an avid runner, then you probably have plenty of running memoirs and advice books but Christopher McDougall’s exploration of the Tarahumara Indians in Mexico’s Copper Canyon is the ultimate adventure story. McDougall set out to discover why his foot was hurting and discovered an entirely new (to him) way of running from the Tarahumara’s ancient practice. They can run for hundreds of miles without stopping, chasing deer and Olympic marathoners with equal glee, but what’s their secret? Why have we all been running wrong this entire time? McDougall’s book explores all of these questions and seeks to answer his own initial question of why he’s been taught the wrong techniques his entire life. Pick up this book if you’re interested in a new way of running and to explore an untold history.

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

$16 $35.00 54% off, 3. the mamba mentality: how i play by kobe bryant.

Famous all-star player Kobe Bryant’s book has been an all-time favorite since its publication in 2018. The basketball star goes on to explain his role in the game and how he personally approaches it with a strong mindset and something called “the Mamba Mentality” which he cites is his key to success. A teacher, mentor, and fan favorite, Bryant has given the world a gift with this book, a how-to guide for young players around the world to play in his style. As one of the most successful and creative players, Bryant has a thing or two to say to young people or anyone seeking to find their way into the game. A great book for any basketball fan and aspiring player.

The Mamba Mentality: How I Play by Kobe Bryant

$18.00 $40.00 55% off, 4. one line drive: a life-threatening injury and a faith fueled comeback by daniel ponce de leon and tom zenner.

At once a horrific story of injury and an amazing recovery story, Daniel Ponce De Leon was drafted four times by the MLB, only to take a hard one line drive to the skull that landed him in the hospital. Told with the help of writer Tom Zenner, De Leon’s story is a tale of how faith can take us as far as we want to go. The book follows De Leon’s miraculous recovery 14 months later to show one of the most impressive baseball pitching debuts in history. A great read for anyone seeking encouragement that your dreams are never over.

One Line Drive: A Life Threatening Injury and a Faith Fueled Comeback by Daniel Ponce De Leon and Tom Zenner

$19.59 $26.00 25% off, 5. i came as a shadow: an autobiography by john thompson.

Georgetown University’s famous basketball coach has finally gifted us with a book of personal secrets. Having spent the last three decades inside the lives of famous players, on the front lines of racial disparity, and coming to terms with his childhood in the Jim Crow south, Thompson opens up and lets readers in. You won’t want to miss this autobiography for all of it’s insider stories, basketball lore, and plain good history. A great book for any basketball hopeful or fan.

I Came as a Shadow: An Autobiography by John Thompson

$20.59 $29.99 31% off, 6. finding ultra by rich roll.

Rich Roll may be known best for his podcast but it all started with the book. His inspirational story covers the transformation he made from slightly overweight and not exercising, abusing alcohol and feeling depressed to becoming an Ironman athlete. His story is at once an inspiring tale and a cautionary one, foretelling what we can let happen to our bodies but also how we are capable of so much wonderful change. This is a great book for anyone on the cusp of changing their life or for those who are realizing they need to.

Finding Ultra by Rich Roll

$15.50 $18.00 14% off, 7. the bona fide legend of cool papa bell by lonnie wheeler.

The historical legend that is Cool Papa Bell is a baseball player rich in stories and history. Born to sharecroppers in the south, baseball saved him from a life working in the slaughterhouses. A player known for his speed, Bell’s story is told by baseball writer and historian Lonnie Wheeler, who charts his ups and downs throughout the US during racial disparity and Bell’s escape to Mexico and the Dominican Republic to be free of the MLB color line. This is a fantastic story for all baseball fans and contains legends and lore you won’t want to miss.

The Bona Fide Legend of Cool Papa Bell by Lonnie Wheeler

$21.11 $28.00 25% off, 8. montana: the biography of football’s joe cool by keith dunnavant.

This epic football biography covers the life of the legend Joe Cool, one of the most famous and influential players out there. Writer Keith Dunnavant takes readers along for a sweeping view of the life and struggles of Joe Cool as he portrays a keen-eyed portrait of the man who again and again defied the odds of the game. This competitive player’s life was a routine of tension on and off the field from back surgery to the father who pushed him to the college coach who nearly got rid of him and every football fan who’s ever played a sport will relate to his harrowing journey. An excellent choice for anyone missing out on the action.

Montana: The Biography of Football's Joe Cool by Keith Dunnavant

$11.05 $26.00 58% off, 9. qb: my life behind the spiral by steve young and jeff benedict.

Steve Young started out as an eighth-string quarterback at BYU — slim chances of ever getting to the big leagues but his story changed when he became All American and was the first pick of drafting season. But the more intense and deeply personal story of Young comes with the revealing of his anxiety and the consequences that led him to almost leave the NFL forever. An instant New York Times Bestseller, Young’s story is a lesson for all young sports players about mental health and where the intensity can lead you, on and off the field.

QB: My Life Behind the Spiral by Steve Young

$14.49 $21.99 34% off, 10. tiger woods by jeff benedict and armen keteyian.

The inspiration for the HBO series directed by Alex Gibeny, the real untold story of Tiger Woods, one of the greatest golfers that ever lived. Dive deeper than ever before for the harrowing account of the superstar’s childhood, relationship with his father, and his narrow focus on golf and how he came to be the best player in history. As the most famous player in 2009, to the terrible Thanksgiving Day crash that set his personal and professional life over a cliff, who is Tiger Woods, really? A fantastic story told by two excellent sports writers, this is a great book for any fan of Woods looking to continue the story.

Tiger Woods by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian

$13.49 $20.99 36% off, 11. talking to goats: the moments you remember and the stories you ever heard by jim gray.

Jim Gray is one of the best sports historians and sportscaster of all time and he’s written an enticing tell-all book about his adventures with and around some of the best players during some of the best games in the world. Why not read about the juiciest tales in sports lore by anyone other than Jim Gray? From his view on the sidelines to the dugout, Gray has written memorable tales from his career as a sportscaster to insider never heard before stories. A great book for any sports junkie with a keen ear for legendary players.

Talking to GOATs: The Moments You Remember and the Stories You ever Heard by Jim Gray

$11.54 $28.99 60% off, 12. gods at play: an eyewitness account of great moments in american sports by tom callahan.

A prolific sports writer and columnist for Time magazine, Tom Callahan witnessed many memorable moments in US sports history and has decided to document the stories for everyone to read. Told in vignette-style prose, Callahan writes about the smaller scenes that no one else witnessed to the heavy hitters like Muhammad Ali fighting George Foreman in Zaire. He keeps his stories interesting and intriguing, leaving the reader wanting more and more. Callahan was a great witness to sports history and every avid fan will enjoy this book.

Gods at Play: An Eyewitness Account of Great Moments in American Sports by Tom Callahan

$16.39 $26.95 39% off, 13. best american sports writing 2020 edited by glenn stout and jackie macmullan.

These pieces are the best sports writing published in 2020 and edited by the esteemed Glenn Stout and Jackie MacMullan. Take a tour through the past year and relive your favorite moments again and again through some of the best journalism from around the world. A few stories include “For People Suffering from Alzheimer’s and Dementia, Baseball Brings Back Fun Memories” by Bill Plaschke in which the journalist Plaschke interviews patients and observes their fondness for the game brighten their eyes to Bryan Burrough following a man-eating tiger hunt in India. More than just play-by-play coverage of your favorite games in the States, the Best American Sports Writing follows journalists as they travel the world and bring back intriguing stories for their audience. A must-have for any sports fan.

Best American Sports Writing 2020 edited by Glenn Stout and Jackie Macmullan

$13.34 $16.99 21% off, 14. tom seaver: a terrific life by bill madden.

A biography of one of the greatest pitchers of all time, Tom Seaver, recounts the life and achievements of baseball’s favorite star. One of only two pitchers with 300 wins, 3,000 strikeouts, and an ERA under 3.00, he was a twelve-time All-Star and inducted into the Hall of Fame with the highest ever percentage at the time. Seaver was quite the popular player among fans and teammates alike, often putting the success of the team over his own personal glory. Bill Madden sweeps through his life and career with excellent storytelling, finding the true joy that baseball and its amazing players to the fans at home. A must-have biography for any baseball buff.

Tom Seaver: A Terrific Life by Bill Madden

$16.82 $28.00 40% off, 15. alone on the wall: alex honnold and the ultimate limits of adventure by alex honnold and david roberts.

We all gasped at the film Free Solo , right? If not, head to Disney Plus and watch it immediately . Well, guess what, it’s the same guy, and this is the book he wrote along with David Roberts that explores seven of his most insane climbs, From Yosemite’s breathtaking Half Dome to Mexico’s El Sendero Luminoso, follow along as Honnold explores the why and how he free climbs all of these giants alone. He gets across the singular focus and drive it takes to look morality in the face every time he goes for a climb and takes us on his harrowing journey through the world’s best climbs. A great read for anyone seeking adventure and thrills.

Alone on the Wall: Alex Honnold and the Ultimate Limits of Adventure by Alex Honnold and David Roberts

16. barbarian days: a surfing life by william finnegan.

Surfer and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist William Finnegan explores the different surfing locales around the world and with them, the local people and culture. Take a trip with Finnegan as he surfs his way to paradise and offers insights on humility, surfing, and traveling. He gives us stories of his childhood growing up in Hawaii, being in an all-white gang when his best friend was Hawaiian, dropping LSD while surfing one of the biggest waves in the world on Maui, and traversing the black market in Indonesia, all while keeping the reader engaged. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2016, this will forever remain a popular book, one of the best on surfing ever written.

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan

$15.19 $19.00 20% off, 17. it’s not about the bike: my journey back to life by lance armstrong.

The legendary Lance Armstrong may be America’s most controversial athlete of all time, and his tell-all book is an intriguing read into the life of the strong cyclist. If you’re at all curious about what happened before and after Lance’s big scandal in the early aughts, to his early racing career, to his battle with cancer, then you’re in for a treat. If you’re a cycling fan or not, this is an epic sports book for any endurance junkie who’s interested in other’s lives in and around the sport that has focused their life.

It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life by Lance Armstrong

18. why we swim by bonnie tsui.

If you’re a curious swimmer, you’ll enjoy Bonnie Tsui’s exploration of the history of humans swimming, our collective obsession with water and the idea of relaxation it comes with, and of course, the long laps some of us enjoy. Why do people swim? Why do we enjoy it? Tsui explores these questions as well as her own love of swimming in this comprehensive look at our history as a whole with water. A truly beautiful book that any swimmer will love it and want to share with their friends.

Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui

19. to shake the sleeping self: a journey from oregon to patagonia, and a quest for a life with no regret by jedidiah jenkins.

At once a cycling journey and a spiritual journey, Jenkins quits his job on the eve of turning 30 in search of a more profound existence. As his journey unfolds, we see him begin to question his relationship with God, his family, and his sexuality. He goes on many curious adventures that are breathtaking to read and that won’t let you put the book down. Travel along with Jenkins as he makes his way through South America while tackling his own ideas of religion and the power of family. A truly engaging read for anyone who wants to cycle across a continent and survey their own life and its trajectory.

To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regret by Jedidiah Jenkins

$15.00 $26.00 42% off, 20. miracle in lake placid: the greatest hockey story ever told by john gilbert.

One of the best-known stories in US hockey history as told by journalist John Gilbert, Miracle in Lake Placid is a book of the great details and the aftermath of the player’s lives. What happened after that fateful game with the Soviets? How did hockey change in our collective memory? The effects that rippled out to reach a generation of readers is here in one epic book. This is the story you’ll want to give any hockey fan in your family.

Miracle in Lake Placid: The Greatest Hockey Story Ever Told by John Gilbert

21. the art of fielding by chad harbach.

Maybe the greatest baseball novel of all time and the most talked about, Chad Harbach’s famous book is not to be missed by any reader, sports fan or not. The love of the game certainly comes through in this epic saga of one pitcher’s destiny and the fates of five others as the story spirals outward. At once a harrowing tale of friendship, choice, and regret, Harbach writes with great empathy and precision about how our decisions may alter more than just ourselves.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

$10.95 $19.99 45% off, 22. the cactus league by emily nemens.

In this character-driven world obsessed with baseball, writer Emily Nemens transports readers to a new land where protagonist Jason Goodyear is stationed with his team for their annual spring training in Arizona. But Goodyear is hiding more than he lets on and is beginning to unravel, affecting all of his coaches, friends, fans, and family. What will happen to him? As his diehard fans watch closely to find out, Nemens spins a tale bright with the Arizona sun and the humility of the player’s psyches. Told in breathtaking prose, an expert at baseball herself, Nemens weaves throughout her knowledge of the game on and off the field. Not a book to be missed.

The Cactus League by Emily Nemens

$12.63 $17.00 26% off, 23. beneath the surface: my story by michael phelps and brian cazenevue.

In this startling memoir, Olympic gold medalist swimmer Michael Phelps takes us into his world pre-swimming and after the limelight. He describes his struggles with ADD, his parent’s divorce, and how the amount of attention in the spotlight affected him in and out of the pool. Like any great athlete, Phelps shares his story for the world to see, honest and tender, touching and heartbreaking. The inner lives of athletes always seem to be a mystery to most but when they open up in a memoir, we are allowed to see a truly unique peek into their souls. If you’re interested in swimming, the inner workings of high caliber athletes, or just love the Olympics, Michael Phelps has a story for you.

Beneath The Surface: My Story by Michael Phelps and Brian Cazenevue

$11.79 $16.99 31% off, 24. the boys in the boat by daniel james brown.

One of the oldest and revered sports in American history is rowing and Daniel James Brown has written a beautiful and compelling story of the nine young men trying for the Olympic gold in 1936. Individual stories tell this harrowing account and the fight for Olympics glory. Brown takes us from Seattle Washington to the rivers in Berlin where the boys in the boat must stake their final claim for victory. A breathtaking and captivating story for all sports fans to enjoy.

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

25. the champion’s mind: how great athletes think, train, and thrive by jim afremow.

More than a guide, this instructional book by sports psychologist Jim Afremow, PhD, shows us how to thrive like a professional athlete by sharing their stories, successes, and failures. Why not up your own ability by researching how the pro’s do it? Most of sports is the mental challenge, the competitive edge they thrive on during a race or game versus physical ability, but that’s important too. Can you change your mindset to thrive on the court? Better your pitch or stroke? Afremow shows us how humans are capable of change and has given us a wonderful guide into how to do it that includes workouts, tips, and tricks.

The Champion's Mind: How Great Athletes Think, Train, and Thrive by Jim Afremow

$14.39 $15.99 10% off, honorable mention: win forever by pete carroll.

Pete Carroll first rose to fame as the head coach of the USC Trojans, and under his leadership, the team won six bowl games and a BCS National Championship. After graduating to the NFL, he would coach the Seattle Seahawks to their first-ever Super Bowl win. Carroll has a proven track record of elite success, and he shares his secrets to cultivating a winning lifestyle and mindset in this inspirational sports book. Carrol shares his tips for playing and living like a champion, and while that might sound like a typical self-help book, this best-selling book has so much more to offer.

Camille is a writer and amateur bike racer in New York City. She has an MFA from the New School and is currently at work on a novel.

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The best sports books and autobiographies

From gritty sports autobiographies by olympic athletes and a multiple ballon d’or winner to explorations of marathon running and the cultural impact of football, here is a trophy cabinet of some of the best sports books jostling for position on the shelves..

Determined, competitive and possessing an impressive capacity for mental endurance – the characteristics that make great athletes often lead them to live extraordinary lives. Sports autobiographies offer us the opportunity to get the full story behind the goals, records and medals, as well as help us understand the wider impact of the athletic world off the field.

Whether your favourite sport requires a ball, an engine or even a hoof, here is a compilation of the best sports books and autobiographies out there.

• Running & athletics
• Other sports

The best football books

By chris kamara.

One of the most well-known faces of the beautiful game, Chris ‘Kammy’ Kamara is a national treasure. Now, he’s sharing the story of his incredible life. From his days in the Royal Navy and a playing career that took him all over England to becoming one of the game’s best-loved commentators, Kammy lifts the lid on a career that he could never have dreamt of growing up in Middlesbrough. Told with unflinching honesty, but with his trademark humour and positivity, this is a must-read for any football fan.

The World's Biggest Cash Machine

By chris blackhurst.

In The World's Biggest Cash Machine , Chris Blackhurst meticulously unravels the controversial reign of the Glazers over Manchester United. Purchasing the club in 2005, they ignited global discontent, driving it into record debts and marking the fiscal transformation of football. Despite on-field declines, they flourished financially. Blackhurst probes their secretive lives and business acumen, while mapping the club’s captivating journey amidst the Premier League’s metamorphosis into a billionaires' haven.

On Days Like These

By martin o'neill.

With a career spanning over fifty years, Martin tells of his exhilarating highs and painful lows; from the joys of winning trophies, promotion and fighting for World Cups to being harangued by fans, boardroom drama, relegation scraps and being fired. Written with his trademark honesty and humour,  On Days Like These  is one of the most insightful and captivating sports autobiographies and a must-read for any fans of the beautiful game.

Cheers, Geoff!

By geoff shreeves.

Packed full of hilarious stories on and off the pitch – including trying to teach Sir Michael Caine how to act, a frightening encounter with Mike Tyson, as well as getting a lift home from the World Cup with Mick Jagger –  Cheers, Geoff!  is a must-read autobiography for any football fan. A natural storyteller, Geoff brings an astonishing catalogue of tales to life with his unique brand of experience, insight and humour.

The Little Red Book of Klopp

It’s debatable whether Jürgen Klopp is better-known for his charisma off the pitch or his success on it. Having brought Liverpool back to winning ways in both the Premier League and the UEFA Champions League, Klopp is known for captivating press conferences and charming touch-line antics. The Little Red Book of Klopp is a collection of his most iconic sayings, from light-hearted witticisms to cutting insults.

The Age of Football

By david goldblatt.

For many people around the world, football is so much more than just a game. In The Age of Football , sport historian David Goldblatt widens the lens to trace how the game intersects politics, economics and wider culture. With focuses as diverse as prison football in Uganda, the presidency of Recep Erdogan and the importance of the beautiful game in the Arab Spring, David demonstrates the extent to which the sport impacts society today.

My Life in Football

By kevin keegan.

Whether it’s being the only Englishman to win the Ballon d’Or twice, achieving European glory with Liverpool or managing Newcastle from the bottom of the Second Division to the brink of winning the Premier League title, Kevin Keegan – known as ‘King Kev’ – has proven his pedigree both on the pitch and the touchline.  His autobiography details the highs and lows of an illustrious career, including clashes with Sir Alex Ferguson and his return to Newcastle during the controversial Mike Ashley era.

The best rugby books

By rassie erasmus.

Rassie Erasmus, a rugby maverick, unfolds his unconventional journey from player to coach in the pinnacle of the sport. This candid account delves into his pivotal roles in iconic Springbok teams, grappling with injuries, and pioneering coaching methods. Most crucially, Rassie talks about his greatest contribution to South African rugby: appointing its first black captain, Siya Kolisi, without much fanfare or controversy. As his bold plans for effective racial transformation of the national team achieved immediate success, they culminated in glory at the 2019 Rugby World Cup. 

Too Many Reasons to Live

By rob burrow.

The inspirational memoir from rugby league legend Rob Burrow on his extraordinary career and his battle with motor neurone disease.

This is the story of a tiny kid who adored rugby league but never should have made it  –  and ended up in the Leeds hall of fame. It's the story of a man who resolved to turn a terrible predicament into something positive  –  when he could have thrown the towel in. It's about the power of love, between Rob and his childhood sweetheart Lindsey; and of friendship, between Rob and his faithful team mates. Far more than a sports memoir,  Too Many Reasons to Live  is a story of boundless courage and infinite kindness.

‘ He is one in a million and his story is truly inspirational ’ Clare Balding on Rob Burrows

Belonging: The Autobiography

By alun wyn jones.

Belonging  is the story about how as a boy, Alun Wyn Jones left Mumbles and returned as the most capped rugby player of all time. It is the story of what it takes to become a player who is seen by many as one of the greatest Welsh players there has ever been. What it takes to go from sitting, crossed legged on the hall floor at school, watching the 1997 Lions Tour of South Africa to being named the 2021 Lions Captain.

But is it also about  perthyn  - belonging, playing for Wales, what it takes to earn the right to be there, and what it feels like to make the sacrifices along the way. 

‘ Unbelievable player. Magnificent captain. One of the game’s greatest icons. ’ James Haskell on Alun Wyn Jones

by Eddie Jones

One of the most successful sports coaches ever, Eddie Jones took three separate nations to Rugby World Cup Finals, and enjoyed a success rate with the England team of almost eighty per cent. An expert in guiding and managing high-performing teams, Jones believes that his methods can be applied to many walks of life. From fostering ambition to following your curiosity, Jones shares his methodology, much of it learned through conversations with other successful managers and leaders, including Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger and Pep Guardiola. Leadership  is the ultimate guide to being your best, in rugby and in life.

My Life and Rugby

With a career spanning four World Cups, Eddie Jones is one of the most seasoned figures in Rugby Union. Possessing an unparalleled ability to transform teams, he built the Japan national team into the side that defeated South Africa in 2015, and turned a struggling England team into finalists at the 2019 World Cup. The England coach is never afraid to speak his mind, and his autobiography is told true to unflinching form.

The best running & athletics books

The running book, by john connell.

John Connell, award-winning author of The Cow Book, takes the reader on a marathon run of 42.2 kilometres through Ireland. Over 42 chapters and 42,000 words, John reflects on his life, Irish history and the stories of his greatest running heroes. Whether you’re a keen runner or you’d just like to read what it’s like to undertake a marathon, The Running Book is the perfect endorphin-filled sports book about the nature of happiness and how it can be found on foot.

Unbelievable - From My Childhood Dreams To Winning Olympic Gold

By jessica ennis.

Jessica Ennis-Hill has been one of the poster girls for women in sport for years. Indeed, arguably the greatest moment of the London 2012 games came when Jessica secured her heptathlon gold medal. But her rise was beset with challenges. From being bullied as a child for being small to her career-threatening injury on the eve of the 2008 Olympics, Jessica has had to show plenty of perseverance to prove her doubters wrong. This sports autobiography tells the full story behind the world’s greatest female all-rounder athlete.

The best tennis books

My life: queen of the court, by serena williams.

Serena Williams needs little introduction, having won every major title going in tennis. From growing up playing on courts covered in broken glass in Compton to reaching the top of world tennis, all while being criticised for her unorthodox playing style and dealing with the tragic shooting of her older sister, Serena has proven herself an inspiration to her multitudes of fans. In My Life , she reflects on her extraordinary journey.

The Inner Game of Tennis

Recently named by Bill Gates as one of his 'all-time favourite books', and described by Billie Jean King as her 'tennis bible', this bestseller has been a must-read for tennis players of all abilities for nearly fifty years. Rather than concentrating on how to improve technique, Gallwey deals with the 'inner game' within ourselves as we try to overcome doubt and maintain clarity of mind when playing. 'It’s the best book on tennis that I have ever read,' says Gates, 'and its profound advice applies to many other parts of life.'

‘ Groundbreaking . . . It’s the best book on tennis that I have ever read, and its profound advice applies to many other parts of life. I still give it to friends today. ’ Bill Gates

The best boxing books

When fury takes over, by john fury.

Born into a family of Irish traveller heritage, Big John Fury descends from a long line of bare-knuckle fighters. So it’s no surprise that he too found himself fighting outside the ring at a young age. From his early years in Manchester, John learned to box by practising fighting within the travelling community, before graduating into the sport professionally. The ring has never been far from his sights, and John has played a crucial role in coaching and being a cornerman for his two-time British heavyweight champion son, Tyson Fury. From Netflix's  At Home With The Furys  this is the Gypsy Warrior, Big John Fury, totally unfiltered and in his own words.

Believe: Boxing, Olympics and my life outside the ring

By nicola adams.

Nicola Adams famously changed the face of sport at London 2012 when she became the first woman ever to win an Olympic gold medal for boxing. Repeating her medal haul at Rio 2016 further cemented her place in the nation’s hearts, while she has also gone on to become a champion for  LGBTQ+ rights and a contestant on BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing. Believe documents the grit and determination that got her to gold.

The best swimming books

By yusra mardini.

While Yusra Mardini was fleeing her native Syria for the Turkish coast in 2015, the small dingy she and many other refugees were on began to sink. Yusra, her sister and two others took to the water, pushing the boat for three and a half hours in open water until they arrived safely at Lesbos. Remarkably, Yusra went on to compete as a swimmer for the Refugee Olympic Athletes Team in the 2016 Rio Olympics, and also became a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador. Her autobiography is for anyone who loves true-life stories of outstanding resilience.

In the 1970s, Diana Nyad was widely regarded as the greatest long-distance swimmer in the world but one record continually eluded her: becoming the first woman to swim between Cuba and the Florida Keys. Finally, after four failed attempts and at the age of sixty-four, Diana completed the crossing. This memoir shows her unwavering belief in the face of overwhelming odds. Winner of the Cross Sports International Autobiography of the Year, this is a story of perseverance, tenacity and commitment on an epic scale.

The best books about other sports

Jan ullrich: the best there never was, by daniel friebe.

In 1997, Jan Ullrich obliterated his rivals in the first mountain stage of the Tour de France. So awesome was his display that it sent shockwaves throughout the world of cycling. Everyone agreed: Jan Ullrich was the future of cycling. He was also voted Germany’s most popular sportsperson of all time, and his rivalry with Lance Armstrong defined the most controversial years of the Tour de France. But just what did happen to the best who never was? This is an account of how unbearable expectation, mental and physical fragility, a complicated childhood, a morally corrupt sport and one individual – Lance Armstrong – can conspire to reroute destiny.

by Poorna Bell

Have you ever worried that you're not enough, or that, if you were stronger or more confident you would achieve more? In Stronger , award-winning journalist and competitive amateur powerlifter Poorna Bell investigates and unveils the potential that women can unlock when they realise their strength – both physical, and mental. Through examining her own experiences, as well as those of dozens of women, Bell shows how finding strength can work for you, regardless of your age, ability or background, and offers actionable ways for your to harness it in your life. 

Lights Out, Full Throttle

By damon hill.

Amassing 261 Grand Prix appearances between them, Johnny Herbert and Damon Hill have experienced all the highs, lows and injury records associated with the greatest names in motorsport. In Lights Out, Full Throttle , Johnny and Damon take the reader on a tour around the high-octane world of F1 racing, from Silverstone and safety to Monaco and money, as well as looking at the future of racing in the light of Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter.

Alone on the Wall

By alex honnold.

Anyone who has seen the Oscar and BAFTA-winning documentary Free Solo will be familiar with Alex Honnold’s vertigo-inducing work. As one of the world’s best ‘free solo’ climbers, Alex tackles perilous rock faces without the use of any climbing gear. Free soloists undertake one of the deadliest sports on the planet – many have died in pursuit of their sport. Alone on the Wall is a pulse-raising account of some of Alex’s greatest climbs, told with Alex ‘No Big Deal’ Honnold’s trademark calm and collected humour in the face of mortal danger. A sports autobiography for adrenaline junkies.

Dream Horse

By janet vokes.

Janet Vokes dreamed of breeding a working-class horse to take on the wealthy high-flyers. To pursue this idea she bought a mare for £350, bred it with a pedigree stallion and encouraged her Welsh mining village to band together to raise the resulting foal, Dream Alliance. Despite being raised on an allotment, Dream went on to defy the odds at Ascot, Aintree and even Cheltenham Festival. Heart-warming reading for anyone who loves a true underhorse sports book.

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The 100 best non-fiction books of all time, 25 best celebrity autobiographies to read right now, 50 best autobiographies & biographies of all time.

Best Sellers in Sports Biographies

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The Top 100 Sports Books Of All Time

• Author: Pete McEntegart

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ORIGINAL LAYOUT

In the early 1900s editor Maxwell Perkins told anyone who would listen that Chicago sports columnist Ring Lardner was the most talented writer he knew, high praise given that Perkins's stable included Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe. It shouldn't have come as a shock, though. Many of the country's best writers have long been fascinated with sports, and that passion shows up in their prose. After all, when done right, sportswriting transcends bats and balls to display all the traits of great literature: incision, wit, force and vision, suffused with style and substance. Herewith the editors of SI's favorite sports books, compiled with love and reason, out of intense and sometimes unruly discussions.

KEY Out of print New York Times best-seller Made into a movie Authors with other list-worthy books

1 The Sweet Science BY A.J. LIEBLING (1956)

Pound-for-pound the top boxing writer of all time, Liebling is at his bare-knuckled best here, bobbing and weaving between superb reporting and evocative prose. The fistic figures depicted in this timeless collection of New Yorker essays range from champs such as Rocky Marciano and Sugar Ray Robinson to endearing palookas and eccentric cornermen on the fringes of the squared circle. Liebling's writing is efficient yet stylish, acerbic yet soft and sympathetic. ("The sweet science, like an old rap or the memory of love, follows its victims everywhere.") He leavens these flourishes with an eye for detail worthy of Henry James. The one-two combination allows him to convey how boxing can at once be so repugnant and so alluring.

2 The Boys of Summer BY ROGER KAHN (1971)

A baseball book the same way Moby Dick is a fishing book, this account of the early-'50s Brooklyn Dodgers is, by turns, a novelistic tale of conflict and change, a tribute, a civic history, a piece of nostalgia and, finally, a tragedy, as the franchise's 1958 move to Los Angeles takes the soul of Brooklyn with it. Kahn writes eloquently about the memorable games and the Dodgers' penchant for choking--"Wait Till Next Year" is their motto--but the most poignant passages revisit the Boys in autumn. An auto accident has rendered catcher Roy Campanella a quadriplegic. Dignified trailblazer Jackie Robinson is mourning the death of his son. Sure-handed third baseman Billy Cox is tending bar. No book is better at showing how sports is not just games. [New York Times best-seller]

3 Ball Four BY JIM BOUTON (1970)

Though a declining knuckleballer, Bouton threw nothing but fastballs in his diary of the 1969 season. Pulling back the curtain on the seriocomic world of the big leagues, he writes honestly and hilariously about baseball's vices and virtues. At a time when the sport was still a secular religion, it was an act of heresy to portray players "pounding the Ol' Budweiser," "chasin' skirts" or "poppin' greenies." (And that was during games.) Bouton's most egregious act of sacrilege--his biting observations about former teammate Mickey Mantle--led to his banishment from the "Yankee family." But beyond the controversy, Ball Four was, finally, a love story. Bouton writes, "You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time." [New York Times best-seller]

4 Friday Night Lights BY H.G. BISSINGER (1990)

Schoolboy football knits together the West Texas town of Odessa in the late 1980s. But as Permian High grows into a dynasty, the locals' sense of proportion blows away like a tumbleweed. A brilliant look at how Friday-night lights can lead a town into darkness. [New York Times best-seller]

5 You Know Me Al BY RING LARDNER (1914)

This collection of letters from a fictional (and grammatically challenged) pitcher named Jack Keefe, originally published in installments in The Saturday Evening Post, earned lardner a spot in the pantheon of american humorists alongside mark twain and Will Rogers.

6 A Season on the Brink BY JOHN FEINSTEIN (1986)

Bob Knight still curses the day he granted the author unfettered access to his program. Feinstein's year as an honorary Hoosier yielded an unsparing portrait of Indiana's combustible coach and spawned the best-selling sports book of all time. [New York Times best-seller] [Made into a movie] [Authors with other list-worthy books]

7 Semi-Tough BY DAN JENKINS (1972)

Running back Billy Clyde Puckett of TCU and the Giants calls himself the "humminest sumbitch that ever carried a football." Puckett is also the funniest, and the dialogue in this raunchy novel still crackles. Also read Jenkins's golf novel, Dead Solid Perfect. [Out of print] [New York Times best-seller] [Made into a movie] [Authors with other list-worthy books]

8 Paper Lion BY GEORGE PLIMPTON (1965)

No one today does what the fearless Plimpton once did with regularity. Here, in his first Walter Mitty--esque effort, the author of the equally brilliant Shadow Box and The Bogey Man infiltrates the Detroit training camp as a quarterback with no arm, no legs and no shot. [Out of print] [New York Times best-seller] [Made into a movie] [Authors with other list-worthy books]

9 The Game BY KEN DRYDEN (1983)

Hall of fame goalie Dryden was always different. A Cornell grad, he led Montreal to six Stanley Cups, then at 26 sat out a year to prepare for the bar exam. His book is different too: a well-crafted account of his career combined with a meditation on hockey's special place in Canadian culture.

10 Fever Pitch BY NICK HORNBY (1991)

How can the rest of the world summon such passion for soccer? You'll understand after reading Hornby's deeply personal and wonderfully witty account of an otherwise normal bloke who develops a full-blown obsession with Arsenal, the English Premier League team. [Made into a movie]

11 A River Runs Through It BY NORMAN MACLEAN (1976)

One publisher rejected this novella because "the stories have trees in them"--thereby missing the forest. The tale of two brothers headed in different directions also has fly-fishing and family drama, presented in prose as crisp and clear as a Montana mountain stream. [New York Times best-seller] [Made into a movie]

12 Seabiscuit BY LAURA HILLENBRAND (2001)

People who've never been to the racetrack love this book, and it's easy to see why. Hillenbrand has an irresistible story to tell, about a homely hay burner who came to dominate the Depression-era sports pages, taking a colorful crew of humans along for the ride. [New York Times best-seller]

13 Loose Balls BY TERRY PLUTO (1990)

Flip to any page of this oral history of the wild-and-woolly ABA and you can kiss the next few hours goodbye. Pluto tells almost too-good-to-be-true stories about Marvin (Bad News) Barnes, Dr. J and obscure figures such as John Brisker, the meanest man in the league. [Authors with other list-worthy books]

14 Bang the Drum Slowly BY MARK HARRIS (1956)

Second of a quartet of baseball novels featuring star southpaw Henry Wiggen of the New York Mammoths, and a book that is in equal measures sober and silly. In this installment Wiggen's roommate and catcher, Bruce Pearson, is dying of cancer. [Made into a movie]

15 Heaven Is a Playground BY RICK TELANDER (1976)

The author hung around pickup games in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant section one summer and returned with this intriguing account of inner-city hoops, a trailblazer of its kind. Telander depicts the hopes--real and false--that the game offers its playground legends. [Made into a movie]

16 Levels of the Game BY JOHN MCPHEE (1969)

This gripping point-by-point breakdown of the 1968 U.S. Open semifinal between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner is as much sociology as sport, with each man explaining how his background shaped his game. Also read A Sense of Where You Are, McPhee's take on a young Bill Bradley. [Authors with other list-worthy books]

17 The Breaks of the Game BY DAVID HALBERSTAM (1981)

The pulitzer prize winner (for his Vietnam War coverage) focuses on the 1979--80 Trail Blazers. Like A Season on the Brink, Breaks proves that a down year can make for high drama. Halberstam's baseball books, Summer of '49 and October 1964, are also excellent. [Out of print] [New York Times best-seller] [Authors with other list-worthy books]

18 The Summer Game BY ROGER ANGELL (1972)

This collection of 21 New Yorker pieces, with gems on the woeful early Mets as well as the "flowering and deflowering of New England" during the Red Sox' 1967 "Impossible Dream" season, cemented Angell's place as the game's greatest essayist. [Out of print] [New York Times best-seller] [Authors with other list-worthy books]

19 The Long Season BY JIM BROSNAN (1960)

In 1959 Brosnan, a burnt-out reliever for the Cardinals and the Reds, kept a journal chronicling such things as the insecurity of superstars and the behavior of stewardesses on team flights. The result: a well-rendered inside glimpse that groomed the mound for Ball Four. [New York Times best-seller]

20 Instant Replay BY JERRY KRAMER AND DICK SCHAAP (1968)

After a publishing exec implored him to find the "football Brosnan" (see above), Schaap corralled Kramer, a literate lineman for Lombardi's Green Bay Packers. The book climaxes with Bart Starr's sneaking behind Kramer's block to win the Ice Bowl against the Cowboys. [Out of print] [New York Times best-seller]

21 Everybody's All-American BY FRANK DEFORD (1981)

In this novel Deford captures the romance and pageantry of 1950s football at North Carolina, then shows how star halfback Gavin Grey and his beauty-queen wife struggle after the cheering stops. Deford's 1975 biography Big Bill Tilden is also highly recommended. [Out of print] [Made into a movie] [Authors with other list-worthy books]

22 Fat City BY LEONARD GARDNER (1969)

Weighing in at a trim 189 pages, Gardner's tale meticulously depicts the seedy, second-rate boxing scene in Stockton, Calif., and the desperate but hopeful men who inhabit it. Many consider this and Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird to be the best two novels by one-time-only novelists. [Made into a movie]

23 The City Game BY PETE AXTHELM (1970)

The master prose stylist portrays parallel basketball worlds in New York City: Madison Square Garden, where the Knicks won the 1969--70 championship, and the playgrounds of Harlem, where stars such as Earl (The Goat) Manigault burned brightly but too briefly.

24 The Natural BY BERNARD MALAMUD (1952)

The movie was a mawkish Rocky-in-flannels, but the novel is a darker, more subtle tale of phenom Roy Hobbs, who loses his prime years to a youthful indiscretion, then gets a second chance. TIME called the novel (which ends differently from the film) "preposterously readable." [New York Times best-seller] [Made into a movie]

25 North Dallas Forty BY PETER GENT (1973)

Gent was a Cowboys receiver from 1964 to '68, so his darkly funny novel about a league rife with drugs and depravity left fans guessing. (Is Seth Maxwell really Dandy Don Meredith?) also recommended: The Franchise, Gent's still-darker take on the NFL. [Out of print] [New York Times best-seller] [Made into a movie] [Authors with other list-worthy books]

26 When Pride Still Mattered BY DAVID MARANISS (1999)

Pulitzer Prize winner Maraniss turns his attention to pro football's most acclaimed coach, Vince Lombardi, and skillfully reveals the complex man behind the legend. SI's review said it "may be the best sports biography ever published." [New York Times best-seller]

27 Babe: The Legend Comes to Life BY ROBERT CREAMER (1974)

This biography, which broke new ground with its voluminous research and unsentimental gaze at an american folk hero, is still considered the final word when it comes to separating Ruth fact from fiction, such as his alleged called shot in the 1932 World Series.

28 The Golf Omnibus BY P.G. WODEHOUSE (1973)

Wodehouse's status as golf's shakespeare, its master comedian and tragedian, is borne out by this collection of short stories in which golf and love are the two constants. "I doubt if golfers should fall in love," says one character. "i have known it to cost men 10 shots per medal round." [Authors with other list-worthy books]

29 About Three Bricks Shy of a Load BY ROY BLOUNT JR. (1974)

Blount spent the '73 season following (and drinking with) the predynasty Steelers. (As the subtitle says, they were "Super but Missed the Bowl.") The stars are all here, but it's colorful second-stringers such as Moon Mullins and Craig Hanneman that make this an unforgettable romp. [Out of print]

30 A Fan's Notes BY FREDERICK EXLEY (1968)

The protagonist of this sad but stirring fictional memoir finds refuge from his troubled life by focusing on his football hero, Frank Gifford. A Newsday reviewer called the tale of demons and Giants "the best novel written in the English language since The Great Gatsby."

31 Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life BY RICHARD BEN CRAMER (2000)

Cramer takes DiMaggio from his boyhood in San Francisco to the hospital room in Florida where, as he lies dying, a trusted adviser slips the 1936 World Series ring from his finger. Brilliant, stylish and a riveting study in the degrading effects of adulation. [New York Times best-seller]

32 The Game They Played BY STANLEY COHEN (1977)

An engrossing morality tale about the 1949--50 City College basketball team ("five street kids from the city of New York--three Jews and two blacks") that won the NIT and NCAA titles, and the point-shaving scandal that doomed its players to infamy.

33 Veeck as in Wreck BY BILL VEECK AND ED LINN (1962)

Baseball is a lot less fun without promo-meister Veeck, who recounts the eureka moments behind the exploding scoreboard, the pinch-hitting midget and the contortionist first base coach. He always gave fans what they wanted, even if that was, in one case, a fire-eating pelican. [New York Times best-seller]

34 Ben Hogan's Five Lessons BY BEN HOGAN AND HERBERT WARREN WIND (1957)

Originally serialized in SI in 1957, Hogan's lessons proved to be an enduring hit. Tremendously detailed, down to how to waggle the club properly, this is the definitive primer on the sport from its hardest-working perfectionist.

35 The Worst Journey in the World BY APSLEY CHERRY-GARRARD (1922)

"Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised," writes Cherry-Garrard, who recounts his experiences on Robert Falcon Scott's tragic 1910 Antarctic expedition with eloquence and objectivity.

36 Beyond a Boundary BY C.L.R. JAMES (1963)

The Trinidadian Marxist's cricket-drenched memoir is equal parts sports, history and philosophy. American readers will need to bone up on the game (the 1983 U.S. edition has a four-page primer), but James's musings on culture and colonialism are worth the effort.

37 A False Spring BY PAT JORDAN (1975)

An honest and deeply affecting memoir by a now established journalist describing his brief, bittersweet pitching career, starting in 1959 as a $50,000 bonus baby with the Milwaukee Braves and ending after four mostly dismal minor league seasons.

38 Life on the Run BY BILL BRADLEY (1976)

What's the big deal about three weeks in the life of the New York Knicks as chronicled by their star forward? Plenty, when the author is a Princeton grad, a Rhodes scholar and a future U.S. Senator who writes with uncommon candor and intelligence.

39 The Red Smith Reader BY RED SMITH (1982)

These columns by the man The New York Times said "was to sports what Homer was to war" offer Smith on Willie Mays, Vince Lombardi and Leon Trotsky. On the Shot Heard Round the World: "Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again."

40 An Outside Chance: Essays on Sport BY THOMAS MCGUANE (1980)

The contemplative hunting essay "The Heart of the Game" is the highlight of this collection of off-center pieces so packed with vivid ironies as to choke you up when you're not laughing out loud. A shrewd, eccentric book about hunting and fishing and poaching golf balls from water hazards.

41 The Unforgettable Season BY GORDON H. FLEMING (1981)

A literature professor recreates the scintillating 1908 Cubs-Giants-Pirates pennant race (of Merkle's boner fame) entirely through excerpts of the era's florid sportswriting--which means runners aren't merely thrown out at the plate, they're "massacred at the fourth bag." [Out of print]

42 The Celebrant BY ERIC ROLFE GREENBERG (1983)

An oft-overlooked novel that blends fact and fiction to create a charming turn-of-the-century tale about the intertwined lives of New York Giants pitcher Christy Mathewson and the family of a young Jewish immigrant who makes his world series rings.

43 Big Red of Meadow Stable BY WILLIAM NACK (1975)

The breathtaking description of Secretariat's 31-length Belmont victory is the highlight here, but Nack's book (reissued as Secretariat: The Making Of A Champion) is also memorable for the way it traces the great horse's bloodlines through racing history.

44 The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract BY BILL JAMES (1985)

James, recently hired by the Red Sox as a senior adviser, weaves together thoughtful essays and lists, often turning traditional wisdom on its ear with analysis that goes far beyond the numbers--and all without taking himself (or the game) too seriously. [New York Times best-seller]

45 End Zone BY DON DELILLO (1972)

This shrewd and funny novel, set against a cold war backdrop, explores the football-as-war metaphor through the life of a college running back. "i reject the notion of football as warfare," one angst-ridden character says. "We don't need substitutes because we've got the real thing."

46 Foul! The Connie Hawkins Story BY DAVID WOLF (1972)

Wolf's understated prose is equal to his fascinating subject: a brooklyn playground legend expelled from the University Of Iowa for allegedly conspiring with gamblers. The charges were disproved, but the great Hawk didn't reach the NBA until he was 27 and hobbled by bad knees. [Out of print]

47 Shoeless Joe BY W.P. KINSELLA (1982)

The same richness as Field Of Dreams, the movie it inspired, but on a wider canvas. The novel has plot twists and fascinating characters not in the screenplay, most notably author J.D. Salinger and Eddie (Kid) Scissons, who claims to be the oldest living Cub. [New York Times best-seller] [Made into a movie] [Authors with other list-worthy books]

48 Into Thin Air BY JON KRAKAUER (1997)

An accomplished climber, the author was sent to Mount Everest by Outside magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the world's most famous peak. What he came back with was a suspenseful account of a catastrophic season in which 12 climbers were killed. [New York Times best-seller]

49 Eight Men Out BY ELIOT ASINOF (1963)

The final word on the controversial 1919 Black Sox scandal, a critical event in sports history. Former minor leaguer Asinof persuasively argues that the only participant worthy of exoneration is not Shoeless Joe Jackson but third baseman Buck Weaver. [Made into a movie]

50 Baseball's Great Experiment BY JULES TYGIEL (1983)

In what The New York Times called a "rich, intelligent cultural history," Tygiel portrays not only Jackie Robinson's breakthrough 1947 season with the Dodgers but also the arduous 12-year march toward integration by all teams in the major leagues.

51 Laughing in the Hills BY BILL BARICH (1980)

Nearing 40 and faced with the death of his mother and a failing marriage, Barich checks into a hotel near Golden Gate Fields racetrack and stays for the season. As he gambles alongside a flock of railbirds, he becomes, he says in this evocative memoir, "restored if not renewed."

52 Dollar Sign on the Muscle BY KEVIN KERRANE (1984)

The author spent a year with the Phillies' scouts when they were arguably the best judges of raw talent in the major leagues. The often hard lives of baseball's underpaid hunter-gatherers are rendered in lively detail. (See the decoding of scout-speak in chapter 5.)

53 The Bronx Zoo BY SPARKY LYLE AND PETER GOLENBOCK (1979)

After this book Lyle was no longer known as just a Cy Young Award--winning reliever; he was the guy who liked to sit bare-assed on teammates' birthday cakes. His hilarious as-told-to proves that a talented team can feud and ego-trip its way to the World Series. [Out of print] [New York Times best-seller]

54 The Professional BY W.C. HEINZ (1958)

Hemingway called this dialogue-driven portrayal of the monthlong run-up to a championship middleweight bout "the only good novel I've ever read about a fighter." Young Elmore Leonard was so inspired by it that he sent his first (and last) fan letter to Heinz. [Authors with other list-worthy books]

55 The Baseball Encyclopedia MACMILLAN (PUBLISHER) (1969)

Sure, you can find stats galore on the internet. But for those who relish paging through career numbers and debating whether Smokey Burgess was better than Ed Bailey, this tome, which is revised every few years, is the final authority.

56 A Savage Business BY RICHARD HOFFER (1998)

In what kind of world can Mike Tyson emerge from prison to discover that "raping a teenager had turned out to be a great career decision"? Only in the unseemly universe of heavyweight boxing. SI's Hoffer relentlessly peppers the sport with body blows.

57 The Glory of Their Times BY LAWRENCE RITTER (1966)

Ritter spent six years tracking down professional baseball players from the early 1900s, then stepped aside to let them tell their remarkable stories in their own words. Virtually all of these men are gone now, but thanks to Ritter they'll never be forgotten.

58 The Complete Armchair Book of Baseball EDITED BY JOHN THORN (1999)

This one-volume reissue of an esteemed two-volume collection includes essays and fiction, profiles and columns by such first-rank writers as Roger Angell, Stephen Jay Gould and John Updike. Abbott and Costello's Who's On First? also cracks the lineup of 114 entries.

59 Among the Thugs BY BILL BUFORD (1991)

While he was editing the literary magazine Granta in London, Buford, an American, spent his weekends with soccer hooligans, whose violence both repulsed and mesmerized him. Newsweek called this "one of the most unnerving books you will ever read."

60 Lords of the Realm BY JOHN HELYAR (1994)

Helyar, A Wall Street Journal reporter and co-author of the best-selling Barbarians at the Gate, turns a critical eye to the businessmen who have run baseball for the past century. He delivers a withering analysis of the owners' inability to manage themselves or the game.

61 The Universal Baseball Association, Inc. BY ROBERT COOVER (1968)

The protagonist in this mind-bending novel, J. Henry Waugh, invents a baseball board game, only to become so obsessed with the tabletop world he creates that he begins to lose his grip on reality--especially after one of his players dies from a beanball.

62 Days of Grace BY ARTHUR ASHE WITH ARNOLD RAMPERSAD (1993)

This autobiography, completed shortly before Ashe died of AIDS, recounts the groundbreaking career of the Wimbledon champion turned social activist. After reading Days in prison, Mike Tyson had Ashe's face tattooed on his left biceps. [New York Times best-seller]

63 Out of Their League BY DAVE MEGGYESY (1970)

Readers were shocked by the brutality and rampant drug use in Meggyesy's memoir of his days as an NFL linebacker. This was one of the first books to focus on what the author calls the "dehumanizing" experience of the modern professional athlete. [Out of print]

64 Golf Dreams: Writings on Golf BY JOHN UPDIKE (1996)

"I am curiously, disproportionately, undeservedly happy on a golf course," the author writes. This collection of 30 fiction and nonfiction pieces, highlighted by the fantastical short story "Farrell's Caddie," elicits the same response in the reader.

65 In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle BY MADELEINE BLAIS (1995)

Blais, a Pulitzer Prize winner, here follows the 1992-93 season of the Amherst (Mass.) High School girls hoops team from tryouts to the state championship. Her deftly drawn profiles provide insights into how important sports and winning can be for young women.

66 They Call Me Coach BY JOHN WOODEN WITH JACK TOBIN (1972)

Wooden's story is refreshingly free of the tedious "coach as CEO" lectures now so common in the genre. The book includes the Wooden Pyramid of Success, a guide for life and basketball that has been posted in many coaches' offices. Updated and reissued in 1988.

67 Cosell BY HOWARD COSELL (1973)

"Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, persecuting, distasteful, verbose, a show-off," Cosell writes. "I have been called all of these. Of course, I am." In his first book Cosell told it like it was and blew cigar smoke in the face of the sports establishment. [Out of print] [New York Times best-seller]

68 Down the Fairway BY BOBBY JONES AND O.B. KEELER (1927)

Jones begins by apologizing for publishing an autobiography at age 25. But his book, which discusses excellence in golf (Jones had already won the U.S. and British Opens) as part of a life well lived, is an elegant, deeply personal document that is surely something to celebrate.

69 Big Game, Small World BY ALEXANDER WOLFF (2002)

Wolff embarks on a 17-country journey--getting in a pickup game with two members of the royal family in Bhutan and visiting the masters of the crossover dribble in Peoria--to test his contention that basketball is an "intercultural epoxy."

70 The Last Shot BY DARCY FREY (1994)

If Coney Island means fun to you, then you don't know it like the students at Abraham Lincoln High School do. Frey follows the fortunes of the teenage Stephon Marbury and others who try to play their way out of the "ghetto school for the projects" with varying success.

71 Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder BY ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER AND DOUGLAS KENT HALL (1977)

The summer that Schwarzenegger turned 15 in Austria, he discovered bodybuilding and told his father, "I want to be the best-built man in the world. Then I want to go to America and be in movies." Ahhnuld's brazenness and passion make this an inspiring read. [New York Times best-seller]

72 Out of the Bunker and Into the Trees BY REX LARDNER (1960)

Ring's nephew Rex was an accomplished tennis player and a two-time Big Ten wrestling champ, but this hilarious send-up of golf culture might have been his greatest achievement. It's a book that's hard to find but worth the effort. [Out of print]

73 The Fight BY NORMAN MAILER (1975)

Mailer can come off as a self-important blowhard, but the Ali-Foreman Rumble in the Jungle provided such inherent drama that his heated prose--lionizing both combatants, but especially Ali--seems perfectly appropriate.

74 Only the Ball Was White BY ROBERT PETERSON (1970)

The Negro Leagues, which had folded two decades earlier, were fading from memory when Peterson wrote this landmark history, sparking renewed interest in the leagues and restoring Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige and other black stars to their rightful place in baseball's pantheon.

75 Harvey Penick's Little Red Book BY HARVEY PENICK WITH BUD SHRAKE (1992)

Penick spent six decades jotting down his folksy wisdom in a red Scribbletex notebook, never intending to publish it. Golfers everywhere should be thankful that, at 87, he decided to share his tips, garnered from teaching hackers and famous pros alike. [New York Times best-seller]

76 Whatever Happened to Gorgeous George? BY JOE JARES (1974)

An affectionate depiction of pro wrestling in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, when the sport had a more benign, vaudevillian flavor. Jares does a terrific riff on the masked men, ersatz Indian chiefs, "leaping lords" and other baddies who routinely smuggled "foreign objects" in their trunks. [Out of print]

77 Annapurna BY MAURICE HERZOG (1951)

Before Everest, there was Annapurna. Frenchman Herzog led the first summitting of an 8,000-meter peak, dictating his story because he had lost all his fingers to frostbite. National Geographic Adventure called this "the most influential mountaineering book of all time." [New York Times best-seller]

78 The Great American Novel BY PHILIP ROTH (1973)

Considering their players-a one-legged catcher, a one-armed centerfielder, a 14-year-old second baseman and a dwarf relief pitcher-perhaps it's not so surprising that the 1943 Patriot League team at the heart of this ribald satirical novel finishes 34-120.

79 Soccer in Sun and Shadow BY EDUARDO GALEANO (1998)

The Uruguayan writer's meditation is part lyrical ode ("I've finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good soccer"), part political screed. The 211 short chapters are so breezily written that even the Marxist medicine goes down smoothly.

80 The Story of American Golf BY HERBERT WARREN WIND (1948)

The longtime New Yorker writer chronicles the game (this "frappe of pleasure and pain") from its first appearance in the U.S. in 1888 through the outbreak of World War II, colorfully recounting each of the significant championships of that era.

81 Inside Edge BY CHRISTINE BRENNAN (1996)

This insider's tour of Olympic-level figure skating serves up the intrigue behind the Lutzes and Salchows, the pushy parents and the skating officials who ham-handedly dealt with the effects of AIDS on the sport's athletes, coaches and choreographers.

82 Farewell to Sport BY PAUL GALLICO (1938)

Gallico left the New York Daily News after 13 years spent covering a golden age of sports; this is his valedictory. His tales of Ruth and Dempsey ring with you-are-there immediacy, and his participatory journalism (golf with Bobby Jones) inspired George Plimpton. [Out of print]

83 Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times BY THOMAS HAUSER (1991)

An oral history with more than 150 voices, some requisite (Angelo Dundee, Ferdie Pacheco) and some not (Jimmy Carter, Cheryl Tiegs). The interviews with Ali's father and with Joe Martin, the cop who introduced Ali to boxing, are particularly illuminating. [New York Times best-seller]

84 Can't Anybody Here Play This Game? BY JIMMY BRESLIN (1963)

The hard-bitten newspaper man found himself charmed by the lovable bumblers known as the '62 Mets--"three 20-game losers, an Opening Day outfield that held the all-time major league record for fathering children (19), a defensive catcher who couldn't catch."

85 The Complete Book of Running BY JAMES FIXX (1977)

When Fixx took up running, he weighed 214 pounds and smoked two packs a day. When he wrote this cry to "change your life" (which spent 11 weeks at No. 1 on the best-seller list) in strong, clear prose, he was 60 pounds lighter, smoke-free and an inspiration to millions. [Out of print] [New York Times best-seller]

86 The Science of Hitting BY TED WILLIAMS AND JOHN UNDERWOOD (1970)

The splendid splinter may not extol batters ("The ball isn't dead, the hitters are, from the neck up") or hurlers (who "as a breed are dumb and hardheaded"), but no one has more eloquently explicated the act of squarely hitting a round ball with a round bat.

87 Only a Game BY ROBERT DALEY (1967)

Running back Duke Craig has turned 31, his body is aching, and his love life's a mess. This dark novel by the author of Prince of the City rings with authenticity, and no wonder: Daley spent six seasons as publicity director for the glory-days New York Giants. [Out of print]

88 The Joy of Sports BY MICHAEL NOVAK (1976)

The Catholic Theologian, author of Belief and Unbelief and a Notre Dame football fan, muses on the religious underpinnings of sports, praising the "holy trinity" of baseball, football and basketball over "the illusory, misleading, false world" of work, politics and history. [Out of print]

89 The Lords of the Rings BY VYV SIMSON AND ANDREW JENNINGS (1992)

An expose of rampant corruption in the Olympics that takes on former IOC chief Juan Antonio Samaranch's Fascist past, the temptations dangled by aspiring host cities, the extravagant demands for "perks" by IOC members and the widespread cover-up of athletes' drug use. [Out of print]

90 Road Swing BY STEVE RUSHIN (1998)

SI's Rushin logged 23,658 miles in a rented Nissan Pathfinder for this hilarious travelogue of sports destinations high (the Masters) and low (the Las Vegas restaurant that displays Andre Agassi's ponytail). A ball-sy Kerouac-ian journey, minus the mind-altering drugs.

91 Golf in the Kingdom BY MICHAEL MURPHY (1972)

The enchanting first half of the book recounts Murphy's golf- and life-altering round with Scottish "philosopher-poet" Shivas Irons. The second half, in which Murphy floats his loopy metaphysical insights, will have some readers begging for a mulligan.

92 Game Misconduct BY RUSS CONWAY (1995)

Dogged reporting by small-town sports editor Conway brought down Alan Eagleson, once hockey's most powerful man. The author's legwork uncovered how Eagleson, working as both an agent and as head of the players' union, cheated players out of a small fortune.

93 No Cheering in the Press Box BY JEROME HOLTZMAN (1973)

This oral history of 18 golden-age sportswriters shows that greats such as Cannon, Gallico and Smith could talk it as well as they wrote it. Cannon sums up their philosophy: "Sportswriting has survived because of the guys who don't cheer. They're the truth-tellers. Lies die."

94 Beer and Circus BY MURRAY SPERBER (2000)

The author is the IU professor and Bobby Knight critic who took a leave due to threats from the General's loyalists, but this indictment of "Big-time U's" is Sperber's rightful legacy. He argues that large universities use sports to numb students to increasingly shoddy academics.

95 The Harder They Fall BY BUDD SCHULBERG (1947)

This hard-boiled novel is loosely based on the gangster-driven rise and inevitable fall of the massive but glass-jawed heavyweight Primo Carnera, with Toro Molina (Giant of the Andes) in the title role. The shady promoter and press flack are the real stars. [New York Times best-seller] [Made into a movie]

96 The Tumult and the Shouting BY GRANTLAND RICE (1954)

The last of the estimated 67 million words written by Rice; he completed this autobiography three weeks before his death. The book is showing its age, but it also displays the poetry ("Outlined against the blue-gray October sky") that made Rice king of his profession. [Out of print] [New York Times best-seller]

97 SportsWorld BY ROBERT LIPSYTE (1975)

This angry screed is Lipsyte at his combative best as he rips the lazy sportswriters, establishment nabobs, team owners and TV executives who he says have hoodwinked the public into believing that big-time sports are a "positive force on our national psyche." [Out of print]

98 The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings BY WILLIAM BRASHLER (1973)

Rather than accept a shoddy contract from the Louisville Ebony Aces, star catcher Bingo Long forms his own team and hits the barnstorming road. Brashler befriended former Negro leagues stars while doing research, and he repays them with a warm portrayal of their humor and heartbreak. [Made into a movie]

99 The Miracle of Castel di Sangro BY JOE MCGINNISS (1999)

The author of Fatal Vision spent a year in a tiny mountain hamlet 85 miles east of Rome covering the local soccer team, which had, improbably, qualified for Italy's Serie B league. The season ends with a twist that will shock readers as much as it did McGinniss.

100 Little Girls in Pretty Boxes BY JOAN RYAN (1995)

You'll never look at a pixie gymnast the same way again. This powerful book by a San Francisco Chronicle sportswriter reveals in excruciating detail the physical toll--including anorexia, osteoporosis and delayed menstruation--on competitors in figure skating and elite gymnastics.

COLOR ILLUSTRATION: ILLUSTRATION BY BARRY BLITT

B/W ILLUSTRATION: ICON ILLUSTRATIONS BY BOB ECKSTEIN

COLOR PHOTO: JEFFERY A. SALTER TOUGH CALLS One writer's leader board.

COLOR PHOTO: DAMIAN STROHMEYER TACKLING THE SUBJECT A plethora of pigskin prose.

COLOR PHOTO: STEVEN FREEMAN OLDIES BUT GOODIES The greats endure.

COLOR PHOTO: JIM RUYMEN/REUTERS MATCH GAME Jackson's players get a read on him.

B/W PHOTO: BETTMANN-CORBIS BATTY? Barra favors Mantle over Mays.

Picture-Perfect Photography Books

Rare Air, by Michael Jordan with Walter Iooss Jr. (1993) One of the best-selling photo books of all time provides strikingly intimate glimpses of Air Jordan at home, at work and at play during the 1992--93 season.

Sports! by Neil Leifer (1978) A collection of action images and portraits that's regarded by many sports journalists as the best of its kind; text by George Plimpton and a foreword by Red Smith.

Olympia, by Leni Riefenstahl (1937) Granted exclusive access to the 1936 Olympics by Adolf Hitler himself, Riefenstahl produced a propaganda film and this collection of beautiful but chilling images.

The Pros, Robert Riger (1960) The from-the-sidelines view of the NFL, with black-and-white photos and pencil sketches.

The Spectacle of Sport, by Sports Illustrated (1957) The best color photographs from the exciting first three years of the magazine as well as essays by such writers as William Faulkner, A.J. Liebling and Herbert Warren Wind.

Deford's Delights

SI's Frank Deford, author of 14 books, offers his thoughts on the genre:

Reading is so personal--much more so than movies or plays or even TV--that I'm always reluctant to name the "best" sports books. I only know what I like. These are my favorites.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Veeck as in Wreck, by Bill Veeck and Ed Linn

NOVEL: Semi-Tough, by Dan Jenkins (with oak-leaf clusters to Mark Harris for Bang the Drum Slowly and to Peter Gent for North Dallas Forty)

MEMOIR: Ball Four, by Jim Bouton

BIOGRAPHY: Seabiscuit, by Laura Hillenbrand (a nose ahead of a dead heat for best human-being biography: Babe, by Robert Creamer, and The Catcher Was a Spy, by Nicholas Dawidoff)

HISTORY: Champion: Joe Louis, by Chris Mead (runners-up: Shake Down the Thunder: The Creation of Notre Dame Football, by Murray Sperber, and The Nazi Olympics, by Richard Mandell)

Belichick: In the Well-Read Zone

When the Patriots played the Bears on Nov. 10 in Champaign, Ill., New England coach Bill Belichick noticed that the field was named for Robert Zuppke, the Illini coach from 1913 to '41. That meant more to Belichick than to most. After all, he owns Coaching Football, the 1930 book by Zuppke, whose innovations include the screen pass, the flea-flicker and the huddle.

When Belichick got home, he headed to his library and grabbed Spalding's Official Foot Ball Guide from 1925. There he brushed up on the facts of the day the stadium was dedicated, Oct. 18, 1924: Illinois versus Michigan, when Red Grange scored four times in the first quarter.

Belichick is unusually well equipped for such research: He has a collection of more than 500 pre-1960 football books. That's not counting the Spalding guides, which go back more than 100 years. Or his several hundred college and pro media guides and programs. Or his scores of more recent books, which he doesn't consider part of his collection proper because they're too easily obtainable. "I like the finding and the collecting," he says. "But I really enjoy having a complete collection. Then if you hear some guy played for so-and-so in 1932, you can look it up."

Belichick's favorites are his technical books--like Amos Alonzo Stagg's A Scientific and Practical Treatise on American Football for Schools and Colleges (1893) or Leroy Mills's Kicking the American Football (1932), a study of punting. He doesn't follow such advice as limiting his players to one shower a week to save their strength, as one of his books recommends. But if he's tinkering with unbalanced formations, say, he'll leaf through Knute Rockne's Coaching (1925) for inspiration. His most prized volume, though, Football Scouting Methods (1962), was written by his father, Steve, a coach and scout at the Naval Academy for 34 years. Steve is a collector too, with more than 700 football titles.

The younger Belichick dabbles on eBay, but he prefers to stumble onto his finds and says he has never spent more than $30 on a book (that for Stagg's Treatise). His holy grail? Simply finding a bargain. "The best," he says, "is when you walk into a used bookstore and see a book for a buck."

The Bronc Burnett series, by Wilfred McCormick (1948--67). Each of the 27 volumes follows the exploits of Burnett, a hard-throwing pitcher from Sonora, N.Mex.

The Chip Hilton series, by Clair Bee (1948--64). Self-reliance, sportsmanship, perseverance and teamwork are among the values stressed in these 24 books.

The Mel Martin series, by John R. Cooper (1947--53). This six-volume collection combines baseball and mystery.

The Hockey Sweater, by Roch Carrier (1979). A charming tale of a small-town Quebec boy who asks for a jersey of beloved Montreal Canadiens star Maurice Richard but mistakenly receives one of the despised Toronto Maple Leafs instead.

The Kid from Tomkinsville, by John R. Tunis (1940). The value of determination is the lesson of this story about country boy Roy Tucker, whose quest to pitch for the Dodgers is derailed.

Dr. Phil Speaks

Lakers coach Phil Jackson distributes almost as many books as Amazon.com. Among his best literary assists: dishing off a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha to Shaquille O'Neal. "He liked it," Jackson says. "He said, 'I know why you got it for me, because it's about a wealthy man with a lot of women in his life, and he had to make a decision about what's important.'" Jackson recommends these books for SI's readers.

Underworld, by Don DeLillo (1997). "It opens with Bobby Thomson's home run in 1951, but it's about sociological change in America."

Summer of '49, by David Halberstam (1989). "A great look at a rivalry, Boston and the Yankees, and at Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, two of the strongest personalities of their time."

The Brothers K., by David James Duncan (1992). "The story of a family of boys and their father, a pitcher. It's about his love, the kids' attachment to him and his special talent."

The Rabbit series, by John Updike (1960--90). "Rabbit Angstrom's successes and failures connect to his high school basketball team."

The House of Moses All-Stars, by Charley Rosen (1996). "It gives a look at what barnstorming basketball was like in the '30s and '40s. The House of Moses is a [fictional] group of Jewish guys who wore yarmulkes and beards and toured the country, living by the seat of their pants."

The Best of 2002

Clearing the Bases, by Allen Barra. Mays or Mantle? Williams or DiMaggio? Barra attempts to settle these and many other oft-asked baseball questions with reams of research and statistics.

My Losing Season, by Pat Conroy. This memoir of The Citadel's trying eight-win season of 1966--67 is also a poignant account of the painful maturation of Conroy, the team's point guard.

Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, by Jane Leavy. An exhaustively researched study that paints an intriguing portrait of the famously reclusive Dodgers pitcher.

The Gloves, by Robert Anasi. The author, an amateur boxer, chronicles his efforts to qualify for New York City's Golden Gloves tournament.

The Greatest Game Ever Played, by Mark Frost. The ultimate David-beats-Goliath story: 20-year-old amateur Francis Ouimet's victory over English great Harry Vardon in the 1913 U.S. Open. This match was the birth of modern golf.

PERSONAL FAVORITES

"The sports book that had the most impact on me was probably Bill Bradley's Life on the Run. It was as honest and revealing as any." PAT RILEY, MIAMI HEAT COACH

"I liked Muhammad Ali by Thomas Hauser. A great story about a great man who was bigger than sports." OTIS SMITH, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS CORNERBACK

"I'm reading Tony Stewart's book, True Speed (2002). I can see that he's very much like me. The things we have most in common are our bluntness, our need to keep it real and our need for speed, for competition." PICABO STREET, OLYMPIC SKIER

"Ball Four. As a kid, reading that pro players picked their noses and put it on other people made me feel like anything was possible." MARK CUBAN, DALLAS MAVERICKS OWNER

"Lloyd Percival's The Hockey Handbook (1950) is my favorite. It was an approach to building a game, and it was probably the first book that started to lay it out. The Russians made a bible out of it." PAT QUINN, TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS COACH--GENERAL MANAGER

"North Dallas Forty by Pete Gent was hilarious and well-written. It gave you a little bit of an idea of what a football player goes through with his body." STEVE KERR, SAN ANTONIO SPURS GUARD

33 Sports Books to Read Now That Sports Are (Mostly) Back

We missed them, too.

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Everyone loves an underdog. That’s why we’re drawn to sports movies—there’s something special about the magic depicted in Remember The Titans , Miracle , or even something silly like The Waterboy . But good sports books, and we mean good ones, go even deeper. Whether we’re learning a lot about something we already care about, diving deep into a brand new subject, or taking in an entirely fictional world in a novel set in a universe alternate to our own, there’s always going to just be more when you’re the one painting the pictures inside your own mind.

And now with so much time—there’s still a pandemic happening, last we checked—sports fans need to find alternate ways to get their fix; just flipping to ESPN doesn’t hit the same when there’s no NBA Playoffs Game 5 to catch the end of. But that’s OK, because for every epic sports moment or figure that you can think of, there’s probably a book where you can learn more.

Want to learn more about Mike Tyson? You got it. How about Michael Jordan? Sure. Maybe you want to find a great Yogi Berra quote to text your mom to make her laugh. A solid option! All of that and more can come from picking the right book. And below, we’ve got 33 of the very best that can help to make this sports-less quarantine period that much less painful.

Pocket Books The Jordan Rules: The Inside Story of One Turbulent Season with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls

Brand: Riverhead Fever Pitch

You've probably heard of this one in its form as a Jimmy Fallon-led (remember when he used to act?) 2004 romantic comedy about a guy balancing his love life with his obsessive love for the Boston Red Sox. The movie, actually, is based on a memoir of obsessive devotion to English Football Club Arsenal, written by author Nick Hornby ( High Fidelity, A Long Way Down).  Funny, interesting, and still engrossing, if you're a sports fan who just can't figure out why you continue rooting for the loser , you'll find home here. 

St. Martin's Press 24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid

While we're all missing baseball (and believe me, we  all  wish we were at a ballpark with a hot dog and a beer right about now), why not read a brand new book from the mind of one of the game's all-time greats? Willie Mays came together with co-author John Shea to tell the story of his incredible, lengthy career (he played from 1951-1973), which saw him play through the civil rights era as one of the game's earliest superstars. 

Back Bay Books What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen

Things might not always be as shiny as they seem. That's the main takeaway in this crushing book by Kate Fagan, expanded from her ESPN Magazine story about the tragic suicide of Madison Holleran. The story looks at a college athlete who by all accounts would've seemed to "have it all," but always had an unexplainable darkness bubbling under the surface. An absolutely crushing story, but one that deserves to be read. 

Back Bay Books Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN

This nonfiction story on the past and present of ESPN is long (763 pages) but it's an oral history—so you can read through it like movie dialogue. Starting with stories of the network's very beginning in 1979, and coming up to date with many names that you'll still see on TV every day, this book is gripping, and quite cinematic. So cinematic, in fact, that a major adaptation has been in discussion for a couple years now. Read the book now and get ahead of the curve. 

Workman Publishing Company The Yogi Book

This isn't so much a book you'll sit down and read for a couple hours as much as it's something you'll pick up when sitting with family and friends and get a good laugh at. As a collection of Yogi Berra's greatest quotes and his funniest anecdotes (and with less than 200 pages) , it's hard to beat  The Yogi Book. 

Scribner Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

Did you ever wonder what goes into those cool sneakers you picked up for $120? If you have, great. If you haven't, maybe now is the time to start wondering.  Shoe Dog  is an interesting, never-before-told story from Phil Knight about founding a company you might have heard of called Nike. Where did 'Just Do It' come from? The answer is here. 

Triumph Books Doc: The Life of Roy Halladay

Todd Zolecki's brand-new book (it just came out on May 19) takes a deeper look at the late MLB star Roy Halladay. Halladay, who was inducted in the Hall of Fame last summer, and is yet another case of someone who had demons hiding beneath the surface;  Doc  tells the fascinating story behind Halladay's balancing act. He was a star on the field, and a beloved father and husband, while also dealing with the dark demons that come along with addiction. 

Plume Undisputed Truth

It can feel like there's a divide a lot of the time with celebrity memoirs. Sure, it's someone you want to read from and learn about, but the book isn't in their voice—it's some undisclosed ghostwriter's voice. Well,  Undisputed  Truth  almost certainly has its own ghostwriter, but it's a damn good one, because it reads  exactly  like a book that Mike Tyson would write. This book hops from one entertaining anecdote to the next, and never feels like you're getting your information from anywhere other than the man itself. 

Simon & Schuster Tiger Woods

When  The Last Dance  ended, a popular conversation emerged: Who else could possibly be as compelling as Michael Jordan? Who could possibly power their own 10-part documentary series? A common response was Tiger Woods, and as this biography by Jeff Benedict—published just before his incredible 2019 Masters win—proves, there's quite a lot to mine.  Tiger Woods  talks to more than 250 people in the golfer's orbit, and paints as clear a picture as you could possibly imagine. 

Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster The Dynasty

OK, we'll be up front with you— The Dynasty  isn't out yet. It comes out in September. But you're going to want to pre-order this book from writer Jeff Benedict—who wrote the above  Tiger Woods . Here, he has a book of the same ilk on the way about the New England Patriots, with more than 200 interviews conducted about the team's three lightening rods: Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick, and Tom Brady .  With Brady now a Tampa Bay Buccaneer, we're guessing there might have been some last-minute edits—and we can't wait to read them. 

PublicAffairs The Victory Machine: The Making and Unmaking of the Warriors Dynasty

If you liked  The Jordan Rules,  this book from NBA writer Ethan Sherwood Strauss might be the closest thing to a modern-day version of it. Focusing on the late-2010s Golden State Warriors dynasty years, this book takes inside looks at Warriors ownership and the emergence of the dynasty, and at Kevin Durant's entry and exit into the story. The mercurial Durant refused to be interviewed for the book—which, in a lot of ways, that makes it even juicier. 

The Cactus League: A Novel

Do you love baseball? Do you love good writing? Then  The Cactus League —the debut novel from  Paris Review  editor Emily Nemens—is for you. You know the baseball player stereotypes: the tobacco-chewing, steroid-using, meathead beefcakes.  The characters in  The Cactus League  are not this. Instead, it  looks at the inverse; the guys in spring training. Guys who don't know their future; who don't know if they're even going to make the team. It's fiction, but it's a baseball fan's dream—especially when games aren't currently being played. 

H. G. Bissinger Friday Night Lights

The book that launched the critically acclaimed film and television show, Bissinger’s chronicle of high school football in West Texas is a snapshot of the gridiron’s grip on small town America.

John McPhee A Sense of Where You Are: Bill Bradley at Princeton

The legendary New Yorker writer’s brilliant profile of Bill Bradley—the former U.S. senator and New York Knicks star.

Jim Bouton Ball Four: Twentieth Anniversary Edition

The ex-pitcher’s chronicle of his 1969 season with the New York Yankees is one of the greatest books about baseball not because it glorifies the sport, as so many baseball books do, but because it serves as an insider account of the seedier side of the game: the infighting, the womanizing, and Mickey Mantle’s heavy drinking. With its unblinking look at the side of locker room culture most of us will never see up close, it was critically lauded at the time and has become a non-fiction classic—even though it cost him friends on the diamond.

Andre Agassi Open: An Autobiography

Memoirs by former athletes are almost always dull, self-glorifying, and cliche. But tennis great Andre Agassi threw out the formula for his 2009 memoir, in which the Punisher peels back the curtain to show readers the price he paid for his success on the court—an unhappy childhood in which he was groomed for tennis greatness at an early age that gave way to a stressful adulthood which found him unfulfilled by his accomplishments.

Michael Lewis Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

You’d be hard-pressed to find a book that’s had more of an impact on the sport it’s about. Lewis’s insightful 2003 profile of Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics, which was later turned into the Brad Pitt movie of the same name, inspired front offices across the MLB and beyond to rethink their approach to assembling their teams—for better and for worse.

A. J. Liebling The Sweet Science

No list of sports books could be complete without Liebling’s collection of essays on boxing. The late author and New Yorker writer wrote about boxing the way he wrote about food, another of his favorite subjects—with insight and wit in equal parts. He was so renowned for his meditations on the sport that the Boxing Writers Association of America named a damn award after him.

Wayne Coffey The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

The former New York Daily News sportswriter’s 2005 book is perhaps the definitive account of the 1980 U.S. Men’s Hockey Team—the group of amateur Americans who took on the superb Russian squad in Lake Placid and performed a “Miracle on Ice.”

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The best sports books to read right now, according to the Post Sports staff

“ Friday Night Lights ” (1990), by Buzz Bissinger

“ when pride still mattered ” (1999), by david maraniss, “ mad ducks and bears ” (1973), by george plimpton.

[ The best sports movies to watch during the coronavirus outbreak ]

“ God’s Coach ” (1990), by Skip Bayless

“ billy lynn’s long halftime walk ” (2012), by ben fountain, “ america’s game ” (2005), by michael maccambridge.

“ Bottom of the 33rd ” (2011), by Dan Barry

“ men at work ” (1990), by george will, “ catcher with a glass arm ” (1964), by matt christopher, “ moneyball ” (2003), by michael lewis, “ hub fans bid kid adieu ” (1960), by john updike, “ baseball life advice ” (2017), by stacey may fowles, “ the only rule is it has to work ” (2016), by ben lindbergh and sam miller, “ the boys of summer ” (1972), by roger kahn, “ the last best league ” (2004), by jim collins.

“ The Breaks of the Game ” (1981), by David Halberstam

“ a season on the brink ” (1986), by john feinstein, “ play their hearts out ” (2010), by george dohrmann, “ the last shot ” (1994), by darcy frey, “ the game they played ” (1977), by stanley cohen, “ basketball (and other things) ” (2017), by shea serrano, “ :07 seconds or less ” (2006), by jack mccallum, “ eagle blue ” (2006), by michael d’orso.

“ Seabiscuit ” (1999), by Laura Hillenbrand

Three anthologies, “ soccer in sun and shadow ” (1995), by eduardo galeano, “ into thin air ” (1997), by jon krakauer, “ a river runs through it ” (1976), by norman maclean, “ little girls in pretty boxes ” (1995), by joan ryan, “ born to run ” (2009), by christopher mcdougall, we noticed you’re blocking ads.

14 Best Sports Books of All Time

All products were independently selected by our editors and contributors. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Before digging down into the books, a brief observation on the growth of sports books and changes in the nature of these books in recent years.

For decades, sports books chronicling teams and athletes shared a common trait of being less than critical of their subjects. Perhaps that was the result of the writers who wrote most of these books.

Sports teams and players were covered by sportswriters who often bonded with their subjects because of the many days and hours spent with the team and the players over the course of a season.

Newspapers and radio and television organizations covering teams assigned reporters to cover an individual team. The writers and teams blended as one unit creating the fact that writers often overlooked the foibles of their subjects and wrote mostly of their accomplishments, not their shortcomings.

Many sports biographies were ghost-written by the same sports writers who covered the teams. In reality, they were puff-pieces about the players.

Times change, and writers became far more investigative and critical in their work. In addition, many writers who were not veterans of day-to-day sports coverage elect to write about athletes independent of that daily reporting.

They held no loyalty to their subject, they were loyal only to the truth. Sports figures themselves turned to writing and chronicled their respective games in tell-all fashion.

Baseball players  Jim Brosnan  and  Jim Bouton  wrote diaries of their seasons and many fellow players were indignant that a writer would pull back the curtain on athletes’ lives. But the public devoured the books.

My list of sports books is lengthy and requires some organization. Because there are so many, I have elected to separate baseball and football books using those two sports as individual categories. Before turning to those books I will offer an initial list of books covering a wide range of sports topics.

Table of Contents

1. Rome 1960: The Summer Olympics That Stirred the World – David Maraniss

2. seabiscuit: an american legend – laura hillenbrand, 3. ali: a life – jonathan eig, 4. fever pitch – nick hornby, 5. my losing season – pat conroy, 6. paper lion: confessions of a last-string quarterback – george plimpton, 7. the blind side – michael lewis, 8. friday night lights – h.g. “buzz” bissinger, 9. the sweet season: a sportswriter rediscovers football, family, and a bit of faith at minnesota’s st. john’s university – austin murphy, 10. when pride still mattered: a life of vince lombardi – david maraniss, 11. the long season – jim brosnan, 12. ball four: the final pitch – jim bouton, 13. jackie robinson: a biography – arnold rampersad, 14. clemente: the passion and grace of baseball’s last hero – david maraniss.

It’s really not a book about a specific sport or athlete. Instead, it is a book about an event, the 1960 Summer Olympics held in Italy.

As the title indicates, the Games that year were a confluence of global events and personalities that brought the Olympics to the world’s consciousness. These were the Cold War Olympics where the contest was viewed as a battle between democracy and communism.

The Rome Olympics were also the Olympics where Black-American athletes like Muhammad Ali and Wilma Rudolph burst onto the world stage.

Maraniss captures it all in this outstanding history that foreshadows how the Olympics have grown to a multi-billion-dollar sports enterprise.

This is a unique biography because the subject of the biography had no speeches, papers, letters, or interviews for the author to study.

The great Seabiscuit was a horse that rode to glory in the late 1930s. During his prime racing seasons, Seabiscuit received more news coverage than Franklin Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, or Benito Mussolini.

He ran in match races, two horses on the track alone against each other, and attendance at some of these events reached 100,000 spectators.

Like any great biography, this story captures the spirit of the times, the Great Depression and the lead up to World War II. Even if you have never bet on a horse race this is an extraordinary and enjoyable book.

Boxing has been the source of several great books written by authors ranging from Norman Mailer to A.J. Leibling.

For most of my adult life, boxing has been a sport where fan interest has been on the decline, but Eig’s biography of Ali is more than a boxing biography because Ali was more than a boxer. He was a hero to many beyond his accomplishments in the boxing ring.

He was a fierce opponent of the Vietnam War and during his life spoke out on racial, political and cultural conflicts that swept America in the last half of the 20th century.

Jonathan Eig captures it all in this outstanding biography. Once again, great biography is great history.

Two authors perhaps better known for their writings in fields other than sports have also provided very personal sports chronicles that readers will find enjoyable.

FEVER PITCH  by British novelist Nick Hornby is actually fiction. But it is so infused with Hornby’s personal affection for football (or soccer to Americans) that readers sometimes have difficulty separating fact from fiction.

The novel was published in 1992 before the explosive growth of the  English Premier League . It is the story of Hornby’s experience as a fan of the Arsenal Football Club from his childhood to his early 30s.

Each chapter of the novel pinpoints a match Hornby recalls and how that game impacted his life. The novel was the basis for two movies, one starring Colin Firth as the Hornby character, released in England in 1997. In 2005, a totally different version of the story starred Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore.

The movie substituted the Boston Red Sox for Arsenal and was obviously set in the United States. Hornby, whose literary accomplishments include several fictional novels and screenplays participated in both projects.

Author Pat Conroy who died in 2016 left behind many accomplished works of fiction including The Great Santini, The Prince of Tides, The Lords of Discipline and The Water is Wide. He also was a skilled college basketball player.

MY LOSING SEASON  is Conroy’s memoir of his senior year at The Citadel, a military college in South Carolina. While it is easy to write about teams roaring to championships, the team Conroy captained was not very good, their season record was 8-17. Conroy focuses on life at the school in 1966 when the college was a male-dominated, military-focused institution.

Throughout the story, there are flashbacks to Conroy’s youth, his Air Force father and military family. It is an honest story capturing both the joy and heartbreak of sports.

My sports bookshelves contain books on a wide range of sports. Sports fiction, golf, hockey, basketball, and soccer all can be found in the library.

But the dominant books are football and baseball.  These are the two sports that dominate American life. The football season now runs through early February with the Super Bowl and a few short weeks later Spring Training begins in Arizona and Florida.

Yes, college basketball gives us March Madness but baseball and football are still the dominant sports in America.

Football books in America were changed greatly by the writing of George Plimpton, whose book based upon his experience in the Detroit Lion training camp of 1963 first appeared in Sports Illustrated as a two-part article.

PAPER LION  was published in 1966 and was an expanded version of the original articles. Plimpton wrote several books about his exploits as a pretend athlete. Without much skill or ability, he convinced the Detroit Lions to allow him to participate in training camp and actually played in the team scrimmage.

Eventually, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle barred Plimpton from participating in actual exhibition games. The book was one of the first to travel inside professional sports and delve into the personalities of players and coaches in a more exhaustive manner. PAPER LION would later be made into a film that starred Alan Alda and several Lion players.

One of them, Alex Karras would go on to have a second career in television and movies including the role of Mongo in the Mel Brooks western farce, Blazing Saddles.

Other football books that have made the transition to movies include  FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS  and  THE BLIND SIDE .

Michael Lewis wrote THE BLIND SIDE in 2006 following Moneyball, his best-selling book on the sabermetric revolution in baseball. Lewis is an investigative and financial writer whose subjects run the gamut from the world of investing to the world of sports.

THE BLIND SIDE is really two books, the first focusing on changes in professional football brought about by multi-talented players in the mold of Lawrence Taylor whose speed and athleticism changed defensive strategy in the NFL.

These changes became necessary as a response to the new style of offense brought to football by the creators of the “West-Coast” offense built upon speed and short-passing.

The second portion of THE BLIND SIDE focuses on the life of Michael Oher, a young man born in poverty who became an NFL first-round draft choice as a left tackle, a position that was completely re-shaped in the modern pass-focused NFL.

Left tackle is important because most quarterbacks throw right-handed and players rushing the quarterback from his left side are attacking from the blind or unseen side.

Oher’s growth and development as a player is both a poignant and inspirational story.

When H.G. “Buzz” Bissinger set out to write  FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS , he certainly could never predict that he was creating a cottage industry that would focus on high school football.

Bissinger’s story of the 1988 Permian Panther high school football squad was the biography of Odessa, Texas, a community that like many in Texas lives for high school football.

There is high school football and then there is Texas high school football. Bissinger captures the political and racial culture of the Odessa community as well as tensions that follow the players through their season.

The book was written in 1990 and in its wake it produced a movie version that starred Billy Bob Thornton and a television series that ran for five seasons and won numerous awards. The football focus has spawned a wide range of reality football-themed shows on several television networks.

Two shows, Last Chance U and QB 1, both focus on football at levels other than professional and major college. Last Chance U has focused on junior college football programs and recently completed its fourth season. QB 1 focuses on high school quarterbacks during their final high school season.

Both shows are informative and enjoyable highlighting for viewers the lives of athletes, both good and bad.

Most football fans center their attention on the NFL and the major college powerhouses such as Alabama, Ohio State, and Notre Dame along with major conferences including the Big 10, Southeastern Conference and Pacific 10.

But there is a vast world of football existing in America involving players and teams who rarely receive the weekly prime-time coverage of the pros and major college.

In 2000, Austin Murphy, a longtime Sports Illustrated writer decided to spend a football season with the St. Johns Johnnies, a Division III NCAA football program that the average fan has never heard of. Division III football is unlike its Division I counterpart.

There are no athletic scholarships, no bowl games and no cross-country road trips. Most teams never cut players from their squads. St. John, located in Minnesota was also unique because of their coach, John Gagliardi, who upon his retirement in 2012 was the winningest college coach in football.

Gagliardi had a unique coaching philosophy. He avoided the term “coach,” limited practices to 90 minutes and did not allow tackling during practice. He did not have a playbook and did not have weight lifting programs for his players, but he did win four national championships. And St. Johns’ championships were not the result of media polls, they came after national championship play-offs.

Murphy spent one season with the Johnnies, living with the coaches, teams, and players. The result was  THE SWEET SEASON , an endearing and warm book that reminds readers that behind the glitter there is still a game, played by players and coaches simply because they love the game.

This was in many ways a groundbreaking biography of a football legend.  Vince Lombardi  changed professional football with a coaching philosophy that focused on simplicity and execution rather than innovation.

His tactics were instrumental as his Green Bay Packer teams won the first two Super Bowls. Maraniss goes far beyond the sports aspect of Lombardi’s life, he dives deeply into the coach’s political views focusing on issues of race and culture.

Maraniss is also not afraid to discuss Lombardi’s shortcomings as a husband and father.  WHEN PRIDE STILL MATTERED  was one of the first sports biographies to treat this subject with candor rather than platitudes. Lombardi was a great coach but Maraniss was not afraid to dive deeply into and write about his personal flaws.

In many ways, this biography created a new path for sports biographies. It is also one of the finest sports biographies you will ever read.

Concluding this list of books with those covering baseball is a difficult task. Baseball books dominate the shelves of bookstores.

Setting aside the debate about which sport is the most popular, baseball is the sport that receives more coverage both in print and in media.

Perhaps that is because there are far more games in a baseball season than other sports and perhaps it is also because the game features some basic simplicity allowing for fans to weigh in on strategy, tactics, and players. Whatever the reason, there are a lot of baseball books published each year.

Therefore, I will focus on two books that provide fans with a wider window into the game and forever changed the way baseball was viewed. Additionally, I have chosen two biographies that focused on players whose impact on baseball extended outside the stadiums in which they starred.

Jim Brosnan and Jim Bouton are two baseball players who some fans might recognize. Both were pitchers, Brosnan was a relief pitcher for several National League teams in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He was viewed by his teammates as a quirky guy who read books and kept some in his baseball locker. Teammates nicknamed him “The Professor.”

During the 1959 season, he kept a diary which he published in 1960 titling the book,  THE LONG SEASON .

The book was notable for his candid portrayal of players, the tensions on baseball teams that like America were confronting a new racial era, as well as the proclivities of players to drink and chase women.

It was also unique because midway through the season Brosnan was traded from the St. Louis Cardinals to Cincinnati. The book was both praised and criticized by people in baseball.

Many people in the game felt that Brosnan’s candor was damaging. The major impact of Brosnan’s book was that it led to books by other sports figures that opened the door to locker rooms, playing fields and player personalities.

A decade later Jim Bouton who had pitched for the New York Yankees until arm trouble sidetracked his career as a starting pitcher wrote of his season with the Seattle Pilots and Houston Astros.

BALL FOUR  took the baseball and sporting world by storm. Bouton wrote about his time with the NY Yankees and exposed many dark secrets about the team, its ownership, and its stars.

He wrote openly and candidly about management mistreating players, the players abusing their bodies with drugs and alcohol and often playing games after late-night escapades. Baseball reacted with anger.

Commissioner Bowie Kuhn called the book “detrimental to baseball” and attempted to get Bouton to say the book was fiction. Many sportswriters denounced Bouton as well.

But the book became a best-seller and may be one of the most important sports books written. It is the only sports-themed book on the New York Public Library 1996 list of Books of the Century.

Time Magazine listed BALL FOUR as one of its top 100 non-fiction books of all time.

Major league baseball is approaching its 150th season. The number of players to reach the major leagues is probably close to 20,000. Only one player has had his number retired by every team in baseball, even those for which he never played.

Jackie Robinson wore number 42 for the Brooklyn Dodgers and no baseball player will ever wear that number again except on Jackie Robinson Day, when every player in baseball wears a uniform with that number. Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball becoming the first African-American player to play in the major leagues.

Robinson’s story is the subject of many books. Those books could almost be a separate list for interested readers.

But  JACKIE ROBINSON: A Biography  by Arnold Rampersad is my choice for the best Robinson biography. Robinson was a complex man, who was an outstanding athlete in football, basketball, and baseball.

He was chosen to break the racial barrier because of his life experience and personality. Rampersad digs deeply into all aspects of Robinson’s life including his military career and court martial. The author was given access to Robinson’s personal papers and had the cooperation of Robinson’s wife and widow.

It is an exhaustive and thorough biography portraying a man of history and an American hero.

While his path to major league baseball was somewhat different, Roberto Clemente has been described by some as the Jackie Robinson of Hispanic baseball players.

To capture the true spirit of what Clement meant to baseball I once again recommend author David Maraniss and  CLEMENTE: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero . Maraniss writes with exhaustive detail and sweeping grace to capture the life of a player who recognized that his responsibilities extended to life beyond the baseball diamond.

Clemente died in an airplane crash as he flew to bring aid to Nicaraguan earthquake victims. He was only 38 years old. Baseball waived the traditional five-year waiting period for Hall of Fame induction and Roberto Clemente became the first Latin American and Caribbean to enter the Hall of Fame.

Clemente was an elegant and graceful athlete whose tragic death deprived baseball fans of a post-baseball life. This biography captures both his life and the meaning of that life that endures decades after his death.

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Stuart Shiffman

Stuart Shiffman served as an Associate Circuit Judge in the Seventh Judicial Circuit of Illinois from 1983 until his retirement in January 2006.

Judge Shiffman served as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Illinois and Illinois State University where he taught Evidence, Law and Literature, Great Trials in American Law, Constitutional Law and Law for Paralegals. He is a frequent contributor to the book review pages of Illinois Times and a regular contributor to Bookreporter , an online site for book lovers.

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Five of the best sport books of 2022

A warning about brain damage, a fresh perspective on Geoffrey Boycott, and the rise and tragic demise of a great cyclist

The best books of 2022

A Delicate Game: Brain Injury, Sport and Sacrifice Hana Walker-Brown (Hodder Studio ) Everyone knows that repeated blows to the head can cause long-term damage to the brain. The science is not ambiguous on this point. And so Walker-Brown takes us on a gripping and heartbreaking journey through the human debris of sport, from bereaved families to ex-athletes slowly losing their faculties to dementia. Along the way she asks the key question: why, in the face of such overwhelming evidence, have sports like football and rugby union proved so resistant to reform or even basic responsibility? In large part, she argues, the answers are social and cultural: sport’s sanctification of pain and suffering, frequently framed within Christian ideals of masculinity. And, of course, money has plenty to do with it. Walker-Brown is bleakly clear that there are no easy answers. But it might just help if we start asking the right questions.

A New Formation: How Black Footballers Shaped the Modern Game Edited by Calum Jacobs (Merky ) A New Formation is not a book about racism, even if racism is a frequent theme. Nor is it a book about politics, immigration or the media, even if all feature heavily. Rather, it is a celebration of the contribution Black British footballers have made to the game, told through a series of varied and sharply written essays placing them in their social and sporting context. The story of Chelsea forward Raheem Sterling is filtered through the lens of the Windrush generation and the notion of home. There is a timely and thought-provoking reassessment of the career of former striker Andrew Cole. Most of all, it’s terrific fun, and a formidable statement of intent from Jacobs, a rising star in the world of football writing.

Being Geoffrey Boycott Geoffrey Boycott and Jon Hotten (Fairfield ) You may have concluded that after more than three decades of commentary and opinion-spewing from Geoffrey Boycott, the world has probably heard enough. And yet somehow this fascinating account manages to offer a new perspective on one of English cricket’s most complex characters. Part memoir and part biography, switching between first and second person like the two halves of a tortured internal monologue, the book combines Boycott’s astonishing memory and the gentle provocation of his ghostwriter Hotten in a way that captures the cauldron of Test cricket at its most absorbing. Essentially, it’s a book about obsession: about the angst and fear of top-level sport, where the most scrutinised person on the field is somehow also the loneliest.

Expected Goals: The Story of How Data Conquered Football and Changed the Game Forever Rory Smith (Mudlark ) Football has undergone a spectacular data revolution in the last decade, which I suppose is kind of interesting, if you like that sort of thing. But where Smith’s book succeeds is in eschewing the boring, didactic stuff about stats and regression curves in favour of a story about people: about doubt and persuasion, insiders and outsiders, palace intrigue and subtle subterfuge. And mercifully, there isn’t a single graph or table in the entire book.

God Is Dead: The Rise and Fall of Frank Vandenbroucke, Cycling’s Great Wasted Talent Andy McGrath (Bantam ) In 2009, Frank Vandenbroucke was found dead in a hotel room in Senegal at the age of 34, with insulin and sleeping pills near his bedside. The last person to see him alive was a sex worker who had accompanied him there. And the fact that we know the tragically opaque ending of this story from the start is what lends such a devastating quality to McGrath’s careful biography. In his prime, the man they called “God” was one of the biggest sporting stars in cycling: handsome, effortlessly talented on the bike, yet with painfully human flaws that belied his divine nickname. Soberly told and with a clear affection for its wayward subject, McGrath’s account explores the narcotically corrupting power of sport itself.

• Best books of the year
• Best books 2022
• Sport and leisure books
• Autobiography and memoir
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