March 2018: Something Sporty

There is always a major sporting event going on somewhere in the world. In April, the Gold Coast area in Queensland are hosting the 2018 Commonwealth Games. That was the inspiration for my topic selection.

In March there is the Winter Paralympics in South Korea. Throughout the calendar year there are major events in all sports - horse racing, cycling, football, hockey, extreme sports, tennis, cricket, swimming......the list goes on and on.


Sir Donald Bradman batting.

So in March lets read something featuring sport or a sports-person, or set during a major sporting event. Either fact or fiction.

Some suggested titles
Girl Runner by Carrie Snyder (I have read this one and it is pretty good)
The Power of One by Bryce Courtney
The Peerless Four by Victoria Patterson
Flight From Berlin by David John

I have Girl Runner as well as The Boys in the Boat and The Brothers K; which one or all three?

I'm not much for sports. (I'm from Philadelphia, but I don't care what happens to the Eagles in the Super Bowl.) Best I can come up with on sports, that I can think of, is fishing – The Old Man and the Sea. I'd also like to reread The Natural if I can find it around the house (I may have a Library of America edition of Malamud), but I'm not going to buy more books if I can help it. My priority is ROOTing!

But I do need to get in more of Hemingway, so this is a good theme for me if it gets me to read The Old Man and the Sea.

". . . to read "The Old Man and the Sea" (3)
I donʻt re-read much, but tOMATS is one of the few that i would consider re-reading.
Iʻm reminded of an anecdote of the 1950s: a fight -- well, not quite a fight but a shoving match, between
John Steinbeck and James T. Farrell* Farrell, the story goes, shouted at Steinbeck, "Stop trying to be Ernest Hemingway!" (Steinbeckʻs reply, if any, isn't recorded.)
Hearing (not reading) the story, it crossed my mind that
(i m h o) just the opposite of
Farrellʻs allegation was the impression I had gotten from The Old Man and the Sea: I had recently read tOMatS, and it seemed to me like HEMINGWAY "trying to be" STEINBECK!

*Almost forgotten now, Farrell,
whose writing I admire tremendously, was, in the 50s,
still a well-known literary figure.

>3 CurrerBell: & >4 rolandperkins: I love John Steinbeck's writing - anytime you have a chance to read something by him I say go for it!

Not being a very sporty type, I have chosen to read a historical mystery by Peter Lovesey called Wobble to Death. In Victorian England, they used to hold multi-day pedestrian races that were called "Wobbles" and although one would expect a death to be caused by over-exertion, in this book the "Wobbler" is murdered.

>5 DeltaQueen50: what an interesting thought, wobblers. It sounds like it might be a “cozy” mystery with that type of race featured.

>6 Roro8: Wobble To Death was a book bullet from Rabbit Princess, Ro. I know it's a historical mystery and I suspect there may be a "cozy" angle to it, but Peter Lovesey does write some pretty gritty suff as well.

>2 Tess_W: I've only read one of those three, but I highly recommend "The Boys in the Boat"!

Looks like my sports-related history books are all (both!) mountaineering:

Into the silence : the Great War, Mallory and the conquest of Everest / Wade Davis
Everest the Hard Way / Sir Chris Bonington

>8 LibraryCin: Reading that now, Cin, and I'm loving it!

>10 Tess_W: Good to hear! :-)

I read The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown. This was the story of America's crew team for the Berlin Olympics of 1936. This book was several biographies, but read like a novel. One of the best I've read in 2018 417 pages 5 stars

7 I read that one several years ago and really enjoyed it!
I don't have a book in mind, but if it helps, dance 💃 can be sport as well!

I'm going to read a gladiator story. Spartacus by Ben Kane has been on my shelf for a while now so that would be a good choice.
I did want to read a book I saw a while back about a female boxer but I can't remember what it was called or where I saw it.

>13 cmbohn:, very good point, dancing can be considered sport.

I'm reading Girl Runner. I've just started it but it is good so far.

>8 LibraryCin: I read this and thought it said Three in a Boat - to say nothing of the dog might just be as close as I can to a read about sports! Oh but wait, its not about sailing or fishing....mmmm. I'll have to wait till I see what you are all reading coz i just don't have a clue.

>16 Familyhistorian: I got that book from my Secret Santa, Meg. Will be interested in your review!

>16 Familyhistorian:, I really liked Girl Runner, it's good that you are enjoying it so far.

ETA - I just checked, it was a 4.5 star read for me.

The Old Man and the Sea. Not "sport" fishing, but the closest I can come to "something sporty" – considering I'm not that big a sports fan, can't find Malamud's The Natural around the house, and want to keep with ROOTs as best I can on RTT.

I'm waiting for The Fair Fight to come in at the library for me. It looks like it might be available next week.

>21 Roro8: Oh that looks good! On my wish list it goes!

Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest / Wade Davis
3.25 stars

George Mallory made three attempts to summit Everest in the early 1920s. On his third attempt in 1924, he and a young, inexperienced Sandy Irvine went missing, and no one knows whether they made it to the top or not. This book looks at all three attempts, plus the people who were involved, many who also fought in WWI.

I really liked the last 1/3 of the book (4 stars worth), but the first 2/3 were hit or miss for me. There were parts that seemed really good, but they just didn’t hold my interest. Some of the stuff on the war was very well-written, but overall, that part of the book just wasn’t all that great for me. However, in the last 1/3 of the book, which followed the last two attempts at Everest in 1922 and 1924, I was fascinated (as I usually expect to be when reading about Everest!). It is possible (but hard to say for sure) the not-holding-my-attention in the first 2/3 of the book (over 400 pages!) could simply be due to stress in my life at the moment. There were also a lot of people involved, so sometimes I would lose track of who was who.

The Fair Fight is still not available at the library. It's a bit strange as they have allocated it to me but it has not made it to the reserve shelf yet. The library has moved to a temporary site while it is having renovations. I have a feeling it might be MIA until the work is complete. As a result I am doing a re-read of The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay. I read it years ago and so far have been enjoying it, perhaps even more so than the first time.

>13 cmbohn: and >15 Roro8: RE: Dancing as sport
One of my sisters was a dancer (ballet primarily) and early in her career developed stress fractures. She was sent to a sports clinic for treatment. A reporter thought that interesting enough that the local paper (San Francisco Chronicle) ran an article about it.

>25 dypaloh:, that reflects the attitudes of some people I guess. Dancing can be very demanding physically. Depending on how the article was written, it could either change or feed people's perceptions.

I have finished The Power of One a good book featuring a young English boy growing up in South Africa, who becomes a boxer. It's quite a good book that I read maybe 10 years ago, and re-read just now. I have never re-read a book before. I have to admit that the fact it was a re-read felt like I had licence to skim over some of the parts that I remembered.
If my library book comes in this week I may still have time to red it before the month is over - The Fair Fight

>26 Roro8: That Chronicle article dates to about 25 years ago. My memory is it made a connection between ballet and athleticism by pointing out that professional dancers who are injured are treated at the sports clinic, just as any other professional sports athlete would be. It was a positive portrayal.

The skills one gets in dance, movement and and rhythm and dynamic balance and body awareness, pay off in all kinds of sports. She and I went skiing at Alta and Snowbird in Utah a couple times and I took her down off-piste slopes for which her technique and experience were not wholly adequate, but those abilities from dance allowed her to accomplish the descents with thrills rather than chills. She had so much fun.

On a related note, this same sister went to high school with the Olympic diver, Greg Louganis. Louganis, she said, had considerable training in dance. Seems it may have helped--he won a silver medal at age 16 in 1976 and four gold medals later on.

>28 dypaloh: Correction: The article was published "about 35 years ago." Not 25. Time does fly.

>29 dypaloh:, it probably only feels like 25 years ago though.

Not sure if dancing is a sport, tho I know personally how much energy, skill and balance it takes (and how much fun it is). Dancers are also prone to the same kinds of injuries that other atheletes have. I see to remember reading that dancers in hs programs are not given the same kind of prevention or care that other athletes get.

cheerleading in HS and college is very competitive but is not consdered a sport by many; yet it requires the same type of activity and skills that gymnastics requires. But in 2014 the AMA determined that it was, given the number and types of injuries doctors were caring for.but many places still don't consider it so. I would watch group rehearsing, or attending their competitions shocked by just how little protection they were getting for how they were performing. The daughter of a good friend was a cheerleader through jr hi and hs, until a fall from atop a pyramid broke her leg and severally damaged her knee. So if its not a sport, what is it?

As far as reading, the only book about sports that I absolutely loved was Sea Biscuit. Im not all that much into horses, but this book made me care so much about racing, and this animal in particular! Fascinating history of the time, as well as fasciniting account how the author was able to research it despite her severe illness.

I have completed Wobble To Death by Peter Lovesey. This historical mystery takes place in and around a week long pedestrian race. The author is a sporting enthusiast himself, and the facts and details of these "wobbles" as they were called are very authentic. This was a fun mystery.

Oh, I dunno, I'll claim Mary Ellen Chase's The Girl from the Big Horn Country (1916), a "boarding school story" from somewhere around the turn of the 20th century. It's got some horseback riding in it as well as some references, as I recall, to tennis. ("As I recall" as in, "not a particularly good book." In fact, 1½* – but it was the author's first novel and Chase is an extremely important figure in Maine literature.)

I actually had a sporty book on the shelf! I read Girl Runner which was about a Canadian runner in the 1928 Olympics. The book didn't just focus on training and competing but on life in that time period. It seemed like a fairly realistic depiction of life, particularly for females, during that era.

>34 Familyhistorian: I got that from santathing, Meg. It's on my shelf to read!

>35 Tess_W: I hope you enjoy it more than I did, Tess. It was well written but made me sad and I prefer books that don't do that.

>34 Familyhistorian:, I really enjoyed Girl Runner when I read it. It was a bit sad, but it makes me think how much things have improved for female athletes these days by comparison.

>37 Roro8: There have been a lot of improvements for female athletes not only in training, clothes and equipment but in attitudes towards them and their abilities. Girl Runner was good in showing how it used to be.

I LOVED The Boys in the Boat, but since I'd just read it last year, I wasn't ready for a re-read. For this challenge, I read:

Tom Brown's School Days, a coming of age story set in the 1800s, who finally got his wish to go to a public school and was sent to Rugby. This was a nice, warm and fuzzy, character-driven story. There was much discussion about the field sports played -cricket, football, fives, and also about bathing (swimming), fishing, running. I'm going to use "football" for this challenge, since that's the activity whose rules and activity were related the most.

King of the Wind: The Story of the Godolphin Arabian, a juvenile fictional biography set in the early 1700s about a gift of Arabian horses sent from Morocco to France, where they were spurned and set to work, and about how one of them and his horse-boy, Agba, ended up in England, and became the stud whose progeny include Seabiscuit and Man O'War.