The Best American Sports Writing 2011 [Paperback]

Jane Leavy (Editor), Glenn Stout (Editor)

Book Description

Release date: October 4, 2011 | Series: Best American Sports Writing

The Best American Series®

First, Best, and Best-Selling

The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind.

The Best American Sports Writing 2011 includes

Paul Solotaroff, Sally Jenkins, Wells Tower, John McPhee, David Dobbs, Wright Thompson,

P. J. O’Rourke, Selena Roberts, and others

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Each of these selections transcends its athletic subject...A hit with both sports fans and those who are simply fans of good nonfiction." (Library Journal ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Back Cover

The Best American Series®

First, Best, and Best-Selling

The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind.

The Best American Sports Writing 2011 includes

Paul Solotaroff, Sally Jenkins, Wells Tower, John McPhee, David Dobbs, Wright Thompson,

P. J. O’Rourke, Selena Roberts, and others

[insert author photo] Jane Leavy is an award-winning former sportswriter and feature writer for the Washington Post. She is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood and Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, and of the comic novel Squeeze Play, called "the best novel ever written about baseball" by Entertainment Weekly.

Look for the other best-selling titles in the Best American series:

THE BEST AMERICAN COMICS
THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS
THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES
THE BEST AMERICAN NONREQUIRED READING
THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE AND NATURE WRITING
THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES
THE BEST AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITING

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1 edition (October 4, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0547336969
• ISBN-13: 978-0547336961
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #228,101 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #33 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Miscellaneous > Journalism

More About the Author

Glenn Stout is the author, editor or ghostwriter of nearly eighty books, including the groundbreaking Boston Globe bestseller Fenway 1912: The Birth of a Ballpark, a Championship Season, and Fenway's Remarkable First Year, bestsellers Red Sox Century and Yankees Century, and the critically acclaimed Nine Months at Ground Zero, The Best American Sports Writing, and Young Woman and The Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the Worldand his own award winning juvenile sports biography series - "Good Sports." Glenn is available to make author visits to schools, deliver lectures on the history of Fenway Park and make other speaking engagements.

Born in Ohio and a graduate of Bard College, Glenn is dual citizen of the United States and Canada and lives in Vermont with his family, two cats, one dog and one rabbit on Lake Champlain. Before becoming a writer Glenn did construction work, served as a security guard, a painter, and worked in libraries. Glenn invites his readers to his blog, to join his facebook page for The Best American Sports Writing, or to visit his website, glennstout.net. Educators interested in arranging an "author visit" to their school can find information on Glenn's Good Sports website www.goodsportsbyglennstout or query Glenn directly at [e-mail].

Thanks for reading!

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A bit of an odd assortment January 6, 2012

By Jeff Hopper

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Some strange choices here. The year's editor noted that she chose to eliminate a whole set of articles dealing with matters of Tiger Woods' infidelity and other topics because they made no real contribution to the genre, then she chose to include other journalistically insignificant pieces because they gave us a good sense of the happenings of the year in sports--articles, for instance, about voyeuristic swim coaches. What this really means, of course, is that no one really knows where to draw the line anymore between what is sports and what it is not. It's a tough assignment, right down to the last piece (about sportswriter Mike Penner) which had virtually nothing to do with sports, however politically necessary Ms. Leavy deemed its inclusion.

What is good is that the collection, as it does each year, includes some fabulous pieces, deeply telling stories that need depth to be good. "The Surfing Savant," "Danny Way and the Gift of Fear," "The Courage of Jill Costello"--here is where we see beauty in a genre that seems required these days to write about less and less beautiful circumstances.

*Thanks to the publisher, by the way, for bringing this year's edition to the Kindle.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars I'm a big fan of the series but.... March 15, 2012

By L. O'Connell

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

this is by far, in my opinion, the worst since the first one in 1991 (and I have them all). This is one of my annual reading treats, but most of the stories in this are downbeat, dull and have characters with whom it is not easy to empathise, mainly because we don't get a chance to get to know them. Many of the stories barely qualify as sports, and I hope that there will be an improvement in the 2012 edition!! I never thought I'd say this about one of this series, but i definitely would not recommend it.

25 of 36 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Best american sports writing 2011 December 16, 2011

By Linder

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Do not buy this year's Best American Sports Writing book (2011) The Best American Sports Writing 2011 for anyone you like. I look forward to this book each year for the uplifting and vivid stories about great sports moments and great people. This year's book is not like that at all. Each story is drearier than the last. The stories include: swim coaches peeping and abusing young teen swimmers; football and rugby players raping and mistreating fans and female players; death at the Olympics luge track; and a cheerleader told to cheer for her abuser to name a few. This is not designed as a book for sports lovers. Buy the 2010 edition The Best American Sports Writing 2010 (The Best American Series (R)) instead. It was much more fun to read.