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There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension
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About This Book
Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, in the 1990s, Hanif Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron James were forged, and countless others weren't. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tensions between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role models, all of which he expertly weaves together with intimate, personal storytelling. "Here is where I would like to tell you about the form on my father's jump shot," Abdurraqib writes. "The truth, though, is that I saw my father shoot a basketball only one time." There's Always This Year is a triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. No matter the subject of his keen focus—whether it's basketball, or music, or performance—Hanif Abdurraqib's exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves.
Reviews
"[A] unique, memoir-propelled, far-ranging, and affecting inquiry ..."
"This is another slam dunk from Abdurraqib."
"If you are looking to read something that 'pushes against the door of reality and offers an elsewhere', I recommend this title."
"In no way a conventional biography or appreciation of one athlete's career."
"Embarking upon a dizzying mix of genres within the same work sometimes results in wandering focus and formal meanderings that lead the reader astray into Abdurraqib's dreamlike musings ..."
"It's also a piercing look at how we consider others, as well as ourselves."
"An innovative memoir encompassing sports, mortality, belonging, and home."
"With carefully constructed and imaginative prose, he immerses us in the basketball culture of his native East Columbus, Ohio, telling stories of hoop dreams, both deferred and fully realized ..."
"Fans of Abdurraqib and basketball will enjoy the book."
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