The Books canon

Sourced and shelved.

Every book chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
2 volumes
SortEditorial Year Title
Subject·Basketball✕clear
Nonfiction · Sports

A Season on the Brink

John Feinstein
1986 · 368 pages

Feinstein spent the 1985-86 season inside coach Bob Knight's Indiana basketball program and printed all of it, the profanity and the fury and the players absorbing both. Sports reporters still envy that access.

★ 4.6
Nonfiction · Sports

The Breaks of the Game

David Halberstam
1981 · 400 pages

One collapsing season with the Portland Trail Blazers, three years after their title, and Halberstam turns it into an anatomy of how television money and race were remaking professional basketball from the inside.

★ 5.6