Overview
In Against Football, Steve Almond details why, after forty years as a fan, he can no longer watch the game he still loves. Using a synthesis of memoir, reportage, and cultural critique, Almond asks a series of provocative questions: Does our addiction to football foster a tolerance for violence, greed, racism, and homophobia? What does it mean that our society has transmuted the intuitive physical joys of childhood--run, leap, throw, tackle--into a billion-dollar industry? How did a sport that causes brain damage become such an important emblem for our institutions of higher learning? There has never been a book that exposes the dark underside of America's favorite game with such searing candor.
Full Product Details
Author: Steve Almond ,
Peter Berkrot
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Imprint: Tantor Audio
ISBN: 9798200024582
Publication Date: 17 February 2015
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Audio
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Available To Order
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Reviews
"Almond makes a convincing case for the theory that Americans have turned to football in order to meet spiritual needs that arose as a result of industrial and social progress.-- ""Publishers Weekly"" ""Against Football is, at bottom, a love letter from a heartbroken fan, notable for his eloquence and clarity...A first-rate piece of journalism and a great read."" -- ""Portland Press Herald (Maine)"" ""A book that's part journalism, part memoir, part cultural harpooning."" -- ""Kansas City Star, a FYI Book Club selection"" ""A devastating multipronged attack."" -- ""Newsweek"" ""A powerful polemic."" -- ""Publishers Weekly"" ""Almond is dead serious: Supporting a spectacle that causes brain damage is immoral."" -- ""New York Times Book Review"" ""Almond's...wide-ranging argument that the time has come to abandon football--particularly but not exclusively the NFL--as a sport built on violence, racism, economic exploitation of poor kids, corrupt dealmaking with local governments over stadiums, and a willingness to find it entertaining to watch people suffer brain damage."" -- ""NPR"" ""An unapologetic, frontal assault on the game's role in American culture."" -- ""Los Angeles Times"" ""Comic, compassionate, and thought-provoking."" -- ""Kirkus Reviews"" ""Narrator Peter Berkrot shapes the book with an emotional tone that reflects the author's persuasive words...Berkrot conveys the author's dilemma between his passion for the gridiron and the need to have a national conversation about its issues...Through attentive narration Berkrot helps make Almond's case a worthy argument for serious fans to hear."" -- ""AudioFile"" ""Powerful... Almond is a sympathetic narrator, his evidence incontrovertible, the moral authority firmly on his side."" -- ""Harper's"""
Author Information
Steve Almond was raised in Palo Alto, California and was a newspaper reporter in Texas and Florida before writing his first book, the story collection My Life in Heavy Metal. His second book, Candy Freak, a New York Times bestseller, was named the Booksense Adult Nonfiction Book of the Year and won the American Library Association Alex Award. His short fiction has been included in The Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize anthologies, and he writes commentary and journalism regularly for the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Los Angeles Times. Steve lives outside Boston with his wife and three children. Peter Berkrot, a forty-year veteran of stage and screen, has voiced over three hundred audiobook titles, winning Earphones Awards, a 2012 Audie Award nomination, and a 2016 Audie Award.
