You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

A review by kurtwombat
There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

 
Any book “about sports” is invariably about something else, something more. For Hanif Abdurraqib,  basketball is merely the vessel that carries life—his life and the lives of many in America.  I was fortunate enough to listen to the audiobook read by the author. His delivery and the structure of the book are immediate like a game in progress and the momentum like that game chasing the final buzzer.  Much of this memoir feels more like poetry than essay—the beauty of the language seducing this reader into opening myself up for stories that each hung like an arched shot waiting to fall. Immediately I was embraced by the text, I’ve never liked a book so much so fast. As a sports fan, the basketball made Abdurraqib’s life more accessible. For non-sports fans, his life will make basketball more accessible. Family, community and basketball helped inure the author against all that growing up Black in America means. Abdurraqib beautifully transcribes his life into a vision of America that retains beauty despite darkness, love despite hate. I had concerns before listening, that the whole thing would just be a bummer but the passion, eloquence and insight involved here left me transfixed and elevated.