Why I Read Sports Stories: Because they are STORIES

Some readers may be surprised to hear that I am a big fan of certain sports, in particular NBA basketball, and most especially my hometown team, the Golden State Warriors. During the ten-plus years that I have been enthusiastically following the Warriors, I have somehow also gone from tepid interest in the sports played at my own and my daughter's former schools to becoming somewhat more interested in sports in general. One indication of this development is that although for decades I had no interest in the sports section of the newspaper, and would immediately put it in recycling (after my husband had read it), I gradually became more interested in reading the Sporting Green of the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as other sources of sports news. I followed tennis a bit since my husband played tennis and was a huge fan of professional tennis. I always watched at least some of the Olympics. I was pleased as women's sports developed and became more prominent on the scene. I became increasingly interested in stories about several sports, although my main sports focus was and still is the Warriors. Readers will not be surprised to hear that I especially like sports news that covers not only the scores and descriptions of the games/competitions, but the human angles, the stories behind the stories. And that leads me to my main point here: good sports writing has all the pleasures of fiction or memoir, in that there are intriguing characters, plots, and settings; there is suspense; there are wonderful turns of phrases and descriptive passages; there are various compelling writing styles. Good sports writing informs and entertains us, and makes us care. Of course many, perhaps most of the stories are about the competitions themselves, not only who won, but by how much, and in what ways, and with what surprises. But there are also stories about the developments experienced by an athlete or team throughout a season, and throughout the years (changes in ownership, owners who are willing to spend a lot and those who are not, moves to different cities, dynasties). There are profiles of individual athletes, including their family backgrounds (Whose parent was also a player? Who recently got married or divorced? Who has adorable small children who occasionally pop up at press events?). Also their lives (Who sails a boat to work every day? Who is a basketball superstar who has also won golf tournaments? Who does a lot of philanthropy? Who is featured in many commercials? Who crashed his car?), their reputations (the leader, the role model, the quiet one, the rebel, the one who plays dirty), their quirks. And there are stories about the relationships among the players as well as the coaches, referees, and other relevant personnel (Who gets along with whom? Who is competitive with whom? Who feels the coach is not being fair to him? Who thinks the referees are out to get him?). Some stories come out of left field (so to speak!), such as the recent one about a Japanese baseball superstar whose translator has, it turns out, been stealing millions from him to pay his gambling debts. And of course there is much speculation about the future (Who will be kept on the team? Who will be sent back to the minor leagues? Who will be traded? Who will be a a starter? Who will retire? Which team has a good chance to win it all next year, and which must be content with rebuilding?) I find so many of these stories to be compelling. I also appreciate the high quality writing of (in addition to sports reporters) excellent sports columnists, who provide a combination of news and commentary. For example, we who read the San Francisco Chronicle are fortunate to have excellent longtime sports columnists, especially Ann Killion and Scott Ostler. So, in conclusion: Sports stories are STORIES, like other forms of stories, and that is why, although I am far from athletic myself, I am a regular, even passionate, reader and fan of those stories.

The Ruth Gallagher mystery novels, by Elly Griffiths

I won't belabor here, yet again, my lifelong on-and-off relationship with mystery novels. But I will say that I have just had a prolonged "on" period, reading the Ruth Galloway mystery novels of Elly Griffiths. These were recommended to me by my dear friend Mary V., and once I started reading the series (in order, of course!), I couldn't stop! I have now read all fifteen novels in the series, ending with "The Last Remains" (Mariner Books, 2023), which Griffiths has told us is the final book in the series. I wish there were more! Ruth Galloway is an archeologist and professor, and is often consulted by the police when they find bodies buried, sometimes ancient and sometimes recent, as happens often -- at least according to these novels -- near the sea in Norfolk, England, where there is so much history and so much mysterious, even mythic, atmosphere. I like Ruth, who is smart and accomplished, confident yet modest and unpretentious. She loves her cottage in the marshlands and her cats. She is good with people but really loves solitude as well. She has an unplanned but dearly loved young daughter with DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) Harry Nelson, the result of a brief affair, but as he is married, they have an unsettled relationship except for sharing a love of that daughter, and except for working together on many cases where police work and archeology overlap. Let's say their relationship is "complicated." There are other interesting and believable characters in the novels, such as Ruth's friend the druid Cathbad, her other friends, her lovers, her colleagues at the university where she teaches, and Nelson's family members and detective colleagues. A real bonus of this series is that if one reads several or all of the books, one has the pleasure of seeing the characters and storylines develop, although each book also stands alone. The mysteries are well-plotted and intelligent, and in each one I learn (in a non-didactic, "goes down easy" way) interesting things about areas of England, about English history, mythology, architecture, and culture, and how English police departments work, as well as, of course, about archeology. I highly recommend this mystery series.

"Banyan Moon," by Thao Thai

My friend SM, who recently recommended the novel "Bellies," by Nicola Dinan, to me (see my post of 1/27/24), also recommended "Banyan Moon" (Mariner Books, 2023), by Thao Thai. This is a novel about three generations of Vietnamese American women and their fraught histories and complex relationships with each other. Although Minh and Hoang originally came to the U.S. from Vietnam in the wake of the "Vietnam War," the bulk of the book is set in the Florida family home, Banyan House, where the grandmother, Minh, lived and died, and where the mother, Huong, who lives nearby, and her daughter, Ann, who lives in Michigan, came back after Minh's death. These three women had all had difficult relationships with men, and with each other. The two older women each raised a daughter mostly on her own, and now Ann is possibly on the same path. The novel is about family, but family greatly complicated by historical, cultural and social forces. Each chapter is told by one of the three women; we see their different perspectives and learn about the devastating secrets that formed them and divided them. "Banyan Moon" is at times painful to read, as readers are taken on a difficult journey through the family's history, individually and collectively. But despite the elements of anger, misunderstanding, and self-protection, there are also threads of fierce love throughout. This is a powerful and compelling book, one which I am glad I have read.

Three (More) Books about Loss and Grief (by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Paul Auster, and Joan Didion)

Regular readers of this blog know that my beloved husband died just over two years ago, and that since then I have read quite a few books about loss, grief, and mourning. I have posted about some of these (e.g., 2/22/22, 12/1/22, 2/24/23, 11/7/23, 11/15/23). Reading these books is always painful, and at first I could not read them, but after some time I found that they were sometimes comforting, in the sense of connecting me with others' experiences of loss, and experiencing the universality and community of bereavement and grief. I have just read three more books about grief, and will describe each one very briefly here. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's "Notes on Grief" (Knopf, 2021) is a slim volume, an acute cry of pain at the recent death of her dear father, one which also celebrates the person and father he was. "Baumgartner" (Grove, 2023) is a novel by Paul Auster in which the title character deeply mourns his wife Anna, who died nine years before, and cannot seem to get past his grief and pain. Auster explores the intertwining of pain and happy memories, and the nature of memory itself. The third book is one I read almost twenty years ago, soon after the death of my dear father: Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking" (Knopf, 2005; Vintage, 2007), about the death of her husband John Gregory Dunne (and the illness and later death of her daughter Quintana, about whose death Didion later wrote a book titled "Blue Nights," which I have also read). I was struck at that time by Didion's description of her feelings and actions during the year or so after her husband's sudden death, many of which resonated with me about my father's death, especially such aspects as disbelief/denial, numbness and confusion. I tried to re-read the book about a year ago, but just couldn't; I have just now finally read it again, and found it as powerful and resonant as ever, now in light of the profound loss of my husband of decades. Among other aspects that Didion describes well is the terrible tangible loss of the dailiness, the ongoing conversations and habits, of a long-married couple's life. These two nonfiction books and one novel are all extremely difficult and sad to read, but also insightful and reassuring in a strange way: they remind us that although each death is unique, it is also part of all deaths, and that all mourners have many things in common. We who are left behind are part of a huge community of the bereaved, those who are grieving loved ones.

"Season of the Witch," by David Talbot

I was absolutely blown away by "Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love" (Free Press, 2012), by David Talbot. The story of the city of San Francisco from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, the book is riveting: well-researched, well-written, well-shaped, propulsive, full of vivid details, and shot through with the thesis that what happened in San Francisco was, on the one hand, unique, and on the other hand, a sort of representation of trends that would reverberate throughout the United States. Among the many events and themes covered are the rise and fall of the Haight Ashbury district, the pioneering music scene, the freedom that the city provided to many who fled the Midwest and other parts of the country, the home that S.F. provided for gays and lesbians, the best and the worst of city politics, the Patty Hearst kidnapping, the Jim Jones/Guyana tragedy, the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, the scourge of AIDS and the ways in which S.F. pioneered compassionate treatment and care and support of sufferers of the disease. My connection to the time period and events of the book, as a resident of San Francisco for a good part of the period covered, was obviously one reason for my appreciation of and enthusiasm about the book. Reading this book brought back many memories, and at the same time provided new information and details that I hadn't known at the time. Although the book was published in 2012, and the events covered are only up to the mid-1980s, and although San Francisco has changed in many ways since that time period, the city and its residents are still, whether we/they realize it or not, influenced by the powerful events and trends of that time period. I thank my brother P., who was also a resident of San Francisco during a large part of this time period, for recommending this book to me. I think anyone who lives in, or has lived in, S.F./the Bay Area, would be caught up in this book, as would other readers in or from other places who will recognize the profound and widespread consequences of what Talbot describes in "The Season of the Witch."

The Ten Best Books I Read in 2023

Most years, I have posted on this blog a list of "the best books" or "my favorite books" that I have read during those years. Today I list the ten best books, in my opinion, that I read during the calendar year 2023. Most, but not all, of the books were also published in that year. I list the books in the order that I posted on them here, with the date of each post in parentheses. 1. "Signal Fires," by Dani Shapiro (2022) (novel) (see my post of 2/2/23). 2. "Hello Beautiful," by Ann Napolitano (2023) (novel) (5/13/23). 3. "You Could Make This Place Beautiful," by Maggie Smith (not THAT Maggie Smith) (2022) (memoir) (6/12/23). 4. "Lives of the Wives: Five Literary Marriages," by Carmela Ciuraru (2023) (biography) (7/4/23). 5. "Tom Lake," by Ann Patchett (2023) (novel) (8/13/23). 6. "A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Novelists Begin Again," by Joanna Biggs (2023) (biography) (8/30/23). 7. "Somebody's Fool," by Richard Russo (2023) (novel) (9/24/23). 8. "All Things Consoled," by Elizabeth Hay (2018) (memoir) (10/14/23). 9. "A Living Remedy," by Nicole Chung (2023) (memoir) (11/7/23). 10. "Day," by Michael Cunningham" (2023) (novel) (12/12/23). Although novels will always remain my first love in reading, I notice that this year my list tilts more heavily to memoir and biography than usual. I also note that as usual I have read more books by women authors than by men. (I do not claim that books by women are "better," only that they very often appeal to me more, and often I can relate to them more.)

"Onlookers," by Ann Beattie

How could I forget about Ann Beattie? I have been reading her fiction, especially her stories (for which she is most known) for decades. Perhaps I haven't thought of her recently because I have seen fewer of her stories in The New Yorker, where she used to publish regularly? In any case, when I saw that she had a new story collection, "Onlookers" (Scribner, 2023), I was delighted, and immediately requested a copy at my wonderful local library. I have just finished it, and (mostly) liked it very much. There are six stories, each quite long, and the stories are somewhat interrelated (although mostly peripherally, just enough to establish that many people in the city are acquainted with each other), but each stands on its own. All the stories are set in Charlottesville, Virginia, before, during and after the time of the tragic, shocking white nationalist rally in 2017, in which one woman was killed and other people were injured. Intertwined with this event was and is the controversy over the Confederate monuments in the town, most notably the statue of General Robert E. Lee on his horse, and whether these statues should be removed. (Eventually that statue and others were removed.) The stories in "Onlookers" are, as suggested by the title, not directly about that rally or those statues, but about the lives of people who lived in Charlottesville and how they were affected by the events and issues, directly or, more often, indirectly. Without being didactic, Beattie makes readers confront the continuing presence of racism and the lasting effects of the Civil War, and the way those historical and current elements of American society infect and contradict the reputation of beauty and gentility in a city such as Charlottesville, and by extension in the larger society. As always, Beattie's characters are intriguing, vivid, often anxious, sometimes eccentric, imperfect, but usually understandable and often relatable. One common theme is the decline of many of the characters of old age, illness, incipient dementia, and sometimes just exhaustion; their caregivers are also vividly portrayed. Beattie's writing in this book is as good as that in any of her books. How fortunate we readers are to have had the gift of her 22 books (so far!)

"Bellies," by Nicola Dinan

When my friend SM recommends a book, I listen. Over the years, I have written here about several books she recommended to me. Today I write about a novel she recently spoke highly of: "Bellies" (Hanover Square Press, 2023), by Nicola Dinan. This novel is the kind I most like: about relationships. In this case, the relationships include those among friends, lovers, and sometimes family members. The two main characters here are Tom and Ming, two young men who meet in college and are both friends and lovers. They have a group of friends who have various gender and sexual identities. There is also an international context to their story, as they mainly live in London, but Ming is from Malaysia, and part of the story takes place there. Tom's and Ming's relationship is changed and complicated when Ming, who had earlier dated women, then men, begins transitioning to female. Tom and Ming truly care for each other, and continue to be a couple for a while, but their time together becomes more complex, more fraught, as they try to find their way through these evolving identities and circumstances. These two young people and their friends live in a world of privilege but at the same time of uncertainty and vulnerability. The novel is original and absorbing, and made me think about the complex intertwined identity issues portrayed. But the author never uses the characters just as examples of certain identities; they are distinct and mostly relatable young people whom the reader can empathize with.

"The Faraway World" and "Infinite Country," by Patricia Engel

"The Faraway World"(Avid Reader Press, 2023), by Patricia Engel, is a slim collection of stories about characters from Latin America (mostly Colombia and Cuba), some of these characters living there, others having emigrated to the United States (mostly to New York City and surroundings), and still others moving back and forth between the two continents, never really settling in one or the other. The front flap summary speaks of the stories' confronting "the myriad challenges of exile and diaspora," and although this description would fit many other books about migration as well, and is in fact one of the great themes of contemporary literature, this one stands out. It contains gritty, concrete details set in the midst of more amorphous dreams and hopes. Success, failure, separation, longing, poverty, struggles, family issues, religion, loss, compromise, triumph, and death are all portrayed, and it is heartbreaking to see the ways in which many characters have learned to accept their difficult, second-best life situations, knowing or at least feeling that they have no real choice. Yet there is a pulse of irrepressible life and quiet but unbreakable strength throughout. The characters are vivid and their stories are compelling. After reading this 2023 story collection, I sought out Engel's 2021 novel, "Infinite Country" (also from Avid Reader Press), which contains many of the same themes as the stories, but in more expansive form. This novel tells the story of one family originally from Colombia who emigrate to the U.S. and then, through the years, becomes split up between Colombia and the U.S., mostly because of improper documentation. Two of Mauro and Elena's three children are born in the U.S. and thus are citizens; the rest of the family do not have the correct papers. Much of the story is not only about their separation, but also about their family history, their grounding in Colombian culture and yet their dismay about the civil wars and dangerous conditions there, and their divided loyalties. The novel also sounds a note of elegy in that it tells of ancient myths and beliefs, yet mourns the disappearing relevance of those cultural touchstones. The book is complex, almost poetic in style, at times deeply sad, and yet also deeply involving.

Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant," by Curtis Chin

The memoir "Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant" (Little Brown, 2023) is cleverly framed in the context of the Chinese restaurant that author Curtis Chin's family owned and operated in Detroit. Within that framing, we follow the growing up of Chin and his siblings, in the contexts of their extended family, the restaurant, the troubled city of Detroit, and the racial and cultural issues that affected the family and the United States. We also get glimpses of the history of the family and more generally of Chinese immigrants to the U.S., plus their ABC (American-born Chinese) offspring. A major theme too is the memoirist's discovery of his gay sexuality, and his long, hesitant process of coming out, especially to his family. This author, now a writer and documentary filmmaker, has a direct, candid, appealing, and at times humorous style. Despite some very normal muted clashes with some family members at times, Chin obviously deeply loves his family, and loves the restaurant that was such a huge focus of their family life. He also clearly loves the dishes that are served in the restaurant, and his descriptions of the food are often quite detailed. This memoir is an engaging read.

"Temple Folk," by Aaliyah Bilal

Portrayals in fiction of the experiences of Black Muslims in the United States, with their particular history and faith, are not very common. For that reason alone, Aaliyah Bilal's story collection, "Temple Folk" (Simon & Schuster, 2023) is welcome. In addition, the stories are revealing, even illuminating. They are also beautifully written, insightful, and engaging. Most of the stories focus on strong and complex women, especially young women, who are figuring out how to live as part of the religion and at the same time, as part of mainstream America. Some of the characters are very devout, some have found a balance between devotion and flexibility, and some have become disillusioned with aspects of the faith. Bilal shows both positive and problematic aspects of the religion and culture and leaders. She immerses us in the world she portrays. As with all such fictional deep dives into the many and diverse religious, racial, and ethnic cultures in the United States, there are particular terms, words, vocabulary items used; I like that these are generally not explicitly defined or explained, but readers who are not already familiar with the vocabulary are able to figure out the meanings from the contexts. This story collection, Bilal's first, offers readers the gift of glimpses into a particular U.S. culture, as well as more generally into human nature and interactions among vividly drawn characters.