Jump to content

Sports fiction


Recommended Posts

With there being wall to wall football on TV it got me thinking is there any sports based fiction out there?

 

I know there is a good few based around horse racing (which I hate) but I cant find any based on ball sports such as Football, Rugby etc. or any other sport for that matter.

 

 

Is this even a recognised genre?

 

And i'm thinking books not Roy of the Rovers comics :blush:

 

Surely there is some based on american sports at least

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's The Sportswriter by Richard Ford. It's not really directly about sport, but its protagonist is - yes, you've guessed it - a sportswriter. It is a good book, though, and well worth a read.

 

Other than teenagers' fiction, though, I can't say I've come across anything that would fit the bill.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you have any acquaintance or interest in American football, North Dallas Forty by Peter Gent is very funny. There are oodles of baseball novels. The Natural by Bernard Malamud is very literary and quite different from the Robert Redford movie that uses the novel as its source. Bang the Drum Slowly by Mark Harris is good, a real tear-jerker, and the source of the Robert DeNiro movie of the same name.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You could try The Universal Baseball Association, Inc, J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover.

 

His name is J. Henry Waugh. He eats takeout, drinks in a neighborhood bar, picks up B-girls, and likes country music. But he has one strange obsession--he has devised a baseball game whose every action is determined by a throw of the dice. Waugh is the nighttime proprietor of the Universal Baseball Association, it's master and it's slave. Robert Coover uses baseball and it's almost perfect balance between offensive and defense to explore the texture of American life and myth. In doing so, he has created a comic masterpiece.

 

My OH loves it, and I'll be reading it soon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...