A Level Playing Field: African American Athletes and the Republic of Sports by Gerald L. Early

A Level Playing Field: African American Athletes and the Republic of Sports by Gerald L. Early, 263 pages.

A wonderful collection of essays by Washington University's Gerald Early. Curt Flood, Donovan McNabb and Jackie Robinson are at the center of several of the works. Early explores the racism that has run through sports and through American Society and he does so with an even hand, quick wit, and a great knowledge and love of sports. Entertaining and thought-provoking, Early seems to be several steps ahead of anyone else talking about the African American experience in sports.

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The wave

The Wave: In pursuit of the rogues, freaks, and giants of the ocean/Susan Casey 327 pgs.

An awesome book about crazy waves and crazy surfers. So much interesting information here. So many facts about the ocean and the waves and so much information about what we don't know about the ocean and the waves. The science stuff is interspersed with stories of extreme surfers who chase the giant waves and have worked out a system to surf them. This book reminded me of my other extreme sport favorite from a couple of years ago "Born to Run". What is it that is so great about these books? I'm a person who is not personally familiar with the extremes of any activity...even with the book challenge I find I can't really be considered an extreme reader...but there is nothing life threatening about reading. These people travel the world to get a chance to ride a wave that could easily kill them (and many have died in this pursuit). Maybe it is just my love of the crazy. So, if you share that with me, give this book a try. Patrick also loved it and I am just tardy in following his recommendation...but I always follow his recommendations eventually.

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