Dan Sheehan of LitHub had the difficult task of picking the greatest novel from every major sport which he took in his stride:
Now I’m sure I’ve missed a few forgotten gems of the genre, and yes, I could spend further hours trawling the internet for them, but mouthy urchins in flat caps are playing stickball in the street outside, the smell of fresh cut grass is wafting through my open window, fade-away threes from street ball maestros are arcing through the air, the comments section on this post has been turned off, and it’s just too damn nice a day to linger inside reading….
Alas, scrolling through the list, I realised I’d read none of the books in the list. The closest I’ve got was the tennis entry, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest but I didn’t in the end as I found out he was a misogynist. I did recognise The Hustler, which was made into a movie and starred Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason, but that’s it.
Check out the list on LitHub and let us know in the comments if you’ve read any of the books or what book you’d pick for each sport.