“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.” These words by the French-born cultural historian Jacques Barzun (1907-2012) are so cherished that they’re inscribed on a plaque at the Baseball Hall of Fame. It’s an authoritative phrase that speaks to the majesty of our national pastime. There’s just one thing: It’s outdated.
Today, in the United States, football is king. Like it or not, the gridiron game has become the country’s dominant sport, with National Football League matchups drawing far more viewers than any other sport. The NFL has grown into a mammoth enterprise—the biggest sports league on the planet pulled in more than $23 billion in revenue last year. Baseball, played until recently without a clock, evoked the slow rhythms of summer days. Football, on the other hand, reflects another side of our national character: fast-paced and aggressive, marked by chest-thumping and grand spectacle. And yet there’s no denying that for millions of Americans (my conflicted self among them), it’s a major attraction of the fall season.
Thus the perfect timing of New York Times reporter Ken Belson’s new book, one of several prominent titles coming out this autumn. Belson’s book is Every Day Is Sunday: How Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and Roger Goodell Turned the NFL Into a Cultural & Economic Juggernaut (Grand Central Publishing, October 14). Our reviewer praised it, writing, “Football diehards and casual fans alike will find plenty of interest in this dexterous blend of analysis, character study, and behind-the-scenes color.”
Not all readers, granted, might warm to a book centered on a game in which men pummel each other in pursuit of a leather ball that’s shaped like a lemon. Worry not! There are plenty of other promising titles out this fall. One is by the historian Jill Lepore—prolific and always a pleasure to read. Her latest is We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution(Liveright/Norton, September 16), a 700-plus-page doorstopper that our starred review calls “outstanding” and “urgent reading.”
Beth Macy (Dopesick, 2018) has a forthcoming memoir that’s equally timely: Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America (Penguin Press, October 7). In the book, Macy returns to her native Ohio, documenting the despair that has overtaken much of her hometown. “By practicing the basic journalistic acts of listening and observing,” says our starred review, “Macy continues her noble work as a truth teller.”
Another author who looks back to her youth is Arundhati Roy. In her memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me (Scribner, September 2), the Indian novelist tells of her fraught relationship with her mother. Our starred review hails it as “an intimate, stirring chronicle.”
Susan Orlean, who has written numerous nonfiction bestsellers (including The Library Book, 2018), examines her own past in Joy Ride: A Memoir (Avid Reader Press, September 23). As the title suggests—and in keeping with the author’s sprightly worldview—it’s a sunny story. The book earned her a starred review that describes the work as “a spry, entertaining memoir/writing workshop by a nonfiction artist at the top of her game.”
John McMurtrie is the nonfiction editor.
