We spend a whole lot of time here at Bonus Referrer Code thinking about sports. So it’s no wonder that we’ve read several absolutely amazing sports books in our time.
We’re not talking about the kind of sportsbooks where you place bets (hello bet35 bonus code), today we’re talking about the kind of sports books where you can get really engrossed in a story. Where you learn something new about a sport you’ve loved forever. Or you discover a whole new sport you barely knew existed.
In short, really great books in their own rite. But that celebrate sport in lots of different ways. So without further ado, let’s dive right in.
Sports books
Homing
Bet you never thought you’d read a book about pigeons. Well, here we are, about to convince you to read Homing by Jon Day.
Pigeon racing is a fascinating sport and one that becomes a lifelong passion for many who take part in it. Author Day is a pigeon fancier himself and his memoir takes you through so many different aspects of the sport and how it interacted with his life.
Touching on everything from early human history to the joys and trials of fatherhood, this is an extremely memorable book and one that would make an excellent gift for yourself or someone you love. And no, you certainly don’t need to be into pigeons to enjoy it.
Tuesdays with Morrie
Another memoir, Tuesdays with Morrie is a fascinating collection of stories that sports writer Mitch Albom made to his former professors while he was dying. Is it one of the great sports books? It’s just one of the great books, period.
At the time of these visits, Albom was a rising star in the sports journalism world. His visits became chapters, chronicling what Morrie learned over the course of his life. Interspersed with sports, but really about life itself, Tuesdays with Morrie is a must read for anyone.
Friday Night Lights
If you’re a fan of the NFL, it should come as no great shock to you that many players start out in high school teams. And in high school, football is taken extremely seriously. That’s exactly what H G Bissinger explores in the classic Friday Night Lights.
On the face of it, this book is about one small town in Texas in one season in the 1980s. But it is about so much more than that, when you get into it. In a way, it exposes the truth of American culture on a whole. Not just their obsession with football, but how football reveals people’s truest selves. And what we see isn’t always pretty.
The Bloodied Field
Michael Foley does an exceptional job of capturing one of the most controversial events in European sporting (and political) history of the 1900s. The Bloodied Field is about Bloody Sunday, where on 21 November 1920, British forces opened fire during a GAA match in the heart of Dublin.
Heartbreaking, gripping and fascinating, this sports book chronicles how an organization solidified a nation’s love of its indigenous sport. And also how these sports came to seem as so controversial and threatening to the government of the time.
Even if you’ve never heard of the GAA, we guarantee you’ll get something out of this book.
