A New York Times Best Seller
"Steve Almond is the author of the acclaimed story collection My Life in Heavy Metal."
"Almond is dead serious: Supporting a spectacle that causes brain
damage is immoral."
-New York Times Book Review
"[Almond] is a very good writer, and his analysis of problems
confronting the game today is well done."
-Washington Post
"Almond is a shifty cornerback of a writer: rangy, sarcastic,
offbeat. And every once in a while, he'll blindside you with a big
hit."
-New York Times
"An unapologetic, frontal assault on the game's role in American
culture."
-Los Angeles Times
"Steve Almond's blistering book Against Football: One Fan's
Reluctant Manifesto is exactly what it advertises itself to be:
an exasperated, frustrated, wide-ranging argument that the time has
come to abandon football - particularly but not exclusively the NFL
- as a sport built on violence, racism, economic exploitation of
poor kids, corrupt dealmaking with local governments over stadiums,
and a willingness to find it entertaining to watch people suffer
brain damage."
-Linda Holmes, NPR
"A devastating multi-pronged attack."
-Newsweek
"Powerful... Almond is a sympathetic narrator, his evidence
incontrovertible, the moral authority firmly on his side."
-Harper's Magazine
"A passionate and elegantly written book that finally overpowered
any rationalization I could come up with to justify watching more
football."
-New York Times, Dealbook
"A helpful and thoughtful read that traces the criticisms of the
game and the men who run it."
-Bitch Magazine
"In Steve Almond's Against Football, a book filled with
'obnoxious opinions' by the writer's own admittance-and they're not
that bad-Almond makes a case for the fact that football, and the
NFL specifically, is at the root of a toxic, pernicious, deadly and
deadening culture in America. The book came out on August 26th, and
it's taken a mere two weeks for Almond to be proven right on a
national scale, in the ugliest of fashions."
-Flavorwire
"Against Football is a book that kicks and prods and fights
with itself and ourselves. Almond is asking himself and us to drop
the ironic distance, open our eyes, and truly look at the
dangerous, vile, beautiful, fun, highly corrupted, and horrifically
corrupting corporate behemoth we spend so much of our money and
leisure time enraptured by, and know what it is that we are doing,
and what we are supporting."
-The Millions
"Steve Almond's slim but muscular broadside slams into the wall of
sanctimonious hokum served up by the NCAA, NFL, and their
sycophantic sportswriter enablers."
-PopMatters, Best Nonfiction Books of 2014
"[Almond's] persuasive book dares fans to consider how long they
can continue to ignore football's obvious flaws in order to
preserve their weekend ritual."
-Barron's
"Almond doesn't pretend to have all the answers, but sometimes it's
enough to raise the right questions at the right time. Against
Football does that with disarming humor and humanity."
-National Memo
"What a perfect chance to take a breath, look around, and push the
endeavor in a better direction."
-Open Letters Monthly
"This book is an important first step towards a more compassionate
and educated discourse on what is, unfortunately, a game many of us
are entertained by and deeply invested in."
-AskMen.com, Recommended Reading for September
"Against Football...makes a strong case that football, as
presently practiced by the NFL and NCAA, should be reformed or
abolished."
-Oregonian
"[Against Football] brilliantly states the case for radical
change to save the sport."
-Albany Times-Union
"A book that's part journalism, part memoir, part cultural
harpooning."
-Kansas City Star, FYI Book Club selection
"Against Football is clearly the pick of the litter: funny,
pained, profane and sharp as a November Saturday in Ann Arbor."
-Tampa Bay Times
"Almond covers all of the arguments against football...He has sworn
off the game. Will anyone join him? As he notes, boxing was once
this country's top sport."
-St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Pitch-perfect... Against Football is, at bottom, a love
letter from a heartbroken fan, notable for his eloquence and
clarity. It's easy to imagine that this pungent critique, with
quotable passages on nearly every page, could be a much-needed
game-changer. If that's overly optimistic, then we'll have to
settle for a first-rate piece of journalism and a great read."
-Portland Press Herald
"Almond's book is slim but potent... Almond makes his case in a
style that is conversational, self-deprecating, sharp and often
laugh-out-loud funny."
-Plain Dealer
"There are no easy answers found in Almond's book-and it's an
intentionally provocative argument being made, obviously-but what
it surely does is get you to think about what you're doing on
Sundays, what you're paying to watch and how we could possibly let
children play the game."
-Las Vegas Weekly
"It's an indictment, a self-excoriation, and a provocative analysis
of why so many Americans are hooked on this organized
violence."
-Tampa Bay Times
"Almond makes it impossible for us to ignore our willing
participation in this corrupt and destructive pastime... Against
Football is one fan's inflammatory, yet indispensable, voice in the
current conversation about the state of football in America."
-Brooklyn Rail
"Those who don't care for the U.S.'s favorite fall sport might be
inclined to pick up Steve Almond's Against Football, looking
for validation of their position. Those who love the sport may be
drawn in by its subtitle, One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto, for
similar reasons. Almond's power lies in his ability to speak to
both readers."
-Shelf Awareness, Great Reads Now in Paper
"If you want to continue to enjoy watching football as you have in
the past...you should particularly never read Steve Almond's
Against Football: One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto."
-Utah Daily Herald
"As a gesture of respect to a genuine 'critical eye', I am donating
my copy of Almond's remarkable book to the Cascade Public Library,
so anyone can witness a moral person making a painful, moral
decision."
-Cascade Pioneer (Iowa)
"As coiled and sharp as a scorpion's tail... A top-notch
interrogation."
-Electric Literature
"Almond (a New York Times bestselling author and lifelong
Raiders fan) writes beautifully and thought-provokingly about his
decision to give up watching a game he loves because of all the bad
stuff that goes along with it."
-Made Man
"Almond's book is a tremendous read, as all of his work is, but
more than that, it's an important one, and one that leaves you
slightly queasy the next time you set your fantasy football
roster."
-Pop Culture Beast
Nonfiction November Picks, Entomology of a Bookworm
A Publishers Weekly Book of the Week
"A welcome addition to the conversation."
-Shelf Awareness
"Many fans of football will react to this book with derision, and
many non-fans will consider his points self-evident: both are
wrong. These are arguments that deserve to be considered deeply and
grappled with, and teens-who have not yet devoted their lives or
opinions to or against the sport-are in a perfect position to take
Almond's manifesto seriously."
-School Library Journal
"Those who don't care for the U.S.'s favorite fall sport might be
inclined to pick up Steve Almond's Against Football, looking for
validation of their position. Those who love the sport may be drawn
in by its subtitle, One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto, for similar
reasons. Almond's power lies in his ability to speak to both
readers."
-Shelf Awareness
"A brilliantly quotable, carefully constructed, emotionally
vulnerable tract sure to anger as many as it convinces, he argues
against the sport's many sins even as he thoughtfully examines its
hold on the souls of the faithful."
-Booklist, starred review
"A provocative, thoughtful examination of an 'astonishingly brutal'
sport... Comic, compassionate and thought-provoking."
-Kirkus Reviews
"Powerful... Almond is drawing on his own experiences as a fan to
illustrate how difficult the problem, which provides the book with
an engaging personal angle that will lure readers who are mature
enough to hear him out whether they agree with his conclusions...
An important read, even if as Almond concedes, it offers more
questions than answers."
-Publishers Weekly
Praise for Steve Almond's Candy Freak:
"This book will, yes, make you hungry, but it will also make you
grateful-for wit, for self-effacing humor, for joyful
obsessiveness, for the precise and loving use of language to crack
open and celebrate our oddness-in short, for a writer as funny and
big-hearted as Steve Almond."
-George Saunders
"I got a real sugar rush and cluster headache reading this
bittersweet book by Steve Almond-joy, the sugar daddy himself."
-Amy Sedaris
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
