There's Always This Year
Magnetic
Eloquent
Expressive

There's Always This Year On Basketball and Ascension

A poignant, personal reflection on basketball, talent and allegiance, and of course, LeBron James—from the author of the National Book Award finalist A Little Devil in America While Hanif Abdurraqib is an acclaimed author, a gifted poet, and one of our culture’s most insightful critics, he is most of all, at heart, an Ohioan. Growing up in Columbus in the 1990s, Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron were forged, and countless others weren’t. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tensions between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role models, all of which he expertly weaves together with memoir. “Here is where I would like to tell you about the form on my father’s jumpshot,” Abdurraqib writes. “The truth, though, is that I saw my father shoot a basketball only one time.” There’s Always This Year is a classic Abdurraqib triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. It’s about basketball in the way They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us is about music and A Little Devil in America is about history—no matter the subject, Abdurraqib’s exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves.
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Reviews

Photo of cee
cee @ceereading
3.5 stars
Nov 13, 2024
Magnetic
Eloquent
Beautiful
Remarkable
Page turning
Photo of Marion R
Marion R@mariorugu
3.5 stars
Sep 12, 2024
Compelling
Fascinating
Photo of Anna Oeltjenbruns
Anna Oeltjenbruns@annaoel
5 stars
Aug 10, 2024
Photo of Lindsay
Lindsay@schnurln
5 stars
Apr 9, 2024
Deep
Clever
Unique
Candid
Magnetic
Eloquent
Creative
Emotional
Expressive
Insightful
Thought provoking
Photo of Beecher Halladay
Beecher Halladay@beecher
5 stars
Aug 14, 2024
Photo of c0up
c0up@c0up
4 stars
May 13, 2024
Photo of Henry Stromberg
Henry Stromberg@hstromberg
4 stars
Jul 30, 2024

Highlights

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Marion R@mariorugu
Photo of Marion R
Marion R@mariorugu
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Lindsay@schnurln
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Lindsay@schnurln
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Lindsay@schnurln
Photo of Lindsay
Lindsay@schnurln
Photo of Lindsay
Lindsay@schnurln
Photo of Lindsay
Lindsay@schnurln
Photo of Lindsay
Lindsay@schnurln
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Lindsay@schnurln
Photo of Lindsay
Lindsay@schnurln
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Lindsay@schnurln
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Lindsay@schnurln
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Lindsay@schnurln
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Lindsay@schnurln
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Lindsay@schnurln
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Lindsay@schnurln
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Lindsay@schnurln
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Lindsay@schnurln
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Lindsay@schnurln
Photo of Lindsay
Lindsay@schnurln
Photo of Lindsay
Lindsay@schnurln
Photo of Lindsay
Lindsay@schnurln
Photo of Lindsay
Lindsay@schnurln