I see a shiny grassy green diamond, some guys in uniform. One guy on a patch of dirt in the middle throws a ball, and another guy tries to hit it with a stick. If he hits it he wins, if he doesn’t: the other guy wins. It looks like most sports. On second glance however, I realize things are not as clear. The guy with the stick — I… Read More »A European watches Major League Baseball
If you read this blog, you know DFW is one of my favorite writers. I even named my book app, in part, after him. So I could be short about String Theory — it’s a absolute pure delight to read — but, of course, I won’t. String Theory is a collection of 5 DFW essays about tennis. It mostly covers 90s era tennis — Sampras and Agassi — but it… Read More »String Theory – David Foster Wallace
I finished this book in one sitting. Partly because Zonneveld has a pleasant writing style. But also because the rather recent story of a hugely talented and (very) young cyclist who early on in his career got involved with dope and raced towards destruction is fascinating. It’s the (auto)biography of Thomas Dekker but it is just as much the biography of the cycling world in the early 2000s. And this… Read More »Thomas Dekker: The Descent (Mijn Gevecht) – Thijs Zonneveld
Matthias M.R. Declercq pulled of two remarkable things. Not only did he manage to find this extraordinary story about friendship, ambition and sacrifice, he was also able to write it down in exceptional fashion. The events described in ‘The Fall’ (‘De Val’) are real, but the book is not necessarily a biography. The story revolves around a group of five Belgian riders (flandriens) who are pretty well known in the… Read More »The Fall (De Val) – Matthias M.R. Declercq
The 2016/2017 NBA season has been a lot of fun so far. Just like the previous season. All kinds of records are being broken. It seems the game is changing. Or maybe it’s because we just keep track of everything now. Either way it’s much more interesting to follow the NBA than it was a decade ago. We all know the global stars like Curry, Westbrook, Durant, LeBron and Harden. They’ve… Read More »Rising NBA stars