Best sports fiction books according to redditors

We found 377 Reddit comments discussing the best sports fiction books. We ranked the 77 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.

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Top Reddit comments about Sports Fiction:

u/Fran · 34 pointsr/running

Cliche to people who have been around for a while, but...

> And too there were questions: What did he eat? Did he believe in isometrics? Isotonics? Ice and heat? How about aerobics, est, ESP, STP? What did he have to say about yoga, yogurt, Yogi Berra? What was his pulse rate, his blood pressure, his time for 100-yard dash? What was the secret, they wanted to know; in a thousand different ways they wanted to know The Secret. And not one of them was prepared, truly prepared to believe that it had not so much to do with chemicals and zippy mental tricks as with that most unprofound and sometimes heart-rending process of removing, molecule by molecule, the very tough rubber that comprised the bottoms of his training shoes. The Trial of Miles, Miles of Trials. How could they be expected to understand that?

u/Terkala · 22 pointsr/printSF

Same stuff, different decade. I remember when people were talking about the demise of SF as a genre back when neuromancer ripoffs were proliferating. Or when there were a glut of star-wars and/or star-trek fanfiction books on the shelves.

I knew someone who actually purchased this book in a store.

I personally got into harder sci-fi from reading the Shadowrun series of books. I have a hard time reading most of them now, but they were a good introduction to more sci-fi settings.

u/RunRunBeerRun · 10 pointsr/running

The Trial of Miles; Miles of Trials.
“What was the secret, they wanted to know; in a thousand different ways they wanted to know The Secret. And not one of them was prepared, truly prepared to believe that it had not so much to do with chemicals and zippy mental tricks as with that most unprofound and sometimes heart-rending process of removing, molecule by molecule, the very tough rubber that comprised the bottoms of his training shoes.”

“You don't become a runner by winning a morning workout. The only true way is to marshal the ferocity of your ambition over the course of many days, weeks, months, and (if you could finally come to accept it) years.”
[Once a Runner] (http://smile.amazon.com/Once-Runner-John-Parker-Jr/dp/1416597891/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409045564&sr=8-1&keywords=once+a+runner)

u/Vio_ · 7 pointsr/FanFiction

This might not be Flash Gordon/Tristam Shandy level of craziness, but it gets points for actually being published

u/Balls_deerp · 7 pointsr/soccer

The Damned United. About Brian Clough's 44 day reign of Leeds. Also if you haven't seen it watch the film. Michael Sheen absolutely nails Clough.

u/barkevious2 · 7 pointsr/baseball

Fiction: The Universal Baseball Association, J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover.

Non-Fiction: Moneyball, definitely, but that's too obvious. The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball by Tom Tango, et al., and Eight Men Out by Eliot Asinof are also excellent choices.

u/Bananageddon · 5 pointsr/IAmA

If you enjoyed Invisible Man, I really have to recommend The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty. It's a painfully underrated book, and generally gets all sorts of terrible lables attached to it (hip-hop novel / Chris Rock in prose), but it's a bloody excellent read.

u/HeadphoneJackal · 5 pointsr/running

If you like reading, here are a few other great books:

u/rodneypuckman · 4 pointsr/running

Once a Runner by John Parker is an excellent book about a college miler and his training. By far my favorite book about running.

u/themadnooch · 4 pointsr/booksuggestions

Outer Dark is really good, I would recommend that as well as Child of God. Both are some gritty dark tales in the south. If you are looking for a bit of a different McCarthy tale, check out Suttree when you get a chance - it has since become my favorite McCarthy novel or on par with Blood Meridian.

Other recommendations not McCarthy:

u/anim8 · 3 pointsr/books

That is NOT my experience in shopping for ebooks.

Chosen at random from my recommendations on amazon.com:

Breathless, same price as paperback

Full Dark, No Stars, Same price as paperback

Daniel X, -$1 from hardcover

The Art of Fielding: A Novel, +$1.88 over paperback

Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever. = to hardcover

The Heroes of Olympus, Book Two: The Son of Neptune, -$1.41 over hardcover

Hell House, -$0.18 over paperback

Fight Club, -$2.57 over paperback

Prices are only slightly lower, if at all over physical books. Obviously this is a small sample, but whenever I go looking it is typically what I find.

Your overhead arguments are mostly false as well:

  • marketing cost are equal for ebook vs physical

  • royalties are equal for ebook vs physical

  • conversion? The books are all edited electronically already and it only needs to be done once

  • Data center storage is vastly less expensive than warehousing and retail shelf space space needed for physical books which should result in lower price

  • you only need 1 secure digital copy, vs thousands of physical books which should result in lower price which should result in lower price

  • ebooks need never be shipped which should result in lower price

  • publishers will never overprint ebooks which should result in lower price

    edit: formatting
u/thegreyking7 · 3 pointsr/gaybros

Two of my favorite gay-interest novels are Blind Fall by Christopher Rice and The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach.

Christopher Rice writes a ton of other gay-interest books, so check those out as well. Blind Fall is just my personal favorite.

If I think of any others, I'll let you know.

u/bix783 · 3 pointsr/SRSWomen

Recently finished: A visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan -- read it all in about two sittings, this book is amazing!

On now: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach -- really enjoying it thus far, and it is not what I expected.

Next up: Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon -- Pynchon is my favourite author and I've been saving this one for a while because of how long it is.

u/dumbmatter · 3 pointsr/BasketballGM

Thanks so much for the kind words! It means a lot to me :)

And also thanks for the thoughtful feedback!

> I love how the day after free agency ends, and I review my roster to find out how player ratings changed, feels almost like opening presents on Christmas morning

I like that too! And it was really unintentional. My original thought was that it'd maybe be better to have ratings change continuously over time, but once per year was simpler. But this may be a case where simpler is actually better.

> Revising some of the team names.

Unlikely to happen, both because I love the team names (Blue Chips is my favorite) and because I hired an artist to make the logos so I can't easily change them on a whim.

Like I said in my other comment here, the change to the owners message was because of repetitiveness, not offensiveness.

I definitely understand why people might not like some of the off color humor, but part of the benefit of making your own video game is that you get to impose your tastes on everyone. Maybe some day a real company will buy BBGM and change them all to generic animal names :)

Also, it's not too hard to customize. Basically you just have to make a customized version of this file and then use it when you start a league. Let me know if you need any help doing something like that.

> Develop a "loyalty" factor that affects free agent signability.

Yeah, the player mood system is definitely in need of some work. The most fundamental problem is how opaque it is. You think everything's going great, and then boom your top 2 players refuse to re-sign. It feels both unfair and unrealistic. I need to make mood viewable throughout the season, so you can anticipate a player refusing to re-sign. And I need to make it clearer what goes into mood. If a player is leaving, why? Hopefully I'll do some of this stuff soon.

...that's a little tangential to your suggestion though. I like your loyalty idea. It could be a fun mechanic. But it'll be tricky to get it right. And even looking at the NBA, is there really any loyalty? Maybe a little, but not much right?

> Develop a quicklink library for user-generated rosters

I'm a little worried about making them seem "official" because I think it's a somewhat legally ambiguous situation for me to officially include real teams and players in the game.

---

Also, I've recommended this to other people here, but since you come from the old days of sports sims, I especially recommend you read this book some time.

u/midlifecrackers · 3 pointsr/RomanceBooks

While You Were Sleeping used to be my fav movie, but as i age, it kinda sets me off more. But the dude stuck in the closet trying on her shoes still makes me laugh my ass off.

This week was mostly M/M, so if it ain't your thing, skip a few!

I've read Winter Spirit, which was kind of adorable. M/M novella set in Michigan with a paranormal element. Not normally a ghost story person, but this might've gotten me hooked. 4/5

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Love Roan Parrish but Natural Enemies was a little meh. M/M short with a strong botanical theme, which i luurrvve, but the characters didn't feel like they had real chemistry. 3/5

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Alexis Hall is my new best friend. His writing is just... ugh. Like a cup of hot cider on a cold day. Listened to the audio of both Glitterland and Waiting for the Flood. Beautiful books, fantastic narration. Darian's accent and slang cracked me up, but he was such a marshmallow i want to be his friend. Glitterland is: bipolar misanthropic educated asshole falls for a tanned, goofy model who is shallow on the outside but is genuine lovely human. Waiting for the Flood is a quiet short story with two shy lovely men in middle England finding love during a weather disaster.

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Currently reading A Change in Tide cause i'm 41 and kinda needed something in my age range. M/F set in Canada, heroine is dealing with PTSD and became a hermit, hero is retired hockey star with the tired 'former player' trope. So far the writing is ok, sexual tension is high, but i feel there's too much introspection and not enough action. Not sure if will finish.

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I tried it, you guys. I genuinely tried a shapeshifter novel. Nalini Singh's psy-changeling series. DNF. I know it's a popular series but it feels too misogynistic for me, anyone else?

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Tried Politically Incorrect also, DNF cause it felt like too much wish fulfillment. Also wound up reading the Goodreads reviews partway thru (does anyone else do that? sort of a "should i bother with this?" last ditch effort) and some freaking illiterate review that was NOT marked as a spoiler gave away a MAJOR spoiler which happens to be a hated trope, so i abandoned it. Boo, cause it seemed so promising.

u/runningbro · 3 pointsr/baseball

The Art of Fielding is a great novel about a college baseball player. Incredible novel, not so much focusing on the baseball aspect, just a great story and writing.

u/BeAuditYouCanBe- · 2 pointsr/baseball
u/pdschatz · 2 pointsr/MLS

I read the book it's based on, I thought it was pretty good. I'll have to check out the movie.

Apparently the Clough family were very unhappy about his portrayal in the book and movie, as was Johnny Giles who successfully sued the publishers of the book. There's a follow up biography I've been meaning to read, that attempts to tell the "real story" of Clough's tenure at Leeds.

u/iiEviNii · 2 pointsr/soccer
u/TheBackburner · 2 pointsr/books

Not sure I can meet your exact criteria, but here are a few "real" books I recommend.

"The Art of Fielding" by Chad Harbach.

"We, the Drowned" by Carsten Jensen.

"The Imperfectionists" by Tom Rachman.

Of those, "The Art of Fielding" is probably closest to what you're looking for. It's a baseball novel, but it's really about college age kids (like you) and their ambitions, uncertainty, relationships and whatnot. "We, the Drowned" is a historical epic focusing on a Danish harbor town. "The Imperfectionists" is a collection of related short stories about a fictional English language newspaper in Italy. The last one may be a bit depressing. I've never read an author better at writing unhappy, miserable people than Rachman.

u/sretsnom · 2 pointsr/gay
u/SuttonScowl · 2 pointsr/CFBOffTopic
u/si4ci7 · 2 pointsr/nba

When I was a little kid I had these massive Sports illustrated books about Baseball, Basketball, and Football, that went through the sport decade by decade, talking about the players and culture. I'm pretty sure it was this Sports Illustrated: The Basketball Book https://www.amazon.com/dp/1933821191/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_yyWXCb18HAVDJ

u/robmcfc · 2 pointsr/soccer

This is excellent: Duncan Hamilton - Provided You Don't Kiss Me

Hamilton wrote for the Nottingham Evening Post when Clough managed Forest and it covers the whole tenure. It's a fascinating read.

There's also David Peace - The Damned United which was made into a film. It's written as a novel but provides a good insight into what happened with Clough at Leeds, as well as beforehand at Hartlepool, Derby and Brighton.

u/Toto_radio · 2 pointsr/soccer
u/[deleted] · 2 pointsr/gaybros

Ill have to get this. I have been looking for a good read! Thanks!

Edit: Reading the preview now. Looks good, will order!

u/cheesetarian · 2 pointsr/booksuggestions

Check out Donnybrook by Frank Bill. It has a full cast of degenerates and violence on nearly every page. I absolutely loved it. It's not quite the violence you were thinking about (there is one hitman in it though), but I still think you will enjoy.

http://www.amazon.com/Donnybrook-Novel-Frank-Bill/dp/0374532893/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370232275&sr=1-1&keywords=donnybrook

u/NJBilbo · 1 pointr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

If you took away my baseball, you might as well take away my air, water, and food. I live, breathe, and eat the game... so much so I work part time for one of the clubs!

A favorite non-fiction book is Crazy '08 about the 1908 season if you like the history of the game.
Also Summer of '49, The Boys of Summer, The Glory of Their Times, and Eight Men Out

For fiction... you MUST read Shoeless Joe. The Natural, For Love of the Game, and Bang the Drum Slowly aren't bad either... I'm sure you've seen all the movies too.

u/amazon-converter-bot · 1 pointr/FreeEBOOKS

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.co.uk

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amazon.com.au

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amazon.de

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I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

u/Psy-Kosh · 1 pointr/reddit.com

I saw http://www.amazon.com/X-Men-Planet-Star-Trek-Generation/dp/0671019163/ at our library once. I would think it qualifies for the running...

u/FranceOhnohnohn · 1 pointr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

Hello thar! I'm Liz :) My favorite (e)book is The Art of Racing in Rain by Garth Stein. It's about a dogs point of view of his owners life. And if I remember correctly, the owers point of view of the dogs life in few parts. It goes through when they met (puppy times) to well... You know... But yeah. Im trying to describe it without giving it away. I think you get the gist though.... Awesome contest!!! Im crossing my fingers cause I really want a kindle of some type :3

u/equalx · 1 pointr/scifi

This seems appropriate to mention, in case we have any Star Trek fans around here: http://www.amazon.com/Planet-Star-Trek-Next-Generation/dp/0671019163

u/ccgolfer20 · 1 pointr/golf

If you just want a funny book about golf then you must read Missing Links by Rick Reilly, really really funny!

u/xenonscreams · 1 pointr/running

> If that really is one of your goals, you are bound to fail and to be frustrated.

If, for you, whether or not you succeed depends on whether or not you accomplish your goals, then probably. But I'm all about the process! It's a journey, man. One you need to be a part of to really get.

> And I want some of the stuff OAR is taking, cause he's trippiiiiiing...

OAR is a book. I abbreviated it because I made the fallacious assumption that everyone knows where that quote is from. You should read it. It is the only thing I've ever read that has adequately captured what it means to be a competitive runner.

u/Mangalz · 1 pointr/comicbooks

This might be what you are looking for.

Imagine how weird it will be picturing Patrick Stewarts face as Picard and Xavier at the same time.

u/zacdenver · 1 pointr/baseball

Ideal for fans of the Cleveland Indians: The Curse of Rocky Colavito by Terry Pluto.

Because I'm a huge Strat-O-Matic baseball fan, I enjoyed The Universal Baseball Association, Inc. by Robert Coover, where protagonist Henry Waugh creates his own dice baseball league -- not without its dark passages, though.

u/plug_ugly · 1 pointr/books

I loved both of those books. Donnybrook is another book about f*cked up white trash, that I highly suggest.

u/Riffler · 1 pointr/suggestmeabook

The Damned United.

It's darker than the film and worth reading even if you've seen the film.

u/Sqeaky · 1 pointr/booksuggestions

Whatever you do, do not read Star Trek X-Men Planet X, it is likely the worst piece of fiction licensed by any major franchise and I say this having watched the Star Wars Holiday Special.

u/OklaJosha · 1 pointr/malelivingspace

coffee table books are mainly for guests, to browse while you're doing something or as a conversation starter. I'd lean for something that has a lot of pictures in it & is easy to digest.

Based on your interests:

u/rarelyserious · 1 pointr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

Oh geez, I don't know your interests so here's a variety pack:

Lamb, by Christopher Moore - A comedic look at the years not covered in the new testament. Moore in general is a good read as he provides a comedic take to some well traveled ground.

Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman - The funniest book about the apocalypse ever written. Pratchett primarily writes the Disc World novels, also a good read if you're into fantasy. They satire both fantasy as a genre and out world. Gaiman, on the otherhand, writes gritty urban fantasy with a philosophical twist.

She's Come Undone, by Wally Lamb - Lamb writes with emotion. If you're looking for a tear jerker this is it.

The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein - Told from the perspective of a dog, this is a book that will make your appreciate your furry friends even more. Also have tissues handy for this one.

u/brionic76 · 1 pointr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

I've been wanting to read this book for quite awhile.

Why won't you move Mr. Bubbles?

Thanks for the contest! :)

u/SpacemanDan · 1 pointr/asoiaf

If you read a lot of non-fantasy, allow me plagiarize a comment I wrote a couple months back and make a recommendation:

> I'm going to take your "It doesn't have to be fantasy" statement and go very far abroad.

> I wholeheartedly endorse Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding. It was my absolute favorite novel published last year, and the first piece of fiction I read after finishing A Dance With Dragons.

> It's nominally about a gifted baseball player and the people surrounding him at a small college in Wisconsin, but it's really about friend love and love love and mental illness and joy and heartbreak and uncertainty and discovery and Moby Dick and growing older and growing even older still. There are some stylistic similarities with ASOIAF, namely that the book utilizes different POV characters, and that there's a lot of time and thought given to the giant mish-mash of relationships between the characters. It starts pretty simply, and just gets deeper and deeper as the book goes on.

> I don't know what you do and don't like, but allow me to just end with this: you don't have to like baseball to love this book. Much in the same way that tons of football agnostics adore Friday Night Lights, Harbach uses baseball as a canvas for his characters' hopes and dreams and aspirations and anxieties. Please please please, give it a shot.

u/SuperVanillaMeow · 1 pointr/FreeEBOOKS
u/muchADEW · 1 pointr/baseball

The Iowa Baseball Confederacy by W.P. Kinsella. Same guy who wrote 'Shoeless Joe,' the book on which 'Field of Dreams' was based.

> Bearing W.P. Kinsella's trademark combination of "sweet-natured prose and a richly imagined world" (Philadelphia Inquirer), The Iowa Baseball Confederacy tells the story of Gideon Clark, a man on a quest. He is out to prove to the world that the indomitable Chicago Cubs traveled to Iowa in the summer of 1908 for an exhibition game against an amateur league, the Iowa Baseball Confederacy. But a simple game somehow turned into a titanic battle of more than two thousand innings, and Gideon Clark struggles to set the record straight on this infamous game that no one else believes ever happened.

u/joeydball · 1 pointr/gaybros

I just read The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, and I really enjoyed it. It's about a baseball team at a small midwestern college. A couple of the characters are gay, and all of the characters are fascinating.

u/R961ROP · 1 pointr/soccer

Football Ramble’s book is good:

The Football Ramble https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1780896344/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_yC8PAbHPVAFX4

And The Damned United. The film was very good, but the book is even better:

The Damned Utd https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0571224334/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_4D8PAb2RTMV73

u/ledbetterus · 1 pointr/NYYankees

Missing Links by Rick Reilly

It's sports related though. It's a fun little book about some golf shenanigans.

u/IntrepidusX · 0 pointsr/startrek

If that's cannon then this is cannon nobody wants that!