
Heaven Is a Playground by Rick Telander
Now in Paperback! Heaven Is a Playgroundis the first book on the uniquely American phenomenon of urban basketball.
Sports Illustrated's Top 100 Sports Books of All Time
"The best basketball book I've ever read" —Barack Obama
"Telander’s beautiful sentences... feature his keen eye for detail, and his effortless blend of sociology and sport." —Jonathan Eig, New York magazine
“Funny, sad, superbly written, and intensely involving.” —New York Times Book Review
“Telander’s open-ended chronicle of inner-city playground basketball life is a model of clarity and restraint. No one has written a more resonant or understanding book about kids playing basketball, and few books about sports have willingly pulled together so many truths about the disappointments and dislocating fantasies of athletic competition.” —The Atlantic
“Heaven Is a Playground is a book that was an inspiration to me in making Hoop Dreams. Not just because of the way Rick Telander engaged in the kind of immersive personal journalism that was as rare then as it is now. But because he wrote with such passion, love, and poetry about that uniquely American confluence of mean streets, basketball, and dreams.” —Steve James, director of Hoop Dreams
"The best basketball book I've ever read" —Barack Obama
"Telander’s beautiful sentences... feature his keen eye for detail, and his effortless blend of sociology and sport." —Jonathan Eig, New York magazine
“Funny, sad, superbly written, and intensely involving.” —New York Times Book Review
“Telander’s open-ended chronicle of inner-city playground basketball life is a model of clarity and restraint. No one has written a more resonant or understanding book about kids playing basketball, and few books about sports have willingly pulled together so many truths about the disappointments and dislocating fantasies of athletic competition.” —The Atlantic
“Heaven Is a Playground is a book that was an inspiration to me in making Hoop Dreams. Not just because of the way Rick Telander engaged in the kind of immersive personal journalism that was as rare then as it is now. But because he wrote with such passion, love, and poetry about that uniquely American confluence of mean streets, basketball, and dreams.” —Steve James, director of Hoop Dreams
Rick Telander is a sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and a former senior writer for Sports Illustrated and ESPN: the Magazine. Telander has won the Illinois Sportswriter of the Year Award nine times, and in 2018 he was awarded the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the author of eight books, including In the Year of the Bull.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781683584728 |
| ISBN 10 | 1683584724 |
| Title | Heaven Is a Playground |
| Author | Rick Telander |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Sports Publishing LLC |
| Year published | 2023-09-28 |
| Number of pages | 288 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |