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 Customer Reviews
Comprehensive!, 31 Oct 2008
American sports love their stats, and this book has just about everything you need to know. It includes the team rosters, player stats, super bowl stats and just about everything else! Just don't try and read it all in one sitting. (go Cowboys!)
It's got the lot NFL fans!, 22 Oct 2008
EVERYTHING you can possibly imagine regarding the NFL is contained in this book. Not just a vital reference for statistics, but also has all the latest up to date information on the game, history, TV, the Super Bowl and all football related matters. THE DADDY, THE KING of the NFL, buy it.
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Customer Reviews
Comprehensive!, 31 Oct 2008
American sports love their stats, and this book has just about everything you need to know. It includes the team rosters, player stats, super bowl stats and just about everything else! Just don't try and read it all in one sitting. (go Cowboys!)
It's got the lot NFL fans!, 22 Oct 2008
EVERYTHING you can possibly imagine regarding the NFL is contained in this book. Not just a vital reference for statistics, but also has all the latest up to date information on the game, history, TV, the Super Bowl and all football related matters. THE DADDY, THE KING of the NFL, buy it.
A fascinating and moving insight into the growth of a potential NFL star, 20 Apr 2008
A fascinating and moving insight into the growth of a potential NFL star from very humble and difficult beginnings. I am sure the vast majority of people who have read this will be pulling for Oher to make it to the big stage. The development and changes in the guys life are brought out well by Michael Lewis here, this is a very fine book, he clearly has a knack for writing about sports what with this and Moneyball. I look forward to his next book on football, although I fear we may have to wait longer than I would really like.
As a footnote - Oher declared for the 2008 NFL draft, then changed his mind, giving him another season in college.
Brilliant, 13 Jan 2008
I loved this book. It details Oher's life so far, how he came to be where he is, expalins how the left tackle position has evolved into the one it is now and the importance it carries, and the various colleges that recruited Oher.
Great book, recommend to any american football fan.
Grips like a giant left tackle and won't let go!, 21 Aug 2007
I've been a fan of Michael Lewis since he wrote his first book 'Liar's Poker'. I loved that book, and his ability to make a strange world seem familiar (in that case the world of Wall Street). Having read and enjoyed Moneyball, I got this as a gift from my wish list.
Once I'd read the first chapter where he describes the sudden, shocking demise of a quarterback, I was hooked, even though I have no real clue about how American football actually works. When I occasionally watch the Super Bowl, I spend most of the time saying things like 'where's the ball', 'why has that guy vanished' etc.
Lewis interleaves the story of how quarterbacks and by extension left tackles became much more valuable (in game and money terms), as he did in MoneyBall with the inspirational story of Michael Oher a dirt poor black guy who lucks into a rich white school because of his size and athletic ability.
Lewis has become expert at combining analysis of markets in the unlikeliest places with a more human story. Just occasionally it gets a bit too hokey, but otherwise it's compulsive. Deserves a wider readership than it'll get in the UK.
A Sporting Pygmalion, 20 Mar 2007
Three decades on from the first regular screening of the NFL on Channel 4, there is clearly a sizeable audience for American football in the UK, as evidenced by the overwhelming interest in the Giants-Dolphins regular season game due to be played at Wembley in October 2007. The people who expressed an interest in that game, amongst others, would do well to read this book, but then even non-aficionados will find plenty to interest them, without prior knowledge of the game.
Nominally about the development of the left tackle position, and principally about one player in that position, it transpires to be about much more.
Michael Oher, the real-life protagonist, spent the first sixteen years of his life in the ghetto of West Memphis, Tennessee. Part of the book is dedicated to relating his extraordinary path from those early deprivations, the knife edge he treads between being sucked into the world of drugs and his actual path of salvation through his apparently innate size, strength, speed and sporting aptitude which ultimately furnish him with his ticket out.
Delivered up to a private Christian school by de facto guardian Big Tony, as an indirect result of Tony's mom's deathbed wish, the school's head and sports coaches immediately see an opportunity to use Big Mike's gifts. Although there is some definite self-interest involved, it is of the enlightened variety, and it is to the school's credit that it gives him the opportunities it does, stressing the boy's education as a priority.
Despite Michael's quite shocking backstory, it results at times in some amusing episodes. The fluid state of Michael's identity (too complex to explain here) compels his new foster mom, Leigh Anne Tuohy, to engage in a day of to and fro intrigue in order to procure sufficient documentation for him to obtain a driver's licence. Michael and Big Tony's son Steven, also enrolled at the school, are incredulous at the casual attitude of white folks to their possessions - they leave them lying around the school as if nobody is going to steal them! And what's more, for a Christian school, isn't it odd that, unlike at public school, there are no free meals? (For some time, Michael's straitened circumstances are completely unknown to the school.)
But the backstory also provides a fascinating exposé of the scandalous lack of a social safety net for Michael and people like him in the world's number one economy.
A part of the book's strength is that Michael Lewis plays with Oher's story's chronology. This achieves dramatic effect as we are able to share Oher's benefactors' shock at the discovery of some of its details.
The other thing Lewis does well is to intersperse the left tackle development story, also shaken up chronologically, with Michael Oher's, from Bill Walsh's (qualified) invention of the West Coast Offense (pardon spelling here), the role of the linebacker (notably Lawrence Taylor) in suppressing it, and the consequent need to protect the quarterback (exemplified in blood-curdling fashion by the book's opening sequence in which LT is involved in the termination of Joe Theismann's career, an event I, and probably many of my fellow UK-based football fans, recall with a shiver).
The book ultimately operates on several levels: as a biography, as a book about football, and as a social documentary. Despite my personal misgivings about faith schools, the one that takes Michael in impresses with its philanthropy. My one caveat is the revelation at the end of the book that Lewis and Sean Tuohy, ultimately Oher's adoptive father, are old college friends, disqualifying the author from role of neutral bystander.
But it's undoubtedly entertaining and well-written, and Lewis has a fine sense of humour - his comment about Sean Tuohy, that he would know a poem being "as likely as Sylvia Plath hitting a jump shot at the buzzer", had me laughing out loud (on a plane). However, he misses the opportunity to capitalise fully on a mention of Pygmalion on the same page. But that just gives me the opportunity to draw the comparison between the stories of Michael Oher and Eliza Doolittle.
The book ends before Michael's NFL career begins to take shape. Is that too soon? Well, I guess it gives Lewis a chance for Blind Side 2, but in truth the Pygmalion story ended when Michael went off to college. Job done. If you want to know more you can go to First Down, Sports Illustrated or NFL.com. Lewis has told, and told well, the story those guys won't be covering.
A Riveting Story of Resurrection, 29 Jan 2007
Imagine that you are a large (over 300 pounds) African-American teenager who lives in the worst part of Memphis. You never knew your father (and he will soon be murdered). Your mother is addicted to drugs and doesn't do much to provide for you. You have no bed. You don't know where your next meal is coming from. You haven't gone to enough school to know how to do much of anything.
What do you want out of life? You want to be Michael Jordan . . . just like millions of other teenagers. You've spent endless hours on the playgrounds practicing as a shooting guard.
What will you become in a handful of years? One of the most heavily recruited college football players in the United States and a top professional prospect who people are watching as you learn how to be a left tackle.
The story of how Michael Oher made this transition is one of the most amazing, moving, and fascinating real-life stories it has ever been my pleasure to read. Whether or not you like football, you'll find this book to be impossible to put down.
Michael Lewis does a remarkable job in telling the story. Mr. Lewis was fortunate to have a long-term friendship with Sean Tuohy, one of the many people who helped Michael Oher fulfill his potential. As a result, Mr. Lewis enjoyed amazing access to the people involved in Michael's life . . . and eventually got some help from Michael as well.
The Blind Side is four stories in one:
1. Michael's life before he met the Tuohy family.
2. Michael's progress from being ignorant to becoming a highly recruited college football prospect.
3. Michael's adjustment to college.
4. The changes in American professional football that created an irresistible demand for someone with Michael's physical capabilities.
Each of these stories would make a fine book. To be able to pursue all four stories at the same time is an unexpected delight.
But the story's not over. Michael is now a sophomore at Ole Miss. Will he make it to the NFL? You can follow his career and find out. Perhaps other amazing chapters lie ahead. Who knows?
There's another story this book doesn't tell, but implies: The world is full of talented youth who could make great contributions . . . but they need a lot of help from people who care and are determined to help the youth succeed. For ever Michael Oher, there must be millions who languish. How can we change that? You'll be haunted by that question after you read this book.
If you are looking for keen insights into American football that you don't already have, you'll probably be disappointed. Any fan of professional football knows that a team's potential chances of success are only as good as the blocking of the offensive line. Clearly, the left tackle is the best insurance against a maimed right-handed quarterback, something no fan wants. You've probably noticed that the top left tackles get paid almost as much as quarterbacks. The history of how the Bill Walsh-type passing offenses have become so important is something you've lived through.
The professional football material will, however, be helpful to those who don't know football and want to appreciate why people have been going gaga over Michael Oher.
How can you help an at-risk youth today?
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Customer Reviews
Comprehensive!, 31 Oct 2008
American sports love their stats, and this book has just about everything you need to know. It includes the team rosters, player stats, super bowl stats and just about everything else! Just don't try and read it all in one sitting. (go Cowboys!)
It's got the lot NFL fans!, 22 Oct 2008
EVERYTHING you can possibly imagine regarding the NFL is contained in this book. Not just a vital reference for statistics, but also has all the latest up to date information on the game, history, TV, the Super Bowl and all football related matters. THE DADDY, THE KING of the NFL, buy it.
A fascinating and moving insight into the growth of a potential NFL star, 20 Apr 2008
A fascinating and moving insight into the growth of a potential NFL star from very humble and difficult beginnings. I am sure the vast majority of people who have read this will be pulling for Oher to make it to the big stage. The development and changes in the guys life are brought out well by Michael Lewis here, this is a very fine book, he clearly has a knack for writing about sports what with this and Moneyball. I look forward to his next book on football, although I fear we may have to wait longer than I would really like.
As a footnote - Oher declared for the 2008 NFL draft, then changed his mind, giving him another season in college.
Brilliant, 13 Jan 2008
I loved this book. It details Oher's life so far, how he came to be where he is, expalins how the left tackle position has evolved into the one it is now and the importance it carries, and the various colleges that recruited Oher.
Great book, recommend to any american football fan.
Grips like a giant left tackle and won't let go!, 21 Aug 2007
I've been a fan of Michael Lewis since he wrote his first book 'Liar's Poker'. I loved that book, and his ability to make a strange world seem familiar (in that case the world of Wall Street). Having read and enjoyed Moneyball, I got this as a gift from my wish list.
Once I'd read the first chapter where he describes the sudden, shocking demise of a quarterback, I was hooked, even though I have no real clue about how American football actually works. When I occasionally watch the Super Bowl, I spend most of the time saying things like 'where's the ball', 'why has that guy vanished' etc.
Lewis interleaves the story of how quarterbacks and by extension left tackles became much more valuable (in game and money terms), as he did in MoneyBall with the inspirational story of Michael Oher a dirt poor black guy who lucks into a rich white school because of his size and athletic ability.
Lewis has become expert at combining analysis of markets in the unlikeliest places with a more human story. Just occasionally it gets a bit too hokey, but otherwise it's compulsive. Deserves a wider readership than it'll get in the UK.
A Sporting Pygmalion, 20 Mar 2007
Three decades on from the first regular screening of the NFL on Channel 4, there is clearly a sizeable audience for American football in the UK, as evidenced by the overwhelming interest in the Giants-Dolphins regular season game due to be played at Wembley in October 2007. The people who expressed an interest in that game, amongst others, would do well to read this book, but then even non-aficionados will find plenty to interest them, without prior knowledge of the game.
Nominally about the development of the left tackle position, and principally about one player in that position, it transpires to be about much more.
Michael Oher, the real-life protagonist, spent the first sixteen years of his life in the ghetto of West Memphis, Tennessee. Part of the book is dedicated to relating his extraordinary path from those early deprivations, the knife edge he treads between being sucked into the world of drugs and his actual path of salvation through his apparently innate size, strength, speed and sporting aptitude which ultimately furnish him with his ticket out.
Delivered up to a private Christian school by de facto guardian Big Tony, as an indirect result of Tony's mom's deathbed wish, the school's head and sports coaches immediately see an opportunity to use Big Mike's gifts. Although there is some definite self-interest involved, it is of the enlightened variety, and it is to the school's credit that it gives him the opportunities it does, stressing the boy's education as a priority.
Despite Michael's quite shocking backstory, it results at times in some amusing episodes. The fluid state of Michael's identity (too complex to explain here) compels his new foster mom, Leigh Anne Tuohy, to engage in a day of to and fro intrigue in order to procure sufficient documentation for him to obtain a driver's licence. Michael and Big Tony's son Steven, also enrolled at the school, are incredulous at the casual attitude of white folks to their possessions - they leave them lying around the school as if nobody is going to steal them! And what's more, for a Christian school, isn't it odd that, unlike at public school, there are no free meals? (For some time, Michael's straitened circumstances are completely unknown to the school.)
But the backstory also provides a fascinating exposé of the scandalous lack of a social safety net for Michael and people like him in the world's number one economy.
A part of the book's strength is that Michael Lewis plays with Oher's story's chronology. This achieves dramatic effect as we are able to share Oher's benefactors' shock at the discovery of some of its details.
The other thing Lewis does well is to intersperse the left tackle development story, also shaken up chronologically, with Michael Oher's, from Bill Walsh's (qualified) invention of the West Coast Offense (pardon spelling here), the role of the linebacker (notably Lawrence Taylor) in suppressing it, and the consequent need to protect the quarterback (exemplified in blood-curdling fashion by the book's opening sequence in which LT is involved in the termination of Joe Theismann's career, an event I, and probably many of my fellow UK-based football fans, recall with a shiver).
The book ultimately operates on several levels: as a biography, as a book about football, and as a social documentary. Despite my personal misgivings about faith schools, the one that takes Michael in impresses with its philanthropy. My one caveat is the revelation at the end of the book that Lewis and Sean Tuohy, ultimately Oher's adoptive father, are old college friends, disqualifying the author from role of neutral bystander.
But it's undoubtedly entertaining and well-written, and Lewis has a fine sense of humour - his comment about Sean Tuohy, that he would know a poem being "as likely as Sylvia Plath hitting a jump shot at the buzzer", had me laughing out loud (on a plane). However, he misses the opportunity to capitalise fully on a mention of Pygmalion on the same page. But that just gives me the opportunity to draw the comparison between the stories of Michael Oher and Eliza Doolittle.
The book ends before Michael's NFL career begins to take shape. Is that too soon? Well, I guess it gives Lewis a chance for Blind Side 2, but in truth the Pygmalion story ended when Michael went off to college. Job done. If you want to know more you can go to First Down, Sports Illustrated or NFL.com. Lewis has told, and told well, the story those guys won't be covering.
A Riveting Story of Resurrection, 29 Jan 2007
Imagine that you are a large (over 300 pounds) African-American teenager who lives in the worst part of Memphis. You never knew your father (and he will soon be murdered). Your mother is addicted to drugs and doesn't do much to provide for you. You have no bed. You don't know where your next meal is coming from. You haven't gone to enough school to know how to do much of anything.
What do you want out of life? You want to be Michael Jordan . . . just like millions of other teenagers. You've spent endless hours on the playgrounds practicing as a shooting guard.
What will you become in a handful of years? One of the most heavily recruited college football players in the United States and a top professional prospect who people are watching as you learn how to be a left tackle.
The story of how Michael Oher made this transition is one of the most amazing, moving, and fascinating real-life stories it has ever been my pleasure to read. Whether or not you like football, you'll find this book to be impossible to put down.
Michael Lewis does a remarkable job in telling the story. Mr. Lewis was fortunate to have a long-term friendship with Sean Tuohy, one of the many people who helped Michael Oher fulfill his potential. As a result, Mr. Lewis enjoyed amazing access to the people involved in Michael's life . . . and eventually got some help from Michael as well.
The Blind Side is four stories in one:
1. Michael's life before he met the Tuohy family.
2. Michael's progress from being ignorant to becoming a highly recruited college football prospect.
3. Michael's adjustment to college.
4. The changes in American professional football that created an irresistible demand for someone with Michael's physical capabilities.
Each of these stories would make a fine book. To be able to pursue all four stories at the same time is an unexpected delight.
But the story's not over. Michael is now a sophomore at Ole Miss. Will he make it to the NFL? You can follow his career and find out. Perhaps other amazing chapters lie ahead. Who knows?
There's another story this book doesn't tell, but implies: The world is full of talented youth who could make great contributions . . . but they need a lot of help from people who care and are determined to help the youth succeed. For ever Michael Oher, there must be millions who languish. How can we change that? You'll be haunted by that question after you read this book.
If you are looking for keen insights into American football that you don't already have, you'll probably be disappointed. Any fan of professional football knows that a team's potential chances of success are only as good as the blocking of the offensive line. Clearly, the left tackle is the best insurance against a maimed right-handed quarterback, something no fan wants. You've probably noticed that the top left tackles get paid almost as much as quarterbacks. The history of how the Bill Walsh-type passing offenses have become so important is something you've lived through.
The professional football material will, however, be helpful to those who don't know football and want to appreciate why people have been going gaga over Michael Oher.
How can you help an at-risk youth today?
I love the read about Liverpool, 04 Apr 2008
Hard hitting straight to the point and names all the big names, fantastic reading Graham well done again. If you like reading books set in Liverpool try Soft Target by Conrad Jones its a cracker. Both superb !!
Gripping - gets you by the balls!, 13 Feb 2008
It could have been easy to dislike this book: written by a seasoned tabloid crime hack, it dishes the dirt on how gangsters have tried to muscle in on football - and frequently succeeded. The writer is an unashamed cynic about his own profession, making no apologies for the behaviour of 'Her Majesty's Press' (a phrase nicked, I believe, from the brilliant comedy Hot Metal), but he tells it like it is and, moreover, delivers each fascinating story with a grim humour and an elegant turn of phrase. More than that, he names names - big ones too! Rooney, Gerrard, Owen (oh yes!)...they're all there, Liverpool clearly being the author's area of expertise.
Recently, a proposed book dealing with the seamier side of Wayne Rooney's story, Roo Unzipped, was strangled at birth through fear of legal action, but there is plenty here to reveal the dark side behind the boy wonder (little of it of his own doing, to be fair...but the people who surround him are a different matter).
I guess football and crime are both 'bloke' preoccupations, so female readers might get a little bored, but I for one found it (to coin a literary word that sounds as though it ought to have been a football word) 'unputdownable'.
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Customer Reviews
Comprehensive!, 31 Oct 2008
American sports love their stats, and this book has just about everything you need to know. It includes the team rosters, player stats, super bowl stats and just about everything else! Just don't try and read it all in one sitting. (go Cowboys!) It's got the lot NFL fans!, 22 Oct 2008
EVERYTHING you can possibly imagine regarding the NFL is contained in this book. Not just a vital reference for statistics, but also has all the latest up to date information on the game, history, TV, the Super Bowl and all football related matters. THE DADDY, THE KING of the NFL, buy it. A fascinating and moving insight into the growth of a potential NFL star, 20 Apr 2008
A fascinating and moving insight into the growth of a potential NFL star from very humble and difficult beginnings. I am sure the vast majority of people who have read this will be pulling for Oher to make it to the big stage. The development and changes in the guys life are brought out well by Michael Lewis here, this is a very fine book, he clearly has a knack for writing about sports what with this and Moneyball. I look forward to his next book on football, although I fear we may have to wait longer than I would really like.
As a footnote - Oher declared for the 2008 NFL draft, then changed his mind, giving him another season in college. Brilliant, 13 Jan 2008
I loved this book. It details Oher's life so far, how he came to be where he is, expalins how the left tackle position has evolved into the one it is now and the importance it carries, and the various colleges that recruited Oher.
Great book, recommend to any american football fan. Grips like a giant left tackle and won't let go!, 21 Aug 2007
I've been a fan of Michael Lewis since he wrote his first book 'Liar's Poker'. I loved that book, and his ability to make a strange world seem familiar (in that case the world of Wall Street). Having read and enjoyed Moneyball, I got this as a gift from my wish list.
Once I'd read the first chapter where he describes the sudden, shocking demise of a quarterback, I was hooked, even though I have no real clue about how American football actually works. When I occasionally watch the Super Bowl, I spend most of the time saying things like 'where's the ball', 'why has that guy vanished' etc.
Lewis interleaves the story of how quarterbacks and by extension left tackles became much more valuable (in game and money terms), as he did in MoneyBall with the inspirational story of Michael Oher a dirt poor black guy who lucks into a rich white school because of his size and athletic ability.
Lewis has become expert at combining analysis of markets in the unlikeliest places with a more human story. Just occasionally it gets a bit too hokey, but otherwise it's compulsive. Deserves a wider readership than it'll get in the UK.
A Sporting Pygmalion, 20 Mar 2007
Three decades on from the first regular screening of the NFL on Channel 4, there is clearly a sizeable audience for American football in the UK, as evidenced by the overwhelming interest in the Giants-Dolphins regular season game due to be played at Wembley in October 2007. The people who expressed an interest in that game, amongst others, would do well to read this book, but then even non-aficionados will find plenty to interest them, without prior knowledge of the game.
Nominally about the development of the left tackle position, and principally about one player in that position, it transpires to be about much more.
Michael Oher, the real-life protagonist, spent the first sixteen years of his life in the ghetto of West Memphis, Tennessee. Part of the book is dedicated to relating his extraordinary path from those early deprivations, the knife edge he treads between being sucked into the world of drugs and his actual path of salvation through his apparently innate size, strength, speed and sporting aptitude which ultimately furnish him with his ticket out.
Delivered up to a private Christian school by de facto guardian Big Tony, as an indirect result of Tony's mom's deathbed wish, the school's head and sports coaches immediately see an opportunity to use Big Mike's gifts. Although there is some definite self-interest involved, it is of the enlightened variety, and it is to the school's credit that it gives him the opportunities it does, stressing the boy's education as a priority.
Despite Michael's quite shocking backstory, it results at times in some amusing episodes. The fluid state of Michael's identity (too complex to explain here) compels his new foster mom, Leigh Anne Tuohy, to engage in a day of to and fro intrigue in order to procure sufficient documentation for him to obtain a driver's licence. Michael and Big Tony's son Steven, also enrolled at the school, are incredulous at the casual attitude of white folks to their possessions - they leave them lying around the school as if nobody is going to steal them! And what's more, for a Christian school, isn't it odd that, unlike at public school, there are no free meals? (For some time, Michael's straitened circumstances are completely unknown to the school.)
But the backstory also provides a fascinating exposé of the scandalous lack of a social safety net for Michael and people like him in the world's number one economy.
A part of the book's strength is that Michael Lewis plays with Oher's story's chronology. This achieves dramatic effect as we are able to share Oher's benefactors' shock at the discovery of some of its details.
The other thing Lewis does well is to intersperse the left tackle development story, also shaken up chronologically, with Michael Oher's, from Bill Walsh's (qualified) invention of the West Coast Offense (pardon spelling here), the role of the linebacker (notably Lawrence Taylor) in suppressing it, and the consequent need to protect the quarterback (exemplified in blood-curdling fashion by the book's opening sequence in which LT is involved in the termination of Joe Theismann's career, an event I, and probably many of my fellow UK-based football fans, recall with a shiver).
The book ultimately operates on several levels: as a biography, as a book about football, and as a social documentary. Despite my personal misgivings about faith schools, the one that takes Michael in impresses with its philanthropy. My one caveat is the revelation at the end of the book that Lewis and Sean Tuohy, ultimately Oher's adoptive father, are old college friends, disqualifying the author from role of neutral bystander.
But it's undoubtedly entertaining and well-written, and Lewis has a fine sense of humour - his comment about Sean Tuohy, that he would know a poem being "as likely as Sylvia Plath hitting a jump shot at the buzzer", had me laughing out loud (on a plane). However, he misses the opportunity to capitalise fully on a mention of Pygmalion on the same page. But that just gives me the opportunity to draw the comparison between the stories of Michael Oher and Eliza Doolittle.
The book ends before Michael's NFL career begins to take shape. Is that too soon? Well, I guess it gives Lewis a chance for Blind Side 2, but in truth the Pygmalion story ended when Michael went off to college. Job done. If you want to know more you can go to First Down, Sports Illustrated or NFL.com. Lewis has told, and told well, the story those guys won't be covering.
A Riveting Story of Resurrection, 29 Jan 2007
Imagine that you are a large (over 300 pounds) African-American teenager who lives in the worst part of Memphis. You never knew your father (and he will soon be murdered). Your mother is addicted to drugs and doesn't do much to provide for you. You have no bed. You don't know where your next meal is coming from. You haven't gone to enough school to know how to do much of anything.
What do you want out of life? You want to be Michael Jordan . . . just like millions of other teenagers. You've spent endless hours on the playgrounds practicing as a shooting guard.
What will you become in a handful of years? One of the most heavily recruited college football players in the United States and a top professional prospect who people are watching as you learn how to be a left tackle.
The story of how Michael Oher made this transition is one of the most amazing, moving, and fascinating real-life stories it has ever been my pleasure to read. Whether or not you like football, you'll find this book to be impossible to put down.
Michael Lewis does a remarkable job in telling the story. Mr. Lewis was fortunate to have a long-term friendship with Sean Tuohy, one of the many people who helped Michael Oher fulfill his potential. As a result, Mr. Lewis enjoyed amazing access to the people involved in Michael's life . . . and eventually got some help from Michael as well.
The Blind Side is four stories in one:
1. Michael's life before he met the Tuohy family.
2. Michael's progress from being ignorant to becoming a highly recruited college football prospect.
3. Michael's adjustment to college.
4. The changes in American professional football that created an irresistible demand for someone with Michael's physical capabilities.
Each of these stories would make a fine book. To be able to pursue all four stories at the same time is an unexpected delight.
But the story's not over. Michael is now a sophomore at Ole Miss. Will he make it to the NFL? You can follow his career and find out. Perhaps other amazing chapters lie ahead. Who knows?
There's another story this book doesn't tell, but implies: The world is full of talented youth who could make great contributions . . . but they need a lot of help from people who care and are determined to help the youth succeed. For ever Michael Oher, there must be millions who languish. How can we change that? You'll be haunted by that question after you read this book.
If you are looking for keen insights into American football that you don't already have, you'll probably be disappointed. Any fan of professional football knows that a team's potential chances of success are only as good as the blocking of the offensive line. Clearly, the left tackle is the best insurance against a maimed right-handed quarterback, something no fan wants. You've probably noticed that the top left tackles get paid almost as much as quarterbacks. The history of how the Bill Walsh-type passing offenses have become so important is something you've lived through.
The professional football material will, however, be helpful to those who don't know football and want to appreciate why people have been going gaga over Michael Oher.
How can you help an at-risk youth today? I love the read about Liverpool, 04 Apr 2008
Hard hitting straight to the point and names all the big names, fantastic reading Graham well done again. If you like reading books set in Liverpool try Soft Target by Conrad Jones its a cracker. Both superb !! Gripping - gets you by the balls!, 13 Feb 2008
It could have been easy to dislike this book: written by a seasoned tabloid crime hack, it dishes the dirt on how gangsters have tried to muscle in on football - and frequently succeeded. The writer is an unashamed cynic about his own profession, making no apologies for the behaviour of 'Her Majesty's Press' (a phrase nicked, I believe, from the brilliant comedy Hot Metal), but he tells it like it is and, moreover, delivers each fascinating story with a grim humour and an elegant turn of phrase. More than that, he names names - big ones too! Rooney, Gerrard, Owen (oh yes!)...they're all there, Liverpool clearly being the author's area of expertise.
Recently, a proposed book dealing with the seamier side of Wayne Rooney's story, Roo Unzipped, was strangled at birth through fear of legal action, but there is plenty here to reveal the dark side behind the boy wonder (little of it of his own doing, to be fair...but the people who surround him are a different matter).
I guess football and crime are both 'bloke' preoccupations, so female readers might get a little bored, but I for one found it (to coin a literary word that sounds as though it ought to have been a football word) 'unputdownable'.
fantastic!!, 30 Dec 2008
I bought this book for my brother, whom is a massive arsenal fan, and he loved it, he said that it was a book that he couldnt put down! It is definately a book that every arsenal fan should posses. Under the skin of a fascinating football club, 05 Sep 2005
Arsenal Football Club is a special club, as anyone who has played for them, managed them or supported them knows. This fantastic book examines the darker side of Arsenal's history. Spurling, in a lively and entertaining fashion, shows us how Arsenal's reputation as a persona non grata club ("no-one likes us, we don't care") developed. Aside from civic pride we learn the real reason why Tottenham don't like us. We read about Henry Norris who manipulated Arsenal's way into the First Division after the First World War. There are fascinating tales about Willie Young, Peter Storey and George Eastham. The most pertinent chapter is about George Graham. We learn about the paradox of the control freak who lost control as his team was involved in unsavoury incidents, on and off the field, whilst Graham himself was clearly incapable of demonstrating the high standards he demanded from his players, witness the controversial end to his reign as Arsenal manager. The chapters on the Wenger years demonstrate that Arsenal's "us and them" mentality has not faded away, despite the lack of homegrown players in the team. Spurling shows us that in almost 120 years of Arsenal FC, everything and nothing has changed. The media hate us, other fans hate us and Wenger is very adept at using media barbs, much like Mee and Graham, to inspire the team to greater glories. "Victory through harmony" is Arsenal's slogan but I think after reading this book it should be "Victory through adversity". If you're an Arsenal fan, you must own this book. An antidote to those fed up with insincere badge kissing, 08 Feb 2004
Rebels for the Cause will surprise every Arsenal fan by revealing how much more there was to discover about the club. Jon Spurling has written a book that both entertains and informs. Starting with Arsenal's founding fathers, each chapter carefully pulls together the facts and faces throughout the club's history, cleverly exploring it's more colourful characters while subtely detailing the context of the club and football's changing place in society. Thought provoking, and sometimes shocking a smile is never far away from the reader's face. It also exposes the roots of resentment for the club in both the media and other football fans. For Arsenal fans this is simply a must read. For the rest, you hardly need any more justification for finding fault with the red and white half of north London.
A new perspective on the greatest club of all!, 21 Nov 2003
Another excellent book from the only Arsenal author, it seems, who can be bothered to find a fresh angle on the club’s past. “Rebels For The Cause” illustrates the point which most others publications seem scared to admit – that without Arsenal’s numerous controversial players and officials – the Gunners wouldn’t even exist, let alone be the world famous club they have become. I found the earlier chapters really fascinating, as they explain how Arsenal gained the “lucky” and “Bank Of England” labels, at a time of an economic depression in Europe. The new information on Sir Henry Norris goes a long way to explaining why Arsenal are disliked by almost everyone outside their own fan base.
As a supporter who started going in the 1970s, I found the chapters on Charlie George, Peter Storey and Willie Young really revealing and quirky. Some of the drinking stories will make you laugh out loud – or you might wince with pain as Spurling describes another ferocious Storey or Young challenge. The section on the 1977 pre season tour of Australia really gets the reader into the mindset of the rebel footballers from that era. The author is at his best as he minutely dissects the decline and fall of George Graham in the early 1990s.What makes startling is just how many of Graham’s former charges queue up to put the boot into their former manager.
“Rebels For The Cause” is a good deal more lively, honest and funny than any official history of the club. Buy it now !
Rebels for the Cause:The Alternative History of Arsenal....., 20 Sep 2003
I read this book in just three days. In my opinion, this is the most thought provoking and intriguing history of the club to date. I had thought that it was just going to be a history lesson from Arsenal's boozy bad boys. But Spurling's conversations with Willie Young, Charlie Nicholas, Charlie George, Alan Hudson and Perry Groves adds a humorous and "laddish" edge to certain chapters. But what makes Rebels For The Cause such a GREAT read, is the fact the Arsenal's "rebals" have come in such a variety of shapes and forms during the clubs long history. It was facinating to read of the spectacular fall from fame of George Graham. The comments of Claude Anelka on his brothers controversial departure from the club. Plus insights into the clubs history from the players view point. I particularly enjoyed reading the fresh insight on the life and times of Sir Henry Norris, who in 1918, "bribed" the Football League to promote Arsenal, and relegate Spurs. The furore surrounding George Eastham's court case in the early sixties and the clubs 1945 match against Moscow Dynamos. Spurling has delved deep into Arnenal's numerous disciplinary problems, his and the players' conclusions make for worrying reading. He shows that recent Arsenal manages have almost encouraged players to feel persecuted, as a way of fostering team spirt and their famed fortress mentality. This, together with the origins of the Gunners' rivalry with Tottenham and a look at the club's treatment by the tabloids makes for fascinating, if uncomfotable reading. Rebals For The Cause is a MUST read book for ALL Arsenal fans.
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Customer Reviews
Comprehensive!, 31 Oct 2008
American sports love their stats, and this book has just about everything you need to know. It includes the team rosters, player stats, super bowl stats and just about everything else! Just don't try and read it all in one sitting. (go Cowboys!) It's got the lot NFL fans!, 22 Oct 2008
EVERYTHING you can possibly imagine regarding the NFL is contained in this book. Not just a vital reference for statistics, but also has all the latest up to date information on the game, history, TV, the Super Bowl and all football related matters. THE DADDY, THE KING of the NFL, buy it. A fascinating and moving insight into the growth of a potential NFL star, 20 Apr 2008
A fascinating and moving insight into the growth of a potential NFL star from very humble and difficult beginnings. I am sure the vast majority of people who have read this will be pulling for Oher to make it to the big stage. The development and changes in the guys life are brought out well by Michael Lewis here, this is a very fine book, he clearly has a knack for writing about sports what with this and Moneyball. I look forward to his next book on football, although I fear we may have to wait longer than I would really like.
As a footnote - Oher declared for the 2008 NFL draft, then changed his mind, giving him another season in college. Brilliant, 13 Jan 2008
I loved this book. It details Oher's life so far, how he came to be where he is, expalins how the left tackle position has evolved into the one it is now and the importance it carries, and the various colleges that recruited Oher.
Great book, recommend to any american football fan. Grips like a giant left tackle and won't let go!, 21 Aug 2007
I've been a fan of Michael Lewis since he wrote his first book 'Liar's Poker'. I loved that book, and his ability to make a strange world seem familiar (in that case the world of Wall Street). Having read and enjoyed Moneyball, I got this as a gift from my wish list.
Once I'd read the first chapter where he describes the sudden, shocking demise of a quarterback, I was hooked, even though I have no real clue about how American football actually works. When I occasionally watch the Super Bowl, I spend most of the time saying things like 'where's the ball', 'why has that guy vanished' etc.
Lewis interleaves the story of how quarterbacks and by extension left tackles became much more valuable (in game and money terms), as he did in MoneyBall with the inspirational story of Michael Oher a dirt poor black guy who lucks into a rich white school because of his size and athletic ability.
Lewis has become expert at combining analysis of markets in the unlikeliest places with a more human story. Just occasionally it gets a bit too hokey, but otherwise it's compulsive. Deserves a wider readership than it'll get in the UK.
A Sporting Pygmalion, 20 Mar 2007
Three decades on from the first regular screening of the NFL on Channel 4, there is clearly a sizeable audience for American football in the UK, as evidenced by the overwhelming interest in the Giants-Dolphins regular season game due to be played at Wembley in October 2007. The people who expressed an interest in that game, amongst others, would do well to read this book, but then even non-aficionados will find plenty to interest them, without prior knowledge of the game.
Nominally about the development of the left tackle position, and principally about one player in that position, it transpires to be about much more.
Michael Oher, the real-life protagonist, spent the first sixteen years of his life in the ghetto of West Memphis, Tennessee. Part of the book is dedicated to relating his extraordinary path from those early deprivations, the knife edge he treads between being sucked into the world of drugs and his actual path of salvation through his apparently innate size, strength, speed and sporting aptitude which ultimately furnish him with his ticket out.
Delivered up to a private Christian school by de facto guardian Big Tony, as an indirect result of Tony's mom's deathbed wish, the school's head and sports coaches immediately see an opportunity to use Big Mike's gifts. Although there is some definite self-interest involved, it is of the enlightened variety, and it is to the school's credit that it gives him the opportunities it does, stressing the boy's education as a priority.
Despite Michael's quite shocking backstory, it results at times in some amusing episodes. The fluid state of Michael's identity (too complex to explain here) compels his new foster mom, Leigh Anne Tuohy, to engage in a day of to and fro intrigue in order to procure sufficient documentation for him to obtain a driver's licence. Michael and Big Tony's son Steven, also enrolled at the school, are incredulous at the casual attitude of white folks to their possessions - they leave them lying around the school as if nobody is going to steal them! And what's more, for a Christian school, isn't it odd that, unlike at public school, there are no free meals? (For some time, Michael's straitened circumstances are completely unknown to the school.)
But the backstory also provides a fascinating exposé of the scandalous lack of a social safety net for Michael and people like him in the world's number one economy.
A part of the book's strength is that Michael Lewis plays with Oher's story's chronology. This achieves dramatic effect as we are able to share Oher's benefactors' shock at the discovery of some of its details.
The other thing Lewis does well is to intersperse the left tackle development story, also shaken up chronologically, with Michael Oher's, from Bill Walsh's (qualified) invention of the West Coast Offense (pardon spelling here), the role of the linebacker (notably Lawrence Taylor) in suppressing it, and the consequent need to protect the quarterback (exemplified in blood-curdling fashion by the book's opening sequence in which LT is involved in the termination of Joe Theismann's career, an event I, and probably many of my fellow UK-based football fans, recall with a shiver).
The book ultimately operates on several levels: as a biography, as a book about football, and as a social documentary. Despite my personal misgivings about faith schools, the one that takes Michael in impresses with its philanthropy. My one caveat is the revelation at the end of the book that Lewis and Sean Tuohy, ultimately Oher's adoptive father, are old college friends, disqualifying the author from role of neutral bystander.
But it's undoubtedly entertaining and well-written, and Lewis has a fine sense of humour - his comment about Sean Tuohy, that he would know a poem being "as likely as Sylvia Plath hitting a jump shot at the buzzer", had me laughing out loud (on a plane). However, he misses the opportunity to capitalise fully on a mention of Pygmalion on the same page. But that just gives me the opportunity to draw the comparison between the stories of Michael Oher and Eliza Doolittle.
The book ends before Michael's NFL career begins to take shape. Is that too soon? Well, I guess it gives Lewis a chance for Blind Side 2, but in truth the Pygmalion story ended when Michael went off to college. Job done. If you want to know more you can go to First Down, Sports Illustrated or NFL.com. Lewis has told, and told well, the story those guys won't be covering.
A Riveting Story of Resurrection, 29 Jan 2007
Imagine that you are a large (over 300 pounds) African-American teenager who lives in the worst part of Memphis. You never knew your father (and he will soon be murdered). Your mother is addicted to drugs and doesn't do much to provide for you. You have no bed. You don't know where your next meal is coming from. You haven't gone to enough school to know how to do much of anything.
What do you want out of life? You want to be Michael Jordan . . . just like millions of other teenagers. You've spent endless hours on the playgrounds practicing as a shooting guard.
What will you become in a handful of years? One of the most heavily recruited college football players in the United States and a top professional prospect who people are watching as you learn how to be a left tackle.
The story of how Michael Oher made this transition is one of the most amazing, moving, and fascinating real-life stories it has ever been my pleasure to read. Whether or not you like football, you'll find this book to be impossible to put down.
Michael Lewis does a remarkable job in telling the story. Mr. Lewis was fortunate to have a long-term friendship with Sean Tuohy, one of the many people who helped Michael Oher fulfill his potential. As a result, Mr. Lewis enjoyed amazing access to the people involved in Michael's life . . . and eventually got some help from Michael as well.
The Blind Side is four stories in one:
1. Michael's life before he met the Tuohy family.
2. Michael's progress from being ignorant to becoming a highly recruited college football prospect.
3. Michael's adjustment to college.
4. The changes in American professional football that created an irresistible demand for someone with Michael's physical capabilities.
Each of these stories would make a fine book. To be able to pursue all four stories at the same time is an unexpected delight.
But the story's not over. Michael is now a sophomore at Ole Miss. Will he make it to the NFL? You can follow his career and find out. Perhaps other amazing chapters lie ahead. Who knows?
There's another story this book doesn't tell, but implies: The world is full of talented youth who could make great contributions . . . but they need a lot of help from people who care and are determined to help the youth succeed. For ever Michael Oher, there must be millions who languish. How can we change that? You'll be haunted by that question after you read this book.
If you are looking for keen insights into American football that you don't already have, you'll probably be disappointed. Any fan of professional football knows that a team's potential chances of success are only as good as the blocking of the offensive line. Clearly, the left tackle is the best insurance against a maimed right-handed quarterback, something no fan wants. You've probably noticed that the top left tackles get paid almost as much as quarterbacks. The history of how the Bill Walsh-type passing offenses have become so important is something you've lived through.
The professional football material will, however, be helpful to those who don't know football and want to appreciate why people have been going gaga over Michael Oher.
How can you help an at-risk youth today? I love the read about Liverpool, 04 Apr 2008
Hard hitting straight to the point and names all the big names, fantastic reading Graham well done again. If you like reading books set in Liverpool try Soft Target by Conrad Jones its a cracker. Both superb !! Gripping - gets you by the balls!, 13 Feb 2008
It could have been easy to dislike this book: written by a seasoned tabloid crime hack, it dishes the dirt on how gangsters have tried to muscle in on football - and frequently succeeded. The writer is an unashamed cynic about his own profession, making no apologies for the behaviour of 'Her Majesty's Press' (a phrase nicked, I believe, from the brilliant comedy Hot Metal), but he tells it like it is and, moreover, delivers each fascinating story with a grim humour and an elegant turn of phrase. More than that, he names names - big ones too! Rooney, Gerrard, Owen (oh yes!)...they're all there, Liverpool clearly being the author's area of expertise.
Recently, a proposed book dealing with the seamier side of Wayne Rooney's story, Roo Unzipped, was strangled at birth through fear of legal action, but there is plenty here to reveal the dark side behind the boy wonder (little of it of his own doing, to be fair...but the people who surround him are a different matter).
I guess football and crime are both 'bloke' preoccupations, so female readers might get a little bored, but I for one found it (to coin a literary word that sounds as though it ought to have been a football word) 'unputdownable'.
fantastic!!, 30 Dec 2008
I bought this book for my brother, whom is a massive arsenal fan, and he loved it, he said that it was a book that he couldnt put down! It is definately a book that every arsenal fan should posses. Under the skin of a fascinating football club, 05 Sep 2005
Arsenal Football Club is a special club, as anyone who has played for them, managed them or supported them knows. This fantastic book examines the darker side of Arsenal's history. Spurling, in a lively and entertaining fashion, shows us how Arsenal's reputation as a persona non grata club ("no-one likes us, we don't care") developed. Aside from civic pride we learn the real reason why Tottenham don't like us. We read about Henry Norris who manipulated Arsenal's way into the First Division after the First World War. There are fascinating tales about Willie Young, Peter Storey and George Eastham. The most pertinent chapter is about George Graham. We learn about the paradox of the control freak who lost control as his team was involved in unsavoury incidents, on and off the field, whilst Graham himself was clearly incapable of demonstrating the high standards he demanded from his players, witness the controversial end to his reign as Arsenal manager. The chapters on the Wenger years demonstrate that Arsenal's "us and them" mentality has not faded away, despite the lack of homegrown players in the team. Spurling shows us that in almost 120 years of Arsenal FC, everything and nothing has changed. The media hate us, other fans hate us and Wenger is very adept at using media barbs, much like Mee and Graham, to inspire the team to greater glories. "Victory through harmony" is Arsenal's slogan but I think after reading this book it should be "Victory through adversity". If you're an Arsenal fan, you must own this book. An antidote to those fed up with insincere badge kissing, 08 Feb 2004
Rebels for the Cause will surprise every Arsenal fan by revealing how much more there was to discover about the club. Jon Spurling has written a book that both entertains and informs. Starting with Arsenal's founding fathers, each chapter carefully pulls together the facts and faces throughout the club's history, cleverly exploring it's more colourful characters while subtely detailing the context of the club and football's changing place in society. Thought provoking, and sometimes shocking a smile is never far away from the reader's face. It also exposes the roots of resentment for the club in both the media and other football fans. For Arsenal fans this is simply a must read. For the rest, you hardly need any more justification for finding fault with the red and white half of north London.
A new perspective on the greatest club of all!, 21 Nov 2003
Another excellent book from the only Arsenal author, it seems, who can be bothered to find a fresh angle on the club’s past. “Rebels For The Cause” illustrates the point which most others publications seem scared to admit – that without Arsenal’s numerous controversial players and officials – the Gunners wouldn’t even exist, let alone be the world famous club they have become. I found the earlier chapters really fascinating, as they explain how Arsenal gained the “lucky” and “Bank Of England” labels, at a time of an economic depression in Europe. The new information on Sir Henry Norris goes a long way to explaining why Arsenal are disliked by almost everyone outside their own fan base.
As a supporter who started going in the 1970s, I found the chapters on Charlie George, Peter Storey and Willie Young really revealing and quirky. Some of the drinking stories will make you laugh out loud – or you might wince with pain as Spurling describes another ferocious Storey or Young challenge. The section on the 1977 pre season tour of Australia really gets the reader into the mindset of the rebel footballers from that era. The author is at his best as he minutely dissects the decline and fall of George Graham in the early 1990s.What makes startling is just how many of Graham’s former charges queue up to put the boot into their former manager.
“Rebels For The Cause” is a good deal more lively, honest and funny than any official history of the club. Buy it now !
Rebels for the Cause:The Alternative History of Arsenal....., 20 Sep 2003
I read this book in just three days. In my opinion, this is the most thought provoking and intriguing history of the club to date. I had thought that it was just going to be a history lesson from Arsenal's boozy bad boys. But Spurling's conversations with Willie Young, Charlie Nicholas, Charlie George, Alan Hudson and Perry Groves adds a humorous and "laddish" edge to certain chapters. But what makes Rebels For The Cause such a GREAT read, is the fact the Arsenal's "rebals" have come in such a variety of shapes and forms during the clubs long history. It was facinating to read of the spectacular fall from fame of George Graham. The comments of Claude Anelka on his brothers controversial departure from the club. Plus insights into the clubs history from the players view point. I particularly enjoyed reading the fresh insight on the life and times of Sir Henry Norris, who in 1918, "bribed" the Football League to promote Arsenal, and relegate Spurs. The furore surrounding George Eastham's court case in the early sixties and the clubs 1945 match against Moscow Dynamos. Spurling has delved deep into Arnenal's numerous disciplinary problems, his and the players' conclusions make for worrying reading. He shows that recent Arsenal manages have almost encouraged players to feel persecuted, as a way of fostering team spirt and their famed fortress mentality. This, together with the origins of the Gunners' rivalry with Tottenham and a look at the club's treatment by the tabloids makes for fascinating, if uncomfotable reading. Rebals For The Cause is a MUST read book for ALL Arsenal fans.
Even for the non-US sports literate..., 12 Sep 2008
There is little than can be added about this incredible book, other than to assure any Brits or potential readers put off by the fact that they don't understand/enjoy American Football that you don't need an sort of links or history with the sport to thoroughly enjoy what is one of the finest sports books of all time.
There are many 'spending-a-season-with' sporting works, and some of them (Tim Parks' A Season With Verona and Joe McGinniss's The Miracle of Castel di Sangro, for example) are excellent. However, with regards to this type of sporting book, HG Bissinger is the king. You feel like you know Boobie, Mike, Ivory, Don and Coach Gaines by the end. As the book closes, even Bissinger's update on how they are doing (in later prints of the novel) aren't enough. You've befriended these people and you demand to know how they are now, what they are doing, etc...
As a Brit whose childhood was dominated by school sport, the Odessa recreated by Bissinger seems a mile away from the disinterest in the soccer teams of my high school. But that doesn't detract from what is an entertaining, touching and informative book. Very strongly recommended.
Astonishing, 06 May 2008
Being English, the whole American high school sport thing is something of a mystery. I knew that some university teams get crowds bigger than premier league football does here, but had no idea that schoolchildren can draw crowds of 20,000 to watch their games.
And I think the main point of the book is that the word "school children" has been completely lost (or rather had been in the late 1980s, when this book was written). These young men train more or less full time, and have what must be almost unbearable pressures heaped upon them before they are old enough to drink (not that the legal age seemed to stop them). The book is about shattered dreams and hopes and is rivetting.
But it's astonishing in what it shows about race in America, and about class, and about sport (or "sports"). Of course, a lot might have changed in 20 years, but the racism is shocking. Genuinely, truly shocking. As is the way that children's educations are sacrificed in the name of sporting achievement. These guys don't have to do any school work they don't want to. It's an amazing portrait of the town, Odessa, of the people in it, and of (a bit of) America.
If, like me, you don't really understand American football (beyond the large men in armour knocking seven bells out of each other), it doesn't matter, as many of the details don't matter (understanding what a Safety or Split End does isn't necessary) and the writing about the matches themselves is good enough to keep you going.
One of the best books about sport I've ever read. Fantastic.
Better than the film, 19 Jan 2008
Like most others, I was inspired to read this after seeing the film. The film was great, but the book is brilliant. Like the Glory Game and Spurs in English football, the author here has got unparalleled access to the club and it shows in the pages. This is about hopes and dreams as well as the crashing and bashing of American football. A must for all sports fans.
simply brilliant, 14 Mar 2007
I bought this book, like many on the back of seeing the film and then subsequently a few episodes of the TV show and i have to say i was blown away from the first chapter.
I wouldnt say it was completely different to the film or the show but alot more in depth, as you would expect from a book but watchin the film you cant help but feel that there is alot of things that they could have focused more on to make it a better adaptation, which is why this book has to be read aswell if you are a fan of either the tv show or the film because you can get a better feel for the characters and the town and why they are the way they are when it comes to high school football.
brilliantly written, poignantly set in a time where not alot is going for the town apart from those Friday Night Lights - (cheesy ending i know but what the hell)
simply brilliant
A crescendo of failed dreams, 30 Jun 2005
I have only limited reading experiences of non-fictional sports books, and by and large this is not something I regret. Books (ghost) written by sportman, or by biographers risk being stultifying boring - think of the collective charisma of Nigel Mansell, Nick Faldo and Alan Shearer, or, if they are written by a fan about a particular sport, club, match etc, they have the tendency to remind you of exactly what word "fan" is a derivative off - books written for the devout. All this should however be set aside when reading Friday Night Lights. The most obvious and striking thing about the book being that it should be a non-fictional account written in such emotional, at times highly charged prose that would normally be indicative of a fictional narrative. It would be perfectly possible - if you skipped the authors introduction - to read it as simply as an east-coast outsiders cliched fictional take on Texan small-town life, townsfolk worshippers at the alter of petroleum dollors, conversations peppered with references to "niggers" and other undesirables, and an unhealthy addiction to high school football, matched in fervour perhaps only by a religious adherence to the Republican party. What makes the novel work is that this is not seen through the eyes of a condesending outsider but one who in part likes and admires those in Odessa he has been fortunate enough to live and work with whilst following the fate of the Permian Panthers. Its strange but the very parochialism and rough edges that are usually sand-papered over in books about major sports teams and athletes serves to make this particular account broader and informative, not reduced simply to a black and white rendition of athletic achievement. I hasten to suggest that someone who isn't a fan of American Football could pick up and enjoy this book in the same way I (someone interested in the sport) did, but unlike say, an account of the history of Manchester United FC I do at least think it possible. Whereas the forces of commercialism and Satellite TV have long since severed any meaningful linkage between MUFC and the Mancunian community, robbing any comtemporary account of MUFC of any local context or comptemporary societal trends, big bucks and TV rights, are - fortunantly, if just for the sake of this broad, open range book - entirely irrelevent to the down to heel charm of the Oddessan version of football. Think of this book as Annie Proulx for guys, a varied and interesting synopsis of not just players, teams, formations and games, but a whole way of life.
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Customer Reviews
Comprehensive!, 31 Oct 2008
American sports love their stats, and this book has just about everything you need to know. It includes the team rosters, player stats, super bowl stats and just about everything else! Just don't try and read it all in one sitting. (go Cowboys!) It's got the lot NFL fans!, 22 Oct 2008
EVERYTHING you can possibly imagine regarding the NFL is contained in this book. Not just a vital reference for statistics, but also has all the latest up to date information on the game, history, TV, the Super Bowl and all football related matters. THE DADDY, THE KING of the NFL, buy it. A fascinating and moving insight into the growth of a potential NFL star, 20 Apr 2008
A fascinating and moving insight into the growth of a potential NFL star from very humble and difficult beginnings. I am sure the vast majority of people who have read this will be pulling for Oher to make it to the big stage. The development and changes in the guys life are brought out well by Michael Lewis here, this is a very fine book, he clearly has a knack for writing about sports what with this and Moneyball. I look forward to his next book on football, although I fear we may have to wait longer than I would really like.
As a footnote - Oher declared for the 2008 NFL draft, then changed his mind, giving him another season in college. Brilliant, 13 Jan 2008
I loved this book. It details Oher's life so far, how he came to be where he is, expalins how the left tackle position has evolved into the one it is now and the importance it carries, and the various colleges that recruited Oher.
Great book, recommend to any american football fan. Grips like a giant left tackle and won't let go!, 21 Aug 2007
I've been a fan of Michael Lewis since he wrote his first book 'Liar's Poker'. I loved that book, and his ability to make a strange world seem familiar (in that case the world of Wall Street). Having read and enjoyed Moneyball, I got this as a gift from my wish list.
Once I'd read the first chapter where he describes the sudden, shocking demise of a quarterback, I was hooked, even though I have no real clue about how American football actually works. When I occasionally watch the Super Bowl, I spend most of the time saying things like 'where's the ball', 'why has that guy vanished' etc.
Lewis interleaves the story of how quarterbacks and by extension left tackles became much more valuable (in game and money terms), as he did in MoneyBall with the inspirational story of Michael Oher a dirt poor black guy who lucks into a rich white school because of his size and athletic ability.
Lewis has become expert at combining analysis of markets in the unlikeliest places with a more human story. Just occasionally it gets a bit too hokey, but otherwise it's compulsive. Deserves a wider readership than it'll get in the UK.
A Sporting Pygmalion, 20 Mar 2007
Three decades on from the first regular screening of the NFL on Channel 4, there is clearly a sizeable audience for American football in the UK, as evidenced by the overwhelming interest in the Giants-Dolphins regular season game due to be played at Wembley in October 2007. The people who expressed an interest in that game, amongst others, would do well to read this book, but then even non-aficionados will find plenty to interest them, without prior knowledge of the game.
Nominally about the development of the left tackle position, and principally about one player in that position, it transpires to be about much more.
Michael Oher, the real-life protagonist, spent the first sixteen years of his life in the ghetto of West Memphis, Tennessee. Part of the book is dedicated to relating his extraordinary path from those early deprivations, the knife edge he treads between being sucked into the world of drugs and his actual path of salvation through his apparently innate size, strength, speed and sporting aptitude which ultimately furnish him with his ticket out.
Delivered up to a private Christian school by de facto guardian Big Tony, as an indirect result of Tony's mom's deathbed wish, the school's head and sports coaches immediately see an opportunity to use Big Mike's gifts. Although there is some definite self-interest involved, it is of the enlightened variety, and it is to the school's credit that it gives him the opportunities it does, stressing the boy's education as a priority.
Despite Michael's quite shocking backstory, it results at times in some amusing episodes. The fluid state of Michael's identity (too complex to explain here) compels his new foster mom, Leigh Anne Tuohy, to engage in a day of to and fro intrigue in order to procure sufficient documentation for him to obtain a driver's licence. Michael and Big Tony's son Steven, also enrolled at the school, are incredulous at the casual attitude of white folks to their possessions - they leave them lying around the school as if nobody is going to steal them! And what's more, for a Christian school, isn't it odd that, unlike at public school, there are no free meals? (For some time, Michael's straitened circumstances are completely unknown to the school.)
But the backstory also provides a fascinating exposé of the scandalous lack of a social safety net for Michael and people like him in the world's number one economy.
A part of the book's strength is that Michael Lewis plays with Oher's story's chronology. This achieves dramatic effect as we are able to share Oher's benefactors' shock at the discovery of some of its details.
The other thing Lewis does well is to intersperse the left tackle development story, also shaken up chronologically, with Michael Oher's, from Bill Walsh's (qualified) invention of the West Coast Offense (pardon spelling here), the role of the linebacker (notably Lawrence Taylor) in suppressing it, and the consequent need to protect the quarterback (exemplified in blood-curdling fashion by the book's opening sequence in which LT is involved in the termination of Joe Theismann's career, an event I, and probably many of my fellow UK-based football fans, recall with a shiver).
The book ultimately operates on several levels: as a biography, as a book about football, and as a social documentary. Despite my personal misgivings about faith schools, the one that takes Michael in impresses with its philanthropy. My one caveat is the revelation at the end of the book that Lewis and Sean Tuohy, ultimately Oher's adoptive father, are old college friends, disqualifying the author from role of neutral bystander.
But it's undoubtedly entertaining and well-written, and Lewis has a fine sense of humour - his comment about Sean Tuohy, that he would know a poem being "as likely as Sylvia Plath hitting a jump shot at the buzzer", had me laughing out loud (on a plane). However, he misses the opportunity to capitalise fully on a mention of Pygmalion on the same page. But that just gives me the opportunity to draw the comparison between the stories of Michael Oher and Eliza Doolittle.
The book ends before Michael's NFL career begins to take shape. Is that too soon? Well, I guess it gives Lewis a chance for Blind Side 2, but in truth the Pygmalion story ended when Michael went off to college. Job done. If you want to know more you can go to First Down, Sports Illustrated or NFL.com. Lewis has told, and told well, the story those guys won't be covering.
A Riveting Story of Resurrection, 29 Jan 2007
Imagine that you are a large (over 300 pounds) African-American teenager who lives in the worst part of Memphis. You never knew your father (and he will soon be murdered). Your mother is addicted to drugs and doesn't do much to provide for you. You have no bed. You don't know where your next meal is coming from. You haven't gone to enough school to know how to do much of anything.
What do you want out of life? You want to be Michael Jordan . . . just like millions of other teenagers. You've spent endless hours on the playgrounds practicing as a shooting guard.
What will you become in a handful of years? One of the most heavily recruited college football players in the United States and a top professional prospect who people are watching as you learn how to be a left tackle.
The story of how Michael Oher made this transition is one of the most amazing, moving, and fascinating real-life stories it has ever been my pleasure to read. Whether or not you like football, you'll find this book to be impossible to put down.
Michael Lewis does a remarkable job in telling the story. Mr. Lewis was fortunate to have a long-term friendship with Sean Tuohy, one of the many people who helped Michael Oher fulfill his potential. As a result, Mr. Lewis enjoyed amazing access to the people involved in Michael's life . . . and eventually got some help from Michael as well.
The Blind Side is four stories in one:
1. Michael's life before he met the Tuohy family.
2. Michael's progress from being ignorant to becoming a highly recruited college football prospect.
3. Michael's adjustment to college.
4. The changes in American professional football that created an irresistible demand for someone with Michael's physical capabilities.
Each of these stories would make a fine book. To be able to pursue all four stories at the same time is an unexpected delight.
But the story's not over. Michael is now a sophomore at Ole Miss. Will he make it to the NFL? You can follow his career and find out. Perhaps other amazing chapters lie ahead. Who knows?
There's another story this book doesn't tell, but implies: The world is full of talented youth who could make great contributions . . . but they need a lot of help from people who care and are determined to help the youth succeed. For ever Michael Oher, there must be millions who languish. How can we change that? You'll be haunted by that question after you read this book.
If you are looking for keen insights into American football that you don't already have, you'll probably be disappointed. Any fan of professional football knows that a team's potential chances of success are only as good as the blocking of the offensive line. Clearly, the left tackle is the best insurance against a maimed right-handed quarterback, something no fan wants. You've probably noticed that the top left tackles get paid almost as much as quarterbacks. The history of how the Bill Walsh-type passing offenses have become so important is something you've lived through.
The professional football material will, however, be helpful to those who don't know football and want to appreciate why people have been going gaga over Michael Oher.
How can you help an at-risk youth today? I love the read about Liverpool, 04 Apr 2008
Hard hitting straight to the point and names all the big names, fantastic reading Graham well done again. If you like reading books set in Liverpool try Soft Target by Conrad Jones its a cracker. Both superb !! Gripping - gets you by the balls!, 13 Feb 2008
It could have been easy to dislike this book: written by a seasoned tabloid crime hack, it dishes the dirt on how gangsters have tried to muscle in on football - and frequently succeeded. The writer is an unashamed cynic about his own profession, making no apologies for the behaviour of 'Her Majesty's Press' (a phrase nicked, I believe, from the brilliant comedy Hot Metal), but he tells it like it is and, moreover, delivers each fascinating story with a grim humour and an elegant turn of phrase. More than that, he names names - big ones too! Rooney, Gerrard, Owen (oh yes!)...they're all there, Liverpool clearly being the author's area of expertise.
Recently, a proposed book dealing with the seamier side of Wayne Rooney's story, Roo Unzipped, was strangled at birth through fear of legal action, but there is plenty here to reveal the dark side behind the boy wonder (little of it of his own doing, to be fair...but the people who surround him are a different matter).
I guess football and crime are both 'bloke' preoccupations, so female readers might get a little bored, but I for one found it (to coin a literary word that sounds as though it ought to have been a football word) 'unputdownable'.
fantastic!!, 30 Dec 2008
I bought this book for my brother, whom is a massive arsenal fan, and he loved it, he said that it was a book that he couldnt put down! It is definately a book that every arsenal fan should posses. Under the skin of a fascinating football club, 05 Sep 2005
Arsenal Football Club is a special club, as anyone who has played for them, managed them or supported them knows. This fantastic book examines the darker side of Arsenal's history. Spurling, in a lively and entertaining fashion, shows us how Arsenal's reputation as a persona non grata club ("no-one likes us, we don't care") developed. Aside from civic pride we learn the real reason why Tottenham don't like us. We read about Henry Norris who manipulated Arsenal's way into the First Division after the First World War. There are fascinating tales about Willie Young, Peter Storey and George Eastham. The most pertinent chapter is about George Graham. We learn about the paradox of the control freak who lost control as his team was involved in unsavoury incidents, on and off the field, whilst Graham himself was clearly incapable of demonstrating the high standards he demanded from his players, witness the controversial end to his reign as Arsenal manager. The chapters on the Wenger years demonstrate that Arsenal's "us and them" mentality has not faded away, despite the lack of homegrown players in the team. Spurling shows us that in almost 120 years of Arsenal FC, everything and nothing has changed. The media hate us, other fans hate us and Wenger is very adept at using media barbs, much like Mee and Graham, to inspire the team to greater glories. "Victory through harmony" is Arsenal's slogan but I think after reading this book it should be "Victory through adversity". If you're an Arsenal fan, you must own this book. An antidote to those fed up with insincere badge kissing, 08 Feb 2004
Rebels for the Cause will surprise every Arsenal fan by revealing how much more there was to discover about the club. Jon Spurling has written a book that both entertains and informs. Starting with Arsenal's founding fathers, each chapter carefully pulls together the facts and faces throughout the club's history, cleverly exploring it's more colourful characters while subtely detailing the context of the club and football's changing place in society. Thought provoking, and sometimes shocking a smile is never far away from the reader's face. It also exposes the roots of resentment for the club in both the media and other football fans. For Arsenal fans this is simply a must read. For the rest, you hardly need any more justification for finding fault with the red and white half of north London.
A new perspective on the greatest club of all!, 21 Nov 2003
Another excellent book from the only Arsenal author, it seems, who can be bothered to find a fresh angle on the club’s past. “Rebels For The Cause” illustrates the point which most others publications seem scared to admit – that without Arsenal’s numerous controversial players and officials – the Gunners wouldn’t even exist, let alone be the world famous club they have become. I found the earlier chapters really fascinating, as they explain how Arsenal gained the “lucky” and “Bank Of England” labels, at a time of an economic depression in Europe. The new information on Sir Henry Norris goes a long way to explaining why Arsenal are disliked by almost everyone outside their own fan base.
As a supporter who started going in the 1970s, I found the chapters on Charlie George, Peter Storey and Willie Young really revealing and quirky. Some of the drinking stories will make you laugh out loud – or you might wince with pain as Spurling describes another ferocious Storey or Young challenge. The section on the 1977 pre season tour of Australia really gets the reader into the mindset of the rebel footballers from that era. The author is at his best as he minutely dissects the decline and fall of George Graham in the early 1990s.What makes startling is just how many of Graham’s former charges queue up to put the boot into their former manager.
“Rebels For The Cause” is a good deal more lively, honest and funny than any official history of the club. Buy it now !
Rebels for the Cause:The Alternative History of Arsenal....., 20 Sep 2003
I read this book in just three days. In my opinion, this is the most thought provoking and intriguing history of the club to date. I had thought that it was just going to be a history lesson from Arsenal's boozy bad boys. But Spurling's conversations with Willie Young, Charlie Nicholas, Charlie George, Alan Hudson and Perry Groves adds a humorous and "laddish" edge to certain chapters. But what makes Rebels For The Cause such a GREAT read, is the fact the Arsenal's "rebals" have come in such a variety of shapes and forms during the clubs long history. It was facinating to read of the spectacular fall from fame of George Graham. The comments of Claude Anelka on his brothers controversial departure from the club. Plus insights into the clubs history from the players view point. I particularly enjoyed reading the fresh insight on the life and times of Sir Henry Norris, who in 1918, "bribed" the Football League to promote Arsenal, and relegate Spurs. The furore surrounding George Eastham's court case in the early sixties and the clubs 1945 match against Moscow Dynamos. Spurling has delved deep into Arnenal's numerous disciplinary problems, his and the players' conclusions make for worrying reading. He shows that recent Arsenal manages have almost encouraged players to feel persecuted, as a way of fostering team spirt and their famed fortress mentality. This, together with the origins of the Gunners' rivalry with Tottenham and a look at the club's treatment by the tabloids makes for fascinating, if uncomfotable reading. Rebals For The Cause is a MUST read book for ALL Arsenal fans.
Even for the non-US sports literate..., 12 Sep 2008
There is little than can be added about this incredible book, other than to assure any Brits or potential readers put off by the fact that they don't understand/enjoy American Football that you don't need an sort of links or history with the sport to thoroughly enjoy what is one of the finest sports books of all time.
There are many 'spending-a-season-with' sporting works, and some of them (Tim Parks' A Season With Verona and Joe McGinniss's The Miracle of Castel di Sangro, for example) are excellent. However, with regards to this type of sporting book, HG Bissinger is the king. You feel like you know Boobie, Mike, Ivory, Don and Coach Gaines by the end. As the book closes, even Bissinger's update on how they are doing (in later prints of the novel) aren't enough. You've befriended these people and you demand to know how they are now, what they are doing, etc...
As a Brit whose childhood was dominated by school sport, the Odessa recreated by Bissinger seems a mile away from the disinterest in the soccer teams of my high school. But that doesn't detract from what is an entertaining, touching and informative book. Very strongly recommended.
Astonishing, 06 May 2008
Being English, the whole American high school sport thing is something of a mystery. I knew that some university teams get crowds bigger than premier league football does here, but had no idea that schoolchildren can draw crowds of 20,000 to watch their games.
And I think the main point of the book is that the word "school children" has been completely lost (or rather had been in the late 1980s, when this book was written). These young men train more or less full time, and have what must be almost unbearable pressures heaped upon them before they are old enough to drink (not that the legal age seemed to stop them). The book is about shattered dreams and hopes and is rivetting.
But it's astonishing in what it shows about race in America, and about class, and about sport (or "sports"). Of course, a lot might have changed in 20 years, but the racism is shocking. Genuinely, truly shocking. As is the way that children's educations are sacrificed in the name of sporting achievement. These guys don't have to do any school work they don't want to. It's an amazing portrait of the town, Odessa, of the people in it, and of (a bit of) America.
If, like me, you don't really understand American football (beyond the large men in armour knocking seven bells out of each other), it doesn't matter, as many of the details don't matter (understanding what a Safety or Split End does isn't necessary) and the writing about the matches themselves is good enough to keep you going.
One of the best books about sport I've ever read. Fantastic.
Better than the film, 19 Jan 2008
Like most others, I was inspired to read this after seeing the film. The film was great, but the book is brilliant. Like the Glory Game and Spurs in English football, the author here has got unparalleled access to the club and it shows in the pages. This is about hopes and dreams as well as the crashing and bashing of American football. A must for all sports fans.
simply brilliant, 14 Mar 2007
I bought this book, like many on the back of seeing the film and then subsequently a few episodes of the TV show and i have to say i was blown away from the first chapter.
I wouldnt say it was completely different to the film or the show but alot more in depth, as you would expect from a book but watchin the film you cant help but feel that there is alot of things that they could have focused more on to make it a better adaptation, which is why this book has to be read aswell if you are a fan of either the tv show or the film because you can get a better feel for the characters and the town and why they are the way they are when it comes to high school football.
brilliantly written, poignantly set in a time where not alot is going for the town apart from those Friday Night Lights - (cheesy ending i know but what the hell)
simply brilliant
A crescendo of failed dreams, 30 Jun 2005
I have only limited reading experiences of non-fictional sports books, and by and large this is not something I regret. Books (ghost) written by sportman, or by biographers risk being stultifying boring - think of the collective charisma of Nigel Mansell, Nick Faldo and Alan Shearer, or, if they are written by a fan about a particular sport, club, match etc, they have the tendency to remind you of exactly what word "fan" is a derivative off - books written for the devout. All this should however be set aside when reading Friday Night Lights. The most obvious and striking thing about the book being that it should be a non-fictional account written in such emotional, at times highly charged prose that would normally be indicative of a fictional narrative. It would be perfectly possible - if you skipped the authors introduction - to read it as simply as an east-coast outsiders cliched fictional take on Texan small-town life, townsfolk worshippers at the alter of petroleum dollors, conversations peppered with references to "niggers" and other undesirables, and an unhealthy addiction to high school football, matched in fervour perhaps only by a religious adherence to the Republican party. What makes the novel work is that this is not seen through the eyes of a condesending outsider but one who in part likes and admires those in Odessa he has been fortunate enough to live and work with whilst following the fate of the Permian Panthers. Its strange but the very parochialism and rough edges that are usually sand-papered over in books about major sports teams and athletes serves to make this particular account broader and informative, not reduced simply to a black and white rendition of athletic achievement. I hasten to suggest that someone who isn't a fan of American Football could pick up and enjoy this book in the same way I (someone interested in the sport) did, but unlike say, an account of the history of Manchester United FC I do at least think it possible. Whereas the forces of commercialism and Satellite TV have long since severed any meaningful linkage between MUFC and the Mancunian community, robbing any comtemporary account of MUFC of any local context or comptemporary societal trends, big bucks and TV rights, are - fortunantly, if just for the sake of this broad, open range book - entirely irrelevent to the down to heel charm of the Oddessan version of football. Think of this book as Annie Proulx for guys, a varied and interesting synopsis of not just players, teams, formations and games, but a whole way of life.
an excellent but sometimes flawed intro for beginners and the already-initiated alike, 22 Oct 2008
This is a good book for newbies, and also for people who already know a thing or two about the game. Unfortunately it is also pretty flawed. For example, the absolute beginner will have a hard time with the start of the book.
The first chapter should start with the basic essentials of the game step by step. i.e you have four downs to move the football, you have to gain 10 yards for another 1st down, its 6 points for a touchdown, 3 for a field goal etc. all this IS explained, but the structure of the chapters make this essentail information scattered around and tough to follow for a true beginner.
Having said that, this book is also a great educator. i have followed the game for 23 years, and like other people, you think you know a lot after that amount of time. But i still learned new things and information i hadn't come across before, especially in the sections on formations and sets. If you think you already knew it all, you'd be wrong!
Football is a very complicated game and your education in it's complexities will never stop. This a great first attempt at a book of this genre and if you are just getting into the NFL, it's a great place to start learning all about this incredibly entertaining and complex game. I also recommend buying the latest official NFL Rulebook too, it's really cheap and compliments this book perfectly. You'll be amazed at what you didn't know!
Football For Dummies, 27 Apr 2005
This is a great book for people who want to learn more about football. Though I already knew a considerable ammount about the game this book is an excellent point of reference and is great for explaining football to friends and relatives who aren't so knowlegable. And it was full of little humourous anecdotes and facts about the sport. The author has a pretty entertaining take on things too, which makes it a good choice especially for those new to football. I'd recomment it to anyone interested in the sport, not just dummmies.
FOOTBALL FOR DUMMIES, 26 Feb 2005
Very entertaining and interesting - like a load of people in UK I watch NFL and have a basic grasp of the idea and rules of the game - I bought this book to enjoy watching more - it is perfect for this - this book takes you from the basics up to advanced strategies and plays without ever feeling a chore. This is the only book I've ever felt the need to recommend. Very, very good.
Very Helpful book, 08 Jan 2005
I have just recently taken an interest in American Football. I found the game enjoyable but from time to time something would happen on the field and I didn't understand the reason behind the decision. I read the reviews for this book on Amazon.com. I have to say that this really is a great place to start for people that don't understand the rules and regulations behind the game. I now find myself watching and anticipating plays as the players line up. This book looks in detail at what each player is meant to be doing, and when.
This book teaches the basics of the game without being patronising, it is a fantastic book that I am so glad I bought.
This Book is the best guide to the nfl., 20 Feb 1999
This book was a very good one. It had everything in it. If you wanted to find a bit on information fast, this is a book where you can do it.
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