As you know, I am a huge sports fan. From time to time I take a break from suspense novels and read a nonfiction sports tale. (My secret dream is to someday have enough notoriety where I can sell a sports book of my own.) One of the best I’ve read in recent years is Warren St. John’s story of his year following University of Alabama football in an RV, Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer. One of the joys of the book is St. John’s candor when he speaks of his beloved team; there is a very controversial chapter, about midway through the book, where he relays a pretty scaring story of outright racism at a fan gathering. But the most interesting thing about the book is how St. John dissects what it is like to be a fan. I have thought many times about why it is that I follow sports. It’s so absurd (watching a bunch of guys throwing a ball and running after each other) that it’s almost shameful. But St. John speaks about fandom in generous, intelligent, thought-provoking ways in this book, and those sections are what makes Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer a must read.  

The American novelist Michael Chabon is approaching that rarefied place where he is accepted both in the canon and in popular culture as an exciting and relevant storyteller. Chabon’s novels are all brilliant, but his recent nonfiction title, Maps and Legends, is a great read as well. His essay about his failed second novel, Fountain City, is worth the price of admission. Chabon’s sentences are perhaps the best in the business. For me, he is one of those writers–like Faulkner, DeLillo, Neal Stephenson–who almost drives me away from the craft because you perpetually find myself thinking I could never do this! when I read him. But his plots and characters (and details; my God what details) are just as solid, just as stunning. In this book, he trains his exacting eye on other writers–most of them genre writers–who are meaningful to him. An enlightening, interesting, beautifully made book that you will sink into like a good novel.