My parents divorced when I was three, and my mother and I moved into a tiny rental house two doors down from a windowless tavern. Though I had my own room, it was at the back of the house, and just beyond the small backyard was a gravel alleyway. Some nights, drunk men would use …
My coffee sat turning cold as I became absorbed in Abby’s journey from high school soccer to the U.S. Women’s National Team, and scoring a world-record number of international goals throughout her career. Abby shares a frank and deeply humanizing discussion of the events that shaped her along the way. She grapples with addiction, coming …
Three PNW booksellers all recommended the same book in a booksellers’ Father’s Day recommendations post by Restless Books: “God is Round is perfect for Father’s Day because it examines the culture, connection, and joy surrounding the sport that so many people love. Also: because soccer.” —Justus Joseph, The Elliott Bay Book Company (Seattle, WA) “You don’t need to be …
This is a far more substantive book than you’d expect from something called Rock ‘n’ Roll Soccer: The Short Life and Fast Times of the North American Soccer League, but then the NASL was a far more substantive operation than history has acknowledged. If it’s remembered at all these days, it’s for garish disco-era uniforms, …
To call this the greatest soccer novel ever written would imply that I’ve read any others, but people say it, and I can’t believe it’s not true. Peace, otherwise a crime novelist, took a bizarre episode in English football history, when the blustery manager Brian Clough took over his bitter rival, Leeds United, for a …
