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Into My Own: The Remarkable People and Events That Shaped a Life
Roger Kahn is one of America's foremost sportswriters. After successful seasons as a newspaperman and magazine writer, he burst onto the national scene in 1972 with his memorable bestseller, The Boys of Summer, a work that went beyond sports and captured the minds and hearts of millions across the country. Now in his eighth decade, Kahn has again written a book for the hearts and minds of his readers. Chronicling his own life, Into My Own is Kahn's reflection on the eight people who shaped him as a man, a father, and a writer.
In this poignant self-portrait, Kahn begins with his childhood in Brooklyn, reared on the verses of Homer, Shakespeare, Housman, and Millay---a curriculum set by his mother, and one that would influence his career with words. He combined his intellectual upbringing with his inherent passion for baseball, and began his sportswriting career under the legendary Stanley Woodward at the New York Herald Tribune . This lent Kahn the opportunity to interview and develop friendships with Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson--men he knew and admired for reasons far beyond their baseball abilities.
Kahn's writing is by no means limited to his sports coverage, and on the political front he devotes chapters to Eugene McCarthy and Barry Goldwater, whom he interviewed for the Saturday Evening Post ---two diverse men in a turbulent era who championed their distinct versions of idealism. The Post had earlier sent Kahn to interview poet Robert Frost at his home in Vermont, a rare opportunity for any journalist, and one that resulted in the development of a marked friendship between two men of words. Perhaps most touching is his account, straightforward but abrim with love, of the life and death---at twenty-three---of his scholar-athlete son, Roger Laurence Kahn.
Into My Own is the touching memoir of an unassuming man, whose great love of baseball and literature led him into extraordinary experiences, opportunities, and friendships. Even amidst great family tragedy and personal difficulty, Kahn has prevailed---amongst poets, writers, politicians, and most of all, ballplayers. Praise for Roger "As a kid, I loved sports first and writing second, and loved everything Roger Kahn wrote. As an adult, I love writing first and sports second, and love Roger Kahn even more."
---Pulitzer Prize winner, David Maraniss
"He can epitomize a player with a single swing of the pen."
--- Time magazine
"Roger Kahn is the best baseball writer in the business."
---Stephen Jay Gould, New York Review of Books
"A work of high moral purpose and great poetic accomplishment. The finest American book on sports."
---James Michener on The Boys of Summer
"Kahn has the almost unfair gift of easy, graceful writing."
--- Boston Herald
In this poignant self-portrait, Kahn begins with his childhood in Brooklyn, reared on the verses of Homer, Shakespeare, Housman, and Millay---a curriculum set by his mother, and one that would influence his career with words. He combined his intellectual upbringing with his inherent passion for baseball, and began his sportswriting career under the legendary Stanley Woodward at the New York Herald Tribune . This lent Kahn the opportunity to interview and develop friendships with Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson--men he knew and admired for reasons far beyond their baseball abilities.
Kahn's writing is by no means limited to his sports coverage, and on the political front he devotes chapters to Eugene McCarthy and Barry Goldwater, whom he interviewed for the Saturday Evening Post ---two diverse men in a turbulent era who championed their distinct versions of idealism. The Post had earlier sent Kahn to interview poet Robert Frost at his home in Vermont, a rare opportunity for any journalist, and one that resulted in the development of a marked friendship between two men of words. Perhaps most touching is his account, straightforward but abrim with love, of the life and death---at twenty-three---of his scholar-athlete son, Roger Laurence Kahn.
Into My Own is the touching memoir of an unassuming man, whose great love of baseball and literature led him into extraordinary experiences, opportunities, and friendships. Even amidst great family tragedy and personal difficulty, Kahn has prevailed---amongst poets, writers, politicians, and most of all, ballplayers. Praise for Roger "As a kid, I loved sports first and writing second, and loved everything Roger Kahn wrote. As an adult, I love writing first and sports second, and love Roger Kahn even more."
---Pulitzer Prize winner, David Maraniss
"He can epitomize a player with a single swing of the pen."
--- Time magazine
"Roger Kahn is the best baseball writer in the business."
---Stephen Jay Gould, New York Review of Books
"A work of high moral purpose and great poetic accomplishment. The finest American book on sports."
---James Michener on The Boys of Summer
"Kahn has the almost unfair gift of easy, graceful writing."
--- Boston Herald
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
6 people are currently reading
40 people want to read
About the author
Roger Kahn
44 books64 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Roger Kahn was best known for The Boys of Summer, about the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Roger Kahn was best known for The Boys of Summer, about the Brooklyn Dodgers.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 28, 2010
One of the reasons to read Roger Kahn's sportswriting is because of its deeply principled, personal nature. So I was delighted to find this memoir and discover through it how his perspective evolved through his long life and career. Very moving.
August 19, 2011
The author's own personal memoir which describes his life through his relationships with the remarkable people who were all a part of his life....Stanley Woodward, Pee Wee Reese, Robert Frost, Jackie Robinson, Eugene McCarthy and his son Roger....very well done.
June 23, 2010
Review by Ron Kaplan appears on Bookreporter.com
July 22, 2013
Kahn pulls off the end of career memoir without pretension or simply rehashing old material. Beautiful final essay on the death of his son.
March 4, 2023
Roger Kahn wrote the best sports book in history with "The Boys Of Summer". This books tells of how he became a writer and is a personal history of matters not including writing. Excellent, well done by one of America's best writers.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews