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There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Memoir (2024)A forthcoming book about basketball in the 1990s and early 2000s.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published March 26, 2024
2329 people are currently reading
41882 people want to read
About the author
Hanif Abdurraqib
25 books3,722 followersHanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. His first full length poetry collection, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, was released in June 2016 from Button Poetry. It was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, and was nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. With Big Lucks, he released a limited edition chapbook, Vintage Sadness, in summer 2017 (you cannot get it anymore and he is very sorry.) His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was released in winter 2017 by Two Dollar Radio and was named a book of the year by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, Paste, CBC, The Los Angeles Review, Pitchfork, and The Chicago Tribune, among others. He released Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest with University of Texas press in February 2019. The book became a New York Times Bestseller, and was met with critical acclaim. His second collection of poems, A Fortune For Your Disaster, was released in 2019 by Tin House. He is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,702 reviews
July 25, 2025
fine. i'll admit it. i like sports.
and i really, really liked this book.
this is much denser than i expected — the language is heavy and poetic. it's well written and demands your attention.
ostensibly this is a book about basketball, which rocks, but it's also about so much more: where we come from, what that means. invisibility. homelessness, the cycle prison gets you in.
i didn't know most of these stories, because i'm relatively new to admitting i like sports and because i was either a child or a twinkle in god's eye at the time they occurred, which was the best and worst part of reading it.
i think every reader should be a sports fan, because fundamentally both are about great stories, so there are few things like hearing the greatest sports moments for the first time from an eloquent voice. this book follows lebron's career in fits and starts, while telling the story of ohio neighborhoods and our author and so, so many other things.
it was nonlinear and rhythmic, leaving the reader discombobulated and primed for the heaviest emotional hits. some stories don't get endings. some don't get middles or ends. there are worse things.
anyway. i'm off to wikipedia.
bottom line: a book so interesting its only problem is that it can't possibly answer all the questions it makes the reader ask.
4.5
and i really, really liked this book.
this is much denser than i expected — the language is heavy and poetic. it's well written and demands your attention.
ostensibly this is a book about basketball, which rocks, but it's also about so much more: where we come from, what that means. invisibility. homelessness, the cycle prison gets you in.
i didn't know most of these stories, because i'm relatively new to admitting i like sports and because i was either a child or a twinkle in god's eye at the time they occurred, which was the best and worst part of reading it.
i think every reader should be a sports fan, because fundamentally both are about great stories, so there are few things like hearing the greatest sports moments for the first time from an eloquent voice. this book follows lebron's career in fits and starts, while telling the story of ohio neighborhoods and our author and so, so many other things.
it was nonlinear and rhythmic, leaving the reader discombobulated and primed for the heaviest emotional hits. some stories don't get endings. some don't get middles or ends. there are worse things.
anyway. i'm off to wikipedia.
bottom line: a book so interesting its only problem is that it can't possibly answer all the questions it makes the reader ask.
4.5
May 9, 2024
Will update after next month’s reread for book club, but here’s what you need to know: we are at least considering this for My New Favorite Book™️
May 22, 2024
Perfection. A reckoning with and relishing in the cities that make us, the people who raise us, and what it means to make something of a life, plus exploring who’s allowed that privilege.
In his signature poetic prose and raw vulnerability, Abdurraqib takes memoir to a new level. Structured like a basketball game with countdowns breaking down the sections into smaller sections that drive the story forward, Abdurraqib moves around in time & space to unpack his thoughts on miracles, underdogs, kingdoms, witnessing, and more.
I loved a book about basketball. Who would’ve thought? But really it’s about so much more than the sport itself, just like life is more than just being alive.
In his signature poetic prose and raw vulnerability, Abdurraqib takes memoir to a new level. Structured like a basketball game with countdowns breaking down the sections into smaller sections that drive the story forward, Abdurraqib moves around in time & space to unpack his thoughts on miracles, underdogs, kingdoms, witnessing, and more.
I loved a book about basketball. Who would’ve thought? But really it’s about so much more than the sport itself, just like life is more than just being alive.
March 30, 2024
Hanif is such a talented writer and so earnest and heartfelt. He it thoughtful and sees the world in a way that I never could/have. I love reading his words and this book is no exception. This is a more challenging read than previous ones for me, it is slower, and more fluid and like poetry than straight prose. There is a lot going on and mostly it works but sometimes you have to trust Hanif and go with it. And while I do love basketball you do not have to watch/know/like basketball to like this book.
March 21, 2025
Now Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism 2024
Abdurraqib is clearly some sort of alchemist, amalgamating poetry and cultural criticism with no discernible structure whatsoever, but the result are texts that just slap: Aesthetically beautiful, intellectually sharp, surprising at every turn. In his latest effort, he writes about absolutely everything and masks it as an essay collection about basketball. Apparently, this is caused by the author's inital impulse to write about LeBron James, who, like him, hails from Ohio - and this great man really is a recurring theme here: He serves as a starting point to ponder home and heritage, what ambition means and what it costs for the individual and the community, how it inspires and can be a burden, how aging changes roles and perspectives, and how legacy and mythology relate.
The whole thing is losely structured like a basketball game, four quarters, intermissions and all. Part essay, part memoir, part cultural observation, part commentary, it's a very challenging read, as Abdurraqib keeps readers constantly on their toes, connecting thoughts, taking turns, digressing, changing directions. In an interview, the author explained that to him, this is a book about grace, for others and for onself, and this deep empathy and compassion shines through the stellar, lyrical sentences.
Show me another contemporary cultural critic who pulls something like this off. I dare you.
Abdurraqib is clearly some sort of alchemist, amalgamating poetry and cultural criticism with no discernible structure whatsoever, but the result are texts that just slap: Aesthetically beautiful, intellectually sharp, surprising at every turn. In his latest effort, he writes about absolutely everything and masks it as an essay collection about basketball. Apparently, this is caused by the author's inital impulse to write about LeBron James, who, like him, hails from Ohio - and this great man really is a recurring theme here: He serves as a starting point to ponder home and heritage, what ambition means and what it costs for the individual and the community, how it inspires and can be a burden, how aging changes roles and perspectives, and how legacy and mythology relate.
The whole thing is losely structured like a basketball game, four quarters, intermissions and all. Part essay, part memoir, part cultural observation, part commentary, it's a very challenging read, as Abdurraqib keeps readers constantly on their toes, connecting thoughts, taking turns, digressing, changing directions. In an interview, the author explained that to him, this is a book about grace, for others and for onself, and this deep empathy and compassion shines through the stellar, lyrical sentences.
Show me another contemporary cultural critic who pulls something like this off. I dare you.
November 22, 2024
second read: it’s so so so good
I wished I loved anything as much as Hanif loves Ohio
—
He does something with this book that I haven’t seen him do before. It’s deeply vulnerable, not just in how he discusses loss or love, but in how he discusses his own past. This definitely falls into the memoir category, but you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t call it that.
This is a story about Hanif’s life — his childhood spent on basketball courts in East Columbus, in neighborhood houses watching the All-American basketball contest, at the dining room table watching his dad’s bald head sweat while eating a family dinner; his young adulthood ambling through new romances, struggling to find a place for himself, while leaning into those ways young men try and impress each other; his adulthood in Columbus, and early jobs he had and then lost, apartments he had and then lost, and his experience with homelessness and jail; and finally, his years as a professional writer both in Columbus but also far away from it, missing home.
I split that into four parts because that’s how the story splits. He uses the framework of a basketball game to talk about his life, each chapter is a quarter in the basketball game. The physical book has a propulsive countdown clock that splits his narration into smaller chunks, punctuated by the reminder that there are 8 minutes and 20 seconds left in this quarter.
Expectedly, his writing is highly referential to the pop culture he was consuming at those various points of his life. He also seamlessly weaves in anecdotes about LeBron James’ life, lest you forget the central juxtaposition of the novel.
It would be reductive to call this book a memoir because of how it engaged with broader political movements and moments. On a trip back to Ohio to see a Cavaliers game, he remembers a recent victim of gun violence and his crooked smile.
He manages to weave an optimism about life into chapters about his time homeless, in jail, or on parole. Life could always be worse, he reassures the reader. In these moments it’s easy to feel the tone of his book — hopeful.
I love the way his brain works, and the way he writes about his life, and about the world we live in. It makes me feel happier to be alive.
Some random quotes that I loved and bookmarked:
“The politics of place aren’t necessarily always linked to the politics of staying as much as they are linked to the politics of knowing. I do dirt here because I know exactly where the dirt can be done. I know the shelter I can run toward when the dark city bathes in the silent sirens’ rotating lights. When I am lovesick here I know where there is a bar with a jukebox a place where one quarter gets you four whole songs and no one asks why you are alone because they’re alone too.”
“As if a place is not defined at least in part by how eagerly and comfortably it retreats to violence as a type of language. To make a myth of a country is a misguided extension of kindness. But it is also a hustle. People who believe so richly in the inherent goodness of whiteness that they believe empathy alone will grow the hearts of fascists are both hustlers and easily hustled.”
“Find something to lose yourself in to pass whatever time you might have spent doing dirt. Stay inside. Find a window tall enough that it doesn’t cut off the sky. Pay attention to the slow yawning of the changing season. Find a view of a tree and watch its leaves curl in on each other, one hundred browning fists bursting with a rage that refuses surrender until they do.”
“When LeBron came home, all I understood in the moment was that he could return and I couldn’t. He could come back to a place that needed him, and i needed that place but could not even remember my most beloved parts of it somedays.”
I wished I loved anything as much as Hanif loves Ohio
—
He does something with this book that I haven’t seen him do before. It’s deeply vulnerable, not just in how he discusses loss or love, but in how he discusses his own past. This definitely falls into the memoir category, but you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t call it that.
This is a story about Hanif’s life — his childhood spent on basketball courts in East Columbus, in neighborhood houses watching the All-American basketball contest, at the dining room table watching his dad’s bald head sweat while eating a family dinner; his young adulthood ambling through new romances, struggling to find a place for himself, while leaning into those ways young men try and impress each other; his adulthood in Columbus, and early jobs he had and then lost, apartments he had and then lost, and his experience with homelessness and jail; and finally, his years as a professional writer both in Columbus but also far away from it, missing home.
I split that into four parts because that’s how the story splits. He uses the framework of a basketball game to talk about his life, each chapter is a quarter in the basketball game. The physical book has a propulsive countdown clock that splits his narration into smaller chunks, punctuated by the reminder that there are 8 minutes and 20 seconds left in this quarter.
Expectedly, his writing is highly referential to the pop culture he was consuming at those various points of his life. He also seamlessly weaves in anecdotes about LeBron James’ life, lest you forget the central juxtaposition of the novel.
It would be reductive to call this book a memoir because of how it engaged with broader political movements and moments. On a trip back to Ohio to see a Cavaliers game, he remembers a recent victim of gun violence and his crooked smile.
He manages to weave an optimism about life into chapters about his time homeless, in jail, or on parole. Life could always be worse, he reassures the reader. In these moments it’s easy to feel the tone of his book — hopeful.
I love the way his brain works, and the way he writes about his life, and about the world we live in. It makes me feel happier to be alive.
Some random quotes that I loved and bookmarked:
“The politics of place aren’t necessarily always linked to the politics of staying as much as they are linked to the politics of knowing. I do dirt here because I know exactly where the dirt can be done. I know the shelter I can run toward when the dark city bathes in the silent sirens’ rotating lights. When I am lovesick here I know where there is a bar with a jukebox a place where one quarter gets you four whole songs and no one asks why you are alone because they’re alone too.”
“As if a place is not defined at least in part by how eagerly and comfortably it retreats to violence as a type of language. To make a myth of a country is a misguided extension of kindness. But it is also a hustle. People who believe so richly in the inherent goodness of whiteness that they believe empathy alone will grow the hearts of fascists are both hustlers and easily hustled.”
“Find something to lose yourself in to pass whatever time you might have spent doing dirt. Stay inside. Find a window tall enough that it doesn’t cut off the sky. Pay attention to the slow yawning of the changing season. Find a view of a tree and watch its leaves curl in on each other, one hundred browning fists bursting with a rage that refuses surrender until they do.”
“When LeBron came home, all I understood in the moment was that he could return and I couldn’t. He could come back to a place that needed him, and i needed that place but could not even remember my most beloved parts of it somedays.”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 14, 2024
I read an entire book about basketball, but it was really all about grief with a bunch of basketball statistics scattered throughout. Did I just cry about LeBron James? OMG, Hanif, HOW DO YOU DO IT?? Full review to come.
April 30, 2025
4.5
Half poetry and half prose; half observation and half analysis; half basketball and half what it means to be Black in the US for him. Provocative and engaging.
Half poetry and half prose; half observation and half analysis; half basketball and half what it means to be Black in the US for him. Provocative and engaging.
March 6, 2025
Update: I noted in my review last year that I felt Abdurraqib's narration of this memoir added something unique to the reading/listening experience. Apparently I’m not the only one who felt that way, since the book just won the Audie award for non-fiction.
——————————————-
I just read that this has been long-listed for the Non-Fiction National Book Award. Well deserved!
The first thing you need to know about this book is that Abdurraqib is a poet. Though this is a memoir, not a book of poetry, there is not a paragraph, or even a sentence, that doesn’t glow with his gift for rhythm and expression.
Building on that, this is a case where listening rather than reading was the right choice. I’ve read a number of books lately that have been narrated by the author, not always successfully IMO. But by narrating, Abdurraqib is able to share with us his intended pacing and an intimacy of tone that would otherwise be missing. I don’t read much poetry, but I absolutely relished the way these words felt as I heard them.
The next issue is whether you need to be a basketball enthusiast to appreciate this book. Not necessarily, though knowing a few things about the game and especially knowing who LeBron James is will make it a much richer experience.
Abdurraqib grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, and his connection to that place is a major theme of the book. The city has a hold on his soul that prevents him from taking root anywhere else. The experiences of his youth and the commitment of his people in his neighborhood to one another are the core of his identity.
Abdurraqib’s insider perspective on growing up in this community was at times painful to read, but always tender. I never wanted to look away or miss a word. Woven throughout are reflections on basketball players, those on neighborhood courts and on high school and college teams. He lets us see the significance of the achievements of these young men in the lives of those who are less gifted, but share in their aspirations.
And in this category no one shines brighter than LeBron James, who attended high school two hours away from Abdurraqib in Akron, Ohio and achieved a level of success of which others only dream. But for northeast Ohioans, James was much more than a talented athlete. When he signed with the Cleveland Cavaliers as a highly touted 19 year old, he became a symbol of excitement and energy, something to lift the city above their image as the “mistake on the lake”. And when he left 7 years later to join the Miami Heat, knowing he would be likely to earn an elusive NBA championship there, the city mourned. Having achieved that goal, he returned to Cleveland, and led the Cavaliers to their own championship in 2016, the first for any Cleveland sports team in over 50 years.
James left again in 2018, and Abdurraqib provides us with some interesting food for thought about these departures. What is the burden of being “King James”, not just a supreme athlete, but one who carries the self-respect of an entire city on his shoulders? Is it reasonable for this to be sustained indefinitely? How harshly should he be judged for walking away from it? When considered in light of Abdurraqib’s own commitment to Columbus these are especially meaningful questions.
I may have picked this up because of the cover photo and the title reference to LeBron James, but I got so much more out of it than I could have expected.
Here are a few quotes that may help explain why I loved this book.
“With enough repetition, anything can become a religion. It doesn’t matter if it works or not, it simply matters if a person returns.”
“I propose, once again, that you are, in part, who loves you. Who might step outside of themselves to find whatever will heal you, return you to a place where you are loved.”
And this brief phrase: “Those who worship in the church of slim chances”
Aside: As noted, I was attracted to this book because of the mention of LeBron on the cover. Although I’ve always been spectacularly inept at playing the game of basketball, I’ve also always been a fan. My wife played Pac 10 basketball in college (long before I knew her!) and we’ve followed a number of NBA teams over the years. We were living in England when James returned to Cleveland from Miami, and we watched all those games online. As much as we enjoyed our time in the UK, basketball was a meaningful connection to home, made all the more exciting by watching James’ brilliance unfolding in a city that was only an hour from where we had lived in NYS. He also now represents athletic endurance, still dominating games at the unthinkable age of thirty-nine. Surely I can get off the couch and engage in some activity if he can do that!
——————————————-
I just read that this has been long-listed for the Non-Fiction National Book Award. Well deserved!
The first thing you need to know about this book is that Abdurraqib is a poet. Though this is a memoir, not a book of poetry, there is not a paragraph, or even a sentence, that doesn’t glow with his gift for rhythm and expression.
Building on that, this is a case where listening rather than reading was the right choice. I’ve read a number of books lately that have been narrated by the author, not always successfully IMO. But by narrating, Abdurraqib is able to share with us his intended pacing and an intimacy of tone that would otherwise be missing. I don’t read much poetry, but I absolutely relished the way these words felt as I heard them.
The next issue is whether you need to be a basketball enthusiast to appreciate this book. Not necessarily, though knowing a few things about the game and especially knowing who LeBron James is will make it a much richer experience.
Abdurraqib grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, and his connection to that place is a major theme of the book. The city has a hold on his soul that prevents him from taking root anywhere else. The experiences of his youth and the commitment of his people in his neighborhood to one another are the core of his identity.
Abdurraqib’s insider perspective on growing up in this community was at times painful to read, but always tender. I never wanted to look away or miss a word. Woven throughout are reflections on basketball players, those on neighborhood courts and on high school and college teams. He lets us see the significance of the achievements of these young men in the lives of those who are less gifted, but share in their aspirations.
And in this category no one shines brighter than LeBron James, who attended high school two hours away from Abdurraqib in Akron, Ohio and achieved a level of success of which others only dream. But for northeast Ohioans, James was much more than a talented athlete. When he signed with the Cleveland Cavaliers as a highly touted 19 year old, he became a symbol of excitement and energy, something to lift the city above their image as the “mistake on the lake”. And when he left 7 years later to join the Miami Heat, knowing he would be likely to earn an elusive NBA championship there, the city mourned. Having achieved that goal, he returned to Cleveland, and led the Cavaliers to their own championship in 2016, the first for any Cleveland sports team in over 50 years.
James left again in 2018, and Abdurraqib provides us with some interesting food for thought about these departures. What is the burden of being “King James”, not just a supreme athlete, but one who carries the self-respect of an entire city on his shoulders? Is it reasonable for this to be sustained indefinitely? How harshly should he be judged for walking away from it? When considered in light of Abdurraqib’s own commitment to Columbus these are especially meaningful questions.
I may have picked this up because of the cover photo and the title reference to LeBron James, but I got so much more out of it than I could have expected.
Here are a few quotes that may help explain why I loved this book.
“With enough repetition, anything can become a religion. It doesn’t matter if it works or not, it simply matters if a person returns.”
“I propose, once again, that you are, in part, who loves you. Who might step outside of themselves to find whatever will heal you, return you to a place where you are loved.”
And this brief phrase: “Those who worship in the church of slim chances”
Aside: As noted, I was attracted to this book because of the mention of LeBron on the cover. Although I’ve always been spectacularly inept at playing the game of basketball, I’ve also always been a fan. My wife played Pac 10 basketball in college (long before I knew her!) and we’ve followed a number of NBA teams over the years. We were living in England when James returned to Cleveland from Miami, and we watched all those games online. As much as we enjoyed our time in the UK, basketball was a meaningful connection to home, made all the more exciting by watching James’ brilliance unfolding in a city that was only an hour from where we had lived in NYS. He also now represents athletic endurance, still dominating games at the unthinkable age of thirty-nine. Surely I can get off the couch and engage in some activity if he can do that!
September 28, 2023
"Praise be to the underdogs and those who worship in the church of slim chances."
No one is doing it like Hanif Abdurraqib. At this point, I truly think he could write the phone book and I'd still read it cover to cover (and probably cry). You don't have to love basketball to love this book. This is a story of community, loss, connection, hope. You feel everything Hanif is feeling in these pages. The writing is lyrical, moving, and there are moments that stopped me in my tracks. I'm struggling to eloquently write a review that does this book justice. Just go read it for yourself, ok?
Thank you to Hanif for sharing his talent, to Netgally for the ARC, and most of all to ME for already pre-ordering this book months ago as soon as it was announced, despite being drunk at a Dave and Busters when said pre-order link went live. I can't wait to have this on my shelf.
No one is doing it like Hanif Abdurraqib. At this point, I truly think he could write the phone book and I'd still read it cover to cover (and probably cry). You don't have to love basketball to love this book. This is a story of community, loss, connection, hope. You feel everything Hanif is feeling in these pages. The writing is lyrical, moving, and there are moments that stopped me in my tracks. I'm struggling to eloquently write a review that does this book justice. Just go read it for yourself, ok?
Thank you to Hanif for sharing his talent, to Netgally for the ARC, and most of all to ME for already pre-ordering this book months ago as soon as it was announced, despite being drunk at a Dave and Busters when said pre-order link went live. I can't wait to have this on my shelf.
March 27, 2024
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for access to this title. All opinions expressed are my own
Fellow reviewers, I find myself pacing back and forth about this review. I see review after review of heavy praise for this non-fiction book. I can concur that there are so many important topics( racism, classism, family, and basketball) here- real heavy topics, I would read each section and put the book down and sit with my thoughts for well. Something that I believe the author would wish. It's a book that demands that kind of consideration.
I suppose what I am wrestling with the most is that I want to pinpoint something significant that would explain why There's Always This Year... failed to keep hold of me. Yet all I can come up with is " Dear Readers, I just wanted to be done."
Does this make me a horrible person?
Probably.
I will most likely get some hate for not rating this higher. Let's at least chalk it up to " It's me, I am the problem. "
Expected Publication Date 26/03/24
Goodreads Review 24/03/24
#TheresAlwaysThisYear #NetGalley.
Fellow reviewers, I find myself pacing back and forth about this review. I see review after review of heavy praise for this non-fiction book. I can concur that there are so many important topics( racism, classism, family, and basketball) here- real heavy topics, I would read each section and put the book down and sit with my thoughts for well. Something that I believe the author would wish. It's a book that demands that kind of consideration.
I suppose what I am wrestling with the most is that I want to pinpoint something significant that would explain why There's Always This Year... failed to keep hold of me. Yet all I can come up with is " Dear Readers, I just wanted to be done."
Does this make me a horrible person?
Probably.
I will most likely get some hate for not rating this higher. Let's at least chalk it up to " It's me, I am the problem. "
Expected Publication Date 26/03/24
Goodreads Review 24/03/24
#TheresAlwaysThisYear #NetGalley.
October 23, 2025
‘Hold whatever sweetness you can in your mouth for a little longer. Ignore the glass, dropped to the floor, fractured into an army of shards. This is how we begin the other story.’
(involuntary feral screaming on the inside) Adore, adore, adore. So much so that when/if I see anyone rating this less than 5*, I can't help but be like — why you lying, why. Proper RTC later, some bits below for now:
‘A dunk contest is where one goes to execute some far-flung dream of what the body is capable of. It is where one goes to fail, often spectacularly. I wish all failure could be as beautiful as the failures that arrive to us midair, a reality setting in that we are incapable and yet still in flight. And still, there was no way Kenny was going to miss this dunk. We knew, crowded around a television, palms sweaty even before he took off, sprinting from seventy-five feet out. Even before he launched himself, toe touching just above the foul line (though who needs such specifics when miracles are afoot), even before the frozen moment, Kenny with his arm stretched straight up, heavenbound, the basketball an offering to the sky, but only for a moment. When Michael Jordan took off from the foul line in Indiana back in 1985, still with faint traces of hair on his head, all of us boys had been born, but barely. We mostly remembered the dunk in stillness, not in motion. Just like with Mike in ’85, a whole life can change if someone is in defiance of gravity for the right for the right amount of time.’
‘With enough repetition, anything can become a religion. It doesn’t matter if it works or not, it simply matters if a person returns. It is hard to watch a team you know has dedicated itself to intentional atrocity, knowing that they still have to at least try and put on a show for the dwindling crowds in the arena. Even if the crowds, themselves, are also rooting for that team to lose.’
‘‘The Leaving Song’ is the mother of a petulant, sometimes loud and unruly subgenre of song that is among my favourites: ‘The Begging Song’. It is a true but sad fact that this subgenre is most commonly dominated by men, some no-good motherfuckers who swear they might do right this next time around if you could just / if you would just / if you could find it in your / baby please don’t / and so on.
And shit, I ain’t always been above being some form of that no-good motherfucker myself, but what I’m saying is that I have at least a little dignity and plus I can’t sing all that well, so you won’t catch me down on my knees, pleading, trying to bend a single note through the closing eye of forgiveness. But lord knows I love to be a spectator to someone else’s mess every now and then, since my own is so frequently unappealing (and relentlessly immovable), and so I do love a song where someone is doing some begging.’
‘It should be made clear that begging and apologising are two different things. They perhaps live in the same apartment building, and when done at the right temperature, they can be heard through each other’s walls. Sometimes one may invite the other over, but the invitee can very easily either outstayed its welcome or leave far too early. Apologising is for the humbled; begging works best if the humility has yet to set in. This is, often, what makes begging such a unique vessel for this brand of song and—I must admit—why it makes sense that men have the most prominent hold on the genre. This can be a tender, thoughtful, self-reflective mode of tune, but so often, the begging is about both refusal and entitlement, which I suppose seems nefarious on its surface, though I am committed to seeing the usefulness in this type of refusal, at least to a point.’
‘In the magic of the commercial, they can all hear LeBron, though his voice has numbed to a near-whisper inside of the arena. Fans outside nod along with his voice. They lean in and furrow their brows, affixing looks of determination to their faces. And yes, this might be the point where you understand—or can at least be swayed into believing—that what is being discussed here is destiny. Finally, the pin is out of the grenade. LeBron James, making clear what was already assumed. Not just I came home to win but We will win together. My god, the greatest lies are told in the name of sports, in the name of teams and cities and the people in them. People who do march from the docks to the doors of an arena. People who do save up some coins to get seats in the highest corner of the rafters, closer to the kingdom of heaven than he who would be named King. The greatest lies are told in the name of what people believe they can reach out and touch. How the idea of winning in a place where no one believes you to be a winner can summon the heart to leap from the edge of a cliff, praying to land in a sea of outstretched hands. There are worse lies than this, ones that I’m less prone to be seduced by in a moment of weakness, in a moment of dreaming.’
‘Whether we know it to matter in the larger tapestry of our lives, or have washed it down with the accumulation of years, so many of us have left someone or somewhere. So many of us have built a chamber of suffering for someone to lock themselves in. I have been the face in a picture frame, turned over and then eventually discarded. Though it might not be the best time for this revelation, now, as we will momentarily leave each other, it must be said that leaving is the unspectacular part of this emotional math. Once this ends, once we hit zero and we depart, you will turn a page, and I will have returned to you. Different than I am right now, but a return nonetheless. And what happens in between is where the magic trick turns on itself.’
‘There is a video that breaks my heart that you have perhaps seen. A raccoon, overjoyed with the gift of cotton candy, takes its bounty to the water, to wash the food off before consuming it. The raccoon, of course, does not know what any viewer knows. That the ball of sugar will be overtaken by the entry into the water and dissolve into nothing. When this happens, the raccoon becomes frantic and puzzled, feeling around the puddle of water, seeking what was lost, only to be greeted by its own reflection. The moments immediately after waking from a rapturous state of elsewhere can be the harshest mirror. One in which you reach for what you just knew your life to be, even as the concrete memory of it slips away with each passing second. And still, the remnants of that sweetness dance along the periphery of a sometimes painful living. And so do you then regret the dreaming itself? Or do you return to sleep each night, hoping to get back to that same place, knowing how impossible that might be? I hope you get it now.’
‘I don’t know how to explain this to anyone who hasn’t spent a large portion of their life betting on losing teams, betting on a city people foolishly consider to be a losing city. I cannot explain this to anyone who hasn’t stumbled their way into some undeniable beauty only to set it on fire at their arrival because they felt too close to that which they weren’t sure they deserved. I cannot explain this to anyone who hasn’t prayed in a church for something they weren’t entirely sure God gave a fuck about.’
‘There’s something about that kind of losing, the kind of losing where you are close enough to touch and taste the finality of being sole victors, but never actually holding it. That can drain a fan base in a way that might feel similar to perpetual losing—in a way that might make one crave the familiar eras of hopelessness. At least in the bleak times, there’s an honesty about the reality of everyone’s circumstances. The excitement that opens a season, when there are no wins or losses in anyone’s columns, and the excitement that fades as a record becomes weighed down with L’s, but with that weight comes a new hope: There’s always next year. This moment is lost, but soon there will be another season, another blank slate. Possibility awaits. If you can believe in it long enough, destiny rotates, tilts its wild and colourful feathers toward everyone eventually.’
And this recent article by Abdurraqib is fab as well (and makes me bit mad/sad that there is no one like him writing about football in such a beautiful way, to put simply) :
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/3...
May 10, 2024
I really wanted to like this, but honestly 3 stars is generous. Way too poetic for me and basically had no narrative at all. I feel dumb having not enjoyed this book because all of the reviews are RAVING but I took away very little about basketball, Ohio, the author, really anything I thought I would get from this book. Felt like stream of consciousness that I couldn't follow.
April 24, 2024
There’s Always This Year is phenomenal. It’s “a triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. No matter the subject of his keen focus—whether it’s basketball, or music, or performance—Hanif Abdurraqib’s exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves.”
I do not have the words to describe how much I loved this book — The connection to basketball and in particular, the Lebron James era Cavs, is what of course drew me in, and while it did not disappoint from a basketball standpoint, it’s also about so much more — Columbus, culture, family, and grief are among its many topics.
I listened to part of this on audio and Abdurraqib is a great narrator, though I found myself constantly drawn back to the physical book, wanting to read his brilliant words in print even as I listened. There’s Always This Year is a book I know I’ll revisit and continue to be in awe of.
I do not have the words to describe how much I loved this book — The connection to basketball and in particular, the Lebron James era Cavs, is what of course drew me in, and while it did not disappoint from a basketball standpoint, it’s also about so much more — Columbus, culture, family, and grief are among its many topics.
I listened to part of this on audio and Abdurraqib is a great narrator, though I found myself constantly drawn back to the physical book, wanting to read his brilliant words in print even as I listened. There’s Always This Year is a book I know I’ll revisit and continue to be in awe of.
January 18, 2024
SIX STARS. and to think I thought the reviews were lying. I heard, and read, “I don’t care about basketball but I loved this!” so much, and I was skeptical. I knew I would like this because it’s Hanif, but I thought I’d have to force interest a little bit – push through a layer of basketball-jargon I didn’t care about to get to the meat of it. I was so wrong, and I’m so happy. This book is completely and entirely deserving of its overwhelming early praise, the vast-majority five star reviews, the raving from friends… I mean just look at me!!! I am *not* the target audience for a book about 90s/00s basketball in Columbus, Ohio, but I am still saying with my whole chest that this is one of the best books I’ve ever read.
This book is divided into five sections: a pregame and four quarters. Each quarter starts with the clock at 12:00, and slowly counts its way down to the buzzer. By 11:30, you know what Hanif is talking about. By 10:00, you know what Hanif is really talking about. And by 2:00, you get what he was really, really talking about all along. And then by 0:00, you finally get it. Anyone who’s read Hanif knows what I’m talking about. Hanif writes in layers so closely, poetically, precisely intertwined that it looks like a single image until he starts slowly peeling them away, revealing metaphor after connection after insight. Which is why, for example, in the third quarter, Hanif speaks about Lebron leaving the Cavs for the Heat in 2010, while also talking about heartbreak, longing, begging, and desperation, and all the different ways these feelings have manifested in Hanif’s own life, in his friends’ lives, in his city, in great music.
Out of the three books of his I’ve read, this was easily my favourite, and that’s saying lots because I loved the other two. But out of them all, this is the most autobiographical. Through the book, you watch Hanif grow up from a boy at his kitchen table, staring at the beads of sweat on his dad’s bald head, to a high schooler chasing Kenny Gregory’s car down the street with his friends, to a young adult incarcerated watching the Cavs on the prison TV, to a grown man homesick, watching Lebron’s return to Cleveland from a city he doesn’t want to be in, crying because he wants to be home.
I could not speak more highly of this book. No one writes like Hanif. Read this, even if you’re like me and absolutely not cool enough to love this as much as you did.
This book is divided into five sections: a pregame and four quarters. Each quarter starts with the clock at 12:00, and slowly counts its way down to the buzzer. By 11:30, you know what Hanif is talking about. By 10:00, you know what Hanif is really talking about. And by 2:00, you get what he was really, really talking about all along. And then by 0:00, you finally get it. Anyone who’s read Hanif knows what I’m talking about. Hanif writes in layers so closely, poetically, precisely intertwined that it looks like a single image until he starts slowly peeling them away, revealing metaphor after connection after insight. Which is why, for example, in the third quarter, Hanif speaks about Lebron leaving the Cavs for the Heat in 2010, while also talking about heartbreak, longing, begging, and desperation, and all the different ways these feelings have manifested in Hanif’s own life, in his friends’ lives, in his city, in great music.
Out of the three books of his I’ve read, this was easily my favourite, and that’s saying lots because I loved the other two. But out of them all, this is the most autobiographical. Through the book, you watch Hanif grow up from a boy at his kitchen table, staring at the beads of sweat on his dad’s bald head, to a high schooler chasing Kenny Gregory’s car down the street with his friends, to a young adult incarcerated watching the Cavs on the prison TV, to a grown man homesick, watching Lebron’s return to Cleveland from a city he doesn’t want to be in, crying because he wants to be home.
I could not speak more highly of this book. No one writes like Hanif. Read this, even if you’re like me and absolutely not cool enough to love this as much as you did.
March 2, 2024
This is the most beautiful written non fiction I’ve ever read. It’s part cultural commentary, part memoir, and completely profound, rich, and moving. I’ve not read anything like it.
Abdurraqib explores success, who “makes it” and why, and the role models society builds for us through an examination of basketball alongside his own life. The better a book, the harder time I have talking about it. I do not have the words to even remotely do justice to what he has accomplished here.
The book is broken up like a basketball game, with a pregame, quarters, halftime, and timeouts. And because he is a genius, every time I thought we were talking about a specific aspect of the sport, we were actually talking about something much more abstract and universal. I couldn’t care less about basketball, and yet what he does here moved me to tears.
Abdurraqib explores success, who “makes it” and why, and the role models society builds for us through an examination of basketball alongside his own life. The better a book, the harder time I have talking about it. I do not have the words to even remotely do justice to what he has accomplished here.
The book is broken up like a basketball game, with a pregame, quarters, halftime, and timeouts. And because he is a genius, every time I thought we were talking about a specific aspect of the sport, we were actually talking about something much more abstract and universal. I couldn’t care less about basketball, and yet what he does here moved me to tears.
February 6, 2024
Never having read this author, I wanted to read this as one of the younger members of my family is obsessed with basketball and to see if it would be one he would enjoy. Instead, I found an author whom I’ve never read before that took me on a journey I never expected would move me to tears at times, both for the beauty of his writing, and for his story.
This is a story about basketball, but it is also so much more than that. It is a story about home, the place where you became whoever you are as the years passed - and the good, and bad, memories it holds. It is composed of a countdown and four quarters, as an ode to the game, and perhaps the way our lives are divided by our ages and the wisdom we collect as the years pass, if we’re lucky.
Set in Columbus, Ohio for the most part, a place I’ve never lived but have visited several times as one of my friends lives there, this is an ode to Columbus, the people who he grew up with, the highs and lows of living there, the city itself, as well as some heartbreaking moments of tragedy. And yet, despite what some may think of all the negative aspects of this place, it is still home, the place we came from is always home, our first home.
This book was an unexpected blessing for me, one that is filled with and about love at its heart, a beautiful introduction to a new author, for me, and I can’t wait to read more of his books.
Pub Date: 26 Mar 2024
Many thanks for the ARC provided by Random House Publishing Group - Random House, Random House
April 28, 2024
when I was in the hospital last summer with a failing heart, after learning I have a rare and progressive pulmonary vascular disease, I was having all kinds of thoughts about not being ready to die at 32, and one thing I distinctly remember thinking was “I hope I’m still alive to read Hanif Abdurraqib’s new book”
I’m so glad I was alive to read this, and I hope Hanif writes many more books and that I’m alive for those too
I’m so glad I was alive to read this, and I hope Hanif writes many more books and that I’m alive for those too
August 3, 2024
It would be more accurate, for the record, to give this 3.5/5 stars. Alas. But I had to choose which way to round and that should tell me a lot about my feelings toward this book.
Let me say first that I generally LOVE Abdurraqib’s writing. His last book especially, A Little Devil In America was particularly insightful. But I also enjoyed The Crown A’int Worth Much, Go Ahead In The Rain, and They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us.
Honestly, this just felt unfocused. For the first time, I found Abdurraqib’s labyrinthine thought flows and syntax, well, taxing. And then when he’d return on a dime to the “subject” at hand—I use the quotations because EVERYTHING is the subject at hand—I found it both jarring and slightly annoying. If everything is the subject then nothing is. If every sentence is a gothic cathedral, it’s hard to maintain one’s sense of spiritual attentiveness.
This is the first text of Abdurraqib’s I thought required a more aggressive and coercive editor. So much of what he says is smart. Profound. Surprising. Funny. But in his previous works, I felt his writing rhythm inviting and fresh. Obviously, I’m still a fan. Just a little disappointed in this one.
Let me say first that I generally LOVE Abdurraqib’s writing. His last book especially, A Little Devil In America was particularly insightful. But I also enjoyed The Crown A’int Worth Much, Go Ahead In The Rain, and They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us.
Honestly, this just felt unfocused. For the first time, I found Abdurraqib’s labyrinthine thought flows and syntax, well, taxing. And then when he’d return on a dime to the “subject” at hand—I use the quotations because EVERYTHING is the subject at hand—I found it both jarring and slightly annoying. If everything is the subject then nothing is. If every sentence is a gothic cathedral, it’s hard to maintain one’s sense of spiritual attentiveness.
This is the first text of Abdurraqib’s I thought required a more aggressive and coercive editor. So much of what he says is smart. Profound. Surprising. Funny. But in his previous works, I felt his writing rhythm inviting and fresh. Obviously, I’m still a fan. Just a little disappointed in this one.
January 7, 2025
I’ve said this before, but I really don’t like to “rate” memoirs. It feels weird to me.
That being said, this was an astonishing, life-changing memoir that I feel everybody should pick up. As such, I am giving it five stars, because it truly deserves it. It’s that f*cking good.
I read through audio, which was narrated by the author, and I cannot recommend it enough. His reading voice was lyrical and often brought me to tears.
That being said, this was an astonishing, life-changing memoir that I feel everybody should pick up. As such, I am giving it five stars, because it truly deserves it. It’s that f*cking good.
I read through audio, which was narrated by the author, and I cannot recommend it enough. His reading voice was lyrical and often brought me to tears.
January 27, 2024
ARC for review. To be published March 26, 2024.
This review originally published in the Charleston (WV) Gazette Mail, Saturday/Sunday, January 27-28, 2024.
Basketball and the realities of life in the city - first as an economically displace youth, then as a man - combine to paint vivid pictures in this wonderful book by Hanif Abdurraqib, author of the National Book Award finalist “A Little Devil in America.”
The author grew up in Columbus, Ohio, during the same period LeBron James was playing high school ball just up the road in Akron and then, later, during his two periods with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Abdurraqib and his friends went to see him play many times, so LeBron’s career is a theme throughout, especially the idea that when LeBron returned to Cleveland with the idea of winning a championship for the city (which, of course, he did) he brought the entire city together. The author cited a Nike commercial that brought him, exiled to Connecticut at the time, to tears.
He also highlights many excellent high school players in his own home city, a fact he loves “for how it opens the gates to dreaming and offers an everywhere.” And very few of them are LeBrons; most of them don’t make it to the NBA, but “of all the reasons I love the hood the greatest reason is for how we honor our homecomings,” no matter whether it’s someone coming home from college or prison.
Abdurraqib lauds the pickup games to be found in any city, and decries the time when Columbus took its rims down, during the COVID-19 pandemic. He recalls “…my pal who used to pull a heavy gold cross from his neck and pay the block kids some coin to hold on to it tight while he lit up the eastside courts now wears a robe with a gold cross…my pal tells me there is no real difference between resurrection and revival ‘cept that the latter can sometime require a human intervention.”
He defines sports trash talk, on any level, as a kind of love, writing, “you are worthy of the time it takes to dismantle you.”
Pickup games are but one important rite of passage in the city. There are also sections on the importance of black men’s hair (and the decision to go bald) and cars (and their sound systems.)
It comes as no surprise that Abdurraqib is a poet, because the language here is magical, lyrical, and has a rhythm - much like the back-and-forth sway of teams going up and down the court, taking their turns with the ball, singing the songs of young black men.
He recalls the first time he was in jail, when his first cellmate, years older than him, told him, “‘Don’t worry, man, whatever they do to you, they gonna do to all of us.’ At first, I thought what he was saying was ‘We all got your back,’ but the more I thought about it, I think he was actually saying, ‘No one in here suffers alone,’ which is close to the same thing but also decidedly not.” And throughout, this is what Abdurraqib seems to be saying about the city. No one suffers alone.
During that first jail stay, he has nothing other than a spare pair of socks that a friendly guard gave him, and he guarded them with all he had…and at night pretended that rolled up pair was a basketball.
The year LeBron returned to Cleveland was also the year of the murder of Tamir Rice. The author notes that the police officers seemed unafraid and that “a city is a container for heartbreak,” stating “my heart, and perhaps yours, hums at the frequency of a lie and ever-present breaking.”
However, Abdurraqib tried living away from Columbus and was constantly dissatisfied, and always looking for reasons to go home. The city was him and he was his city, “and there were no games like those games. To be an audience to that impossible miracle. This many good players in a radius of a mile or less.” Home.
This review originally published in the Charleston (WV) Gazette Mail, Saturday/Sunday, January 27-28, 2024.
Basketball and the realities of life in the city - first as an economically displace youth, then as a man - combine to paint vivid pictures in this wonderful book by Hanif Abdurraqib, author of the National Book Award finalist “A Little Devil in America.”
The author grew up in Columbus, Ohio, during the same period LeBron James was playing high school ball just up the road in Akron and then, later, during his two periods with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Abdurraqib and his friends went to see him play many times, so LeBron’s career is a theme throughout, especially the idea that when LeBron returned to Cleveland with the idea of winning a championship for the city (which, of course, he did) he brought the entire city together. The author cited a Nike commercial that brought him, exiled to Connecticut at the time, to tears.
He also highlights many excellent high school players in his own home city, a fact he loves “for how it opens the gates to dreaming and offers an everywhere.” And very few of them are LeBrons; most of them don’t make it to the NBA, but “of all the reasons I love the hood the greatest reason is for how we honor our homecomings,” no matter whether it’s someone coming home from college or prison.
Abdurraqib lauds the pickup games to be found in any city, and decries the time when Columbus took its rims down, during the COVID-19 pandemic. He recalls “…my pal who used to pull a heavy gold cross from his neck and pay the block kids some coin to hold on to it tight while he lit up the eastside courts now wears a robe with a gold cross…my pal tells me there is no real difference between resurrection and revival ‘cept that the latter can sometime require a human intervention.”
He defines sports trash talk, on any level, as a kind of love, writing, “you are worthy of the time it takes to dismantle you.”
Pickup games are but one important rite of passage in the city. There are also sections on the importance of black men’s hair (and the decision to go bald) and cars (and their sound systems.)
It comes as no surprise that Abdurraqib is a poet, because the language here is magical, lyrical, and has a rhythm - much like the back-and-forth sway of teams going up and down the court, taking their turns with the ball, singing the songs of young black men.
He recalls the first time he was in jail, when his first cellmate, years older than him, told him, “‘Don’t worry, man, whatever they do to you, they gonna do to all of us.’ At first, I thought what he was saying was ‘We all got your back,’ but the more I thought about it, I think he was actually saying, ‘No one in here suffers alone,’ which is close to the same thing but also decidedly not.” And throughout, this is what Abdurraqib seems to be saying about the city. No one suffers alone.
During that first jail stay, he has nothing other than a spare pair of socks that a friendly guard gave him, and he guarded them with all he had…and at night pretended that rolled up pair was a basketball.
The year LeBron returned to Cleveland was also the year of the murder of Tamir Rice. The author notes that the police officers seemed unafraid and that “a city is a container for heartbreak,” stating “my heart, and perhaps yours, hums at the frequency of a lie and ever-present breaking.”
However, Abdurraqib tried living away from Columbus and was constantly dissatisfied, and always looking for reasons to go home. The city was him and he was his city, “and there were no games like those games. To be an audience to that impossible miracle. This many good players in a radius of a mile or less.” Home.
February 4, 2025
Beautiful and gripping writing, the kind that makes me interested in topics I thought I wasn't interested in or had never heard about. Reminds me of Alexander Chee's How To Write An Autobiographical Novel in how it moved from one topic or genre to another within one essay so effortlessly you don't even notice it's happening.
I did get a bit lost in the nitty gritty of basketball stuff sometimes, but that also might be because Hanif Abdurraqib has a soothing voice that lulled me into losing focus. I do wish he'd discussed *my* favourite 90s (okay technically 2000) basketball movie, Love & Basketball though! 🏀 ❤️
I did get a bit lost in the nitty gritty of basketball stuff sometimes, but that also might be because Hanif Abdurraqib has a soothing voice that lulled me into losing focus. I do wish he'd discussed *my* favourite 90s (okay technically 2000) basketball movie, Love & Basketball though! 🏀 ❤️
April 3, 2025
Abdurraqib‘s voice is powerful, lyrical, and completely engrossing. I found myself thinking of this book every time I set it down, ruminating on the words and topics discussed. Yes, it is basketball heavy (which as a sports fan, I didn’t mind), but even if you’re not a fan, you will still be captivated by this memoir that is really more like a love letter to basketball and Ohio. An amazing book that’ll be staying with me a long time.
did-not-finish
April 2, 2024Could not get into this. Nothing wrong with it but it's (deliberately) meandering and so poetic that sometimes it feels like he just really likes the rhythm he's in and keeps going on because he's so excited about his words he just can't stop. I'm just never in the mood for that kind of writing. I wanted to hear more specifically about basketball, but this is not that book. But that's okay.
April 10, 2024
The best to ever do it does it again. We are all witnesses.
"Forgive me for committing to suffering. I thought it might be the answer. That if I suffered loudly enough, for long enough, I would be owed something from somewhere holy."
"Forgive me for committing to suffering. I thought it might be the answer. That if I suffered loudly enough, for long enough, I would be owed something from somewhere holy."
November 26, 2024
Actually incredible. My favorite living writer for a reason.
His words are such a gift.
His words are such a gift.
April 21, 2024
I don't know how Hanif Abdurraquib keeps getting better, I only know he does. This book feels the most personal, the most vulnerable, the most political and the most profound he has written. The dedication "to anyone who never wanted to make it out of the places that love them" foreshadows much of what this book is about. Ostensibly this book is about basketball, and the game has a leading role but it also serves as a metaphor. Even as a game it is more about what pulls us together, what cements a family, community, a city. And family, community, and city (Columbus and Cleveland) are the other stars of this story. But this is also about many things much less grand and more intimate, about love and loss, grief, grace, psychological and economic insecurity, and living as a Black man in a world where your life and the lives of others who look like you mean nothing and your right to be a child means less. And also the flipside of the experience of blackness, of being part of a community imbued with coded connectivity and quiet resistance. Early in the book talking about playing the dozens, "Jaylin Rose used to study his opponents, do real-time research on the motherfuckers, in the no internet 1990's no less, just so he would have some shit to say to make sure a [n word deleted] was shook. And listen, ain't that a kind of love, to say 'you are worthy of the time it takes to dismantle you?"
I beseech you to listen to the audio. Like most poets, Abdurraqib reads his work as it is meant to be experienced. I plan to read it in print next because I want to linger over the language which is, at every moment, never less than magnificent.
I beseech you to listen to the audio. Like most poets, Abdurraqib reads his work as it is meant to be experienced. I plan to read it in print next because I want to linger over the language which is, at every moment, never less than magnificent.
June 30, 2024
3.5 stars!!
Basketball is my favorite sport. Here, Abdurraqib uses basketball to ground us in place and time. Such a great ode to his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, unsung heroes, and how we try to make the most of our time. I struggled a bit with the poetic writing at times (idk what’s wrong with me!?) but overall I enjoyed this!
Basketball is my favorite sport. Here, Abdurraqib uses basketball to ground us in place and time. Such a great ode to his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, unsung heroes, and how we try to make the most of our time. I struggled a bit with the poetic writing at times (idk what’s wrong with me!?) but overall I enjoyed this!
January 26, 2024
One of my favorite qualities about Hanif’s writing is his ability to draw the extraordinary out of the ordinary and often times overlooked. His writing is this invitation where he says, beloved, let me pull back the curtain and show you all the beauty and life that lies here.
Like the nobility of the dude who shows up to the park with a bald, worn out basketball.
Or the way the hood honors homecomings; people pouring out to praise your return simply because it is a return.
Yes this is a book for people who love basketball, but it’s also a book for people who love people and the places that make them; people who admire the richness of the human, and more specifically black, experience—particularly when marginalization has sought to strip it of value.
Thanks to Randomhouse and NetGalley for the ARC. Excited to buy a copy for everyone in my life.
Like the nobility of the dude who shows up to the park with a bald, worn out basketball.
Or the way the hood honors homecomings; people pouring out to praise your return simply because it is a return.
Yes this is a book for people who love basketball, but it’s also a book for people who love people and the places that make them; people who admire the richness of the human, and more specifically black, experience—particularly when marginalization has sought to strip it of value.
Thanks to Randomhouse and NetGalley for the ARC. Excited to buy a copy for everyone in my life.
September 19, 2023
There is no writer living, in my opinion, that can write about heartbreak, community, loss. grief, and hope like Hanif Abdurraqib. This may seem like a book about basketball; and it is, in a way. It's helpful to go in knowing about Lebron James' "decision" to leave Cleveland and his triumphant return, bringing a championship to a long-struggling city, but it's not essential. There's Always This Year is more about a place than anything--and you don't have to live in Cleveland or Columbus to recognize the emotions Abdurraqib so effusively expresses regarding his home.
If you've ever loved a place, or left a place, you'll understand. He so effortlessly puts to page what might otherwise seem impossible to articulate.
If you've ever loved a place, or left a place, you'll understand. He so effortlessly puts to page what might otherwise seem impossible to articulate.
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