Sports Books!

This week is big for sports books. First, Chad Ocho Cinco’s book, Ocho Cinco: What Football and Life Have Thrown My Way came out on Tuesday and proceeded to fly off the shelves as fast as the receiver flies by cornerbacks. While I’ll write a more complete review of the book once I’m finished reading it, I’ll say right now that it’s a very good read. I expected to enjoy it, but I didn’t expect to want to be reading it all the time. (Unfortunately, I have to keep up with school and that job thing also.) Like the title says, he talks about off-field aspects of his life as much on-field. He even gets other players and coaches from around the NFL to tell you how awesome he is. My favorite part, so far, is Oakland Raiders cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha saying he felt left out because Ocho Cinco didn’t talk trash to him.

Bill Simmons’s ridiculously huge The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy comes out this week as well. Simmons will be in Boston tomorrow for his book signing tour, and Alex will be covering it.

Next on the list is Open: An Autobiography, by Andre Agassi. This book is already getting a lot of attention and causing controversies because of his admission of using crystal meth, failing a tournament drug test, and hating tennis and his father. Most sports talking heads have asked, “Why now? Who benefits from this?” Most of them haven’t considered that maybe, in some weird way, Agassi does. Like Agassi says in this AP article, ”I think I had to learn a lot about myself through the process.”

And finally, Michael Oriard, who we interviewed in September, has a new book, Bowled Over: Big-Time College Football from the Sixties to the BCS Era. He discusses some aspects of the book and college football in this interview with Inside Higher Ed.