Sidecountry: Tales of Death and Life from the Back Roads of Sports

Sidecountry: Tales of Death and Life from the Back Roads of Sports

by John Branch
Sidecountry: Tales of Death and Life from the Back Roads of Sports

Sidecountry: Tales of Death and Life from the Back Roads of Sports

by John Branch

eBook

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Overview

Breathtaking tales of climbers and hunters, runners and racers, winners and losers by the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter.

New York Times reporter John Branch’s riveting, humane pieces about ordinary people doing extraordinary things at the edges of the sporting world have won nearly every major journalism prize. Sidecountry gathers the best of Branch’s work for the first time, featuring 20 of his favorites from the more than 2,000 pieces he has published in the paper.

Branch is renowned for covering the offbeat in the sporting world, from alligator hunting to wingsuit flying. Sidecountry features such classic Branch pieces, including “Snow Fall,” about downhill skiers caught in an avalanche in Washington state, and “Dawn Wall,” about rock climbers trying to scale Yosemite’s famed El Capitan. In other articles, Branch introduces people whose dedication and decency transcend their sporting lives, including a revered football coach rebuilding his tornado-devastated town in Iowa and a girls’ basketball team in Tennessee that plays on despite never winning a game. The book culminates with his moving personal pieces, including “Children of the Cube,” about the surprising drama of Rubik’s Cube competitions as seen through the eyes of Branch’s own sports-hating son, and “The Girl in the No. 8 Jersey,” about a mother killed in the 2017 Las Vegas shooting whose daughter happens to play on Branch’s daughter’s soccer team.

John Branch has been hailed for writing “American portraiture at its best” (Susan Orlean) and for covering sports “the way Lyle Lovett writes country music—a fresh turn on a time-honored pleasure” (Nicholas Dawidoff). Sidecountry is the work of a master reporter at the top of his game.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781324006701
Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date: 06/01/2021
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 368
File size: 25 MB
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About the Author

John Branch is a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter for the New York Times. He is the best-selling author of Boy on Ice and The Last Cowboys, and has been featured in The Best American Sports Writing. He lives near San Francisco, California.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

Part I Climbing and Falling

1 Snow Fall 3

2 The Dawn Wall 56

3 Lost Brother 84

Part II Winning and Losing

4 On League Night, a 300 Game Lives 97

5 Perfection in the Horseshoe Pit 101

6 Where Drivers and Danger Meet 106

7 Enduring Traditions 112

8 Where Creativity Wags Its Tail 121

9 A Last Hurrah for Hollywood Park 125

10 The Lady Jaguars 137

Part III Hiding and Seeking

11 Hunting Something That Can Hunt You Back 203

12 The Most Perilous Prize 212

13 The Ultimate Pursuit 225

14 "You're Either the Hunter or the Hunted" 240

15 Deliverance from 27,000 Feet 248

Part IV Dying and Living

16 Seeing the World Beyond the Court 291

17 A Football Coach, a Tornado and a Murder 308

18 They Heard the Helicopter Go Down. Then They Prayed. 322

19 Children of the Cube 330

20 The Girl in the No. 8 Jersey 340

Acknowledgments 345

Credits 347

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