football obsession: a wish list

the moment i logged in, i didnt have anything in mind to write about. it was just one of those times when i felt the need to blog even without any topic in mind. the blogger window stood by, waiting to hear my next words after incessantly ranting about England.

i am excited that the EPL's coming very soon. actually, in 3 days' time. and our star sports still isn't quite fixed. it still flickers, which make it painful for the eyes to watch. stupid decoder and signal. among all channels, why star sports. there are quite a number of unnecessary and undesired channels just lounging around the tv screen. for a moment, i thought it was going to keep my mind of england. but nooo, it's just going to constantly remind me. crap. but the hell do i care, it's football.

anyway, again as blogger stood by, waiting for me to type, i searched and came across football books. oh yes, now i'm eyeing several books, again. while i still have a lot of unread books and several unfinished ones. and i don't think i'll be able to finish them and start on the others soon since nowadays, i spend some of my time preparing for the lsat. argh, toughie.

amazon has always been my ultimate source of book wish list. and i kinda hate the fact that the seemingly good ones i see aren't available here. at least not until after, say, one year? that means then that i'd have to wait for the following books to be released here, and take note all are sports, i.e. football books:

1. totally frank: the autobiography of frank lampard (jr. --i just added this)


ah, there goes my favorite player coming up with his own autobiography. i'm still thinking i should've asked my friend to get me a lampard shirt instead of just the plain away kit. nevertheless, i still love it. my favorite shirt right now.

2. the thinking fan's guide to the world cup by matt weiland and sean wilsey.


From Amazon.com
The editors, both Americans, gather essays for each of the 32 countries competing in the 2006 World Cup, providing an exceptional variety of discourse and digression on soccer as it relates to politics, culture, and personal life. Henning Mankell examines what it means to war-ravaged Angola simply to compete. Nick Hornby explores globalization as it relates to soccer in England. Sukhdev Sandhu writes about a fatwa forbidding the game "except when played as training for Jihad" in Saudi Arabia. Tim Parks (Italy), Jim Frederick (Japan), Robert Coover (Spain), and Dave Eggers (U.S.) also contribute standout essays.

3. fever pitch by nick hornby


Also from Amazon.com
Fever Pitch is a 24-year obsessional diary of English club football games Hornby has witnessed and the way these games have become inextricable from his personal life. Hornby is the kind of fanatic who merely shrugs about the "tyranny" the sport exerts over his life--the mumbled excuses he must give at every missed christening or birthday party as a result of a schedule conflict. "Sometimes hurting someone," he writes, "is unavoidable." These occasions tend to bring out "disappointment and tired impatience" in his friends and family, but it is when he is exposed as a "worthless, shallow worm" that the similarly stricken reader can relate to the high costs of caring deeply about a game that means nothing to one's more well-adjusted friends.

4. soccer in sun and shadow by eduard galeano


unfortunately i don't have the description for this book. so i'm just gonna post a review made by a reader (he gave the book 5/5 stars):

Soccer in Sun and Shadow is a superb book covering the very early days of soccer to modern soccer's start in England to the world game that is played today, and all of it is superb. Even if you are not a huge soccer fan, Galeano's passionate writing will draw you into the fold and make you care for at least as long as the book is open.

5. how soccer explains the world: an unlikely theory of globalization by franklin foer


(side not: this sounds interesting because it seems to use football as an explanatory tool to shed some political light to matters relating to both the participating countries and their fans. and i like it when it's done. football's significance doesn't stop as a global sport and as a communal force that brings people from all walks of life together.)

From Amazon.com
The global power of soccer might be a little hard for Americans, living in a country that views the game with the same skepticism used for the metric system and the threat of killer bees, to grasp fully. But in Europe, South America, and elsewhere, soccer is not merely a pastime but often an expression of the social, economic, political, and racial composition of the communities that host both the teams and their throngs of enthusiastic fans. New Republic editor Franklin Foer, a lifelong devotee of soccer dating from his own inept youth playing days to an adulthood of obsessive fandom, examines soccer's role in various cultures as a means of examining the reach of globalization.

i'll end this here. five books are enough. even if i won't get my hands on all five, wishing for all of them is still too much. heh. at least i'm prioritizing fever pitch and the thinking fan's guide. paging fully booked, fully booked. you're wanted.

PS i think i'm starting to get obsessed with football.