There are a lot of bookish gift guides floating around at the moment, and I though we’d jump on the bandwagon, but with our own twist.
The first is for those sports fans on your list. (And yes, these are all things we own or have gifted.)
Books
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Flip Flop Fly Ball: An Infographic Baseball Adventure by Craig Robinson
This is one of the more interesting sports books I own and one I’d recommend to both sports and design fans. Robinson has created an outstanding book that describes baseball visually, both hard statistics and weird things such as how tall Alex Rodriguez’ salary would be if it were paid in pennies. Awesome, right?
The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Alamanac by Free Darko
I almost didn’t include this book on this list because when I went to the author’s event in Portland a few years ago and he was really insufferable (and exercised extremely poor judgment regarding his language choices at an event with many children in attendance). However, it’s an awesome book and like the previous one, it’s graphical so even if you’re not a fan of sports, it may appeal to you non-sports fans as well.
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Counting Coup by Larry Colton
I’ve written about this one before but it’s a stellar book about the impact of basketball on the lives of people in an impoverished community. This is one of those, “it’s not really about sports” sorts of books. It’s about community.
Pacific Rims by Rafe Bartholomew
I love stories about unexpected places. Rafe Bartholomew’s chronicle of basketball in the Philippines (where people, FYI, are not particularly tall) is a book any sports fan will love. The humor in the narrative is really fantastic as well. (My Twitter friend Patrick Truby wrote an excellent review of this book on my good friend Mookie’s blog, A Stern Warning.)