Sports at Politics and Prose

Tuesday, October 13, 7 p.m.   
WIL HAYGOOD
Sweet Thunder (Knopf, $27.95)
Our good friend and local author, Wil Haygood, will launch his new book on Sugar Ray Robinson, a socio-historical narrative on the sporting and cultural impact of the legendary boxer. From his championship fights to his socializing with Lena Horne, Miles Davis, and Langston Hughes, Robinson was a powerful, if controversial, icon. Along with his books on Sammy Davis, Jr., and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Sweet Thunder establishes Wil as a masterful biographer and historian who writes the way his current subject punched—with grace and style.

P&P has benefited from the many brilliant sportswriters who have worked at The Washington Post and who have elevated the seriousness of the genre. George Solomon, the legendary sports editor of the Post and early champion of P&P, brought many writers to our store when we were still small and struggling. In 1986, George asked us to host a young and unknown John Feinstein for a book on basketball coach Bobby Knight, A Season on the Brink. (John graciously returns to the bookstore to sign books when a new one is published, most recently for his children’s books.) Christine Brennan appeared for her book on tennis star Tracey Austin, Beyond Center Court. And our friend David Maraniss has celebrated all of his books here—on sports: Vince Lombardi, the 1960 Rome Olympics—and on politics: First in His Class, about Bill Clinton, and They Marched Into Sunlight, on the cultural divide resulting from the Vietnam War.

If you browse our sports section you’ll find many books on baseball. One of our memorable events was with Roger Angell for Game Time in 2003, when the electricity went out during his talk and he powered on with a flashlight. Later this month, on Sunday, October 25, before the World Series gets under way, the prolific Paul Dickson returns to the bookstore to discuss his recently updated Dickson Baseball Dictionary (W.W. Norton, $49.95).

We have hosted athletes, too, like Redskin Dexter Manley and Tour de France champion Floyd Landis.