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Marcel Proust, Jay Cutler, and Mike Glennon Walk Into a Bar
Posted on October 7, 2017 Leave a Comment
As we enter Week 5 of the NFL Season, the Bears are 1-3, Mike Glennon has thrown more than twice as many interceptions in Chicago than Jay Cutler has in sunny Miami, and I’ve really only started reading Proust. But before we get to that, I’d just like to note: (1) this story about how […]
Football Book Club Returns: #NoKaepernickNoNFL
Posted on September 10, 2017 Leave a Comment
Football Book Club is back for the 2017-2018 NFL Season, and if you’re looking for a good reason not to watch pro football—aside from the whole concussions/brain damage/ruined lives/early death thing—then we’ve got two words for you: Colin Kaepernick. For those of you not in the know, the Colin Kaepernick Saga basically boils down to this: […]
Jumping the Rails: On ‘Slade House’ and Not on ‘The Sixth Extinction’
Posted on November 16, 2015 1 Comment
By Ryan Joe I decided to make like Colin Kaepernick’s career and jump the rails. Instead of reading this week Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction — which I’ve every intention of reading — I picked up David Mitchell’s Slade House. I grabbed Mitchell’s haunted house/Hansel and Gretel fairy tale at the behest of our friend Chandler, […]
Nothing’s Shocking: On Lawrence Wright’s ‘Going Clear’and the Lies We Tell Ourselves
Posted on October 1, 2015 1 Comment
By Adam Boretz 1. I have a confession to make: I was laboring under a significant misapprehension when I nominated Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear for Football Book Club. My thinking at the time went something like this: Here’s an interesting book full of wacky/weird/funny/ridiculous stories about Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard. That will be a […]
Making Connections: On Jim Tomsula, the 49ers’ O-Line, and ‘Brain Fever’
Posted on September 22, 2015 Leave a Comment
By Ryan Henry Joe I was at the Toronto airport on Sunday, where the local team is the Buffalo Bills. So I couldn’t watch the 49ers at the Pittsburgh Steelers even if I wanted to. And after a few Twitter updates, I really didn’t want to. Here are some first half favorites: At least airport […]
Needs More Tentacles: On ‘Winesburg, Ohio,’ Unique Millennial Snowflakes, and Michael Crabtree
Posted on September 15, 2015 4 Comments
By Ryan Henry Joe 1. I took a course called “The Writer as Teacher” while enrolled in Columbia University’s writing program. (Though at the time, I missed its underlying message: Thanks for the $50,000 tuition, here’s your job prospect.) I thought about that class as I read Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio — a book that […]
I Fought the NFL and the NFL Won: On ‘Against Football,’ Illegal Streams, and San Francisco’s Fallen Camelot
Posted on September 5, 2015 4 Comments
By Ryan Henry Joe Three years ago, with then-San Francisco 49ers kicker David Akers landing the ball everywhere but between the uprights, I’d scurry into my bedroom and hide under a blanket whenever he trotted onto the gridiron for a high-stakes field goal attempt. An outburst of cheering — provided it was a home game […]
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