There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars | 283 ratings

Price: 15.75

Last update: 01-10-2025


About this item

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER A “powerful” (The Guardian) reflection on basketball, life, and home—from the author of the National Book Award finalist A Little Devil in America

“Mesmerizing . . . not only the most original sports book I’ve ever read but one of the most moving books I’ve ever read, period.”—Steve James, director of Hoop Dreams

Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, in the 1990s, Hanif Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron James were forged and countless others weren’t. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tension between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role models, all of which he expertly weaves together with intimate, personal storytelling. “Here is where I would like to tell you about the form on my father’s jump shot,” Abdurraqib writes. “The truth, though, is that I saw my father shoot a basketball only one time.”

There’s Always This Year is a triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. No matter the subject of his keen focus—whether it’s basketball, or music, or performance—Hanif Abdurraqib’s exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves.


Top reviews from the United States

la3
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read!
Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2024
Great read for anyone from Ohio and especially The Land! Very nostalgic times of endless hours on the basketball courts, from the neighborhood legends to those who made it out the hood to those who loved the hood and never wanted to leave. A basketball story engulfed in a life story engulfed in the Cavs championship in 2016 with Lebron’s greatness embedded.
jeffrey richardson
5.0 out of 5 stars My feels.
Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2024
First reading that made me emotional. Raw, beautiful. From one 614 native to another, thank you.
Debable
4.0 out of 5 stars 4.5 lovely, poetic stars
Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2024
I am Not a basketball fan. (I especially detest the squeak of the shoes on the floor.) But I did love There’s Always this Year by Hanif Abdurraqib. The author tells his story through his fascination with basketball, particularly Ohio basketball.

The essays touch on winning and losing, homelessness and hope, family and friends, hope, racism, hair, aging, prison, faith, hope, championships and losses, oh, yeah, did I mention basketball? I could relate to Hanif’s musings despite our differences and me not being a basketball fan. He puts things eloquently, but never pretentiously.

I love that each ‘quarter’ of the book counts down the seconds and includes a time-out. Clever.

“Yes, praise be to the underdogs and those who worship in the church of slim chances.” The writing can be very serious, speaking of black men murdered by law enforcement officers. The fabulous writing is vivid and visual. I could see the action along with the rhythmic prose.
Amy
5.0 out of 5 stars "Praise be to the underdogs and those who worship in the church of slim chances."
Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2024
No one is doing it like Hanif Abdurraqib. At this point, I truly think he could write the phone book and I'd still read it cover to cover (and probably cry). You don't have to love basketball to love this book. This is a story of community, loss, connection, hope. You feel everything Hanif is feeling in these pages. The writing is lyrical, moving, and there are moments that stopped me in my tracks. I'm struggling to eloquently write a review that does this book justice. Just go read it for yourself, ok?

Thank you to Hanif for sharing his talent, to Netgally for the ARC, and most of all to ME for already pre-ordering this book months ago as soon as it was announced, despite being drunk at a Dave and Busters when said pre-order link went live. I'm so happy to have this on my shelf.
Scott Kuffel
5.0 out of 5 stars Poetically and powerfully written
Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2024
Without question the best book I have read in years. Being from the rural Midwest, I appreciate learning more of the urban Midwest perspective. Combining the challenges and tragedies faced by black people around the country, alongside the emotions of happiness and joy in fandom of your ‘hometown’ team doesn’t seem easy. But Abdurraqib makes this flow like a LeBron led fast break. Just a beautiful piece of art is this book.
roma258
3.0 out of 5 stars Tough read with sprinkles of brilliance
Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2024
I wanted to love this book, which I bought after hearing the author interviewed on radio. Honestly, I found it a slog to grind through. The run-on sentences, massive paragraphs without a break, endless asides and interludes make it a tough book to stay with unless you're 100% bought in. It's a book about basketball much like "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" is about motorcycles. As in, not much at all.

But as a meditation of life as a black man in modern America, there is a lot there worth sticking around for, especially for a reader who comes from a very different background. And those asides and interludes often go into fascinating places. At other times, they go on forever leading nowhere at all. Like I said, there's a lot of good stuff here and I get why this book and Hanif get the allocades they get. But it felt like a book that could really benefit from a mean sob of an editor.
LadyCool11
5.0 out of 5 stars What a phenomenal book
Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2024
I want everyone in my family to read it. So much heart and soul
Megan
4.0 out of 5 stars 4.5 ⭐️
Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2024
A poetic journey of a black man growing up in Columbus surrounded by basketball. Some parts I had to really focus, only because the writing style is so different from anything I’ve read but the whole book was incredibly insightful.

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