It's Women's History Month, so it's only appropriate that our first book club selection of 2023 celebrates female athletes. Book Club Claire is back to discuss Inaugural Ballers: The True Story of the First US Women’s Olympic Basketball Team by Andrew Maraniss.
Book Club Claire is back for our last Book Club meeting for 2022, and we're discussing Snowball's Chance: The Story of the 1960 Olympic Winter Games Squaw Valley & Lake Tahoe by David C. Antonucci. Know nothing about the 1960 Winter Olympics? Neither did we until we read this book, and it's got all sorts of fun details that are surprisingly relevant to other parts of this episode. Plus, Walt Disney was involved! Also, Paris 2024 has introduced its mascots to the world! Will we get the concept?
Book Club Claire is back for a not-so-marathon discussion about TKFLASTANI marathoner Abdi Abdirahman's book Abdi's World: The Black Cactus on Life, Running, and Fun." And plants. We also talk plants.
Book Club Claire is back for another session of book club! This time we've got our first Paralympics-related selection: "Driven to Ride: The True Story of an Elite Athlete Who Rebuilt His Leg, His Life, and His Career" by two-time Paralympic Snowboarder Mike Schultz. In the genre of athlete memoir, how does this one rate with us?
Book Club Claire is back for our first book club session of 2022! Because of the cries from various Western countries (United States, we’re looking at you) to boycott the Beijing 2022 and the ensuing...
Book Club Claire is back with our last selection for 2021: Off Balance: A Memoir by Dominique Moceanu, which a nice tie-in with our year-long look back at the Atlanta 1996 Olympics. Question is, how angry will Alison get this episode?
Book Club Claire is back to discuss our latest selection: Sevens Heaven by Ben Ryan. As you may remember from Episode 193, Ben coached the Fijian men's rugby sevens team to (spoiler alert) win Fiji's first-ever Olympic gold medal. His book is the story of all of the work that went into achieving that victory.
Book Club Claire is BACK for our discussion of "Foxcatcher: The True Story of My Brother's Murder, John du Pont's Madness, and the quest for Olympic Gold" by Mark Schultz with David Thomas. Bonus! The dulcet tones of Jason Bryant also joins us to give context to the story and how it affected the wrestling community. Plus, we've got new Tokyo 2020 Playbooks, news on the torch relay, an Atlanta 1996 story and the International Olympic Committee's announcement about its virtual sports event.
Book Club Claire is back to discuss the book World Class: The Making of the U.S. Women's Cross-Country Ski Team by Peggy Shinn. We also have some updates from the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee on how they'll make the Olympics work. But if they can't, Florida is really to step in.
Book Club Claire is back for a lively discussion of A Shot at History: My Obsessive Journey to Olympic Gold and Beyond, by Abhinav Bindra, India's first individual Olympic gold medalist who competed in the sport of air rifle. Does it hit the bulls-eye as a good read, or does it miss the mark?
Book Club Claire is back to discuss 1964: The Greatest Year in the History of Japan: How the Tokyo Olympics Symbolized Japan’s Miraculous Rise from the Ashes by Roy Tomizawa. Also, we have found our nickname for John Coates--and we can't even take credit for it.
Book Club Claire is back to discuss “Games of Deception: The True Story of the First U.S. Olympic Basketball Team at the 1936 Olympics in Hitler’s Germany” by Andrew Maraniss.
Book Club Claire is back! We've got a rousing discussion of "The Suspect: An Olympic Bombing, the FBI, the Media, and Richard Jewell, the Man Caught in the Middle" by Kent Alexander & Kevin Salwen. The book covers the story of the bombing during the Atlanta 1996 Olympics and how the rise of the 24-hour media cycle contributed to getting the story wrong.
Book Club Claire is back! We discuss our latest pick, Munich 1972: Tragedy, Terror, and Triumph at the Olympic Games by David Clay Large. If you finished it—and Jill finished it with all of four minutes to go before we taped—congratulations! This one was a tough one to get through, although there are sections that are really interesting (and if you like to learn details about Olympics preparations, a good half of the book is for you).
Book Club Claire is back to discuss our latest book club selection, Making Waves: My Journey to Winning Olympic Gold and Defeating the East German Doping Program by Shirley Babashoff with Chris Epting.