The Bulletin Page 1July 12, 2012

summer reading blockbusterAmericAn-born, english writer henry JAmes’s declArAtion, “Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language,” never feels more true than when one of those afternoons is spread out before you and the solitary item on your agenda is to sit in your backyard and dip into the book saved for that very moment. This summer, I’ve finally taken the plunge into James’s works, and I am also reading those of his great admirer and interpreter, the wonderful Irish writer Colm Tóibín, whose book The Master imagines James’s life through his lowest points and his soaring literary successes. Other worthy reads recently encountered include Fransesca Segal’s lovely debut, The Innocents, a contemporary re-imagining of Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, and sun-dappled and swoon-worthy Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter (this one is stocked by the bookstore, I noticed). Walter’s sixth novel places Old Hollywood alongside new, and weaves a story set on the Italian coastline visited by a dying American actress in 1962 with a contemporary one that boasts unforgettable characters you don’t want to leave behind. Just begun are the so-far delicious and unconventional novel-cum-literary speculation, A Monster’s Notes, by poet Laurie Sheck, which revivifies Mary Shelley’s “monster” from Frankenstein, and the blackly funny and fierce, Pulitzer Prize-winning play, August: Osage County, by American playwright and actor Tracy Letts.

To launch your own summer reading right and for fun, we’ve added multiple “Top 10” lists to our summer book recommendations from members of our university community. In fact, we received so much great material, some of it has overflowed to U of M’s Facebook site, and you can join the conversation there. Also stay tuned next issue for an interview about his favourite books with the always-fascinating George Toles, distinguished professor in the department of English, film and theatre at the U of M. Happy summer afternoon reading, everyone! - Mariianne Mays Wiebe

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Russell Field’s Top 10 sport/sport history books

The Grads Are Playing Tonight! The Story of the Edmonton Commercial Graduates Basketball Club by M. Ann Hall, University of Alberta Press, 2011, 384 pp: As the Canadian women’s basketball team attempts to qualify for this summer’s Olympic Games, historian M. Ann Hall remembers the Edmonton Grads, a women’s basketball team that was the most successful team in the history of Canadian sport.

I Just Ran: Percy Williams, World’s Fastest Human by Sandy Hawley, Ronsdale Press, 2011, 260 pp: And as Jamaica’s Usain Bolt seeks to repeat his historic sprint double from Beijing (100m, 200m), recall the first Canadian to accomplish the feat through this new biography of Vancouver’s Percy Williams — double gold medallist at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics.

The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou, NeWest Press, 2007, 244 pp: If fiction is more your taste, novelist Angie Abdou’s profiles athletes’ struggles for Olympic success (while her more recent, The Cantebury Trail, explores back-country ski culture).

The Exile Book of Canadian Sports Stories edited by Priscilla Uppal, Exile, 2009, 300 pp: There are a number of excellent collections of Canadian sport fiction, but this Exile anthology includes many of the classic works such as Roch Carrier’s “The Sweater,” which is all the better for being returned to its original setting as adult short fiction.

Our Life with The Rocket: The Maurice Richard Story by Roch Carrier, Viking Canada, 2001, 320 pp: Carrier expanded upon his consideration of the cultural significance of Maurice Richard in his autobiographical book.

The Game by Ken Dryden by John Wiley & Sons, 20th anniversary edition, 2003, 288 pp: Canadian writing on sport, for better or worse and not surprisingly, is dominated by books on hockey. First published in 1983, The Game was one of the first and still one of the best.

Forgotten Heroes: Winnipeg’s Hockey Heritage by Richard Brignall, J. Gordon Shillingford, 2011, 200 pp: This recent local history recalls Winnipeg’s rich hockey heritage, beyond the Jets.

Hockey Night in Canada: Sports, Identities, and Cultural Politics by Richard Gruneau and David Whitson, Garamond, 1993, 316 pp: Gruneau and Whitson’s cultural studies take on hockey’s significance in Canada remains an outstanding piece of scholarship nearly two decades after it was first published.

Winnipeg Beach: Leisure and Courtship in a Resort Town, 1900-1967 by Dale Barbour (U of M Press, 2011, 264 pp): If scholarly writing is your thing, unwind at the beach with this perceptive examination of the history of recreation at Winnipeg Beach.

Blood, Sweat, and Cheers: Sport and the Making of Modern Canada by Colin Howell (University of Toronto Press, 2001, 150 pp): Finally, Colin Howell’s brief introduction to the history of Canadian sport is a good entrée into scholarly examinations of Canadian sport, and if this whets your appetite seek out Howell’s history of Maritime baseball, as well as monographs by Nancy Bouchier, Bruce Kidd and others.

Russell Field is an assistant prof in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management.

add your picks to the top ten lists, contribute your summer reading picks and reading placeshere: Facebook.com/umanitobaor here: twitter @umanitoba

email your suggestion for a “top 10” books list to:bulletin@umanitoba.ca

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Join our summer reading conversations on twitter and facebook!

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>> see the issue in its entirety here: http://bit.ly/Nmv7Ay

Russell Field, assistant prof in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management introducing a film at the 2012 CSFF event.

When The Canadian Sport Film Festival (CSFF) was founded by Russell Field in Toronto in 2008, he thought of it as a way to bridge both his personal and scholarly interests. The festival has since become an annual event, and when the assistant professor joined the Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Studies at the U of M a couple of years ago, he decided to continue the fesitival in Winnipeg. Field also teaches a course on sport and film, and research interests include the

use of global sporting events as sites of social and political protest, and, broadly speaking, the experience of sport.

Recent work has focused on spectators, from both historical and contemporary perspectives; in particular, he has done work on spectatorship, i n c l u d i n g p r o f e s s i o n a l h o c k e y spectatorship. (Professional hockey, that is, not professional spectatorship.) Winnipeg is likely starting to seem like a better and better fit!