Book Log 2011 #19: The World is a Ball by John Doyle

John Doyle has what might be my dream job. He gets to travel to major soccer competitions and report on them, sometimes as a sporting event but more often on the other aspects of the games and/or event (personal, social, political, etc.). I should also note his full-time job is as a newspaper TV critic. I think he really does have my dream job.

Not that it's all a dream. The travel is punishing, the accommodations marginals, and the isolation often maddening. Even so, what comes through clearly is that the payoff for these irritations - between seeing games, meeting fans, and going to places that might otherwise have gone unvisited - is well worth it.

And for all that Doyle isn't a sports reporter, he does a nice job of talking about the players and games in layman's terms, making it easy for a casual but long-time fan of the game to follow along. He also manages to sell his main point about these contests - how the joy of the experience transcends the day to day problems people face - effectively, better than I expected and better than your usual book about the transcendental nature of sports.

A worthy read for the novice and intermediate soccer fan.