Book Log 2017 #20: Black Gods of the Asphalt by Onaje X. O. Woodbine

Unlike Station Eleven, this was a book that I would not normally have picked up but was determined to read after hearing a story about it and its author on Only a Game, the NPR weekly sports show.  The story talked about the book and how it looked at street basketball not only as something that binds a community but as an almost religious experience

At times the book has the feel of a graduate thesis - Woodbine was in a doctoral program when he started going back to games in Boston's Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan neighborhoods - but overall it was an engrossing discussion of how basketball can function for the players, the fans, and the neighborhoods as a way to feel connected (to themselves, each other, etc.), honor the dead, and demonstrate cultural themes that might otherwise be lost.

I admit to struggling through the parts of the book that were more academic in nature (my academic background is nowhere near Woodbine's). But the book was very successful in making me reconsider what I thought I knew about the role of basketball in urban life, which admittedly was only what I'd seen and heard in mass media. Not exactly an easy read - especially compared to your average book about basketball - but worth it for the change of perspective.