In July 2021, Naomi Osaka—world number 1 women’s tennis player—lit the Olympic Cauldron at the Tokyo Olympic Games. The half-Japanese, half-American, Black athlete was a symbol of a more complicated, more multi-ethnic Japan—and of the global nature of high-level sports. Osaka is now about to start her comeback, after taking some time off following the birth of her child.
Sports
Sports writer Ben Rothenberg took special notice in August 2020 when three professional tennis tours were shut down for a day in protest for Black Lives Matter. There were protests around the US that summer, but this one was different. Never before had professional tennis shut down during a tournament, but also Rothenberg saw that the person who initially decided not to play on 27 August was someone he had been covering for years: the shy and reticent Naomi Osaka. Rothenberg’s new biography covers Osaka’s quick rise to fame and her maturity as a world champion. Osaka is also a visible example of how modern individual sports such as tennis can scramble nationalities and identities.
It can be hard to think of Everest as unknown anymore. While it’s certainly a challenge to climb the world’s tallest mountain, someone–with enough time and money—has a good chance of making it to the summit. A potential mountaineer can fly into Kathmandu, travel to a well-stocked base camp, be escorted up a well-trodden route by expert sherpas. There’s even Wifi at the peak.
“Everest 1922: The Epic Story of the First Attempt on the World’s Highest Mountain” by Mick Conefrey
The story of George Mallory’s 1924 failed and fatal attempt on Everest is perhaps mountaineering’s greatest unsolved mystery. Last spotted 250 meters from the summit, Mallory and his partner Andrew Irvine disappeared from view and would never be seen alive again. When Mallory’s body was eventually found in 1999, Irvine’s body never was. The mystery of whether they reached the summit before they perished on the mountain has never been solved. Yet this was not Mallory’s first attempt on the summit; the story of his incomplete ascent two years earlier in 1922, is not as well known. This new book, launched in time for the centenary of the attempt, treads new ground by telling the story of the very first expedition on Everest.
“When people talk of horses, no one ever thinks of China,” complains Yin Hung Young in the opening lines of The Horses of China. By “people” she may have in mind the kinds of people who compete in dressage, follow thoroughbred racing or work on Kentucky stud farms, the “horsey” people to whom Young dedicates this book. While horses have had an immense impact on China’s ancient civilization, this super power in so many aspects of the modern world is an also-ran in the world of breeding and racing. Young delves into the many reasons why this is, and why this should not be the case. In this enjoyable-to-read and instructively-illustrated book, readers will learn that this chapter of China’s rise remains to be written.
Short books: digestible in one sitting (think a cup of coffee or, in this instance, the final hour before school pick-up) and self-contained. The idea that few(er) words still pack a big punch. Increasingly, short books and series of short books are becoming more popular, their bite-sized format appealing to readers, writers and publishers alike.
Thirteen-year-old Satoshi Matsumoto spent the last three years living in Atlanta where he was the star of his middle-school baseball team—a slugger with pro potential, according to his coach. Now that his father’s work in the US has come to an end, he’s moved back to his hometown in rural Japan.
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