Hoosiers, Third Edition The Fabulous Basketball Life of Indiana

An unusually perceptive and entertaining study of heartland America.

Transcends sports and operates as cultural history. . .Warm, graceful, full of the happy savor of letter jackets and cheerleaders' sweaters.

Indiana history as view through a basketball net. . . An absorbing historical narrative, woven around modern Indiana history, using basketball as the thread.

If you're a Hoosier Hysteric, call time out and go buy it; if you're not, reading Hoosiers will be like studying the strange ways of a cult that worships gym shoes.

Will appeal not only to basketball fanatics but to mainstream readers as well. It is a knowing, respectful and caring look at heartland America.

From reviews of the second edition: Hoose develops a narrative that transcends sports and operates as cultural historyWarm, graceful, full of the happy savor of letter jackets and cheerleaders' sweaters...includes the great personalities of the game - Larry Bird, Rick Mount and the maniacal Bobby Knight-yet keeps the locus local, social and intimate.

To say this little gem is a sports book is to say The Sun Also Rises is about bullfighting.

Terrific reading.

One of ten recommended sports books for kids.

A thoughtful, elegantly crafted and shrewdly entertaining examination of a fascinating American subculture. . . An amusing, vital and intelligent book about a slice of America too easily ignored.

This superbly written piece of sports journalism will alternately tickle the funnybone and pluck at the heartstrings of basketball fans everywhere.

Phillip Hoose examines the phenomenon of Indiana basketball with wit and whimsy.

Of all the books written about high school basketball in Indiana, this is the one that has lasted and will last, for good reason: None better explains the whys and wherefores, the context, culture, and fascinating history behind the hysteria. Read it to better understand Indiana as you would read Friday Night Lights to better understand Texas, or The City Game to better understand Harlem.

A knowing, respectful and caring look at heartland America.

A truly superior book. . . It's a steal.