Books by David Shields
The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead (2008)
“There are paragraphs so finely wrought, so precisely tuned to the narrow-band channels between reader and writer, that the caught breath of inspiration and the sighs of expiration leave us grinning and breathless. Mix equal parts of anatomy and autobiography, science and self-disclosure, physiology and family history; shake, stir, add dashes of miscellany, pinches of borrowed wisdom, simmer over a low-grade fever of mortality, and a terrible beauty of a book is born. They made a great model when they made his father, and a reliable witness when they made the son. This diamond of a book—brilliant with homage and anecdote—might outlive them both.”-- Thomas Lynch, The Boston Globe
Body Politic: The Great American Sports Machine
(2004) He elucidates superbly the paradox of sports coverage: although feats of the body seem to defy language, sports is nonetheless “imprisoned by its prevailing rhetoric.” The ambition in these piercing essays is to discern the reality behind the rhetoric.-- Daniel G. Habib, Sports Illustrated
Enough About You: Adventures in Autobiography
(2002) Shields makes it easy to identify with his confusions and screw-ups and ambivalences, but his insightfulness and careful consideration are his canny talent. Gladdeningly inclusive, like a hug from Walt Whitman: declarative and fraught and good.-- Kirkus Reviews
"Baseball Is Just Baseball": The Understated Ichiro
(2001) Shields has put together a book that delivers a straight-up dose of Ichiro to his readers. Future volumes by other writers—some ponderous, pretentious, and overwritten, no doubt—can try to tell us what it all means. Baseball Is Just Baseball is an ethereal joy unto itself.-- James Norton, Flak Magazine
Black Planet : Facing Race During an NBA Season
(1999) A risky and brilliant book… It compares favorably to Frederick Exley's classic A Fan's Notes. It is an emotional journey into Jock Culture's heart of darkness… Shields [is] willing to write himself naked about the hungers and envies that move across the grandstand like the wave.-- Robert Lipsyte, The New York Times
Remote: Reflections on Life in the Shadow of Celebrity
(1996) In the current craze of personal and family memoirs, David Shields's Remote is unique. It's a mishmash, a potpourri; it's impersonal, it's embarrassingly revealing. It's very funny, and it tells us more than we want to know about American life. Without stooping to anything like characterization or chronology, Shields gives us his life, an American life, perilously close to the ones we ourselves live.-- Carolyn See, Washington Post
Handbook for Drowning: A Novel in Stories
(1991) Mr. Shields again demonstrates his ability to conjure up the past by using lyrical, rhythmic language to relate ordinary events. He possesses a gift for taking a seemingly mundane moment and investing it with layers of psychological resonance.-- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Dead Languages: A Novel
(1989) A remarkable novel. A brilliant mixture of pitiless observation, excoriation, humor, love, and forgiveness. David Shields is an enviably talented writer, a stylist with a strong metaphoric gift and the ability to stage scenes of almost excruciating intensity.-- Robert Towers, The New York Review of Books
Heroes: A Novel
(1984) A generous novel about those two great American preoccupations, lost innocence and sports.-- James Marcus, Philadelphia Inquirer
Body Politic :
The Great American Sports Machine
“I loved Body Politic. Shields is a wonder. Without ever losing the fan's infectious enthusiasm for
games, he finds—in American sports—sex, race, geopolitics, and wisdom.”
-- Robert Lipsyte
Enough About You :
Adventures in Autobiography
“At a time when publication in [the memoir] genre is almost overwhelming, Shields has done something different.
While this book is certainly about him, it is also much more: Shields lets us into his mind and turns his life into a
narrative, with each short chapter working as a snapshot of his life and related subjects… Shields pulls this off with
candor and grace to such an extent that we can see ourselves shining through.” -- Ron Ratliff, Newsday
"Baseball Is Just Baseball" :
The Understated Ichiro
“Shields has put together a book that delivers a straight-up dose of Ichiro to his readers. Future volumes by other
writers—some ponderous, pretentious, and overwritten, no doubt—can try to tell us what it all means. Baseball Is Just
Baseball is an ethereal joy unto itself.”
-- James Norton, Flak Magazine
Black Planet :
Facing Race During an NBA Season
“A risky and brilliant book… It compares favorably to Frederick Exley's classic A Fan's Notes.
It is an emotional journey into Jock Culture's heart of darkness…Shields [is] willing to write himself naked about the
hungers and envies that move across the grandstand like the wave.”
-- Robert Lipsyte, The New York Times
Remote : Reflections on Life in the Shadow of Celebrity
“In the current craze of personal and family memoirs, David Shields's Remote is unique. It's a mishmash, a potpourri; it's impersonal, it's embarrassingly revealing. It's very funny, and it tells us more than we want to know about American life. Without stooping to anything like characterization or chronology, Shields gives us his life, an American life, perilously close to the ones we ourselves live.”--Carolyn See, Washington Post
Handbook for Drowning :
A Novel in Stories
“Mr. Shields again demonstrates his ability to conjure up the past by using lyrical, rhythmic language to relate
ordinary events. He possesses a gift for taking a seemingly mundane moment and investing it with layers of psychological
resonance.”
-- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Dead Languages: A Novel
“A remarkable novel. A brilliant mixture of pitiless observation, excoriation, humor, love, and forgiveness. David Shields is an enviably talented writer, a stylist with a strong metaphoric gift and the ability to stage scenes of almost excruciating intensity.”-- Robert Towers
Heroes : A Novel
“This is as good a novel--as well written a novel--centering on Dr. Naismith's game as any I've read.”-- Ira Berkow, New York Times
The Thing About Life is That One Day You'll Be Dead
“An elegant meditation on our blood-and-bones existence from birth through adolescence, adulthood, old age, and death.”-- Library Journal