On Basketball and Ascension LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD - #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER - FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD - LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTION ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Vulture, Chicago Public Library, BookPage. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Time, The Washington Post, NPR, The Boston Globe, The New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Book Riot, Electric Lit A poignant, personal reflection on basketball, life, and home - from the author of the National Book Award finalist A Little Devil in America and They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, in the 1990s, Hanif Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron James were forged and countless others weren't. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tension between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role models, all of which he expertly weaves together with intimate, personal storytelling. "Here is where I would like to tell you about the form on my father's jump shot," Abdurraqib writes. "The truth, though, is that I saw my father shoot a basketball only one time." There's Always This Year is a triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. No matter the subject of his keen focus - whether it's basketball, or music, or performance - Hanif Abdurraqib's exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves. Don't miss your chance to see author Hanif Abdurraqib as part of the 2025 Des Moines Book Festival on Saturday, March 22 at 2:00PM at the Franklin Events Center!
