Living in a sports-obsessed world, it is surprising how few works of fiction have sports as a central theme. Most books about sports are either children’s novels or nonfiction. I scoured my read books and the internet to compile a list of recommendations based upon Olympic sports in honor of the 2024 Paris summer games. If you are already missing watching a certain sport once the Olympics end, you can find an excellent novel about that sport in this list!
Artistic Gymnastics
Winterland
Rae Meadows
Perfection has a cost . . . With transporting prose and meticulous detail, set in an era that remains shockingly relevant today, Rae Meadows’s Winterland tells a story of glory, loss, hope, and determination, and of finding light where none exists through one girl’s journey as a USSR gymnast.
Amazon | Bookshop.org | Review
Other recommendations: Break the Fall by Jennifer Iacopelli (YA) and The Happiest Girl in the World by Alena Dillon
Boxing
Headshot
Rita Bullwinkel
An electrifying debut novel from an unusually gifted writer about the radical intimacy of physical competition. Frenetic, surprising, and strikingly original, Headshot is a portrait of the desire, envy, perfectionism, madness, and sheer physical pleasure that motivate young women to fight—even, and perhaps especially, when no one else is watching.
Fat City
Leonard Gardner
A vivid novel of allegiance and defeat, of the potent promise of the good life and the desperation and drink that waylay those whom it eludes. When two men meet in the ring–the retired boxer Billy Tully and the newcomer Ernie Munger–their brief bout sets into motion their hidden fates, initiating young Munger into the company of men and luring Tully back into training.
Swimming
The Swimmers
Julie Otsuka
From the award-winning author of The Buddha in the Attic and When the Emperor Was Divine comes a novel that starts as a catalogue of spoken and unspoken rules for swimmers at an aquatic center but unfolds into a powerful story of a mother’s dementia and her daughter’s love.
Bliss, Remembered
Frank Deford
At the 1936 Berlin Olympics, American swimmer Sydney Stringfellow finds herself falling in love with a dashing young German. When the rising tide of global conflict tears them apart, Sydney returns to America, where she finds love again—in the arms of an American man who takes her hand in marriage before shipping off to fight in World War II. And that is when her Olympic love reappears in Sydney’s life, drawing her into a dilemma of passion, betrayal, and espionage.
Other recommendations: The Sea of Light by Jenifer Levin
Soccer
Godwin
Joseph O’Neill
From the acclaimed author of Netherland, the odyssey of two brothers crossing the world in search of an African soccer prodigy who might change their fortunes. As only he can do, Joseph O’Neill investigates the legacy of colonialism in the context of family love, global capitalism, and the dreaming individual.
Red or Dead
David Peace
From the bestselling author of The Damned Utd comes the fictional account of Bill Shankly, the first truly great football manager of the modern age and the legendary Liverpool manager of the Reds.
Other recommendations: Keeper by Mal Peet (YA) and Furia by Yamile Saied Méndez (YA)
Baseball
The Natural
Bernard Malamud
The Natural, Bernard Malamud’s first novel, published in 1952, is also the first novel ever written about baseball – the story of a superbly gifted “natural” at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era.
The Art of Fielding
Chad Harbach
A disastrous error on the field sends five lives into a tailspin in this widely acclaimed tale about love, life, and baseball, praised by the New York Times as wonderful… a novel that is every bit as entertaining as it is affecting.
Surfing
Tapping the Source
Kem Nunn
Kem Nunn’s “surf noir” classic is a thrilling plunge into the seedy underbelly of a Southern California beach town—the inspiration for the film Point Break.
Breath
Tim Winton
On the wild, lonely coast of Western Australia, two thrill-seeking teenage boys fall under the spell of a veteran big-wave surfer named Sando. Their mentor urges them into a regiment of danger and challenge, and the boys test themselves and each other on storm swells and over shark-haunted reefs. Venturing beyond all caution–in sports, relationships, and sex–each character approaches a point from which none of them will return undamaged.
Tennis
Trophy Son
Douglas Brunt
From New York Times bestselling author Douglas Brunt, the story of a tennis prodigy, from young childhood to the finals of the US Open, Wimbledon, and other tournaments around the world. Trophy Son offers an inside look at the dangers of extraordinary pressure to achieve, whether in sports or any field, through the eyes of a young man defying his parents’ ambitions as he seeks a life of his own.
Carrie Soto Is Back
Taylor Jenkins Reid
An epic adventure about a female athlete perhaps past her prime, brought back to the tennis court for one last grand slam, from the author of Malibu Rising, Daisy Jones & The Six, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.
Field Hockey
We Ride Upon Sticks
Quan Barry
In the town of Danvers, Massachusetts, home of the original 1692 witch trials, the 1989 Danvers Falcons will do anything to make it to the state finals—even if it means tapping into some devilishly dark powers.
Track & Field
Once Upon a Runner
John L. Parker, Jr.
The undisputed classic of running novels and one of the most beloved sports books ever published, Once a Runner tells the story of an athlete’s dreams amid the turmoil of the 60s and the Vietnam war. A rare insider’s account of the incredibly intense lives of elite distance runners, Once a Runner is an inspiring, funny, and spot-on tale of one individual’s quest to become a champion.
