{"title":"Books by David Shields","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781496242211","title":"Black Planet","description":"Critically acclaimed and highly controversial, \u003ci\u003eBlack Planet\u003c\/i\u003e was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and PEN USA Award and was named a Top Ten Nonfiction Book of 1999 by \u003ci\u003eEsquire\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNewsday\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eLA Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e During the 1994–1995 NBA season, David Shields attended nearly all of the Seattle SuperSonics’ home games; watched on TV nearly all their away games; listened to countless pre- and post-game interviews and call-in shows on the radio; spoke or tried to speak to players, coaches, agents, journalists, fans, his wife; corresponded with members of the Sonics newsgroup on the internet; read innumerable articles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Although I’m a passionate basketball fan and Sonics fan,” Shields wrote in the author’s note to the original publication of \u003ci\u003eBlack Planet\u003c\/i\u003e, “I wasn’t interested in the game per se-who won, who lost, the minutiae of strategy. I was interested in how the game gets talked about. By the end of the season I’d accumulated hundreds of pages of often utterly illegible notes, the roughest of rough drafts. Over the next three years I transformed those notes into this book-a daily journal that runs the length of one team’s long-forgotten season and that is now focused, to the point of obsession, on how white people (including especially myself) think about and talk about Black heroes, Black scapegoats, Black bodies.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBlack Planet\u003c\/i\u003e changed sports journalism and remains a prophetic book on America and race. This edition features a new foreword by Bryan Curtis.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56301152010613,"sku":"9781496242211","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781496242211_6be0b2ee-eb77-4476-8adf-9a3a4810435d.jpg?v=1786021638"},{"product_id":"9780141049076","title":"Reality Hunger","description":"\u003ci\u003eReality Hunger\u003c\/i\u003e questions every assumption we ever made about art, the novel, journalism, poetry, film, TV, rap, stand-up, graffiti, sampling, plagiarism, writing, and reading. In seeking to tear up the old culture in search of something new and more authentic, it is the most vital book of the new century.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56311568826741,"sku":"9780141049076","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141049076_59828ed7-d73d-40dd-bcb7-0086b206695c.jpg?v=1786011170"},{"product_id":"thing-about-life-is-that-one-day-youll-be-dead","title":"The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead","description":"\u003cp\u003eMesmerized and somewhat unnerved by his 97-year-old father's vitality and optimism, David Shields undertakes an original investigation of our flesh-and-blood existence, our mortal being.\u003cbr\u003eWeaving together personal anecdote, biological fact, philosophical doubt, cultural criticism, and the wisdom of an eclectic range of writers and thinkers - from Lucretius to Woody Allen - Shields expertly renders both a hilarious family portrait and a truly resonant meditation on mortality.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57466609172853,"sku":"9780141049496","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141049496.jpg?v=1785654666"},{"product_id":"failure-is-the-only-subject","title":"Failure Is the Only Subject","description":"A SEARING EXPLORATION OF FAILURE—PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL—THROUGH THE LENS OF DOCUMENTARY FILM AND THE PRISM OF SELF \/\/ In Failure Is the Only Subject, we encounter David Shields—memoirist, novelist, and filmmaker—undergoing psychoanalysis in the aftermath of divorce and in the throes of an addictive new relationship. Struggling to piece his life back together, Shields watches (and rewatches) documentaries about human disappointment by such groundbreaking directors as Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, Ross McElwee, Kitty Green, Adam Curtis, and Michael Winterbottom. \/\/ Contemplating the filmmakers' choices, Shields asks painful questions about his life, any life, life itself. What happens when the mask falls off and we come face-to-face with the abyss within? Is there a way to bear such harrowing knowledge—about ourselves and the world? Renowned for his discomfiting candor, Shields is at his best here: unsparing in his scrutiny.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57510242976117,"sku":"9781957392424","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781957392424.jpg?v=1787130581"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-david-shields.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}