Lions, Bernard. 1000 Football Shirts: The Colours of the Beautiful Game. 2013. New York: Universe, 2014.
One thing I love about football (i.e., soccer) are the uniforms, and I have also been obsessing about the sport even more than usual lately because of the upcoming World Cup, so when I found out about this book I bought it immediately. It is difficult to find good books here in the U.S. about soccer, so I am especially attracted to books such as this that attempt to offer comprehensive histories of various elements of the game.
I will begin reading the book this afternoon, but I must note that I am immediately skeptical of it after looking at its cover. There are 130 shirts total pictured on the front cover, back cover, and spine, but none of these are from the biggest club in the world, Manchester United. There are two Liverpool shirts, a Chelsea shirt, a Manchester City shirt, an Everton shirt, and eight shirts from MLS (including the LA Galaxy home shirt twice, along with their change strip: blatant proof of David Beckham’s continuing commercial power). I love MLS, and I like Everton because I hate Liverpool, but there is no way that any of these nine shirts are more important than Manchester United’s. This is a ridiculous omission which makes me question the biases of Lions and his publisher’s designers. I hope that the text itself meets a higher standard.
Slocum, Frank, and Red Foley. Topps Baseball Cards: The Complete Picture Collection: A 40-Year History, 1951-1990. New York: Warner, 1990.
I collected baseball cards seriously as a boy between 1987-1990, and always preferred Topps over Donruss or Fleer. While I am no longer an avid collector, I will still buy a few packs (always Topps) every once in a while for nostalgia’s sake, and I buy a Mets team set each year. As a result of this fondness for the hobby, I have had my eyes on this book for several years, and finally found a copy for a reasonable price. It is much larger than I expected, which is exciting; I can understand why it was so difficult to find a copy for less than $50.00.
Both books were acquired from amazon.com’s network of independent sellers.
Daniel Shank Cruz 