Description

About the Author

Will Blythe is the former literary editor of Esquire. A frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review, he has written for the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, Elle, and the Oxford American, and is the editor of the acclaimed book Why I Write. His work has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Sportswriting. He grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and now lives in New York City.

Praise for To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever: A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of…

An exceptionally entertaining parable in defense of good, healthy, all-American loathing.... an animosity the whole family can share.
-New York Post

Blythe makes you want to scream from the sidelines... while his hate is contagious, the obvious affection behind it remains.
-New York Post

âeoeThe kind of sportswriting that comes along so rarely you can count the classics on one hand . . . read this book.âe
-Play (New York Times Magazine sports supplement)

The best book about politics I´ve read since All the King´s Men ... itâe(TM)s about basketball [like] Moby Dick is about whaling.
-Hartford Courant

Blythe brings great wit, style, and insight... a long-awaited American answer to Fever Pitch.
-Baltimore Sun

âeoeA revelation.... an elegant testament to the way pastimes are far more than ways to pass the time.âe
-Publishers Weekly (signature review)

The best book about loving a team since âeoeA Fanâe(TM)s Notesâe ... [a book] about a lot more than basketball.
-Greensboro News & Record

Goes far beyond the facile John Feinstein âeoeinside a seasonâe formula ... [Blythe] writes amusingly, self-deprecatingly and often beautifully.
-New York Times Book Review

Blythe writes like a wizard ... Even if college basketball isnâe(TM)t your obsession, youâe(TM)ll get caught up in this.
-Elle

You donâe(TM)t have to be a Tar Heel or Blue Devil to like [THLT], because itâe(TM)s funny, perceptive, and smart.
-Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post

Hilarious and remarkably wise ... you donâe(TM)t want to say too much about [this book], for fear of spoiling the surprises.
-Sports Illustrated

âeoeThe best book on basketball I have ever read ... destined to become a classic of sports literature.âe
-Pat Conroy

âeoeBlythe seduces with his story of Southern identity...passed down from fathers to their roaming sons...raucous, tender, and fierce.âe
-Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, author of "Random Family"

âeoeNot since Exleyâe(TM)s A Fanâe(TM)s Notes has anyone produced such a graceful and elegiac evocation of place, family, and sportâe .
-Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead