Paper Lion: Confessions of a Last-String Quarterback - Softcover

"A continuous feast . . . you wish it were six times longer. . . . The best book ever about football-or about anything!"-"The Wall Street Journal"" " "A great book that makes football absolutely fascinating to fan and non-fan alike. One of the great books written on sports."-"The New York Times"" " ""Paper Lion is the best book written about pro football-maybe about any sport-because Plimpton captures with absolute fidelity how the average fan might feel given the opportunity to try out for a professional football team."-"The Saturday Review " "Additional quotes: "One of the great books written on sports, and the most thoroughly engaging book on any subject in recent memory." "As a writer, he is truthful without betraying anyone, modest but never falsely so, hilariously funny without once being arch. He makes his subject absolutely fascinating, football fan or no." "A tale to gladden the envious heart of any 'average weekend athelete, ' or anyone else for that matter." --Eliot Fremont Smith, "The New York Times "This has been called the best book ever written about football. We think it is one of the best books written this year about anything-and not only because Plimpton combines a smooth-flowing style with high good humor. It's fascination lies rather in its unmistakable air of realityAn utterly engaging book." "--The Wall Street Journal "It is unquestionably the heavyweight champion of it's field." --Red Smith "The best book about football I've ever read." --W.C. Heinz "It is perceptive and informative about football specifically, and athletes and men in general; it is funny, here and there it is moving, and Plimpton surveys his own pratfalls with an over-all grace and modesty that are thoroughly engaging." --Loudon Wainright" LIFE Magazine "The agility and imaginativeness of his prose transforms his account of this daydream into a classic of sports reporting." ard"--The New Yorker "It's a gentle ironyworthy of the author himself: The week George Plimpton died, a new collection of his finest sports writing was set to go to the printer. Despite the tragedy, the book came out on time, and for Lyons Press' and many of the author's fans, George Plimpton On Sports has become perhaps the best final tribute to old #0 in silver and blue. The book is part of a nearly ten-title-thick Plimpton retrospective - a series that also includes Paper Lion, The Bogey Man and reprints of many other Plimpton classics as well as a Plimpton-edited book of adventure stories from The Explorer's Club - that form one of the most comprehensive collection of Plimpton books in years and that, eerily, came out last month at almost exactly the same time the author passed away. Lyons says that for reasons of taste, it has taken an understated publicity approach. "We've been very low-key," says editorial director Jay Cassell. "In fact, we've barely promoted it." But the books, in part as a result of all the fond recollections of Plimpton, have sold well; Paper Lion, for instance, sold out its original print run of 10,000 copies and has almost depleted its new stock of 10,000 more.""-- Publishers Weekly's website

The book that made a legend, and a classic of sports writing – George Plimpton's Paper Lion is published in the UK on its 50th anniversary.