It's about a history of America selling dreams back to its people for so long that they stopped knowing what to do when someone they wanted to keep at arm's length also got to buy into the fantasy. #TheresAlwaysThisYear
I love basketball, lyricism, and multifaceted memoirs. I loved this book, about a Black kid growing up in urban Columbus in the 1990s, from the bottom of my middle-aged white lady heart.
#TheresAlwaysThisYear
#HanifAbdurraqib
#booksky
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/695817...
The American hustle : always hustling that great white hope —-that “this is not who we are” when the proof has just been established over and over again that this is exactly who we are …..
#nbabookclub
#theresalwaysthisyear
❝ And let me be clear: I am not opposed to hustles, and I am certainly not opposed to hustling. When I say I came up around hustlers, I mean that I know what it takes to keep the lights on and so I’ve rarely been in the dark. ❞
#nbabookclub
#theresalwaysthisyear
❝ I swear to you, I would never take to the streets looking to watch something burn if my heart were not broken. If, through its breaking, I did not need to invent an enemy. Nameless and faceless as a brick building or a glass window. ❞
#nbabookclub
#TheresAlwaysThisYear
Welp I’m on page 111 and it took me this long to figure out that he is writing this in the structure of a basketball game cuz I’m quick that way #TheresAlwaysThisYear
And just like that, the lens turns toward property, toward land. Toward the value of vacancy. Don’t play like you haven’t heard this one before. When you create the conditions of war, you get to name the places it happens. ❞
#TheresAlwaysThisYear
Guy is blowing my mind and I’m on page 20 —every description is this level ! He does it over and over —so beautiful ! #nbabookclub #theresalwaysthisyear
A highlighted excerpt from page 18 of “There’s Always This Year” by Hanif Abdurraqib: “Have you ever been in the air so long that your feet begin to fall in love with the new familiar, walking along some invisible surface that is surely there, that must be, as there is no other way to describe what miracle keeps you afloat? How long have you been suspended in a place that loves you with the same ferocity and freedom as the ground might, as the grave might, as a heaven that lets you walk in drowning in gold might?” I’ve got a bookmark in the center of the book promoting this title as the 23rd Annual Reading Across Rhode Island selection presented by the Rhode Island Center For the Boom.
So much of this book you just HAVE to read aloud, to hear the music of these lines. What an experience 🏀 #RARI2025 #TheresAlwaysThisYear 📚
