Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, its Chaotic Founding... its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis
Sam Anderson
Aug 2018 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Sam Anderson
4.4star
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14 hr 55 min
Unabridged
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“A bonkers, kitchen-sink cultural history of Oklahoma City, with the local Thunder’s would-be dynasty as its driving soul.”—The New York Times
“Dizzyingly pleasurable . . . curious, hilarious, and wildly erudite.”—The New Yorker
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Reviews, NPR, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, The Economist, Deadspin
Oklahoma City was born from chaos. It was founded in a bizarre but momentous “Land Run” in 1889, when thousands of people lined up along the borders of Oklahoma Territory and rushed in at noon to stake their claims. Since then, it has been a city torn between the wild energy that drives its outsized ambitions, and the forces of order that seek sustainable progress. Nowhere was this dynamic better realized than in the drama of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team’s 2012-13 season, when the Thunder’s brilliant general manager, Sam Presti, ignited a firestorm by trading future superstar James Harden just days before the first game. Presti’s all-in gamble on “the Process”—the patient, methodical management style that dictated the trade as the team’s best hope for long-term greatness—kicked off a pivotal year in the city’s history, one that would include pitched battles over urban planning, a series of cataclysmic tornadoes, and the frenzied hope that an NBA championship might finally deliver the glory of which the city had always dreamed.
Sam Anderson, a staff writer at the New York Times magazine, unfolds an idiosyncratic mix of American history, sports reporting, urban studies, gonzo memoir, and much more to tell the strange but compelling story of an American city whose unique mix of geography and history make it a fascinating microcosm of the democratic experiment.
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
“Dizzyingly pleasurable . . . curious, hilarious, and wildly erudite.”—The New Yorker
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Reviews, NPR, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, The Economist, Deadspin
Oklahoma City was born from chaos. It was founded in a bizarre but momentous “Land Run” in 1889, when thousands of people lined up along the borders of Oklahoma Territory and rushed in at noon to stake their claims. Since then, it has been a city torn between the wild energy that drives its outsized ambitions, and the forces of order that seek sustainable progress. Nowhere was this dynamic better realized than in the drama of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team’s 2012-13 season, when the Thunder’s brilliant general manager, Sam Presti, ignited a firestorm by trading future superstar James Harden just days before the first game. Presti’s all-in gamble on “the Process”—the patient, methodical management style that dictated the trade as the team’s best hope for long-term greatness—kicked off a pivotal year in the city’s history, one that would include pitched battles over urban planning, a series of cataclysmic tornadoes, and the frenzied hope that an NBA championship might finally deliver the glory of which the city had always dreamed.
Sam Anderson, a staff writer at the New York Times magazine, unfolds an idiosyncratic mix of American history, sports reporting, urban studies, gonzo memoir, and much more to tell the strange but compelling story of an American city whose unique mix of geography and history make it a fascinating microcosm of the democratic experiment.
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
Ratings and reviews
4.4
8 reviews
About the author
SAM ANDERSON is currently critic-at-large for the New York Times Magazine and formerly a book critic for New York magazine and a regular contributor to Slate. Anderson's journalism and essays have won numerous awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing. He lives in New York with his family.
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