The Miracle of Castel di Sangro: A Tale of Passion and Folly in the Heart of Italy
by Joe Mcginniss
List Price:
Our Price: $7.28
You Save: $8.67 (54%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $2.00 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Joe McginnissEdition: Paperback
Published: 2000-06-06
ISBN: 0767905997
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Broadway
Book Reviews of The Miracle of Castel di Sangro: A Tale of Passion and Folly in the Heart of Italy
Book Review: WHAT A COOL BOOK (couldn't stop reading it!)
Summary: 5 Stars
This book really grasped my attention. The story throughtout the chapters captured my imagination.
The book gave a realistic impression of an amazing country. "Joe" really explored the life of the team and the "Calcio" and every action was convincing in an unpredictable manor.
The style of sentences and the chosen words really made up the base of an absoloutely fantastic book!!!delightful and inspiring journey through the football season.
This is an exciting new addition to anyone's library.
Summary of The Miracle of Castel di Sangro: A Tale of Passion and Folly in the Heart of Italy
We already knew Joe McGinniss could chill our blood (Fatal Vision) and arouse both our pity and distaste for the Kennedys (The Last Brother), but who knew he could be so funny? (Well, maybe readers who remember The Selling of the President back in 1968.) Even those who have no interest in soccer--the majority of Americans, he ruefully admits--will relish the author's vivid account of a team from Castel di Sangro, a tiny town in Italy's poorest region, that against all expectations made it to the national competition. Whether he's chronicling his ordeal at possibly the least-inviting hotel in Italy (the heat doesn't come on until October, no matter the temperature; he is assigned to a room up four flights of stairs though there are no other guests), or sketching a colorful cast of characters that includes the team's sinister owner and an utterly unflappable translator, McGinniss prompts roars of laughter as he reveals an Italy tourists never see. He also saddens readers with a shocking final scene in which he confronts the nation's casual corruption, which taints men he's come to respect and even love. Although not a conventional memoir, this stirring book reveals as much about the author's passionate character as about the nation and the players who win his heart, then break it. --Wendy SmithMaster storyteller Joe McGinniss travels to Italy to cover the unlikely success of a ragtag minor league soccer team--and delivers a brilliant and utterly unforgettable story of life in an off-the-beaten-track Italian village.
When Joe McGinniss sets out for the remote Italian village of Castel di Sangro one summer, he merely intends to spend a season with the village's soccer team, which only weeks before had, miraculously, reached the second-highest-ranking professional league in the land. But soon he finds himself embroiled with an absurd yet irresistible cast of characters, including the team's owner, described by the New York Times as "straight out of a Mario Puzo novel," and coach Osvaldo Jaconi, whose only English word is the one he uses to describe himself: "bulldozer."??
As the riotous, edge-of-your-seat season unfolds, McGinniss develops a deepening bond with the team, their village and its people, and their country. Traveling with the miracle team, from the isolated mountain region where Castel di Sangro is located to gritty towns as well as grand cities, McGinniss introduces us to an Italy that no tourist guidebook has ever described, and comes away with a "sad, funny, desolating, and inspiring story--everything, in fact, a story should be" (Los Angeles Times).
Italy Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Great Sports Books
The Miracle of Castel di Sangro: A Tale of Passion and Folly in the Heart of Italyby Joe Mcginniss
Broadway; Published: 2000-06-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops:
Ball Fourby Jim Bouton
Wiley; Published: 1990-07-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.46
Price in other shops:
Soccer Against the Enemy: How the World's Most Popular Sport Starts and Fuels Revolutions and Keeps Dictators in Powerby Simon Kuper
Nation Books; Published: 2006-04-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.18
Price in other shops:
Hardball: A Season in the Projectsby Daniel Coyle
HarperCollins Publishers; Published: 1995-02; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty: The Game, the Team, and the Cost of Greatnessby Buster Olney
Harper Perennial; Published: 2005-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.70
Price in other shops:
Fantasyland: A Sportswriter's Obsessive Bid to Win the World's Most Ruthless Fantasy Baseballby Sam Walker
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2007-02-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.99
Price in other shops:
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Gameby Michael Lewis
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 2004-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.39
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccerby David Goldblatt
Riverhead Trade; Published: 2008-01-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.44
Price in other shops:
Brillant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Footballby David Winner
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; Published: 2001-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.60
Price in other shops:
Bloody Confused!: A Clueless American Sportswriter Seeks Solace in English Soccerby Chuck Culpepper
Broadway; Published: 2008-08-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.16
Price in other shops:
Among the Thugsby Bill Buford
Vintage; Published: 1993-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.00
Price in other shops:
A Season with Verona: Travels Around Italy in Search of Illusion, National Character, and...Goals!by Tim Parks
Arcade Publishing; Published: 2003-09-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.80
Price in other shops:
Football Against the Enemyby Simon Kuper
Orion (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd ); Published: 2003-11-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.73
Price in other shops:
The Italian Job: A Journey to the Heart of Two Great Footballing Culturesby Gianluca Vialli, Gabriele Marcotti
Transworld Publishers; Published: 2007-09-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.99
Price in other shops:
Soccer in Sun and Shadow, New Editionby Eduardo Galeano
Verso; Published: 2003-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.58
Price in other shops:
How Soccer Explains the World : An Unlikely Theory of Globalizationby Franklin Foer
Published: 2004-07-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $18.48
Price in other shops:
Fever Pitchby Nick Hornby
Riverhead Trade; Published: 1998-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.10
Price in other shops: