You aren't a true Texan until you've read this book. From the author's detailed accounts of Wayne Coyne being Wayne Coyne to the flip headline employed by The Oklahoman to describe a Ku Klux Klan rally and parade in 1923, Anderson's history is an unflinching look at a flawed but proud city. “I will trade in all of my Thunder gear and wipe my memory of Thunder games if that happens.”.

You could walk it all easily, if that’s how things were done here. The citizens of OKC were terrified, suddenly, that Harden was going to leave them. I can't explain how it feels to have a world class writer contextualize your entire childhood for you, but Mr. Anderson does it. .orange-text-color {font-weight:bold; color: #FE971E;}View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look. This threat had become, slowly, the story of the summer--it had begun to overshadow even the euphoric afterglow of that magical trip to the Finals. Use its weekly pages to remember appointments and important events. It's been awhile since I've read in book in almost one sitting. Anderson’s style is clever and funny, and I found myself sharing quotes with friends. You won’t be able to survive here without one. Drive. Prime members enjoy FREE Delivery and exclusive access to music, movies, TV shows, original audio series, and Kindle books. There was a problem loading your book clubs. You fell asleep at the Memphis airport, somehow, with your head leaning hard against the wall--you slept so deeply that the woman working at the gate had to actually come shake you awake just before the plane took off. Absolutely amazing -- and I grew up in OKC!

Sometimes you’ll see silent lightning blinking, very high, in one region, while smooth white clouds slide around lowly behind you. You will notice, out your windows, that Oklahoma City has no topography to speak of: everything is flat in every direction. If you're a seller, Fulfillment by Amazon can help you grow your business. Read the Book Behind the Showtime Limited Series, Ina Garten's Latest Cozy and Delicious Recipes, Discover the Prologue to Jodi Picoult's Poignant New Novel, Audiobooks Read By Your Favorite Celebrities, Chilling Audiobooks for a Haunting Halloween. You will hear, while you are here, two basic axioms about driving in OKC, each of which seems to violate the laws of space-time, but each of which is true: 1. Like maps? I learned a lot...and much of it was unpleasant. Please try your request again later. This was meant to be reassuring, but there was a large difference between “pretty” and “a hundred percent,” and much of OKC’s basketball future now lived in that zone. The Plaza District, one of the city’s much-touted hip new neighborhoods, is basically two blocks of Sixteenth Street. Top subscription boxes – right to your door, Extended holiday return window till Jan 31, 2021, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know, © 1996-2020, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. As an Oklahoma native and lifelong sports fan, I eagerly anticipated the release of this book and devoured it on my first break from my grad school studies. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Being kind of a nerd, I've read many books on the history of Oklahoma City, all of which were written by sentimental, proud Oklahomans. Stretch your legs. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in. Go to the rental desk. Harden came off the bench behind the exotic Swiss defensive specialist Thabo Sefolosha. Many of the city’s neighborhoods lack sidewalks, intentionally, as a symbol of status, because walking was considered to be outmoded, primitive, impoverished, a little sad, an activity that might even distract the cars, or offend them. The team picked up the seven-foot-three Hasheem Thabeet, the tallest man in the NBA, as their backup center. Thirdly, the author weaves a very first-hand narrative about OKC popular culture, characters in city government, and native son musician Wayne Coyne. In normal cities, cars feel slightly out of place, like zoo animals, pacing narrow roads between mobs of gawking pedestrians. The early signs were good. | ISBN 9780804137331 But now you’ve made it. An amazing non fiction voice telling a fascinating story. I stared and stared. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. 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. “I wouldn’t take anyone in the league over the Beard,” wrote a fan on the discussion board OKCTalk. Surprises are found throughout Anderson’s tales, even for those who consider themselves most informed about Oklahoma City. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. If you don't happen to come from Oklahoma City and, instead, are one of the many people I've met in my life whose relationship to Oklahoma City is "Yeah, I drove through there once", then consider this book the reading equivalent of stopping for gas and discovering a secret Disneyland out behind the truck stop. The old elevated highway that has loomed, for nearly fifty years, over the center of the city is now in the midst of being torn down. The skyscraper was meant to make the city seem big, but mostly it makes everything around it look small: thick, stocky, ancient, heavy, extremely midwestern. Leave the airport, merge onto the freeway, head toward the city center. 2. Illustrated with archival photos, his story jumps between top-flight sportswriting and more lighthearted and diverse chapters on the idiosyncrasies of OKC.”—SHELF AWARENESS, Sign up for news about books, authors, and more from Penguin Random House, Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network. “I’m pretty--a hundred percent--I’m pretty sure that I’m going to be in Oklahoma City,” he said. He has also had prominent recurring roles in Perfect Strangers, Angel, ER, and Lost. Fisher and the way a burning Bronx fired up Jonathan Mahler… Unlike navel-gazing yappers like Hunter S. Thompson, Anderson doesn’t splatter himself all over the story. He guest stars as Scott Dawson in the first season of Boomtown. Although its population ranks only twenty-ninth in the contiguous United States, it is an absolute juggernaut in square mileage--bigger, by far, than Los Angeles or New York or Chicago. Learn more about the program. Aug 20, 2019 Will Rogers’s lasso, if you look through it, might be holding the sun, might be holding some ragged cirrus clouds, might be holding a volcanic piece of dusk. And yet they could not pin down James Harden. I think it will go down in history as one of the great pieces of narrative nonfiction.”—ROMAN MARS, 99% Invisible“It’s hard to believe that any biography of any American city could be more consistently interesting, entertaining and informative than this one.”—NPR“In writing both idiosyncratic and unerring, this culture critic (formerly of New York) proves that any subject, in the right hands, can mesmerize and delight… Befitting the title, OKC is always on the verge of triumph (oil booms, redevelopment) and disaster (oil busts, tornadoes), a young locale more archetypal of the American mythos than the 26 bigger cities in the country.”—VULTURE, “8 New Books You Should Read This August”“Boom Town serves as a guidebook to a corner of America by turns utterly unfamiliar and easily recognizable… Anderson writes about Oklahoma City with zeal and devotion, his rollicking prose perfectly suited to Oklahoma City’s boom mentality. First, get yourself a car. This is more like looking at a magnification mirror under fluorescent lighting. You’ll think you’ve left town, but you haven’t. He probably knows the city better than long-time residents. Tell him that no one knows for sure, obviously, but that if you had to bet, you’d bet he’ll stay. Fabulous intro, though! You’ll love the vintage topographic map on the cover of this planner. Before you move on, take a moment to stop and look at the Will Rogers statue. It was dense and black and shockingly large--a whole second head, practically, hanging under Harden’s regular head: a shadow head. | 895 Minutes Buy, Aug 21, 2018 Walk out of the terminal.

He doesn’t slum with pity or rage. It’s all part of the long, unglamorous process of getting yourself to a minor airport out in the middle of the country.

This is the Devon Tower, headquarters of one of OKC’s biggest energy companies, a glass-and-steel monument to the miracle of hydraulic fracturing, a.k.a. For the 2020 holiday season, returnable items shipped between October 1 and December 31 can be returned until January 31, 2021. I was part of a large crowd of reporters, local and national, who had assembled to ask him questions.