games

Like Seabiscuit, Friday Night Lights, and Eight Men Out, The Second Mark transcends the sports genre. The figure skating is there, all right, but so is the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the lost generation of Mao's Cultural Revolution, a little boy carrying a bedboard down flights of stairs to use as a pingpong table, and a Chinese girl skating by candlelight in a deserted, late night ice rink. In both large strokes and small details, the book takes you, not only into the lives of the six medalists in the Olympics pairs skating competition, but into the cultures from which you cannot separate them.

It is an amazing story that unfolds, even if you thought you knew it. Beautifully written and seen--Joy Goodwin's writing is worthy of the story and that is high praise. I loved this book!

This is one of the best books I have read so far this year. It is extremely well-written and I could not put it down. I am not a huge ice skating fan, but this book made me go the library to search for tapes of the 2002 Winter Olympics pairs competition.

The greatest thing about this book is the background stories of the six pairs this book focuses on. The story of the Chinese skaters alone is amazing. The dedication to the sport these pairs maintained is jaw dropping.

Usually reading nonfiction is a bit plodding for me, but this book just zips right along! Do not hesitate to buy it!!

The biographical information about the three pairs is what makes the book so intensely readable. The Olympic controversy was well-covered but not very exciting. What the skaters, especially the Chinese, have endured to get where they are is almost unbelievable.