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Imserba Webstore - The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
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List Price: $29.95
Our Price: $44.60
Your Save: $ ( % )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Random House Audio
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Audio CD
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.332092
EAN: 9780739340530
Format: Abridged
ISBN: 0739340530
Label: Random House Audio
Manufacturer: Random House Audio
Number Of Items: 5
Publication Date: 2006-09-26
Publisher: Random House Audio
Release Date: 2006-09-26
Studio: Random House Audio
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Editorial Reviews:
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In football, as in life, the value we place on people changes with the rules of the games they play.
When we first meet the young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or any of the things a child might learn in school. And he has no serious experience playing organized football.
What changes? He takes up football, and school, after a rich, Evangelical, Republican family plucks him from the mean streets. Their love is the first great force that alters the world’s perception of the boy, whom they adopt. The second force is the evolution of professional football itself.
In The Blind Side, Lewis shows us a largely unanalyzed but inexorable trend in football working its way down from the pros to the high school game, where it collides with the life of a single young man to produce a narrative of great and surprising power.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great book
Comment: I saw the movie way before i read the book, but i can assure you, if you like the movie you'll love the book, it has and air of remembering the game, and taking you to the moments that really change the game of football.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Blind Side Terrific
Comment: I thoroughly enjoyed the book (though as a woman I sometimes got bogged down in the history telling of some of the football stats) It was interestering to learn of some of the 'stars' of yesteryear and of past coaches.
The storyline of what the Toueys did is remarkable and I've heard Leigh Ann wants to start some type of program for underprivileged black kids who need help with grades to stay in school. What a woman!!
My one complaint is the cover....Michael Lewis name stands out much more than the title of the book..like he is selling his name over that of the book and of Michael Ohr...the cover on the paperback is much more appropriate. Hopefully, the cover on the hardback will be changed if the book sells enough copies.
Customer Rating:
Summary: lhm
Comment: Gave it as a gift but I'm sure it's a good book. Saw the movie.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Recommended, but with caveats
Comment: The Blind Side is generally very well written, tremendously informative, and highly engaging. I learned a great deal about the evolution of the passing game, and very much enjoyed the tale of Michael Oher's rise. But the merits of the book will be obvious to any reader who has the slightest interest in football.
Its defects may be a bit less apparent. In one passage, Michael Lewis says the following: "Memphis could make you wonder why anyone ever bothered to create laws segregating the races. More than a million people making many millions of individual choices generated an outcome not so different from a law forbidding black people and white people from mingling." Not only is this patently false, it's highly insulting. White supremacy and its corollaries--e.g., the economic and social subjugation of black people--were the law, not one-half of some controlled trial, and modern-day segregation is their legacy. So it's quite ignorant and hurtful to claim, especially so nonchalantly, that black people have chosen to wall themselves off in the poverty of western Memphis.
Another problem with the Blind Side is that precious little of it is told from the subject's perspective--i.e., from Oher's point of view. I kept wanting to get an idea of his side of the story, but only toward the very end of the book do you get as much as an inkling as to how he was seeing things. Relatedly, only toward the very end of the book do you get a sense of how much and how hard Oher worked to improve his athletic skills before he moved into white Memphis. According to the Author's Note, Oher didn't open up to Lewis 'til fairly late in the game, so to speak, but that's no excuse for Lewis's failure to thoroughly incorporate Oher's perspective and detail his striving. Nor is there any excuse for Lewis's continuing to call Oher "Big Mike" even after noting that Oher hates that moniker.
Also, Lewis falls all over himself lauding Ole Miss head coach Ed Orgeron's recruiting ability, but punts when it comes to explaining why that talent didn't result in success for the Rebels, who were awful under Orgeron's stewardship. Finally, and I realize this is pretty petty, but Lewis not only confuses ecto-, endo-, and mesomorphism, but doesn't realize that none of them really applies to Oher, or to offensive linemen in general.
Customer Rating:
Summary: a fascinating story
Comment: The Blind Side weaves together the compelling story of a out-of-nowhere high school football star with the evolution of the game of football. The title comes from the nickname given to the area behind a quarterback who is setting up to pass. Defenses normally put their best pass rusher on this side to give him the added advantage of the qb not being able to see his approach. As football offenses became more and more pass-happy, the offensive tackle who protects the quarterback's "blind side" became critical. As a result this position has become one of the most highly paid in the NFL.
Lewis traces this development while focusing on Michael Oher (pronounced "oar"), a high school phenom whose life story is, well, if the book were fiction, it would be panned as sheer fantasy.
The title, The Blind Side, misleads the reader into thinking that the focus will be on the evolution of football. However, this is really very tangential to the Michael Oher story. As fascinating as that was, this reader came away somewhat pitying Oher, for the book lays open his life to a degree that no young adult should have to face. Imagine 300+ pages of the Duggar family shamelessly spilling their family time in full view. It may not be dirty laundry, but it way more information than the public needs about anyone, especially a young man trying to become an adult.
Kudos to the Tuohys for their selfless giving. I suppose some are jaded about their wealth and resources, but the question comes to mind, "What can I do to help those less fortunate?" I wonder how successful their foundation for helping other inner-city kids has been. It seems to me that their own experience shows that it takes a family to raise a kid.
Even though Oher is now a Ratbird (a pox on their nest), I wish him success in his football career, except of course when playing the Browns.
The football history was interesting but it is definitely not what one recalls when thinking about the book. It is well written and an enjoyable read.
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