If you are even a casual hoops fan, this book is a must. Wertheim goes in-depth into so many prominent NBA figures who connected during this time: David Stern as a young, new commissioner; Mike Krzyzewski, a young head coach at Duke, who had an extremely rough start to his tenure; Charles Barkley, who was grossly overweight (interesting fact: Moses Malone helped motivate Barkley to lose weight and get into All-Star form); a young Michael Jordan, still wearing North Carolina-issued Converse at the time; and Gloria James learned she would have a son eventually named LeBron.

Another plus for basketball fans is the way Wertheim skillfully connects the up-and-coming elements of the NBA that would dominate the NBA and world sports landscape in the 1990s but also respectfully pays homage to the NBA veterans at the height of the Magic-Bird rivalry.

One minor quibble is if you don't care about basketball, this book definitely puts a heavy emphasis on it. You'll have to skip ahead to specific chapters to read about USFL, NFL, wrestling, tennis and more. However, I think Wertheim is simply covering the most significant events of the time, and, while there were multiple significant sports events in 1984, the most lasting occurred in basketball.

Another minor quibble: while recounting, Patrick McEnroe’s doubles win at the French Open, he simple refers to the competition as Boris Becker and another young German. I would have at least appreciated the author taking the time to fact-check this. I’ll admit this isn’t an easy fact to find, but I managed to locate it by searching the Associated Press: Becker’s teammate was Eric Winogradsky, who was French, not German. An avid tennis fan might know that name, as he finished runner-up at the 1989 French Open (but didn’t have anywhere near the success of his then-teammate).

That said, I have to give Wertheim a lot of credit: on the surface, 1984 seemed like a pivotal year for the Summer Olympics and the NBA, but he brings a lot of other significant events to the fore, such as John McEnroe’s legendary match with Ivan Lendl, Wayne Gretzky’s emergence, Robert Kraft becoming owner of the Patriots, ABC's purchase of ESPN, and even Donald Trump. It was a meaningful time in sports and Wertheim pulls in outside forces as well, particularly those in popular culture like Prince, Michael Jackson, David Bowie and many others. Any reader interested in sports or in that particular time will find this book interesting.

"Glory Days" is fantastic about taking a piece of non-fiction and making it read like fiction.

While I am neither a history buff nor an avid basketball fan. I love sport and, more importantly, stories that change how we look at sports. While I knew that the Summer of 1984 was an important part of sports history, I never truly understood why until I read this book.

This was an eye-opening experience and "Glory Days" does not shy away from the truly ugly moments of the era. This book serves to highlight how impactful sport is as well as show how commercialism and politics have changed and continues to affect sports. This is a dense story in terms of the amount of information and truly helped me with understanding what changed in the sports scene. It documents how athletes become superstars and the mechanisms have brought sports to this level of commercialisation and profitability.

I love how simplistic the language used in "Glory Days" was and as someone who routinely struggles to read non-fiction, I appreciated the accessibility that L. Jon Wertheim's writing shows in "Glory Days". While I do recommend reading the first chapter first and the last chapter last, the rest of the book is written in such a way that you can pick and choose the parts you want to read in any order.

Thank you to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for giving me an e-arc to read in exchange for an honest review. All opinions stated are my own.

I love these type of books that break down a year with highlights of things that happen (see One Summer: America, 1927). I didn't realize how much went down 1984. Such a fun read for sports fans and history buffs alike.

The blurb compares this book to the products of Bill Bryson, and honestly, and I found this to be much better than anything Bryson has ever written. Don’t sell yourself short! That said, I was initially interested in this book because I was born in the summer of 1984, so I wanted to know more about my origin story. This piece filled me in on everything I missed in a detailed way that was always interesting and never boring. Nice work!