Canzano: Take a book journey with Bill Walton
Walton sent me a list of his favorite books.
Bill Walton called me a few years ago with a wild idea. He knew people were sequestered at home during the pandemic, losing their minds. Walton thought that we all ought to use the time to enrich our minds, broaden our perspective, and do some reading.
Walton died a couple of weeks ago. He was 71. It got me thinking about that conversation and a subsequent email I received from him with the subject line “BW Book List.” I opened the email and discovered a trove of Walton’s all-time favorite books.
Walton’s book list, like a conversation with him, is a trip. It features a wide range of authors including John Wooden, Phil Knight, Sinclair Lewis, and Tim Egan. His literary taste ranged from Eric Weiner’s work about the search for the world’s most creative places titled “The Geography of Genius” to Robert Hughes’ book (“The Fatal Shore”) about the founding of Australia. There were books about musicians, historical figures, entrepreneurs, business leaders, places, times, circumstances, and athletes.
Tim Marshall’s book, “Prisoners of Geography”, is about 10 maps that explain everything about the world. Walton loved it, so he included it on the list. He also nodded to “The Boys in the Boat” years before it became a terrific feature film.
Walton also included a book titled “Ecotopia”, a fictional story that has Northern California, Oregon, and Washington seceding from the Union to create a “stable-state” ecosystem and the curious news reporter who visited it decades later.
Father’s Day is coming. It typically sparks a flurry of book buying. But I wonder if we might also pick one of Walton’s favorite titles for ourselves. I plan to read a lot of them. Not just because they look like wonderful, smart, interesting books, but because in some small way, it feels like a continuation of the journey Walton took us on over the years as a player and broadcaster.
The Hall of Fame basketball player did not include his book: “Back from the Dead” on the list. It wasn’t his style. But I’m adding Walton’s memoir and publishing the complete list here.
As Walton told me after his book was published: “Who would have ever thought little Billy from San Diego with his red hair, his big nose, his freckles, his goofy, nerdy-looking face, his inability to speak, little Billy — now a best-selling New York Times author.”
Bill Walton’s Favorite Books:
Studs Terkel, “Hope Dies Last”
David Halberstam, “The Children”
Irving Stone, “The Origin”
Tom Wolfe, “The Bonfire of the Vanities”
William H. Dana, “Two Years Before the Mast”
Bill Russell, “Go Up for Glory”
Robert Hughes, “The Fatal Shore”
T. Harry Williams, “Huey Long”
Robert Caro, “The Power Broker”
John Wooden, “My Personal Best”
David Halberstam, “The Coldest Winter”
Gerda Weissman Klein, “All But My Life”
Edward Dolnick, “Down the Great Unknown”
Stephen Ambrose, “Undaunted Courage”
Walter Isaacson, “Steve Jobs”
David Axelrod, “Believer”
Ashley Vance, “Elon Musk”
Phil Knight, “Shoe Dog”
Jane Mayer, “Dark Money”
John Fogerty, “Fortunate Son”
Bill Graham, “Bill Graham Presents”
Shep Gordon, “Supermensch”
Peter Cozzens, “The Earth is Weeping”
Eric Weiner, “The Geography of Genius”
Eric Weiner, “The Geography of Bliss"
Rinker Buck, “The Oregon Trail”
Kareem Abdul Jabbar, “Coach Wooden and Me”
Aili and Andres McConnon, “Road to Valor”
William George Jordan, “The Majesty of Calmness”
Sinclair Lewis, “It Can’t Happen Here”
Viet Thanh Nguten, “The Sympathizer”
Yuval Noah Harari, “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”
Al Franken, “Giant of the Senate”
Jonathan Fenby, “Tiger Head Snake Tails: China Today, How it Got There, and Where it is Heading”
Brad Stone, “The Everything Store, The Age of Amazon”
Timothy Egan, “Summary of The Immortal Irishman”
Timothy Egan, “The Good Rain”
Timothy Egan, “Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher”
Timothy Egan, “A Pilgrimage To Eternity”
Colson Whitehead, “The Underground Railroad”
Christopher Lochhead, “Play Bigger”
Kenneth Brower, “The Wildness Within”
Salmon Rushdie, “The Golden House”
Matt Young, “Eat The Apple”
Ernest Callenbach, “Ecotopia”
David Talbot, “Season of the Witch”
Stephen Harrigan, “The Gates of the Alamo”
John Perry Barlow, and Robert Greenfield, “Mother American Night”
Peter Frankopan, “The Silk Roads, A New History of the World”
Robbie Robertson, “Testimony”
Joe Hagan, “Sticky Fingers: The Jann Wenner Story”
Michael Pollan, “How to Change Your Mind”
Daniel James Brown, “The Boys in the Boat”
Steve Martin, “Born Standing Up”
Roger McNamee, “Zucked”
Trevor Noah, “Born a Crime”
Jean Case, “Be Fearless”
Dick Fosbury, “The Wizard of Foz”
Jack Sheehan, “Quiet Kingmaker of Las Vegas”
Eric Schmidt, “Trillion Dollar Coach”
Alan Weisman, “The World Without Us”
Jonathan Bloom, “American Wasteland”
Peter Sagan, “My World”
Robert Iger, “The Ride of a Lifetime”
Hampton Sides, “Blood and Thunder”
Jack Nisbet, “The Collector”
Nick Neely, “Alta California”
Tim Marshall, “Prisoners of Geography”
Robert Dallek, “FDR, A Political Life”
Bill Walton, “Back from the Dead”
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Bill Walton may have been born and raised in SoCal, but he was an Oregonian at heart. And I don't mean the current crop of Oregonians from the last 20-30 years who are imported with radical social ideas, but Oregonians bred with the pioneer genes of the 1800s, not unlike prototypical governor Tom McCall, who led a "progressive" coalition in the 1960s that included fishermen, lumbermen, farmers, ranchers, bankers and manufacturers. All were interested in Keeping Oregon Green (a 60s slogan), meaning ecologically balanced and ideologically free. I will miss BW
Maybe you could publish Bill’s list on the anniversary of his death each year? Seems a good way to remember him.