SI Books

Sports Illustrated: Slide Show

Before digital photography, every picture that ran in the pages of SI, like the one above of Yogi, had a physical counterpart -- a slide (many of them Kodachromes, as famously sung about by Paul Simon). The thing about slides, beyond the obvious that you could touch them and hold them up to the light, was that you could scribble notes on them. You might use the slide mount to jot down a quick description of what's happening in the photo. You could give the mount a return to stamp, if you were messengering the slide across town in those days before e-mail. And if the framed photo was a classic -- say, Walter Iooss Jr.'s shot of the 49ers' Dwight Clark making "The Catch" -- you would see that mount become tagged with so many stickers marking its repeated usage in the magazine that the slide would come to resemble a steamer trunk returned from a journey around the world in an even earlier time.

Today SI catalogs its photos in an electronic database -- which is infinitely more efficient than the old filing cabinets full of slides, but not nearly as much fun. With the distance of time, though, these slides can be viewed in a new way: as tiny objects of art. These artifacts of a rapidly receding era of magazine publishing brim with a found beauty; a humble cardboard square somehow fuses a photographic moment with its slowly accumulating embellishments of history.

Sports Illustrated presents Slide Show (SI Books, May 2009), conceived and designed by then creative director, now special contributor Steven Hoffman and researched and written by associate editor Bill Syken.

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Sports Illustrated: The College Football Book

Sports Illustrated presents The College Football Book, the ultimate gift for America's most passionate fans. SI launched this series in 2005 with The Football Book, devoted to the professional game. A New York Times best-seller that year, the book has taken root as a perennial, selling more than 200,000 copies to date. Now the editors of Sports Illustrated return to the gridiron, this time to serve the most avid football fans of all. With the best words and pictures SI has to offer, The College Football Book brings to life the game's unparalleled excitement and pageantry, its legendary players, historic teams and epic rivalries. In 288 pages of the greatest photography and writing available anywhere, The College Football Book spans the sport's history, from its infancy in the 1800s right up to the postseason showdowns of 2008. The book is packed with stunning pictures, award-winning stories, original stats, decade-by-decade all-star teams and iconic artifacts photographed exclusively for this book at the College Football Hall of Fame -- the same exciting mix of elements that makes each book in the SI series a must-have for sports fan.

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Athlete by Walter Iooss

After 47 years behind the camera Walter Iooss Jr. can't quite put a number on the countless sports subjects he has photographed throughout his career. But whoever the portrait, whatever the setting, a common theme runs through his personal archive: All are athletes lured into the joy of sport. In a 256-page panoramic collection, Iooss handpicks more than 150 of his classic images --dozens never before published--to create a cinematic compilation of his work.

For Iooss -- whose efforts have graced the cover of Sports Illustrated nearly 300 times -- every picture really does tell a story. Here he highlights his favorites with behind-the-scenes anecdotes. For the famous "Blue Dunk" overhead shot of Michael Jordan taken in 1987, Iooss personally painted the parking lot, stationed himself in a cherry picker and waited for the shot. While shadowing Tiger Woods from hole to hole in Carlsbad in 2000, the photographer purposefully wore dark glasses the entire day so as to not look in the golfer's eyes. And in 2003, Iooss literally couldn't sleep the night before reuniting Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier for their first photo together in 30 years. In a lyrical display, we witness a creative evolution as Iooss continually discovers new ways and approaches to capture the athletic spirit. Iooss's passion, power and perspective are clearly at play in this artful package.

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Sports Illustrated: The Basketball Book

Continuing Sports Illustrated's tradition of producing best-selling coffee-table books for the holiday season, SI presents The Basketball Book, a lavish celebration of the athleticism and pageantry of both the college and professional game. With the same kind of unforgettable photographs and award-winning writing that propelled The Baseball Book, The Football Book and The Anniversary Book to The New York Times best-seller list over the past three years, this volume brings to life the legendary players, the classic action and the great rivalries of the court. In 294 oversized pages, The Basketball Book commemorates the epic teams and characters, the personalities and performances and artifacts that have created legions of passionate fans since Dr. James Naismith nailed up a peach basket and devised the Original 13 Rules of the game more than 100 years ago.

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Sports Illustrated: The Football Book

On the heels of the successful Sports Illustrated 50th Anniversary Book comes a spectacular celebration of professional football that will be treasured by fans of Americas Game. With the same kind of unforgettable photographs and award-winning writing that made the SIs 50th Anniversary Book a best-seller, this lavish coffee-table volume brings to life the bone-rattling action of NFL football and the extraordinary athletes who have made it Americas true national pastime. In 256 oversized pages, The Football Book commemorates the dynasties and the dominating players, the crucial plays and classic games, the personalities and performances that propelled the NFL during SIs first 50 years of publication, from a marginal, ragtag league to the biggest game in town.

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Sports Illustrated 50 Years: The Anniversary Book

This colorful book celebrating fifty years of America's most prominent sports magazine is certainly more practical than hoarding 2,500 issues. The six-part book plays to the strength of the magazine: "The Stories" and "The Photographs" sections are the largest. The 35 articles are truncated, often just whetting your appetite for more. Lose minutes staring at Michael Jordan or Walter Payton frozen in midair. Examine the juxtaposition of a close play at the plate with the bizarre styles of a 60s women's track team. Try not to be swept away at a shot of Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain defining basketball. Punctuated by the best sport quotes, SI's "Signs of the Apocalypse," fascinating lists of athletes and teams that were on the cover the most times, and other sport tidbits through the ages, this area is sure to launch a thousand sport memories.

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Sports Illustrated: Fifty Years of Great Writing

For their 50th anniversary, Sports Illustrated collects 52 of their best and most memorable articles. Editor Rob Fleder delivers on what makes the magazine standout and fashionable: a mix of on-sport reporting (Mark Kram's lyrical coverage of the third Ali-Frazier bout) and polished articles written with years of perspective (Dan Jenkins's examination of the 1960 US Open, 18 years after the golf tournament). SI's most well-know scribe, Frank Deford, bookends the collection with reflections on boxer Billy Conn and a lovely obit on hometown star Johnny Untias.

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