Boom Town
The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, its Chaotic Founding... its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis
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Narrated by:
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Sam Anderson
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By:
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Sam Anderson
About this listen
A New York Times notable book of 2018. Named a best book of 2018 by NPR, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, and The Economist and Deadspin.
Award-winning journalist Sam Anderson’s long-awaited debut is a brilliant, kaleidoscopic narrative of Oklahoma City - a great American story of civics, basketball, and destiny.
Oklahoma City was born from chaos. It was founded in a bizarre but momentous "Land Run" in 1889, when thousands of people lined up along the borders of Oklahoma Territory and rushed in at noon to stake their claims. Since then, it has been a city torn between the wild energy that drives its outsize ambitions and the forces of order that seek sustainable progress.
Nowhere was this dynamic better realized than in the drama of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team’s 2012-13 season, when the Thunder’s brilliant general manager, Sam Presti, ignited a firestorm by trading future superstar James Harden just days before the first game. Presti’s all-in gamble on “the Process”- the patient, methodical management style that dictated the trade as the team’s best hope for long-term greatness - kicked off a pivotal year in the city’s history, one that would include pitched battles over urban planning, a series of cataclysmic tornadoes, and the frenzied hope that an NBA championship might finally deliver the glory of which the city had always dreamed.
Boom Town announces the arrival of an exciting literary voice. Sam Anderson, former book critic for New York magazine and now a staff writer at the New York Times magazine, unfolds an idiosyncratic mix of American history, sports reporting, urban studies, gonzo memoir, and much more to tell the strange but compelling story of an American city whose unique mix of geography and history make it a fascinating microcosm of the democratic experiment. Filled with characters ranging from NBA superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook; to Flaming Lips oddball front man Wayne Coyne; to legendary Great Plains meteorologist Gary England; to Stanley Draper, Oklahoma City's would-be Robert Moses; to civil rights activist Clara Luper; to the citizens and public servants who survived the notorious 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building, Boom Town offers a remarkable look at the urban tapestry woven from control and chaos, sports and civics.
Long-Listed for the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
A New York Times Editor's Choice
©2018 Sam Anderson (P)2018 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“[Anderson] has discovered a subject that energizes him the way a birch-bark canoe roused John McPhee, the way a French meal stoked M.F.K. Fisher, and the way a burning Bronx fired up Jonathan Mahler.... Unlike navel-gazing yappers like Hunter S. Thompson, Anderson doesn’t splatter himself all over the story. He never drowns out anyone with his sly, entertaining voice. His sensibility, sophisticated though it may be, is generous enough to stand up and offer its seat to others... For all of the surrealism in [Franz Kafka’s Oklahoma-set] Amerika, whose runic metaphysics helped give rise to the adjective ‘Kafkaesque,’ the manuscript doesn’t begin to match the genuinely American phantasmagoria of Boom Town. What’s most surreal about Oklahoma City, as brilliantly rendered in Anderson’s wild and gusty history, is that this city is for real.” (The New York Times Book Review)
“[Boom Town is a] dizzyingly pleasurable new history of Oklahoma City. If ‘dizzyingly pleasurable’ and ‘Oklahoma City’ aren’t words you expect to see in the same sentence, Anderson’s book wants to convince you that the capital of America’s 46th state is the most secretly fascinating place on earth.... It’s a peculiarly concentrated locus of old American energies, creative, destructive, and bizarre, and Anderson illuminates both the romance and the hubris of a city that went from wild gunfights to unrestrained freeways in a single human lifetime.... Boom Town is a dazzling urban history.... Anderson writes beautifully about the human beings he encounters, both living and dead. A minute-by-minute account of the Oklahoma City bombing left me almost in tears.... Anderson’s curious, hilarious, and wildly erudite book vividly evokes the bonk he describes here, as it holds together, quivers, and remakes itself over the following century.” (Brian Phillips, The New Yorker)
“A delightfully deep dive into ‘one of the great weirdo cities of the world’.... [Boom Town is] one of the more unexpectedly entertaining - and stimulating - nonfiction romps in recent memory. Anderson deftly weaves together history, personalities and his own observations.” (San Francisco Chronicle)
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The 25th anniversary edition of the number-one New York Times best seller and Sports Illustrated's best football book of all time, with a new afterword by the author. Return once again to the timeless account of the Permian Panthers of Odessa - the winningest high school football team in Texas history.
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Keep This In Mind When You Listen
- By K. on 09-21-18
By: H. G. Bissinger
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Outcasts United
- An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference
- By: Warren St. John
- Narrated by: Lincoln Hoppe
- Length: 13 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Set against the backdrop of an American town that without its consent had become a vast social experiment, Outcasts United follows a pivotal season in the life of the Fugees and their charismatic coach. Warren St. John documents the lives of a diverse group of young people as they miraculously coalesce into a band of brothers, while also drawing a fascinating portrait of a fading American town struggling to accommodate its new arrivals.
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great story, lackluster narration
- By CRE on 02-19-13
By: Warren St. John
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This Love Is Not for Cowards
- Salvation and Soccer in Ciudad Juárez
- By: Robert Andrew Powell
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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As Mexico has descended into a feudal narco-state - one where cartels, death squads, the army, and local police all fight over billions of dollars in profits from drug and human trafficking - the border city of Jurez has been hit hardest of all. And yet, more than a million people still live there. They even love their impoverished city, proudly repeating its mantra: "Amor por Jurez." Nothing exemplifies the spirit and hope of Juarenses more than the Indios, the city's beloved but hard-luck soccer team.
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Loved it
- By Nathan & Kira Huggins on 04-14-15
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The Secret Game
- A Wartime Story of Courage, Change, and Basketball's Lost Triumph
- By: Scott Ellsworth
- Narrated by: Scott Ellsworth
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In the wartime fall of 1943, at the little-known North Carolina College for Negroes, Coach John McLendon was on the verge of changing the game forever. Within six months his Eagles would become the highest-scoring college basketball team in America, a fast-breaking, hard-pressing juggernaut that would shatter its opponents by as many as 60 points per game. The last student of James Naismith, basketball's inventor, McLendon had opened the door to its future.
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Could Have Been Great
- By Rich Hayami on 05-25-24
By: Scott Ellsworth
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Rome 1960
- The Olympics that Changed the World
- By: David Maraniss
- Narrated by: David Maraniss
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Abridged
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The athletes competing in the 1960 Rome Olympics included some of the most honored in Olympic history: decathlete Rafer Johnson, sprinter Wilma Rudolph, Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila, and Louisville boxer Cassius Clay, who at 18 seized the world stage for the first time, four years before he became Muhammad Ali.
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Very Good Book
- By Jay on 07-30-08
By: David Maraniss
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Twelve Mighty Orphans
- The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football
- By: Jim Dent
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 1930s and 1940s, there was nothing bigger in Texas high school football than the Masonic Home Mighty Mites - a group of orphans bound together by hardship and death. These youngsters, in spite of being outweighed by at least 30 pounds per man, were the toughest football team around. They began with nothing - not even a football - yet in a few years were playing for the state championship on the highest level of Texas football. This is a winning tribute to a courageous band of underdogs from a time when America desperately needed fresh hope and big dreams.
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Great story!!
- By Damian McKeon on 06-14-21
By: Jim Dent
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1969
- The Year Everything Changed
- By: Rob Kirkpatrick
- Narrated by: Jonah Cummings
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Woodstock, the moon landing, Charles Manson, Richard Nixon, the Vietnam War, and more. A must-have for baby boomers and the generations that came after! In this rich and comprehensive narrative, Rob Kirkpatrick chronicles an unparalleled year in American society in all its explosive ups and downs.
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What a year!!
- By kathy deal on 11-17-20
By: Rob Kirkpatrick
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Strange Stones
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Full of unforgettable figures and an unrelenting spirit of adventure, Strange Stones is a far-ranging, thought-provoking collection of Peter Hessler’s best reportage - a dazzling display of the powerful storytelling, shrewd cultural insight, and warm sense of humor that are the trademarks of his work. Over the last decade, as a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of three books, Peter Hessler has lived in Asia and the United States, writing as both native and knowledgeable outsider in these two very different regions.
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funny, entertaining
- By Katherine on 08-02-13
By: Peter Hessler
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Monsters
- The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football
- By: Rich Cohen
- Narrated by: Tom Taylorson
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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For Rich Cohen and millions of other fans, the 1985 Chicago Bears were more than a football team: they were the greatest football team ever - a gang of colorful nuts, dancing and pounding their way to victory. They won a Super Bowl and saved a city. It was not just that the Monsters of the Midway won but how they did it....
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For any Bears fans
- By Frank S. Saltiel on 11-18-21
By: Rich Cohen
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The Great Nowitzki
- Basketball and the Meaning of Life
- By: Thomas Pletzinger, Shane Anderson - translator
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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The seven-foot Dirk Nowitzki is one of the great players in basketball history. With a devastating fadeaway and unexpected agility, the Dallas Mavericks superstar helped to pioneer the modern three-shooting game and became a global ambassador for the sport. Award-winning novelist and sportswriter Thomas Pletzinger traveled with Nowitzki for more than seven years, seeking the secret of his success and longevity. In novelistic detail, Pletzinger tells the dramatic story of how a lanky kid from the German suburbs became a top-five all-time scorer and NBA champion.
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👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
- By Anonymous User on 08-22-24
By: Thomas Pletzinger, and others
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Terror in the City of Champions
- Murder, Baseball, and the Secret Society That Shocked Depression-Era Detroit
- By: Tom Stanton
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Detroit, mid-1930s: In a city abuzz over its unrivaled sports success, gun-loving baseball fan Dayton Dean became ensnared in the nefarious and deadly Black Legion. The secretive, Klan-like group was executing a wicked plan of terror, murdering enemies, flogging associates, and contemplating armed rebellion. The Legion boasted tens of thousands of members across the Midwest, among them politicians and prominent citizens - even, possibly, a beloved athlete.
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Interesting stories but oversold
- By Theron Schultz on 09-15-18
By: Tom Stanton
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The Missing Ring
- How Bear Bryant and the 1966 Alabama Crimson Tide Were Denied College Football's Most Elusive Prize
- By: Keith Dunnavant
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Very few institutions in American sports can match the enduring excellence of the University of Alabama football program. Across a wide swath of the last century, the tradition-rich Crimson Tide has claimed twelve national championships, captured 25 conference titles, finished 34 times among the country's top ten, and played in 53 bowl games.
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Fantastic
- By John Rogers on 03-29-18
By: Keith Dunnavant
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1 Dead in Attic
- After Katrina
- By: Chris Rose
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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1 Dead in Attic is a collection of stories by Times-Picayune columnist Chris Rose, recounting the first harrowing year and a half of life in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Celebrated as a local treasure and heaped with national praise, Rose provides a rollercoaster ride of observation, commentary, emotion, tragedy, and even humor - in a way that only he could find in a devastated wasteland. They are stories of the dead and the living, stories of survivors and believers, stories of hope and despair.
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Still Makes Me Hurt
- By Gillian on 02-27-15
By: Chris Rose
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Go Like Hell
- Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans
- By: A. J. Baime
- Narrated by: Jones Allen
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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By the early 1960s, Ford Motor Company, built to bring automobile transportation to the masses, was falling behind. Baby boomers were taking to the roads in droves, looking for speed not safety, style not comfort, and Ford didn’t offer what these young drivers wanted. Meanwhile, Enzo Ferrari lorded over the European racing scene, crafting beautiful, fast sports cars that epitomized style.
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Goldern age of racing
- By Dan R. on 01-26-15
By: A. J. Baime
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The 25th anniversary edition of the number-one New York Times best seller and Sports Illustrated's best football book of all time, with a new afterword by the author. Return once again to the timeless account of the Permian Panthers of Odessa - the winningest high school football team in Texas history.
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If you are a sports fan and over 35 years old, you have to listen/read this. Awesome!
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When two young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to growing apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths an ancient mass grave—only to discover that the earth refuse to give up their secrets.
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Look down as you buzz across America, and Oklahoma looks like another “flyover state.” A closer inspection, however, reveals one of the most tragic, fascinating, and unpredictable places in the United States In this book, Russell Cobb tells the story of a state rich in natural resources and artistic talent, yet near the bottom in education and social welfare. Raised in Tulsa, Cobb engages Oklahomans across the boundaries of race and class to hear their troubles, anxieties, and aspirations and delves deep to understand their contradictory and often stridently independent attitudes.
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What listeners say about Boom Town
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- John
- 10-16-19
astoundingly good
This book is fantastic, one of the best I have listened to on Audible. It's a riveting history of Oklahoma City braided with the story of their NBA team, the Thunder. If you are at all interested in basketball or American history, you will enjoy this.
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- William E. Franklin
- 06-01-19
Great Read!
As a native of Oklahoma City I found this book really informative. I was reminded of many experiences I forgot and learned some things I didn't know.
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Overall
- Amazon Customer
- 03-10-20
highly recomend
Good read! Fastest I have ever read a book,could not break away from it. Worth reading.
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- Bessie Lewis
- 02-05-20
Excellent history book about a weird place
Great book for curious minds. NBA, city planning, weather, etc. going back and forth through time and topics.
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- Djadelaney
- 12-23-22
made me care so much
wild ride. OKC is deeply fascinating. Anderson is a great storyteller, he managed to make me care a lot more about basketball then I ever have before. the chapter about the bombing was towards the end, which was excellent because it was contextualized by the experiences and positionality and legacies of all the people he introduced you to in prior chapters. made me cry. a masterpiece.
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- MjaO
- 10-22-19
Wonderful
Having lived in Norman, OK for 22 years the book brought back many memories. Reliving the bombing and tornadoes was hard. Enjoyed learning more about OK and the weather.
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- Luke W.
- 02-03-19
Just wow.
As an OKC native, and huge Thunder fan, I didn’t know half the details of the history of OKC that this book provided. Interwoven with the success and heartbreak of our beloved sports franchise, this book has it all. Highly recommended.
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- Clay Hoppers
- 07-25-23
Fun facts keep you coming back
Having grown up in Oklahoma I had lived through many of the events that make up this book. However, with each stories retelling, I learned amazing new details that enriched the historical value for me gave me a broader perspective on Oklahoma culture.
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- R. Holland
- 04-12-24
well told history of okc and the okc thunder
I really enjoyed this authors take on the history of OKC and the Thunder.
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- Cameron Noble
- 01-10-19
Interesting city
It’s an interesting story about a place you never think about. It’s a cool breakdown of a city that was made rather than evolved.
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