Michael Jordan's "For The Love Of The Game: My Story,"
a 156-page coffee table book, hits stores today. The book
(Crown Publishers, $50) chronicles Jordan's life and
examines his playing career and business dealings (Crown).
Crown took out a full-page ad in the USA TODAY sports
section for the book, with the tag "Only Jordan Can Cover
Jordan." More info on the book can be found at
www.randomhouse.com/michaeljordan (USA TODAY, 10/27).
EARLY SKINNY: In Chicago, Ed Sherman reported that
Crown "is beginning to think" that its first printing of
750,000 copies, which is "unprecedented for this kind of
book, may have been a bit conservative." Jordan writes in
the book that he wanted to sign a deal with adidas instead
of Nike when he turned pro, but adidas never made him an
offer. Sherman: "Think adidas would like to have that one
back?" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 10/26). NEWSWEEK's Mark Starr
calls the book "a Jordan junkie's dream, a compendium of all
facets of the man" (NEWSWEEK, 11/2 issue).
WHO HAS "HOMECOURT ADVANTAGE?" In DC, Kevin Merida
examines "Homecourt Advantage," the novel written by Rita
Ewing, who is separated from Knicks C Patrick Ewing, and
Crystal McCrary, the wife of Sonics G Greg Anthony, on the
front page of the WASHINGTON POST's Style section. Merida
calls the book "336 pages of lust and distrust, gossip and
innuendo, the trappings of money and the seductions of
power. ... It's a romp, not anything else. ... The dialogue,
for the most part, is pedestrian and cliche-ridden, the plot
unimaginatively improbable." McCrary, on the book: "It's
not going to win a Pulitzer Prize. So we're not kidding
ourselves" (Kevin Merida, WASHINGTON POST, 10/27).
