True Believers by humorist Joe Queenan is a great read for football season. If you are a rabid sports fan (you know who you are), you will appreciate this book. Queenan opens his book by recounting his visits to a therapist for his sports addiction problem. He and the therapist quickly reach an impasse when Queenan can’t understand how he can care more about the fate of the rain forest than that of the Philadelphia 76erers. This book had me laughing from the get go, because I could relate to many of Queenan’s sentiments. There is a particularly hilarious chapter on front-running fans, (whom I also find annoying). While Queenan states that these fans have the right to be front runners, he does not believe that “such individuals should ever be married, befriended, employed, feted, consulted, or fed . . . . .Attention, marriageable females: If you go through your Los Angelino boyfriend’s closet and find a Chicago Bulls jersey, call off the wedding. If he betrayed the Lakers, he will have no trouble betraying you.”

There is also a great chapter on parents bringing up their kids to be fans. Any parent who has tried to take their young kids to a sporting event will appreciate Queenan’s account. His theory is that concession lines are long at major league baseball games because nobody really wants to watch more than six innings or so of baseball anyway. And, if you take your kids to the concessions three times during the game to get snacks, you might actually make it to the end of the game!  He decries those “mentally ill” parents who bring their own snacks thus ensuring they will only make it to the bottom of the fifth before having to leave. If you don’t mind laughing at yourself or fellow fans, give this one a try!