The Basketball Diaries

By: Jim Carroll

Narrated by: Jim Carroll

In his teens, Jim Carroll roamed the streets of New York, shooting baskets with some of New York's best "playground" stars, and shooting heroin with some of the city's most memorable street characters. The Basketball Diaries is his chronicle of those years. Written while in his teens, it is a literary tour-de-force and a stunning portrait of contemporary urban street life. The characters and incidents are moving and funny and sad, but always very real.©1963 -1978 by Jim Carroll (P)1994 by Audio Literature

Critic reviews

"At thirteen, Jim Carroll writes better prose than 89 percent of the novelists working today." (Jack Kerouac)

Jim Carroll is a punk poet legend.

I am very happy to hear his unique voice.i was lucky to see him in person and miss his writing

I LOVED THIS EXPERIENCE

I wish I were a better writer as this book deserves a better review than my skill level will allow.
To start off, I watch the movie first. I watched it while I was also in the first few years of my addiction. I also used iv opiates and was very addicted. I had a dream that I was lying in a bed with Leo kicking our habit together, it was vivid. so I have a special place in my heart for the movie because it feels like it was a part of my recovery. The audio file itself is high quality and Jim speaks clearly and is easy to understand. He is fairly descriptive and it's easy to Invision the scenes as he describes them. It reads like journal as it is one. it keeps you hanging on every word, everything seems interesting to hear. anyways, that's about all I can think of to say.

Interesting snapshot of time

This provides a pretty comprehensive look at his teenage years and the poor choices that accompanied them.
For me, it never really hooked me or got off the ground, but I’m not sorry I listened to it.

A better movie....

The audiobook has some good parts and there were two in particular that I most certainly enjoyed and wouldn't even have known about had I not decided to listen to the book. BUT with that said, the ending is bad compared to that of the movei - and overall, I found the narrator's voice to be a tad annoying. (Guess DiCaprio plays him better than he does?)

Classic

Beautiful book and it's nice to hear Jim read it. Classic coming of age story.