I really enjoyed this book. My family is from Oklahoma, specifically Tulsa, but we go to OKC a lot, especially for the basketball games so this was a really fun read to learn more about the place we visit. I thought it was well written and kept me entertained and now I feel like it is even more fun to go there.

"Boomtown" is a feisty, well-written look at Oklahoma City and the many tumultuous events of its creation. The author adopts an ingratiating tone of fascination with, and occasional bewilderment, of the growth cycle this one-time small-town experienced. Should be most appealing to readers of eclectic travelogues with a good dose of the author's personality tossed in. Recommended. Thanks to NetGalley for an advance reading copy.

I could make this review really short and just say I loved this book. It was amazing! I had no idea about the history of OKC and I enjoyed learning about every minute of it. Anderson wove together the interesting start of the state of Oklahoma along with the 2012-13 season of the Oklahoma City Thunder. And within that, there were other famous OKC legends who were new to me and who I now know about. It was a really great book and didn’t really read like non-fiction at all.

This was such a great book! I was not sure how it would be to read nonfiction on the history of Oklahoma City, but it was truly an enjoyable and fascinating read! I loved how the author tied it all to the Oklahoma Thunder, but literally started from the beginning of when OKC was formed and covered ground on the key events to present day. I am from Dallas, so I am vaguely familiar with key events, such as weather, the bombing, the oil boom, etc., but I had no idea about the Land Run, sonic boom testing on residents (horrific), the Flaming Lips, and many other characters and events. This was a well written book that kept my attention, was not dry, and provided just enough detail that I felt I got a thorough explanation of everything I needed to know about this city. I am shocked at how much time Anderson spent in this town interviewing residents, researching stories, and even went on the walk by himself that the residents wanting to claim land during the Land Run would have had to do. Very impressive. I highly recommend this book even if you are not from Oklahoma, and even if you do not like the Flaming Lips!

I was excited when I saw the advertisement for this book and I enjoyed it so much! I was born in Oklahoma, studied Oklahoma history in school and still love learning everything Oklahoma. Mr Anderson does a fantastic job telling the story of OKC. It's easy to see that he not only did the legwork to insure the accuracy of his story, he enjoyed the job. I've told all my friends, relatives and others, whether Okies or not, that they have to read this book. I got so much enjoyment from the book. I thought I was an Okie expert, but I learned some new things along the way. It's not just the history, it's a great story too.

Impeccably researched, though a bit too in love with Wayne Coyne. I learned a lot about my home state.

There a few versions of Oklahoma City. There's the "bombing" OKC. There's the "flyover state" OKC. Then there's the Thunder version.

Sam Anderson has taken Oklahoma City, the OKC Thunder and, really, the state of Oklahoma and combined it into a fantastic story. Shooing back and forth through time, Anderson captures what makes Oklahoma and the Thunder so great. This is the story of a great state, a state that popped up over night, a state that had a college before it was officially recognized as a state. There's the Land Run, tornados, Wayne Coyne, Gary England. There's also Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden.

I always find it hard to describe Oklahoma. Yes, it in the middle of the country and yes, it's full of people with very conservative values. But it's also the home of Clara Luper and Ralph Ellison, Wanda Jackson and Garth Brooks. The passion that Oklahomans have for college football combined and made the OKC Thunder one of the most beloved teams in professional sports. Oklahomas love what is theirs. We love each other and we love Oklahoma.

This is a basketball book. This is a history book. This is Oklahoma.

I had mixed feelings about this book. At least the parts that piqued my interest, the passages about the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team, were interesting and I especially enjoyed reading about the angst felt when one of the young stars of the team, James Harden, was going to leave and sign with another team. The writing about Garden's trademark heard was very entertaining.

But the rest of the book wasn't doing it for me. I had trouble fitting together the entire history of the city and at times I couldn't figure out what it had to do with the basketball team. The book felt disjointed at times. Overall I will give it a passing grade for the basketball but that is all I liked about it.

“Why not?”
— Russell Westbrook, all the time
“Why not?” perfectly encapsulates Oklahoma City Thunder star Russell Westbrook, and, as Sam Anderson consistently alludes to in his new book, Boom Town (I’m not writing out that subtitle again), it turns out that it is a fitting mantra for OKC as a city. Why allow the cheaters to have the best land in Oklahoma City from the moment of its founding? Why not? Why, for a short time, become the largest city by land area in the world by way of neverending annexation grabs? Why not? (Oklahoma City is still the largest US city by land area outside of Alaska, Wyoming, and Jacksonville, Florida.) That is the spirit of a boom town, and OKC is one if there ever was one. I don’t know this from experience. I know this because of Sam Anderson.
My sister-in-law and her family live in Oklahoma City, and when we have visited we have been all over downtown to go to various restaurants, but reading Sam Anderson’s book has made me want to see all of these specific places that have so much backstory to them. It is not quite right to call those stories history, because that gives the impression that something of great importance happened to give them life. And maybe that’s the most fitting thing about Oklahoma City as Sam Anderson describes it: it isn’t nearly as important as it is interesting. The things I want to see most are not the bombing memorial or Devon Tower (although I would like to visit those), but places like the rainbow-painted road that Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips created himself, illegally and in one night, with the help of the author himself. Anderson has even convinced me that maybe what makes a good history book is not proving importance or relevance, but cultivating interest and details.

Boom Town primarily revolves around, as Anderson writes, OKC’s “purloined basketball team”, the Oklahoma City Thunder. He covered the Thunder for the entire high-hopes 2012 season, and he includes countless details from the surrounding years to fill out the picture of this relatively-new civic institution. I remember many of the events described in Boom Town, but I had forgotten a lot and had not connected the grand narrative because, honestly, I am a Spurs fan and thus have wavered back and forth on my feelings about the Thunder since their inception. The basketball stuff is terrific and was one of my favorite parts of the book, especially the story leading up to the theft of the Seattle SuperSonics that, coincidentally, includes actual (failed) supersonic boom testing in none other than Oklahoma City. However, loving basketball is not a prerequisite to loving this book. It probably helps some, but you will most likely find the basketball stories interesting enough while happily enjoying the rest.

Although the Thunder and their story provide the fuel for Boom Town’s story, the majority of the book does not have to do with the Thunder at all. Anderson paints a comprehensive portrait of the city’s founding, its city planning and the ever-present attempts to become a major US metropolis, and the dual disasters: the Oklahoma City bombing, and tornadoes. Both the Oklahoma City bombing and OKC’s weather received at least passing nods early in the book, they take over the final chapters as Anderson weaves in the stories of all those characters you have met in Oklahoma City, providing a personal touch that is simply unmatched. As Anderson writes: “The interconnectedness can sometimes be overwhelming.”
Sam Anderson is a wonderful writer that I hope to read a lot more as he moves on to new projects. Go get Boom Town today, as it is currently the #1 bestseller in “Basketball” books on Amazon and figures to be a very popular book among non-basketball fans as well.

I received this book as an eARC courtesy of Crown Publishing and NetGalley, but my opinions are my own.

I kept looking at this book and thinking, Nah, I don't want to read about Oklahoma City and what do I know or care about professional basketball? But something kept making me look at it again. The cover perhaps? Whatever, I finally requested an advanced reader copy, and thank you Crown Publishing and Net Galley for giving me a chance to read it. I was gobsmacked; it is one of the best books I've read in a long time. It's been described by other reviewers as brilliant and kaleidoscopic. Yes and yes.

The book is indeed about Oklahoma City, the city that desperately wants to be world class but fails at it with regularity. Their airport, for example, is named for their native son, humorist, newspaper columnist, and social commentator, Will Rogers. Will Rogers World Airport, this grandiose title even though no international flights originate from or arrive there.

The author and award-winning journalist, Sam Anderson, has a delicious sense of humor. He bounces back and forth between Oklahoma City (OKC) history; a grab bag of odd local characters, both living and dead; and the pride of the city, the basketball team they stole from Seattle, the Thunder (formerly known as the SuperSonics). I will write a longer review for The Internet Review of Books, but, bottom line: do yourself a favor and read it.

BOOMTOWN by Sam Anderson provides a vivid, unique and entertaining view of the history of Oklahoma City, from the Land Run that haphazardly created this one-of-a-kind city, all the way to the OKC Thunder, which brought much needed attention to a city who seemed to have lost it's identity recently.
Anderson balanced present and past stories of Oklahoma City and all the time showed the boom (and eventual bust) approach to all things. That through line was felt in well researched stories of the creation and growth of the city and also through the more recent chapters about the NBA Thunder team and Wanye Coyne, lead signer of the band The Flaming Lips, amongst others. For a reader like me who hasn't been to central US much and never to Oklahoma, Anderson does an excellent of of creating a desire for me to visit, in spite of Anderson's very clear description of the awful weather, the recent rise in earthquakes, and the general isolation from much of the rest of the US that Oklahoma City feels daily. That's one of the reasons that Anderson's book is so good, his writing draws you into a very unconventional and often despressing city because it's clear that Anderson has an strong affinity for the city and wants his readers to as well.
Oklahoma City is like no other major city in the US; it's creation, it's mentality, it's weather beaten history. Sam Anderson's BOOMTOWN paints a clear and realistic picture of Oklahoma City, warts and all. Any reader interesting in finding out about such a rare and wonderful city Oklahoma City reall is would enjoy this book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this non-fiction look at Oklahoma City. Nope. I'm not from Oklahoma. Have no ties to the city and, honestly, just picked this book up on a lark. I'm so glad I did. Sam Anderson's writing captivates from the first page. This book tells the story of Oklahoma City from being the bottom of an ocean on the continent of Pangea to present day. (Don't worry, not in chronological order and not in detail). Anderson shifts from historic stories to the story of the hometown NBA team, the OKC Thunder. I recommend this book for any non-fiction reader and if there is a slight hesitation it's to warn you that there is a LOT about basketball. I'm a sports fan and enjoyed those stories, but, the book is proportionately heavy on how the story of the basketball team stands in for the story and culture of the entire city. Great out-of-the-box read.

A fun, unique, and compulsively readable history of a city that I'd never given much thought to. I went from vaguely being aware of Oklahoma City to having deep feelings for the city and its inhabitants. The framing device -- switching between the story of the OKC Thunder and its meteoric rise and the creation of OKC -- was incredibly effective.

I had never heard of this author but what a great style of writing. I will never think of OKC as just tornadoes, a truck bomb, and/or basketball. I thought the b-ball piece hung on a bit but as for the rest great style and writing and information. Sad the city seem determined to become a Midwest metropolis when they could be something brand new. Enjoy

Not much is ever said about Oklahoma City. It’s not pushed as a glitzy vacation spot. It’s not a glamorous fashion center or a mighty factory town. Its bigness is only associated with its footprint and its devastating weather. Its NBA basketball team is electrifying mainly to its fanatical fans. So, what makes Sam Anderson’s detailed account of Oklahoma City, “Boom Town,” so readable? It’s all in the writing.

Oklahoma City has always been about becoming something. The bizarre land rush of 1889 was filled with wild-eyed optimists who imagined snatching up land that would bring them wealth beyond belief. That was the start of the city’s constant search for promise and order that made it grow like Topsy. But it always stumbled and fell back, over and over, as it tried to grow into the immense shoes it created. It has never quite accomplished that stability, although its city limit footprint is one of the largest in the world.

“The Process” is the term used to describe the city’s attempt at a persistent and orderly planning scheme. Mayors, city managers, planning experts, and even the basketball team’s general manger have all extolled “the process” as being the great creator of magnificent schemes aimed at bringing Oklahoma City into world-beating excellence. All have fallen short making the city appear as the clumsy chubby kid trying to dunk a basketball or climb a rope.

Sam Anderson uses mind-numbing research and an exciting writing style to chronicle all this energy and industriousness. Through the years many politicians and social scientists have cajoled and convinced the residents to back their schemes. The cycle has gone up and down with huge gains in population and economics, inevitably followed by disasters and fouled plans that return the city to poverty and hubris.

Anderson details geography, history, meteorology, and human nature in a gripping narrative style that keeps the reader involved in the story about a municipality that becomes almost human under his touch. He has great insight and information about a myriad of characters that have played a part in this riveting drama. Basketball superstars, oddball musicians, legendary weathermen, dogmatic planners, civil rights activists, and a mad bomber all show up in Anderson’s narrative.

This is Sam Anderson’s first book, although he is a staff writer for “The New York Times Magazine.” He captured me with a writing style that was entrancing with its economy and lack of pretentiousness. I became a part of something that perhaps I never thought would be interesting but found to be riveting. He is a joy to read.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book. I've lived in Nichols Hills since Hurricane Katrina spit us out of Mississippi's Gulf Coast. The entire state has been a mystery to me.

I had never heard of Sam Anderson, sorry Sam, but I won't forget him! This was the best unvarnished look at who makes the rules here and what the powers that be have envisioned for the city.  Oklahoma City is a huge sprawling area of tiny pockets of old-established neighborhoods. While there have been huge improvements to downtown OKC, beyond the city center the homeless linger under bridges and overpasses and oil and gas rules. Unemployment is rampant unless you are an oil field worker and even then you may only have a job until it's bonus time.

From the Land Run to Aubrey Mclendon's spectacular exit from his oil and gas woes to the Flaming Lips front man Wayne Coyne, whose house I have been in and it is just as weird and wacko as Sam will tell you about.

I laughed so hard all the way through this book. Sam has captured the city perfectly as well as all of its most colorful residents.

Very Well Done and I look forward to more from this author!

Netgalley/August 21st 2018 by Crown

Very engaging history of Oklahoma City. Although it dealt with the OKC Thunder more than I originally expected, I really enjoyed Anderson's writing style. He provided a lot of heart along with his snark. I have personal ties to the city and it was a great opportunity to relate my experiences to the different stories Anderson told.