Not much beats a good book.

Christmas is just four days away, but if you’re still looking for a gift or two for your favorite armchair quarterback, here are a few suggestions from some of the better sports books or reads with sports themes that I have come across in recent years.

Nonfiction

“Glory of Their Times,” by Lawrence Ritter: For this book first published in 1966, Ritter decided to track down some of Major League Baseball’s standout from the 1910s and ’20s and record their stories. I almost never reread books, but I have found myself picking this up almost every spring in anticipation of the baseball season. (Yeah, even Royals fans have hope in March.) Each chapter is a different player’s story, told as a first-person narrative, about their lives in and around baseball. An amazing treasure-trove of early baseball and American history.

“Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman,” by Jon Krakauer: The story of Arizona Cardinal safety Pat Tillman, who left behind a multimillion-dollar NFL contract to join the U.S. Army after the attacks of Sept. 11 and eventually was killed in Afghanistan by “friendly fire.” While the book is a solid look at Tillman’s life and a decision to join the military, its real strengths lie in its description of the confusion and chaos surrounding his death.

Prepare to finish the book angry.

“The Art of a Beautiful Game: The Thinking Fan’s Tour of the NBA,” by Chris Ballard: Ballard, who has covered the NBA for Sports Illustrated for more than 10 years, dispels the notion that the pro game is “just a bunch of guys playing one-on-one.” A lifelong pickup player, Ballard interviews different current and former NBA players on various aspects of the game. He plays H-O-R-S-E with Steve Kerr, talks to Kobe Bryant about developing a killer instinct, and analyzes what exactly is the key to rebounding. Some chapters are a little more engaging than others, but the book is great when players go into detail about why they do what they do.

“The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds,” by Joe Posnanski: You don’t have to be a fan of the Reds to enjoy Posnanski’s retelling of the Reds’ 1975 season. Posnanski, a former Kansas City Star columnist who gained fame this fall with the publication of his biography on Joe Paterno — simply titled “Paterno” — does a fantastic job weaving in the various characters and subplots surrounding the Reds’ World Series run.

“Unbroken: A WWII Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption,” by Laura Hillenbrand: Louis Zamperini, a standout distance runner at USC in the 1930s who ran in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, goes through hell and back as a prisoner of war in Japan during World War II. Not so much a sports story as it is a tale of endurance — Zamperini survives a plane wreck, weeks at sea in a life raft, and a Japanese POW camp — Hillenbrand moves the story along like a fast-action novel.

Fiction

“The Art of Fielding,” by Chad Harbach: Set in a fictional small liberal arts college in the Midwest, “The Art of Fielding” taps into the heart and soul of every small-college athlete and anyone about to leave school and enter the real world. Centered around Westish College’s NCAA Division III baseball team, Harbach’s story follows the Harpooners during a season of highs and lows.

“Gold,” by Chris Cleave: A novel centered around the relationship between two world-class cyclists, “Gold” fleshes out the extremes elite athletes often choose to compete at the highest level. Great read, even if you have zero interest in cycling.