BOOKS THREAD

Have you read any of those books? If so, why haven't you posted about them? Or did you just look them up for the benefit of mocking and looking smart?

I'll be open to reading them -- probably will, actually, since that's what I do when I want to know about something -- but I don't really need to. I've learned a lot, and probably know most of what would be in those books.

Islam, as intended and lived by Muhammad, and as recorded by history, is a violent, dangerous religion. There's really no getting around it. Muslims who are not so are simply being more moderate and westernized (and smarter, and more open-minded and modern, in my opinion). That's better, of course, but really, they're also, typically, not as informed and aware, and they're not practicing it as it is, and as it was intended.

Al-Qaeda and ISIS are doing that.

 

You crack me up.

OK, back to talking books.

 

The SJ.com book club now has a MISSION STATEMENT!

 

From my point of view this is better than Moddy thundering "Every time Huggy posts in this thread he costs me money!"

 

And you don't answer questions. Read the books, as suggested.

 

Just finished Gunslinger by Jeff Pearlman. Great read. Currently, I'm working on Condoleezza Rice's new book Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom.

 

Love that series!

 

My 12-year-old daughter has to read this before school starts in the fall, so I figured I would read it first so we could talk about it, have some daddy-daughter literature discussions...blah blah. So I knocked it out in a couple or three days. As I was getting close to the end, I was thinking that there weren't very many pages left to bring this to a meaningful conclusion, and my fears were warranted.

Somewhere in our house, I have a book called The Big Book of Funny, or something like that. It's a collection of cartoons and essays and other humorous stuff. In one article about "how to write good," it's suggested that a good ending to a story is to say, "And all of a sudden, everyone got run over by an ice cream truck," when there had been no ice cream truck in the story previously. That's what the end of this book felt like. It was abrupt. The whole story wasn't great, but the ending was just...not good.

Joe Bob says pass on this one.

 

Just finished "Peak Performance." I highly recommend it for weekend athletes and managers.

Peak Performance

 

If you like cop/crime fiction, run, don't walk, to get The Force by Don Winslow. Just an incredible book. I devoured The Cartel and it might be better than that.

 

Aside from being a great cop/crime book it is a great New York book, the city is all over it. I can't imagine the movie rights for this will come cheaply.