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BOOKS THREAD

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by Moderator1, Apr 22, 2005.

  1. Huggy

    Huggy Well-Known Member

    To continue with Vietnam books, The 13th Valley by John Del Vecchio is a highly recommended novel. It came out in the early-80s so it's probably been out of print for a while. Definitely worth looking for used or at the library.

    The Motley Crue book is one of the best rock books I have ever read. Aerosmith's autobiography, Walk This Way, is also great.
     
  2. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    On my tour through Barnes and Noble yesterday, I picked up Wonderland by Michael Bamberger. The SI guy spends a year at a Pennsylvania high school. Got about 100 pages into it while listening to the Nats lose - AGAIN - and it's very good thus far.
     
  3. Supernintendo Chalmers

    Supernintendo Chalmers Active Member

    Lollygagged through Borders yesterday and picked up Babes in Boyland by Gina Barreca, about a tough ethnic New York girl who gets accepted and attends Dartmouth circa 1975. The school has been co-ed only a few years then and "better dead than co-ed" remains the prevailing sentiment.

    It's 154 pages and I finished it last night. Good read with humorous insight, personal histories and outstanding pieces of writing, and, great insight into the mindset and culture of one of the last male bastions of Ivy League staunchness before equality and Title IX really exploded into the national conscienceness.
     
  4. HC

    HC Well-Known Member

    In an earlier post, I mentioned Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air". I'd like to add a mention for his "Under the Banner of Heaven" which uses a murder in a fundamentalist Mormon sect as a starting point for a fascinating look at Mormonism. Absolutely riveting stuff.
     
  5. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    Yes- I thought it was the best fiction on Nam

    Pokey - a better book on West Point is "The Long Gray Line" by Rick Atkinson.

    Jarhead - too winey

    Best Iraqi conflict books so far:

    Thunder Run - David Zucchino

    In The Companny of Soldiers - Rick Atkinson

    Best Book I have read in past year:

    Charlie Wilson's War.

    Best Baseball Book This Year- The Last Night of The Yankee Dynasty -- Buster Olney.
     
  6. Webster

    Webster Well-Known Member

    Just finished "Every Time I Talk to Liston" by Brian DeVido, a relatively short first novel about boxing. The lead, a long in the tooth boxer, often gets his inspiration from imaginary talks with Sonny Liston. Sweet book and a very good read.

    I also recently read "Love Monkey" by Kyle Smith, a former writer at the NY Post. Sort of a Nick Hornsby book written by a New Yorker. Falls apart a bit at the end, but a very fun read.
     
  7. Ledbetter

    Ledbetter Active Member

    If you like Krakauer, and I've mention Under the Banner on another thread, check out Into the Wild. It will knock your fuckin' socks off.
     
  8. Beer_Baron

    Beer_Baron Member

    Agreed, Dorsey's stuff is so surreal and bizarre! And Serge is a great antihero.
     
  9. I got a jones a few years back for a Southern writer named TR Pearson, whom I think is one of the funniest people I've ever read. He's got a new one - Glad News From The Natural World - that's really fine. (Check out the guy whose wife only allows him to smoke in cemeteries).
    Nick Kotz's Judgment Days, about LBJ and MLK, is terrific, as is Michael Ybarra's huuuuggggge Washington Gone Crazy, about Pat McCarran, the real Joe McCarthy.
     
  10. Bill Brasky

    Bill Brasky Active Member

    The Pat McCarran book sounds interesting. Have you ever read "The Money and the Power" by Sally Denton and Roger Morris? It's about the people who built Las Vegas. It's flawed but very entertaining. Imagine if James Ellroy wrote an American history textbook.
    Recently favorites: "Assassination Vacation" by Sarah Vowell -- her take on the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. It's an easy, interesting read and she's so witty and fun.
    "The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry" by Legs McNeil. It's entertaining. Not as good as the oral history of punk he did several years ago, but worthwhile.
     
  11. Timbo --
    The McCarran book is about everything having to do with Nevada since the Indians left, Vegas included. I'll check out the ones you suggested.
    Hate to say it, but I picked up the McNeil porn book at Borders the other day and wound up browsing it for about an hour.
    Yeesh.
     
  12. 2muchcoffeeman

    2muchcoffeeman Well-Known Member

    I'm calling bullshit.

    Led Zep, anyone?

    [​IMG]
     
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