BOOKS THREAD

[HC]

Just completed "The Devil All the Time" by Donald Ray Pollock. It was described somewhere -- and now I can't remember where -- as Flannery O'Connor meets "Kalifornia," and that's about right. It's absolutely beautifully written, and about as haunting as anything I've read. Highest recommendation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/books/review/the-devil-all-the-time-by-donald-ray-pollock-book-review.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

HC -- get on this.

Just added it on Goodreads and put the library request in!

 

[Gold]

I'm a Pat Conroy fan and just finished "My Losing Season."

Good book, but wow, what a rip job on his basketball coach at The Citadel.

It's a good thing he's a literary book writer -- although this one is autobiographical and first-hand, first-person in nature -- and not a newspaper writer.

I think Conroy played in the 1960s. In a lot of places, college basketball wasn't played all that seriously.

 

[BenPoquette]

Started Instant Replay today. Little embarrassed it's taken me this long to read it.

Ha. Instant Replay may have been the first "grown-up" book I ever read. Either that or Catcher in the Rye. I thought Catcher in the Rye was going to be about a baseball player but I kept reading because I enjoyed the swearing, rants and rebellion.

This. I think I was seven or eight years old and tired of reading "Then Again, Maybe I Won't" and "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing." I looked at my parents' bookshelf and saw a book with a football player on the back. Started reading and loved it. My mother took me to the bookstore soon after where I picked up "They Call me Assassin" and Johnny Sample's "Confessions of a Dirty Ballplayer." Have been hooked on sports books ever since.

 

[Colton]

I just started reading "The Umpire Strikes Back" (1982), by Ron Luciano with David Fisher (re-reading actually, I haven't looked at it since the 1980's). I can't believe how long Luciano got away with all of his antics...that would NOT fly in today's game. It's also a little sad knowing that he committed suicide in 1995, from Wiki: "In January 1995 Luciano was found dead at age 57 in his garage at his home in Endicott, a victim of suicide via carbon monoxide poisoning. He reportedly suffered from depression for many years, and he was hospitalized for its treatment in early 1994." Makes you wonder if mental illness was an issue during his umpiring days.

Loved this book as a kid. Remember my favorite line was about Nolan Ryan and how he told the batter, "sounded like a strike."

 

[Greenhorn]

The Antagonists by James F. Simon. A really good (if short at 260 pages) dual biography of Felix Frankfurter and Hugo Black and their intense rivalry.

 

[Huggy]

Read Who I Am by Pete Townshend, exactly the kind of memoir I expected from him. I am a huge Who fan, but it reminded me a lot of Clapton's book - which was a major disappointment - choosing to almost ignore the music that made him famous in favour of endless tales about his substance abuse and turbulent personal life. Some good looks behind the scenes at he dynamics of The Who and Townshend did a good job of discussing his post-Who solo stuff and the development of the Tommy musical.

Just finished The Presidents Club which I really enjoyed.

 

[Greenhorn]

Thomas Dewey and His Times by Richard Norton Smith. The definitive bio of a forgotten GOP figure. Dewey's political life demonstrates how different his party is now as then. In 1948, Dewey actually campaigned on preserving Social Security and raising the minimum wage and refused calls to outlaw the American Communist Party.

Throughout the book, Senator Robert Taft serves as Dewey's chief protagonist. Taft is much like Ted Cruz today: elite education, ambitions for the White House, right-wing and hated by fellow GOPers.

Dewey stands as a reminder that he was the last prominent figure in the GOP before his party slipped tragically into McCarthyism, Goldwaterites and the current Tea Party.

 

[Gold]

I'm a Pat Conroy fan and just finished "My Losing Season."

Good book, but wow, what a rip job on his basketball coach at The Citadel.

It's a good thing he's a literary book writer -- although this one is autobiographical and first-hand, first-person in nature -- and not a newspaper writer.

It's been a while since I have read the book, but I don't remember him ripping the coach that much. In the 1960s, college basketball wasn't taken seriously in a lot of places.

 

[heyabbott]

Has anyone read Sepinwall's book?

Is it worth getting? about $10 on Kindle

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Has anyone read Sepinwall's book?

Is it worth getting? about $10 on Kindle

It's sitting on my coffee table. I'm sure it's worth it. Mine was free, but I do have to take it back to the library eventually.

Just finished the Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction in 2013, the Orphan Master's Son. Not sure it's Pulitzer-worthy. It's good, don't get me wrong. I think that since it is a novel set in North Korea, and there are very few of those, it won the prize. Is it a novel ABOUT North Korea? Who knows how much of the subject matter is based on reality and how much the author just dreamed up. It's pretty outlandish in its descriptions of the prison camps, starving people scrounging up food, and people living in fear of saying the wrong thing to get sent to the camps.

 

[HC]

Has anyone read Sepinwall's book?

Is it worth getting? about $10 on Kindle

I've read some bits from JR's copy and like it very much. Will eventually get down to reading the whole thing but definitely $10 well spent IMO (assuming you like Sepinwall).

 

[Riptide]

Just finished the Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction in 2013, the Orphan Master's Son. Not sure it's Pulitzer-worthy. It's good, don't get me wrong. I think that since it is a novel set in North Korea, and there are very few of those, it won the prize. Is it a novel ABOUT North Korea? Who knows how much of the subject matter is based on reality and how much the author just dreamed up. It's pretty outlandish in its descriptions of the prison camps, starving people scrounging up food, and people living in fear of saying the wrong thing to get sent to the camps.

I'm a huge fan of Nelson DeMille, and his book "Up Country" is one of my best reads ever. Set in North Vietnam a couple of decades after the war, it's an intense spy thriller that also gives you a decent look into the communist nation today. Lots of traveling about during the mission, so it's a good little travelogue, too.

Like all of DeMille's books, "Up Country" is hard to put down. Riveting all the way.

 

[heyabbott]

Maybe this should be another thread but I want to read quality, even if its a slower read. So my research has led me to the following writers, Roth, Delilo, Chabon, mcCarthy and Docktorow. I've read Sabbaths Theater and The Plot Against America.
Give me some reading suggestions, please

 

[Riptide]

It's Doctorow, not Docktorow.

 

[heyabbott]

It's Doctorow, not Docktorow.

i no.

 

[buckweaver]

It's Doctorow, not Docktorow.

i no.

Pass on him. I read "Ragtime" and "The March." "Ragtime" was decent but overwritten. That said, I appreciate its place in history and its influence over a lot of the historical fiction that I do like (notably, Dennis Lehane.)

"The March" was just trash. Poor plot, poor development of characters ... dreadfully boring.

By all accounts, I should be a great Doctorow fan. But I just can't get into him.

 

[JackReacher]

Just finished Someone Could Get Hurt (a memoir of 21st century parenthood) by Drew Magary. I'm not even a parent and I still found it hilarious. It also reinforced the whole "I'm never having kids" thing as well, which was nice.

Any parents with a sense of humor should give it a read. He does mix in a serious tone, though, especially when talking about the complications after the birth of his third child. Some scary stuff.

 

[Riptide]

It's Doctorow, not Docktorow.

i no.

Pass on him. I read "Ragtime" and "The March." "Ragtime" was decent but overwritten. That said, I appreciate its place in history and its influence over a lot of the historical fiction that I do like (notably, Dennis Lehane.)

"The March" was just trash. Poor plot, poor development of characters ... dreadfully boring.

By all accounts, I should be a great Doctorow fan. But I just can't get into him.

I liked "Ragtime" a lot as a story from that time. But it's the only Doctorow book I've read.

 

[Huggy]

Rod Stewart's autobiography is highly recommended, very entertaining, funny and honest.

 

[H.L. Mencken]

'yab:

Try "The Yiddish Policeman's Union." It represents Chabon hitting his sweet spot. Literary, re-imagined history, great characters, but also tethered to a plot that moves the action forward.

If you like it, move on to Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It is much more dense, but moving and effective by the end.