BOOKS THREAD

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

Agreed, Dorsey's stuff is so surreal and bizarre! And Serge is a great antihero.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

I'm calling bullshit.

Led Zep, anyone?