BOOKS THREAD

Tom Jordan, a former Track & Field News staffer, wrote a paperback entitlled, "Pre." It originally was published in 1977 and was rereleased when the two Prefontaine biopics were released in the lates 1990s. Jordan now is the promoter of the Prefontaine Classic, a major track and field meet held annually in Eugene, Ore.

Kenny Moore has a book forthcoming about the entire Oregon distance running community: "Bowerman and the Men of Oregon." Moore, one of Bowerman's men at Oregon, was fourth in the marathon at the 1972 Olympics. He went on to become a staffer at Sports Illustrated.

Pre has to be a major fiigure in Moore's book.

 

I'm almost ashamed to post here, given my lack of input in this thread to this point. But I must make a pitch for Kindred's "Sound and Fury." I just finished the book. A compelling character study of two imperfect men. You will not put it down.

 

Davis, Burke. Sherman's March. New York: Vintage Books, 1980. (Near definitive, but a trifle dense.)

Glatthaar, Joseph T. The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman's Troops in the Savannah and Carolinas Campaign. New York: Vintage, 1985.

For historical fiction on the march, Cynthia Bass' Sherman's March (1995) has been critically acclaimed. The story is told through the lens of three disparate participants: A captain in Sherman's army, a destitute Confederate widow in the army's path and the general himself. I like this one the best. Good fiction, good storytelling, faithful to the record.

 

FH:

Thanks for this. I'm heading out this weekend to pick it up.

Keep me posted in the meantime.

 

Wait until you read about James Callender, the Robert Novak of his day. Picture Novak as a drunken Scot with the morals of a pure mercenary and the blind venom of Rush Limbaugh and you've got Callender, who had Thomas Jefferson holding his leash in place of Dubya.

Callender first broke the story about Alexander Hamilton's adulterous affair with the wife of a sleazbag speculator, when he wasn't trashing John Adams and other Federalists. Then -- after Jefferson was elected president and reneged on getting Callender a govermental job -- Callender turned on his former benefactor and broke the Sally Hemings story.

Callender's career ended when he was found dead in three feet of water. The circumstances of his death were never cleared up.

 

Birdscribe,

Callender was smarter than Novak, Matt Drudge and 10 Limbaughs combined, and his pen was the equivalent of the South Sea cone shell. He had enormous talent, he just happened to be a complete, unrepentant and wasteful dickweed. There is some speculation that Jefferson had him offed, but a truncheon of whiskey a day will find you belly up in shallow waters sooner rather than later.

If you're interested in the character, check out With the Hammer of Truth: James Thomson Callender and America's Early National Heroes by Michael Durey. Hell of a book, lifelike portrait built from bare bones.

 

LJB:

Agreed. Good take. The man could flat-out write and I wasn't questioning his intellect or his ability.

What I was pointing out is 1) the way he squandered all of the above (as you so artfully phrased); and 2) the way he went about his job.

William Safire's "Scandalmongers" is a part-fictional, part-truth tale of Callender and others. Much of it is true, but he has Callender falling in love with Maria Reynolds, the woman Hamilton had the affair with.

 

Good call, Bird.

Here's one more grab on the subject:



Review at: http://www.worldandi.com/newhome/public/2003/july/bkpubprint.asp

 

I just finished Jeannette Walls' memoir The Glass Castle. She is a writer for MSNBC.com who grew up in total squalor, with parents who ended up homeless by choice. It's an amazing story and very well written, IMHO.

 

I loved "A Scanner Darkly" by Philip K. Dick. It's about a narcotics agent who, because of a drug called substance D which causes the mind to split, begins to narc on himself. A movie is coming out based on it with Keanu Reeves. A great read. I also loved "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaimen.

 

Kenny Moore at one time did Gary Smith-esque work for SI. I long for those days, before I spied Moore playing Bob Crachet to Morin Bishop's Scrooge at the latter's post-SI custom publishing venture.