BOOKS THREAD

You could teach an English class based entirely on all the metaphors Robbins comes up with for Beets.

I think JP is Robbins' best, and I've read them all. "Skinny Legs" was good, and "Another Roadside Attraction" was a nice debut.

 

He can magically realize his own bean pies.
Bastard still owes me 10 bucks on the race between our higher selves.

 

Richard Brautigan asked me to ask you if he left his creel in your car.

 

A while back, someone on this thread was looking for Eisenhower biographies.

Apparently Michael Korda is coming out with a new one: "Ike: An American Hero."

Korda was a big-time publisher who's since written books, although I haven't read any of them so I don't know if the idea of him doing an Ike bio is crazy or terrific.

Here's an online Q&A about it with Washington Post readers:

http://tinyurl.com/2pk2xt

 

It's been mentioned before, but I'm in the middle of S.L. Price's "Far Afield" and enjoying it.

I don't read SI enough to have put the pieces together, but that was quite the gig he wrangled himself, covering Europe from the south of France.

It works because of how honest it is -- arguing with editors over space, kids acting up, house that isn't quite the French cottage of his dreams. Had he painted another one of those Tuscany books, I would have barfed by now.

If I have a complaint, and it's a small one, the man uses more colons and semi-colons than any writer not named Chuck Klosterman.

But he's a beautiful writer, really, one of our more poetic colleagues. I feel like he'd be a good guy to talk craft with.

 

Just finished "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson. I enjoyed the book, but didn't quite get the linking of the two main stories.

 

Webster, man, that's a fantastic book.

In my mind the link was that the two men were bound by impulses each found irresistable but that pulled them in opposite directions: one sought to create and one to destroy. I think Larson would argue that Daniel Burnham and H.H. Holmes were eerily similar people -- in their strength, in their fastidiousness; it was only the expression of their dreams that was different.

Two sides of the same coin, Heaven and Hell, yin and yang, and all that.

Or, that's just so much hooey, and Larson just liked the idea of this serial killer plying his trade in Paradise.

Either way, great book.

 

I'd highly recommend Larson's "Isaac's Storm" about the 1900 hurricane that annihilated Galveston. It, and John Barry's "Rising Tide," are two books that help you put Katrina in a little perspective.

 

Yes, Ragu, the link was time and place.

But I'm with Jonesy here. Along with his Cliffs Notes version above, there is a thread that ties the two of them together ...

It's called opportunity.

The 1893 Exposition was Burnham's once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a legacy, create something he'd be remembered for. And because of that creation, it provided Holmes an opportunity to ply his evil trade.

You're all correct in saying it was a great, freakin' book, however.

 

Definitely with Birdscribe here. It's the opportunity, maybe even the sort of zeitgeist of the late nineteenth century that made Larson's book so good. He really makes you get the sense of it.

 

Couple books I read recently:

Travels With Charley, by John Steinbeck: I'm ashamed to say I'd never read this in its entirity, just passages, but after picking up a copy on vacation recently, I ripped through it and liked it as much as anything I've read in a long, long, long time. I'm a sentimental guy, and I love Steinbeck's sentiment. And I'd forgotten how fricken funny he can be at times. The chapter about Montana is among my favorite in all of literature.

Three Dollars by Elliott Perlman: This was the first book by the guy who wrote Seven Types of Ambiguity, which is one of my absolute favorite books of the last five years. Perlman is truly one of the best "social" novelists writing today. The book is essentially about how there is not middle class anymore, and that we're all one missed house payment away from living on the street, and it's really good. Not as good as Seven Types of Ambiguity, but still a fine read.

The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon: Read this a few months ago, but I think it really might be my favorite Chabon book. Kavalier and Clay was a work of art, but kind of dragged for me in the middle. This book is obviously much different -- an imagined history of what would have happened had Alaska, not Israel, become the permanant homeland of the Jews -- but it's really a murder mystery and an examination of faith. One of the things I think is most impressive about Chabon is that he gets better every book he writes. You can't say that about a lot of authors, especially those who experience early success.

Legs by William Kennedy -- Read this one, a novel about notorious real life gangster Jack "Legs" Diamond at jgmacg's suggestion and really enjoyed it. Kennedy's style really crackles on the page once you let the book suck you in. You can feel the energy or the words. The dialog was awesome. I'm about halfway through his next novel in the Albany series, Billy Phelan's Greatest Game, and I'm really glad I picked it up.

Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer by Warren St. John: Zipped through this one during a day at the beach for some light reading. Didn't realize how funny St. John is. It made me feel like the NYT style kind of hampers him a bit. It was a really good read, a breezy look into fan culture. I'm still a little jealous St. John got a million plus for his story on the youth soccer team from Atlanta, but I'm also proud that a sports writer could find a great story and end up being rewarded for that work.

I too am reading S.L. Price's "Far Afield" and echo Mr. Jones' comments. Price might be the most underrated talent in our profession. I cannot say enough about how poetic some of his stuff is.

Really looking forward to reading:

It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium by John Ed Bradley
The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz