BOOKS THREAD

"Bringing the Heat," Mark Bowden. A piece of sports literary genius on par with Friday Night Lights. Its subject is the 1992 Philadelphia Eagles and the iconoclastic personalities on that team. The writing is so fucking good it just kind of dissolves in your mouth.

"The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln," C.A. Tripp. Presents pathbreaking scholarly evidence that Lincoln's primary response to everything was that of a homosexual. Never before has such a significant historical personage been outed quite like this. Fascinating stuff for wannabe psychologists.

More later.

 

Absolutely American: Four years at West Point by David Lipsky. A Rolling Stone writer follows a West Point class from 1998-2002. Very good read.

 

For the history buffs out there I'd recommend Sea of Glory by Nathanial Philbrick which looks at the US Exploring Expedition of 1838-42 (which discovered Antarctica among other places). Good period piece and one hell of an adventure story.

 

Black Betty by Walter Mosely
R.L.'s Dream by Walter Mosely
The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy

 

I hated it. Was looking forward to it, too. It's so densely and needlessly overwritten, it's insufferable. Doesn't deserve mention on the same page with "Friday Night Lights."

 

I'll third that and I don't even like Scrabble, to be honest. But I like a book that introduces me to a part of the world I didn't know. In that sense, it did for Scrabble what Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" did - got me right inside that fascinating, fanatical place that's so potent.

 

An absolute delight. What a cast of characters.

 

Currently reading "The Bourne Legacy" by Eric Von Lustbader, a continuation of the late Robert Ludlum's trilogy. It's fair but not great.

Previous book: Stephen Brust's To Reign In Hell.



Excellent book, and I'm thinking about going back and re-reading it.

Holy rollers probably won't like it, though -- its central concept is that the whole thing was a big misunderstanding which got out of control.

 

[/snore]
If I ever write a book, remind me not to ask B_H to review it.

Oh, and I'd like to recommend I Am Charlotte Simmons. And anything else by Tom Wolfe. Of course.

 

Smasher, opinions vary.

 

Herbie,

I had thought this homosexual tag was because of gossip dug up or something. So homosexuals can be stereotyped to react the same way to stimuli such as civil wars, slavery and building railroads and such?

 

As an English major, one novel that hit me between the eyes was Native Son by Richard Wright.

Powerful novel.