BOOKS THREAD

If you're a parent of a high school student, or will be soon, stay far away from "Restless Virgins" by Abigail Jones and Marissa Miley.

It's a non-fiction recounting of life at Milton Academy, a boarding school in suburban Boston where oral sex is as common as term papers and hockey guys rule the world.

I was impressed by the fact that it wasn't all about the girls, like other books along these lines I've read. Though at the same time, it seems like these kids -- of both genders -- think more about how the rest of their secluded world is going to react to whatever they choose to do... or not do. Oh, and maybe they should go to class a little more often?

Damn, I'm old. :

 

Anyone looking for a laugh-out-loud sports read should check out Bill Gaston's "Midnight Hockey." In short: Middle-aged west coast university professor and smartass extraordinaire chronicles his last season playing rec hockey. As hockey books go it's up there with Falla's "Home Ice" in my mind, though for completely different reasons.

 

JR gave me Midnight Hockey for Christmas last year. Great stuff.

 

Our friend Fenian_Bastard will dig this:

 

It's fiction, but this sounds a lot like Curtis Sittenfield's Prep, which I am currently reading. It's quite good.

 

I just ordered the first one. Hopefully it isn't boring, given my love for novels.

Also picked up Donald Miller's Through Painted Deserts and Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, all for $22.

I love Half.com.

 

The Crossing is outright damned fantastic. The equal of Blood Meridian, for this McCarthy fan.

 

Dirt-cheap on Amazon . . . and a delight.

 

Am about halfway through The Bookseller of Kabul. A friend turned me onto it, after a discussion about Afghan culture being criminalized in western media.

It's really eye-opening and I'm learning a lot.

Of course, that doesn't mean I've started understanding a lot of their practices. But I'm trying.

 

Am about halfway through David ("Rothstein") Pietrusza's "1960".

(Especially!) for those who think the world began with Ronnie ("Am I going too fast for you?" -- Don Rickles) Reagan, this refresher course on the 1960 campaign takes no prisoners, and shows no favor. Some of Pietrusza's renditions of quotes within
private conversations are too cute for words, but that's my only knock on a book
which will leave none of the friends of the subjects happy -- which is the whole idea.

 

I liked his "1920: Year of Six Presidents." I'll have to pick this one up.

 

It's worth it, if for no other reason than to read a nice, take-no-prisoners inside scoop on the Kennedys. It's easy to beat the crap out of Nixon (which this does), but another matter entirely to pull no punches with the Sainted Family.

Like 1920, Pietruza loses interest and just throws things out to get finished after chronicling the run-up to and the election itself, but until then, the material is fascinating.