BOOKS THREAD

My sig other bought me The Chicagoan, a loving monument to the short-lived New Yorker knockoff which centered around the City of Wind in the late '20s-early '30s. Excerpts, a ton of covers, the reproduction of one entire issue, etc., etc., etc.
Anyone here of a certain age who loves the city in question will wonder how they
ever lived without this volume, after spending about ten minutes with it. Have
already isolated enough signature lines to last me for the next ten years.

 

bird, good suggestions. Waterston has a face that emotes a distinct yet uncertain sadness. Who would play Douglas for an episode? The comely Kate Chase? An arrogant jackass the likes of G. B. McClellan? The series would be a slam dunk.

 

Any Cubs or Black Hawks stuff in there?

 

Can anyone suggest a book, or books based on real sporting events with parts that are fictionalized?

The sporting event itself is based on what really happened, but the fallout from it is fictionalized. Sorta like Phillip Roth's "The Plot Against America".

I haven't been able to find one, but I'm writing a story in that vein so I'm looking for anything like that to check out.

 

"Blue Ruin" from Brendan Boyd -- fiction based on the 1919 World Series -- fits that bill, jake.

The Robert B. Parker book "Double Play" is based on Jackie Robinson's first season. I paid $5 for it in a Walgreens bin, and it was, umm, worth about that price. But it's easy to get through.

"The Last Days of Summer," by Steve Kluger, is a much better read. The story's straight fiction, but one of the protagonists is a fictional player on the 1940-41 New York Giants (baseball, not football).

I highly recommend "The Given Day," by Dennis Lehane, which I just finished reading. It includes a lot of real-life characters, including Babe Ruth, and the first chapter is a fictionalized account of a pickup game between the 1918 Red Sox and Cubs against a group of black ballplayers. Read that first chapter and you might get a good sense of what you're looking for.

 

At this stage, I think "easy to get through" should be the review blurb on the cover of everything Parker writes. I usually get the impression that he spent about as much time writing it as I did reading it.

 

Currently reading: 1776, by David McCullough. After I'm done, I think John Adams is up next.

 

Anybody read The Snowball about Warren Buffett? I'm just starting it. He's an interesting character, so I am excited to dive in ... but it's over 800 pages, not sure it will keep my interest the whole time (especially with Lehane in my queue as well).

 

Chapter 3

Hawk and I worked out together at a really old school gym. Then we rode in a car with a variety of really tough guys. Hawk and I talked about wine and sang show tunes. Inconceivably, no one in the car questioned the nature our relationship. Then I went home and watched enchantedly as Susan ate a single pea with a knife and fork.