BOOKS THREAD

Just finished AC/DC: Maximum Rock and Roll, a very entertaining look at the band from its early days until the early 2000s. I've been a huge fan of the band since Highway To Hell but until the Rolling Stone cover story a few months ago I had never read too much about them. This one covers all the bases and has interviews with all the prinicpals. Might be tough to find, I got it out of my local libary.

 

I'm starting on Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation because the subject is intriguing (she visits all the historical spots connected with presidential assassinations).

But help me out here -- I'm a few pages in and am already overwhelmed by her tone, which is equal parts self-obsessed and being very, very pleased with herself at how darn wacky and eccentric she is. The latter is presented in what I assume is supposed to be an endearingly self-deprecating way, but it instead comes off as how she's just always getting on the wrong side of square, boring people.

Does this get better?

 

I will say this: Assassination Vacation is the only audiobook that I have turned off and never returned to. And I have listened to some shitty books. That tone never goes away.

 

That's Sarah Vowell. People who like her (like me), probably like the book (like me). If you don't, I'd say put it down and move on.

 

Funny - the premise sounds like Chuck Klosterman's "Killing Yourself to Live," about visiting the sites of rock star deaths.. and your description of her sounds like Klosterman with a uterus.

"Killing Yourself to Live" was a colossal piece of shit, for the record.

 

I started reading one of her books (am blanking on which one) and I gave up about 80 pages in. It was the only book I've given up on in the last 15 years. Her tone annoyed the hell out of me.

 

Take the Cannoli and Partly Cloudy Patriot are both very good essay collections. I couldn't really get into Assasination Vacation.

 

Anyone read 'The Shack'? Got it today and read the first 60-some pages before I had to stop.

 

Just bought The March by E.L. Doctrow for vacation reading

 

Sorry to hear that, Abbott.

An overwritten, underwhelming mess.

Get yourself a backup book, for when Doctorow's humping of the English language gets too messy and tiresome for you.

 

Damn, I like Sherman. I read Shelby Foote's Civil War Trilogy about 10 years ago and I liked Sherman. (Though Confederate General Longstreet turned out to be my favorite general of the Army.)


my backup is 100 Years of Solitude,Gabriel García Márquez

 

I LOVE Sherman, he's one of the greatest military minds in US history and his plan, concept and execution for the March was one of the great feat of arms in military history.

The History Channel show on his march, titled "Sherman's March" was well done. It showed him, warts and all (the guy wasn't exactly a friend of the slaves) and brought you into the March from several angles.

But Doctorow's book? Awful.