BOOKS THREAD

Has anyone read Six-word memoirs on Love and Heartbreak? I picked it up at the library today and it is an interesting (and very quick, obviously) read. Some good stuff. It really shows the power of words - you can gleam a whole story or life in just six words when well-written.

 

I haven't read his Bolitar books, but I have read a few of the others. After awhile, they are all the same. I'll put a sample Coben plotline together in a way you will understand.

Zack Morris is living a comfortable life as a dermatologist in San Diego when he sees Kelly Kapowski in the street. Which is impossible, since she died in a surfing accident after they graduated from college. He had seen her drown before his own eyes and was unable to save her. As he runs after her in the street, she disappears through the farmers market. A few days later when Zack picks up his dry cleaning, he finds a hand written note on the back of the dry cleaners tag telling him to meet her at Bryant Park at 10 pm that night. When he arrives at the park, he finds Screech there, who was given identical directions and he too saw Kelly earlier in the week. The two join forces and team up to look for Kelly. Along the way, they end up enlisting the help of Jessie Spano, who helps rescue women from working in strip clubs. But when Jessie tells Zack to meet her alone so he can tell her what happened, she never shows because she was killed in a car accident. .... Zack's search intensifies when he discovers from the autopsy that Kelly was pregnant when she was killed. If she is alive, is the child alive too? Zach dodges bullets from A.C. Slater, who is a down on his luck personal trainer and gambling addict, in his search for Kelly and his child. And just as Zack finds an aging Mr. Belding, who is in a nursing home in La Jolla, Mr. Belding tells him the truth. But Screech walks in with a gun, threatening to kill them both. Screech admits that he always had a thing for Kelly and the two of them had an affair in college. But Screech knew he could never win her away, so he drugged Kelly, threw the body of one of Jessie's rescued strippers into the sea and told Kelly they had to move away as part of Witness Protection. When Screech saw Zack nearly find Kelly at the Farmer's Market, he knew he had to eliminate him, so he concocted the meeting at the park so he could keep tabs on him and hired A.C. to kill Zack in exchange for paying off his gambling debts. Just as Screech is about to shoot Zack and Mr. Belding, Kelly walks in, shoots Screech and kisses Zach. And they live happily ever after.

 

I would have watched Saved By The Bell if they were more like this.

 

That's a brilliant piece of work, Pope. I can now see why they gave you a lifetime seat in the Vatican.

 

It might have been mentioned before, but I'm finishing up "Can't Buy Me Love," a Beatles bio.

There are people who are far, far greater Beatle fans than me, but I'm finding this book interesting -- the author goes to great pains to put the group and its development in the context of its time, and the societies of England and the US in the late 50s and early 60s.

He overreaches a bit when he brings in Max Weber, Freud and Jung, and some of the musical analysis is over my head, but with those two caveats it's a pretty clear-eyed, comprehensive and intriguing look at the Fab Four.

 

I mentioned that book some time back. Don't know if it was the cultural dissertation it claimed to be but it was the most scholarly look at their music that I have come across.

 

A friend recommended a bio on Patrick Roy. I picked it up, only to later learn that it was written by the goaltender's father. Three hundred something pages in and it is absolute garbage.

 

With the men's college basketball season ending tomorrow, I want to pick up some books that will get me through until practice starts in October. A "best basketball books" Google search yielded little. Anybody have some suggestions?

 

It's been years since I read it, but I enjoyed "Fall River Dreams," by Bill Reynolds.

 

I am *finally* reading "Twilight" - I cannot put this book down. I am about halfway through and already itching to read Stephenie Meyer's second book.

Also, I just ordered Sheldon Kennedy's book, "Why I Didn't Say Anything" - the autobiography of a former NHLer who was sexually abused by his junior hockey coach.

 

Just finished "Snowball": the definitive Warren Buffett biography that was fascinating. It was unclear in a few spots and spent more pages than it should have in a few areas, but did a great job capturing the essence of the man.

Off to "Forever Blue," a new book by Michael D'Antonio on Walter O'Malley and the Great Leap Westward. It debunks the conventional myth perpetuated by a generation of writers, i.e. Dick Young wisdom that O'Malley was the brains behind the Dodgers moving from Brooklyn and places it squarely on the shoulders of the man who deserves the blame: Robert Moses.

 

Just finished Eric Clapton's autobiography, now out in paperback. I'm not a huge fan or anything, I just have gotten into a 60s-rock mood, bookwise.

I thought the early parts were affecting and well-written; things peter out by the last chapter. But anyone who's into him will find it well-done and interesting, to be sure. Not as good as Dylan's or Joe Jackson's autobiographies, but no ghost-written hack job either.