BOOKS THREAD

I might have to read that book.

My father and friend traveled to Rome on their own dime to freelance track and field stories. And had a blast. My dad loved track and field, and worked three more Olympics games for the paper he worked for and the UPI.

 

I just finished "Under the Table" by Katherine Darling, a fictionalized retelling of her culinary school experience.

I thoroughly expected to hate it, because I thought it would be all "look at me!" with chick-lit details. I was totally wrong. It was fantastic, a lot of insider kitchen tales and even real-life versions of the professional recipes. It did, however, feel like fiction rather than Anthony Bourdain-style fact.

 

I read The Scarecrow last week and feel it rates as the best of Connelly's standalones and is right up there with the Bosch series. Just finished Dan Jenkins' collection of his golf pieces, Fairways and Greens, that was first published in 1994. He always makes me laugh and it was nice to not have to read about Tiger Woods. Also finished Stanley Woodward's Paper Tiger, that is subtitled "an old sportswriter's reminiscences of people, newspapers, war, and work." It was first published in 1963 and republished by the U of Nebraska Press in 2007. Picked it up a few weeks ago in the used section of a Barnes&Noble in Roseville, MN along with a copy of Body Politic: The Great American Sports Machine by David Shields, which I had read and highly recommend.

 

Thanks for mentioning this one. I knocked it out in about four days, and thought it was a really good read. The big news at the end (I'm not giving away any spoilers) added another dimension to the story.

 

"Rome 1960" is heading with me on vacation tomorrow.
Heartily recommended novel: "The End of Baseball," by Peter Schilling Jr. (unknown if he's the offspring of the '80s one-hit wonder who gave us "Major Tom"). Classic historical what-if: Bill Veeck buys the Philadelphia A's during World War II and fills his depleted roster with Negro League stars young and old (Satchel Paige, Buck Leonard, Josh Gibson, Martin Dihigo, Monte Irvin, Cool Papa Bell, etc.), and has obstacles thrown at him by everyone from Judge Landis to J. Edgar Hoover. Some old pre-integration tales get some new twists, and 346 pages fly by just like that.

 

Damn. I'm all over that. Thanks for the recommendation, terrier.

(But I'll point out, as I always do, that the Veeck-to-buy-Phillies-and-stock-them-with-black-stars story itself has always been pure fiction. The myth is debunked here: http://www.sabr.org/cmsFiles/Files/Bill_Veeck_and_the_1943_sale_of_the_Phillies.pdf

 

Just finished The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer. Really good stuff. Fun, fast moving (even if I didn't read it all that fast) and just a solid story.

 

So far in 2009:

Baseball Between the Numbers by Baseball Prospectus
Finished off: Lardner on Baseball
Loose Balls by Terry Pluto
Days of Grace by Arthur Ashe
Only the Ball Was White by Robert Peterson
Best American Sports Writing 2008
Call The Yankees My Daddy by Cecil Harris
The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

Just started: Bowls, Polls and Tattered Souls by Stewart Mandel

 

I'll second The End Of Baseball. Ripping good stuff.

 

"Get Rich Cheating" by Jeff Kreisler is a very funny satirical read on all the scandals of the last few years (corporate bailouts, Enron, steroids/performance enhancing drugs in sports, Ken Lay, George W. Bush, ponzi schemes, and more).
http://getrichcheating.com/

 

jgmacg has recommended "2666" by roberto bolanos. to get a sense of his work, i'm reading "by night in chile," which, in its early pages, has a 448-word sentence.

i'm deciding between this book and ethan hawke's "ash wednesday."

 

While enjoying "Rome 1960" (about two-thirds done) on vacation, I've also polished off Steve Martin's "Born Standing Up." Outstanding memoir of his childhood and standup career, from working at Disneyland as a kid through his 18 years as a standup, how he developed his act and his most famous bits, and how arena superstardom eventually killed it all.