BOOKS THREAD

Finished Karen Abbott's "Sin in the Second City" last week. Great book about Chicago in the early 20th century. The Everleigh sisters were quite an interesting pair. They gave us terms like "getting laid" and "Poon Tang" (after a courtesan named Suzy Poon Tang) and were indirectly involved in the creation of the FBI.

I'm staying in the same city and time period for my next read ... just started Erik Larson's "The Devil in the White City."

 

Nice, rico. I need to add both of those to my queue.

I just zoomed through Larry Tye's "Satchel" in two nights. Very, very good book -- the first comprehensive biography of arguably the greatest pitcher of all time -- and it was well worth the wait. The amount of research Tye put into this cannot be understated; he interviewed many members of Paige's family, along with 200 other colleagues, teammates and friends in baseball.

My only quibble, and admittedly it's a minor one, is that he attributes a few stories/myths to Paige that were actually said about other ballplayers first (namely, the "I room with his suitcase" line that was first said about Babe Ruth by Ping Bodie; and the anecdote about a batter walking away after two strikes because "if I couldn't see the first two, how will I see the third," which was first said about Walter Johnson.)

Those two only stood out so much because all the other myths that he repeated (and many of which he debunked) were made clear that they were acrophycal or enhanced, either by Paige himself or by gullible writers.

But that aside, Tye spent a lot of time clearing up the legend of Paige -- clarifying once and for all, his actual date of birth (7/7/1906) and how Bill Veeck helped stir up all the "ageless" stories; calling in the outfielders (yes, it happened, many times, and at least once wasn't successful); his duels with Josh Gibson (he did dramatically strike out Josh with the bases loaded in the NNL World Series, but he didn't intentionally walk anybody to get to him and no taunting); his famous Six Rules of Living (a ghostwriter invented them, but Satch later took them to heart); and so many more.

It's a touching and tragic story, and one I heartily recommend. Deserving of all the praise it's getting.

 

If anyone wants to read a thrilling true crime story, try Douglas Preston and Italian journalist Mario Spezi's The Monster of Florence. Fascinating stuff. Exposes quite a bit of the corruption of Berlusconi's Italy.

Also, try David Denby's Snark, if only for his spot on deconstruction of Maureen Dowd.

 

I'm tempted to try The Monster of Florence. I've visited Florence and the story sounds really interesting. The detail about the crime scenes (which were apparently very gruesome) is the big thing holding me back. But the two Connelly books I've read (Scarecrow and Poet) have been pretty gruesome ... guess I can justify it because it's fiction. I guess I'll get more gruesome as I get into Devil in the White City!

Sin in the Second City really is an awesome, well researched book. I wrote the author, Karen Abbott, an email asking about getting a signed copy (because I care about these things) and she wrote back right away engaging me about what I liked about the book etc. Just a plug for her web site: http://www.sininthesecondcity.com/ She's a former journalist and a fantastic writer.

 

You're going to enjoy "Devil in the White City", Rico. Great book.

And there are few elements in 20th century American history more fascinating than Chicago from 1900-1930. I wrote a paper for a crim justice class in college on the socioeconomic factors in Chicago that played a not-so-small part in the rise of the mobs and the ensuing wars.

Interesting topic, one spurred on and addressed in Abbott's book.

 

Might have to take Devil in the White City on my vacation that starts tomorrow. I've had it on my shelf for a while, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Connelly's Scarecrow and Krakauer's Into Thin Air (yeah, I'm a little late) are already packed.

And I'm definitely going to look into that Satchel Paige bio. Sounds like a special one.

 

I can recommend "Devil in the White City" highly. And also "Issac's Storm," Larson's book about the 1900 Galveston hurricane.

 

I read 'Devil in the White City' last year. Very interesting.
And I have 'Isaac's Storm' but have not read it yet.
I'm currently getting into 'Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America' by Tom Lutz.

 

DirtyDeeds, you're just getting to "Into Thin Air"? Boy, do you have a treat awaiting you; Krakauer is an incredible writer and this story is artfully told on every level. You'll blaze through that book in no time on vacation.

I finished "Idiot America", which I really enjoyed. Now, it's on to "The Sure Thing" -- Eric Adelson's bio of Michelle Wie.

Gratuitous plug time; he interviewed me for one of the chapters and I'm actually quoted in it

 

I'm on a big Jimmy Breslin run. I just finished the book on the Mets' first season and now I'm reading the collection I Want to Thank My Brain for Remembering Me.

 

Just picked up "Sin in Second City," and zoomed through 100-something pages last night. Fascinating book.

 

Buck, glad you're enjoying "Sin." I recently met an author (Scott Muskin) who had his first novel published and he was so thrilled I was interested in his book. He made this comment to me that helped me understand how hard it is to be in that line of work: "Another bit of evidence that publishers continually underestimate how many readers there are out there."

I got that same sense from my emails with Abbot and Sin. She said that word of mouth was so huge in selling books. "Sin" was her first undertaking; she's writing another book now. I'm glad others are picking up "Sin" and appreciating the intense research Abbot did to put a factual story together when the sisters were constantly fibbing about their life story until the very end! It's fascinating history to me. My neighbor has my copy of "Sin" now and I'm about 1/3 of the way through "The Devil in the White City."