BOOKS THREAD

This review just appeared yesterday..
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-14686-Miami-Comedy-Examiner~y2009m7d29-Take-2-Xanax-and-read-Get-Rich-Cheating

 

Finally got around to reading Seabiscuit and I'm really enjoying it. Laura Hillenbrand does a great job weaving the stories of the horsemen, the horses and jockeys within the context of the Great Depression and evolution of the racing industry. Tremendous.

It's also makes a great primer for people just interested in learning about horse racing.

 

SL Price's "Heart of the Game." Maybe it's already been mentioned in here, but if not, it's pretty solid. I think it just hit more of a personal chord with me as an embittered, failed baseball player, but it wasn't until reading this book that I actually felt like playing again.

 

I wish The Monster of Florence could get the Moddy seal of approval. I've passed the book around to five or six friends.

Imagine the BTK killer was never found. And over a 25-year span, seven different people are arrested and charged with being the BTK killer (separately, not as if they're working together). Three different people are convicted of being the BTK killer, though later exonerated. Then, in 2006, Bob Woodward is arrested for obstruction of justice, and is also suspected by police and prosecutors of being the BTK killer. And four of the people arrested and charged - including Woodward - are arrested only because of the conspiracy theories posted by Art Bell on his web site. There's no physical evidence, just Art Bell conspiracy theories.

That's the American equivalent of what happened in the Monster of Florence. It's amazing. And fascinating.

 

If "Monster" got the Moddy seal of approval, I would probably pick it up!

I finished Larson's "Devil in the White City" late Saturday night and I'm in a sort of book limbo. I just want to keep reading true crime (or maybe I just wanted "Devil" to keep going). I tried reading Connelly's "The Narrows" last night but just couldn't get into it. I'll read it at some point because I loved "The Poet", but "Devil" has me in a certain mood, I guess.

I have a list of books I made after digging through pages of this thread last night and looking for an hour at lists on Amazon. Tops: Larson's "Isaac's Storm," Hitchens' "God is not Great," McCarthy's "Blood Meridian (I want to like this book so much but I've never gotten more than 10 pages in!), and a book from an author I met called "The Annunciations of Hank Meyerson."

 

I just finished a good one: Empires of the Sea, by Roger Crowley. It was an impulse buy at half-price at Barnes & Noble.

It's about the war between Islam and Christianity in the 16th Century -- the siege of Malta and the huge sea battle at Lepanto. Both largely forgotten now, but Crowley has an easy writing style, an eye for the telling detail, and an obvious expertise about the era that really brings it alive.

An easy, quick read and well worth it.

 

For god's sake Rico, if you're looking for true crime, you have to read Monster of Florence. The journalistic angle later in the book is fascinating enough, but the actual crimes and the three-decade-long pursuit of the killer is even more intriguing. I'll forge the Moddy seal if I have to.

 

Small Town Guy:

Just ordered "Florence," along with Hitchens' book from Amazon. Should have them in hand Thursday (Moddy is right, Amazon Prime rocks). I'm looking forward to reading "Florence." The crime scene descriptions scare me a bit, but between Connelly's novels and Dr. Holmes in "Devil," hopefully "Florence" won't be much worse in that department.

I made it through the first chapter of McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" today. Don't usually do Westerns ... but so far, I'm finally following this story and hope to finish it off before I move on to "Florence." Props to Murnighan's "Beowulf on the Beach" for giving me a better understanding of "Blood Meridian" as I make my umpteenth attempt at grasping and enjoying what is supposed to be McCarthy's masterpiece.

As an aside: I'm reading more this year than any other year in my life ... Amazon is making a fortune off of me ... sad thing is I buy a ton of books ever year and only ever read a fraction of them. I'm finally batting over .300 this year for the first time ever!

 

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
Bowls, Polls and Tattered Souls by Stewart Mandel

Just Started: The 100-Yard War by Greg Emmanuel

 

It's a lovely book. The movie loses most of its grip on reality around the point Jeff Bridges starts verbalizing about the loss of his son to his wife in bed, and some of the later racing scenes are in no way related to real life.
As a racing movie, Phar Lap is much more true to life, and has some
tremendous performances, but Gary Stevens did a terrific job as
Goergie Woolf in Seabiscuit, and deserved more praise then he got.

 

Mr Hecht,

Seabiscuit would be the best horse-set book if it weren't for Nack's Secretariat tome which might be the best sports book against all categories. I like Laughing in the Hills too.

There was one line in Seabiscuit that jarred me (actually I think it was a repeat of a bit of cliche) ... I guess I'll have to go back to find it. Otherwise unimpeachable.

o-<

 

Big Red Of Meadow Stable is a wondrous book, and it stands up very well, over time.

The best non-fiction racing book EVER, which captures the
thirties and forties in New York better than anything ever written, was Toney Betts' Across The Board . . . published in the mid-50s.
If you love the game, you'll marvel at this thing, if you're lucky enough to come across. Sui Generis, from a guy whose writing style
was pitched perfectly for the subject at hand.

I like Laughing in the Hills. It's a bit precious, but like it, anyway.

The other great non-fiction racing book is a collection of Joe Palmer columns
published under the title This Was Racing. Palmer labored for the old Herald-Trib,
and he was a wonder beyond compare, dying too young due to a fondness for
brown liquor. Added bonus in the book: the remarkable drawings of the late,
great Willard Mullin.