BOOKS THREAD

Any baseball fan (esp. someone like Buck) who doesn't read Norman Macht's book on Connie Mack
is missing the boat,
entirely.

It's only enthralling.

 

I've read 10 books for my library's summer reading project, which started June 29 and ended on Friday. Sure, half of them are chick lit. I'm actually surprised I haven't read more.

I read in bed every night and before I get up every morning. I bring a book (or at least a magazine) with me on the train, and to assignments when I know I'll have a long wait. I took walks down to the water and read, or sit out back and read almost every day before it got so hot and humid.

Reading is a priority, and also the closest I get to doing something just for me.

 

I almost only buy soft covers and, like YGBFKM, I try to give away most of them when I'm done to someone who will enjoy them.

At over 100 books a year, that can add up to some decent money. Do you get your books from the library?

 

As someone who only moved to Chicago three years ago, I enjoyed both "Sin in the Second City" and "Devil in the White City".

"Death in the Haymarket" was another good look at the history of Chicago.

http://www.amazon.com/Death-Haymarket-Chicago-Movement-Bombing/dp/0375422374

So was "The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis"

http://www.amazon.com/Merchant-Power-Insull-Creation-Metropolis/dp/1403968845

 

Same here.

 

I just finished "Young J. Edgar: Hoover, the Red Scare and the Assault on Civil Liberties" by Kenneth Ackerman. I've pimped Ackerman's book about President Garfield's election and assassination pretty hardcore and look forward to reading anything he writes. This book starts strong, but the middle sags with exposition because Ackerman needs to explain who some key figures are (i.e. in order to understand why deporting Emma Goldman was a big deal, you need a chapter or two about her). There are definitely times where it reads more like a series of viginettes(sp?) and ancedotes than a fully woven story. But it ends strong and is well-written.

It works very well as a microcosm of how J. Edgar Hoover gained and consolidated power: he always managed to be exactly what his boss wanted. JEH served under 3 Attorneys General for during the book. Under A. Mitchell Palmer, an ambitious pol who was shaken when anarchists bombed his home, JEH was the guy who went after Commies, civil rights be damned. To Harry Daugherty, a corrupt pol who was the Rove to Harding's Bush, JEH was the efficient bureaucrat who was a good organizational man to be No. 2 at the BoI. And to Harlan Fiske Stone, a reformer brought in to purge the Justice Dept. of scandal, JEH was exactly the kind of squeaky clean leader to professionalize the BoI.

If you enjoy reading about the history of the early 20s or about Hoover, I would recommend it.

 

Sirs, Madames,

I don't count books, just pages. I try to read at least 75 a day ... I might not make it one or two days a week. Some days I'll clock in well over 100. Averages out to better than a book a week. I'm not afraid to walk away from a book I'm not enjoying at p. 100. And I'll have at least two and sometimes four or five books on a go at once (works better with non-fiction and short stories).

o-<

 

Different guy altogether.......I was fascinated enough by the possibility to seek out the answer.

http://www.mudvillemagazine.com/bug/more.php?id=175_0_1_0_M

 

The Apollo hoopla led me to "Carrying the Fire" by Michael Collins (the Apollo 11 guy who didn't walk the moon).

It's very good, well-written and insightful. It came out in 1975, and I'm sure Tom Wolfe looked at it before he wrote The Right Stuff.