BOOKS THREAD

I'm reading Pat Conroy's latest, "South of Broad." Been a long time since I read something this can't-put-downable. Having lived in Charleston for three years (and South of Broad for a year or so) makes it even more appealing to me.

 

That's on my must-read list, Terrier -- largely for the way Davis portrays the college hoops landscape in 1979. I too, remember watching that game and compared to what's going on now, that game might as well have been played on Neptune. Yet, along with the '66 national championship game (Texas Western v. Kentucky), there hasn't been a more impactful college game since.

And you'll enjoy "1960: JFK vs. LBJ vs. Nixon." As I mentioned in an earlier post, it's easy to beat the crap out of Nixon, but Pietruza takes a 2-by-4 to Kennedy and especially his raging prick of an old man. For that alone, the book is worth the read.

 

Thoroughly enjoyed The Great Santini and The Prince of Tides but I put down Beach Music because I just didn't like the main character too much. That was several years ago. I'm ready to try another Pat Conroy book again now.

 

The Gamble by Thomas E. Ricks I just finished. It is pretty good especially if you read it directly after Fiasco which is what I recommend to do. It is a fantastic history of the war in Iraq.

Also reading Amity Shlaes The Forgotten Man which I recommend to anyone who wants a good history of the New Deal.

 

Sirs, Madames,

Heartily recommend Zeitoun by Dave Eggers. Book-end it with the doc Trouble the Waters.

o-<

 

Not saying not to read it, but be aware it's a history with a very active partisan bias (in this case, from the right.) Just as many FDR books have a very partisan bias from the left.

 

Finished Preston & Spezi's "Monster of Florence" and McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" in the past week.

Like the others before me, I highly recommend "Monster." I knocked it out in 3-4 sittings. I'm on a true-crime kick lately and "Monster" fit the bill perfectly. I don't think I can really add anything that Small Town Guy and some of the others have already said about this book. The gruesomeness of the murders, Spezi putting together the pieces that no one in the Italian justice system wanted to and the lengths to which the authors were scrutinized (Spezi is accused of being the Monster) are unfathomable. Dietrologia indeed. Spezi's evidence has me convinced of the Monster's identity. Looking to stay in true crime, I picked up "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" yesterday. I love Savannah, saw the movie ages ago and never got around to reading the book, which is billed at Amazon as one of the greatest true crime novels ever. Also grabbed David Cross' "I Drink for a Reason," for some light reading.

On Blood Meridian, I'm still trying to decide if I liked this book. I forked over an extra chunk of change for Schimpf's "A Reader's Guide to Blood Meridian." It has given me a better understanding of some of the complex issues McCarthy addresses in this book and what it all might mean. Since McCarthy is reclusive, who really knows for sure! Even with BM considered his masterpiece, I think I still enjoyed "The Road" a lot more, perhaps because he dedicated the book to his young son. I have a young son and could relate more to "Road" than the material in Blood Meridian. But I do feel a helluva a lot smarter having gotten through BM. I think all who finish BM should receive some sort of honorary doctorate in McCarthian English!!!

 

The story, as you well know from the movie, is amazing. The book drags a little -- partly because the movie makes it all so clean, and the actual trial(s!) were so complex. Took me a while to finish it.

But worth a read. If only to re-explore all those fantastic real-life characters, and that gorgeous, paradoxical, inexplicably outrageous city.

Man, I miss Savannah. Almost as much as I miss Athens.

 

Catching up on my women's studies lately.

Finished <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Girls-Starving-Daughters-Perfection/dp/B002HREKQE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252046675&sr=8-1">Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: How the Quest for Perfection is Harming Young Women</a> by Courtney Martin (a Feministing contributor) recently. The premise is excellent, building upon and looking deeper into the phrase born from a Duke University survey: young women must exhibit "effortless perfection." However, I was disappointed in the quality of the writing. Martin is about my age but I felt like I was reading a shallowly-edited college paper. I was annoyed by the alternating reach for credibility (nobody believes your lily-white, Colorado Springs-raised suburban self was into the hard core hip-hop scene in middle school, honey) and trite calls to action. This book had much promise, little payout.

I'm not far from the end of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Full-Frontal-Feminism-Womans-Matters/dp/1580052010/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252047016&sr=1-3">Full Frontal Feminism</a> by Jessica Valenti, a Feministing founder. This book is targeted at high school and college women who believe in all the ideals of feminism but may reject the term feminist (which, uh, is not me). This is a strong book that is well written and should hit home with the audience. If I was teaching Women's Studies 101 or even Econ 101, this would be required reading or I'd sample heavily from it. I was thinking my only critique is the use of swear words or lax language in an attempt to be hip, but then I realize it may not be forced because it's very similar to the way I speak in real life.

I've got a long road trip coming up, so I'm thinking I need to read Kerouac's "On the Road" or Bouton's "Ball Four" for the first time (I know, I know).

 

I pulled A Brave New World out to read again. I thought I'd only read it twice, but my copy is looking rough. I'll probably need to replace it after this time.

 

Just finished that myself. I wondered how Chuck's sort of dry, sarcastic style would translate to the novel format. Quite well, I think. Quick, fun read.

 

My last two, both paperbacks, were good ones: The Forever War by Dexter Filkins, which earns its back-cover plaudits as "the best war book ever" or whatever, and A Few Seconds of Panic by Stefan Fatsis, which, as one player e-mailed him, accurately described "the total mindfuck that is the NFL."