BOOKS THREAD

Jesus H. Christ.

I hope Terry Schiavo has found in the afterlife the peace she was not permitted to have in death.

 

Has anyone read The Machine?

It was mentioned quite a bit here leading up to the release date but I haven't heard a thing since.

 

Sirs, Madames,

With all the talk about the Tillman book, I brought Into the Wild on a long road trip. I have to say that I found some of the first-person climbing experience went on a bit long. Some quotes from folks ran on for about a page, it seemed. And I don't know that JK is the last word in phrase-turning. He does have great story sense and story drives this stuff. I know that he says that some people were distrurbed by the books timeline--it flashes back and forward like a drivers-ed student parallel parking. I have no problem starting at the end (or even in the middle), so long as you then go back to the roots and then track inexorably forward. I don't know ... quibbles I guess. It's a great story not dressed up unnecessarily.

I'm reading Stefan Fatsis' Scrabble book and, gulp, War and Peace, the latter as part of a birthday resolution to read four "big" books this year: War and Peace, Crime and Punishment (re-read), Moby Dick and A Bright and Shining Lie. I was going to put Bleak House (re-read) on the list and I hold out the option to bring it in off the bench if I falter.

o-<

 

A good read/guilty pleasure for current and/or former Chicago-area SportsJournalists.comers: "Late Edition" by Bob Greene.

Yes, THAT Bob Greene. I know the man could pen some of the most fawning profiles ever written, and some pretty bad columns too, back in his Tribune days.

But I found his look back at the Columbus Citizen-Journal (where he started out, first as a copy boy, then as an intern in the 1960s) very entertaining. The man's a good writer, and I'm in the same boat of true believers in newspapers.

(I guess this makes me officially OLD ...)

 

Just finished "With Wings like Eagles" from Michael Korda about the Battle of Britain.

Good stuff, quick read, not super detailed or with all that many first-person accounts, but interesting every page nonetheless.

On to Tillman.

 

Have read "War and Peace" twice. Enjoyed it very much. Same rule applies as "Les Miserables" ... skip the descriptions of large historical battles.

 

There's a new book on the Iraq war, by the Washington Post's David Finkel, that I'm looking forward to reading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/books/06kakutani.html?_r=1&ref=books

 

I started the Finkel book last night, called The Good Soldiers, and it is very, very good. The details are tremendous.

 

I like the battle stuff in War & Peace, but the last 100 pages or so came close to utterly defeating me. A very tough slog, but you've read so much you can't give up.

 

Know the guy -- and am not a fan -- but will read this. Thanks for the heads-up.

 

FOTF, you're biting off a basketball-sized matzah ball there.

"Crime and Punishment" AND "Moby Dick" -- a.k.a. the most overrated novel in American literature? You're going to feel like you're stirring concrete with your eyelashes before long.

Stop reading Moby Dick after "Call me Ishmael..." It's downhill from there and you'll thank me later.

You want sweeping magnum opuses? Pick up Twain. Pick up Hemingway. Pick up Steinbeck. Even pick up Dreiser, although with some of his works, you'll want to stick your head in an oven. Just stay the hell away from Melville and Hawthorne.

 

I'm late to the party, and I'm well behind on this thread, so don't know if it's been discussed, but finally picked up "Idiot America" by Charlie Pierce this week. It's very distressing to find out that you're part of what your journalistic idol hates about America.