BOOKS THREAD

Buck, have you bought the Vaccaro book on the 1912 World Series yet? Price's book is also outstanding from last year, baseball-wise. The fact that I'm intimately familiar with minor league baseball and what it can do to hopes and dreams and families was a mixed blessing as I read it. None of that stuff was a real revelation to me, but I think someone who thinks that all professional athletes are spoiled millionaires would be well-served to read about the other side. Unfortunately, those are not the people likely to gravitate toward the book.

 

Waylon, do tell about the Vaccaro book. I'm very interested.

 

I am completely baffled by the raves and success of 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.' This thing has been on the bestseller list forever, decided to give it a try after a whole lot of people mentioned it as a great book.

I hate this book more than I have hated any book in a long time. Halfway through, I keep waiting for the 'AHA!' moment when I finally understand the accolades. Right now I'm just annoyed.

Anyone care to enlighten me, without giving away the non-existent plot?

 

Felt the same about "All The Pretty Horses" - nice book but did not grab me.

 

21...I'm in the same place as you with this book. I started it this summer and put it down. I need to finish it, but it's not very motivating.

 

Oh, it's on my list. Unfortunately, there's about eight more ahead of it. I'll definitely get to it. 1912 might be the most fascinating year in baseball history, IMO.

As y'all might be able to tell from that list, I'm quite slow on "new" books. The Lombardi book was released in '99 and I have no idea why I didn't read it until last year.

 

Reading List for 2009 in reverse order:

Coldest Winter (Halberstram)
Black Rain (Ibuse)
Mao (Carter)
The Fourth Star (Jaffe)
Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs (Mayor)
The Monster of Florence (Spezi)
The Poison King (Mayor)
The Book of Basketball (Simmons)
The Forgotten Man (Shlaes)
War of Necessity, War of Choice (Haass)
The Good Soldiers (Finkel)
In the Graveyard of Empires:America's War in Afghanistan (Jones)
The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth (Montville)
Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain (Appel)
The Gamble (Ricks)
Ladies and Gentlemen the Bronx is Burning (Mahler)
The Bronx Zoo (Lyle)
The Battle for America 2008 (Balz)
In Fed we Trust (Wessel)
Nothing to Fear (Cohen)
American Creation (Ellis)
Fiaso (Ricks)
Killing Pablo (Bowden)
His Excellency (Ellis)
American Creation (Ellis)
Lincoln (Donald)
1776 (McCullough)
Imperial Life in the Emerald City (Chandrasekaran)
Founding Brothers (Ellis)
The Defining Moment (ALter)
Satan's Circus (Dash)
Tip-Off (Bondy)
The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty (Olney)
The Strain (Del Toro)
Columbine (Cullen)
Confederacy of Silence (Rubin)
The Blind Side (Lewis)
Red and Me (Steinberg)
Havana Nocturne (English)
The Predator State (Galbraith)
A. Lincoln: A Biography (White Jr.)
Game of Shadows (Fainaru-Wada)
The Accidental Guerilla (Kilcullen)
A-Rod (Roberts)
Public Enemies (Burrough)
The Age of the Unthinkable (Ramos)
This Republic of Suffering (Faust)
Homicide (Simon)
Abraham Lincoln (McPherson)
FDR (Smith)
Lincoln (Kaplan)
Tried by War (McPherson)
The Yankee Years (Verducci and Torre)
The Next 100 Years (Friedman)
The Inheritance (Sanger)
Nazi Germany and the Jews (Friedlander)
Liar's Poker (Lewis)
Traitor to His Class (Brands)
Greenspan's Bubbles (Fleckenstein)
American Lion (Meachem)

 

Buck, Waylon, please fill me in on Vaccaro's book: title, synopsis, etc. That one interests me.

And the Lombardi bio was incredible, Buck. One of the best bios I've ever read.

 

I just read the first few pages, because I have a few books ahead of it in the stack, but essentially it is a narrative recount of the 1912 World Series between the Red Sox and Giants. As far as I can tell, Vaccaro's hypothesis is that this was the year the World Series became an American institution, and he twists the narrative with world and local events of the time (a la "The Bronx is Burning"). I've never met Mike, but we have the same agent, and I'm selfishly happy to see that he was able to get a major publishing deal for a book about a century-old series, especially in this publishing economy. That's no knock against the subject matter, but genuine joy that interesting titles see the light of day.

 

I just started reading Stephen King's new one - Under the Dome. I'm about 85 pages in and for those that don't know this thing is roughly 1100 pages long. So far it's very solid. We'll have to see how it holds up throughout.

As a Springsteen fan I read the Clarence Clemmons book "Big Man: Real Life & Tall Tales" and agree with the rip it to shreds review that was in the NY Times.

 

Here's the review E Street referred too. Might be the best rip job review I have read since Dave Marsh skewered The Knack's ...But The Little Girls Understand in Rolling Stone a million years ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/books/02book.html