BOOKS THREAD

Thanks, I love those Sports compilations!

 

Thanks! BASW is all downloaded.

 

I've started Wolf Hall. The "he" affectation is very irritating. For those who've read it: Did you get used to this? Better yet, did it stop? (Yeah, I know. Unlikely.)

 

Thank for the reminder. Saw it and forgot this morning. Picked up BASW and Mystery.

 

It never stops. But you do get used to it. Or I did. A great book.

 

I heard Ricks on NPR a few months ago talk about this book. It sounded fascinating, across the board.

Speaking of finishing, just wrapped up Glenn Stout's outstanding "Fenway 1912", about the building of Fenway and the very colorful and storyworthy 1912 Red Sox team that was faction-ridden, yet still managed to win 109 games and beat the Giants in the "World's Series" (as it was called).

I didn't realize how much of an arrogant prick Smoky Joe Wood (the last survivor of the '12 Sox, who actually lived until 1985) was, nor did I realize how they haphazardly added on to Fenway while the Red Sox were on a late-season roadie -- all to accommodate the expected crowds for the Series. Many of the additions led to what we now know and recognize about Fenway Park.

Stout left it on the table: a lot of research combined with a readable, informative style of writing.

 

I'm a Pat Conroy fan and just finished "My Losing Season."

Good book, but wow, what a rip job on his basketball coach at The Citadel.

It's a good thing he's a literary book writer -- although this one is autobiographical and first-hand, first-person in nature -- and not a newspaper writer.

 

Started Instant Replay today. Little embarrassed it's taken me this long to read it.

 

Ha. Instant Replay may have been the first "grown-up" book I ever read. Either that or Catcher in the Rye. I thought Catcher in the Rye was going to be about a baseball player but I kept reading because I enjoyed the swearing, rants and rebellion.

 

Interesting passage from Instant Replay....

"Newspaper reporters seem to have a habit of looking for sensationalism, of distorting and stretching the truth. Of course, there are exceptions, but sometimes I'm afraid they're few and far between."

Maybe the 60s weren't so different after all!!

 

Make sure you pick up this one!

 

Recently finished Jim Lehrer's Super.
It's a short, humorous, nostalgic murder-mystery novel set in 1956.
Clark Gable one of a few non-fiction characters skillfully fictionalized by Lehrer.
Lehrer's techniquie is quick, organic and concise.
Perfectly light reading at 200 pages.
I like tight bodies and tight writing.