BOOKS THREAD

Tales from the Deadball Era - Ty Cobb, Home Run Baker, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and the Wildest Times in Baseball History by Mark S Halfon

About 130 pages in. Amazing book. Fascinating stories about baseball during the Deadball Era.

 

I finished this last night, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Bragg kinda got in his own way some and seemed like he was trying too hard to write prose instead of telling the story, but was mostly outstanding.

 

I stalled in the middle as well. Still good work, but rather like Lewis' career, the best part was the beginning.


I'm working on Springsteen's autobio, "Born to Run". Interesting, and he did not shy away from discussing his doubts, fears, psychological issues, and failings while also giving the fans the inside stuff they want to read. It's a pretty good read. Nothing earthshaking, but not your typical celebrity bio either.

 

As a Bruce fan, the schmaltz was laid on a bit too thick for me. Nothing was too much to be epic or heroic in the book.

 

I recently caught the 30 for 30 on Greg LeMond's battle with Bernard Hinault in the 1986 Tour de France and noticed it was based on a book called Slaying the Badger by Richard Moore. I am not much of a cycling fan but this was an absolutely captivating book. LeMond and Hinault are strong, dominant personalities who each have their say on their rivalry over the years. Mix in a collection of team officials, journalists and riders, both teammates and opponents, and you get a terrific book that is well worth a read.

 

Finished re-reading Elmore Lenard's western short stories (most written in the early 1950s). Still great.
Started John Grisham's Rooster Bar. Normally, I can devour a Grisham book .. Not into this one. The characters are not appealing. I am half-way through the book and I have no idea why. Not one of his better efforts.

 

Just read "i am Brian Wilson," a memoir the Beach Boys leader wrote with Ben Greenman in 2016 (it more or less coincided with the "Love and Mercy" movie).

It's very similar to Neil Young's autobiography, "Waging Heavy Peace." It's a stream-of-consciousness memoir that bounces around chronologically yet still reveals some interesting tidbits about a man whose life has been examined quite a bit.

And it's yet another reminder that creative people sometimes are on the very edge of sanity, and often go over the edge. It took Wilson a long time to figure out how to live with his mental illness/depression issues, but I'm glad he did. The post 2000-era seems to have been a happy and creative time for him.

 

Well-written, but there's a bunch of storylines going on at the same time, and jumping forward and backward in time. It was good, but hard to follow.

Joe Bob says, possibly, check it out.

 

I finally read "Ready Player One," and enjoyed it so much I'm finding room to haul it back from my vacation instead of passing it along.

 

It's a fun book, especially if you grew up through 80's/90's geek culture. I was a bull goose geek through that time period, but too old for most of it to resonate strongly with my teenage memories. Still, it was original and very well done. It caught a good bit of backlash through the GamerGate time period - it was very much a boys in the clubhouse kinda book, and those were the guys who gave girl gamers and in particular girl game reviewers so much hell. That's really unjust, the book had nothing to do with it, but it was the same culture and took some splash damage as a result, as did his next book.

 

Finished Michelle McNamara's "Ill Be Gone In The Dark."
McNamara was a true crime writer who was devoted to unmasking the Golden State Killer. She was also comedian Patton Oswald's wife. She died about 2 years ago and, of course, the Golden State Killer was discovered a few weeks ago.
I used to enjoy a lot of true crime and a like serial killers. This book? No.

She did solid work. And the writing is good. She details the best new-age effort to find the killer, through sites like Ancestery.com, and even makes a few forays into those sites (with no luck).
My issue: Now that we know who the killer/rapist is, her book and research really falls flat. She interviews and works with several cops and criminologists who worked the cases and she IDs a list of potential suspects. But she misses. None of the suspects panned out and never once was it even speculated GSK could be a cop or a guy with a law enforcement background.

It's not a long read, but it took me several days to get through it. I wouldn't recommend it.