BOOKS THREAD

Has anyone read the new Clemente bio?

 

Loved Vowell's "Take the Cannoli".

 

The Partly Cloudy Patriot is really a razor sharp collection of essays. Her essay about Al Gore and the Love Canal incident shows you exactly what's wrong with political reporting in this country.

I didn't care for Life of Pi.

Del_B_Vista's summary of what the book is about is pretty accurate. The N. Night Shyamalan description, especially. When the book came out in hardcover, the orginial jacket said something to the effect of how the story would "make you believe in god." That's a pretty bold claim, and frankly, the story didn't exactly deliver. It was interesting, but would have been a better short story. Your expectations when you're finishing a 300-page novel are going to be much higher than they are if you're finishing a 20-page short story, and that's part of the reason why I think it just didn't live up to its twist. It's one of the few critically-praised books (Motherless Brooklyn being another) that I simply don't understand why people are so ga-ga over.

 

Finally finished McCullough's bio of John Adams and wasn't that impressed. In keeping with this theme for my trip to Florida last week, started Ron Chernow's bio of one of the most fascinating Americans in history -- Alexander Hamilton.

Arguably the greatest Secretary of the Treasury in our nation's history, a precocious, frighteningly intelligent individual who had no business rising above his humble origins in 18th century society. And someone who was too often his own worst enemy.

He needs to stay on the $10 bill.

Moddy, Montville has a bio of Ruth coming out/out? How does it compare to Robert Creamer's definitive tome on the man?

 

I just finished Fay Vincent's "The Only Game in Town." I really wanted to like it, but I didn't. I thought it dragged and that the players' voices didn't translate well to the page. I thought this was going to be an automatic thumbs up and was really surprised I didn't like it more. I'm about the start the Clemente bio.

Also, I read it awhile back, but I wanted to recommend "The Greatest Game Ever Played." I'm not usually a golf fan, but I really enjoyed this book. I didn't see the movie, but I heard it didn't do the book justice.

 

One of the best sports books I ever read, period.

And no, the movie didn't come remotely close to doing the book justice.

 

I read both of those and thought they were both very good.

 

That's strange. Didn't the author also write the screenplay?

 

Birdscribe,

I don't care for his politics, but Richard Brookhiser's Hamilton biography hits the highlights (and the lowlights) and is written with a lot of flair and energy. More thematic rather than your standard cradle-to-grave bio.

Chernow's book, however, is now the definitive source in the historiography. Has mined a lot of new material. I saw him on the Book Channel a few months back and he was as smooth as can be.

 

He did, indeed, JJ.

I met Frost at a reception during the '05 Nissan Open, about six months before the movie came out. He told me about the movie and mentioned he wrote the screenplay, but didn't get too much into details. Admittedly, I should have asked him more about that than I did about who was going to play Ouimet, etc.

The problem with the movie was severalfold. First, it added a love story that didn't happen. Second, it barely touched on Ouimet's role in igniting golf in the U.S. and what that victory meant. Third, while it did focus to a certain extent on the class divisions in Edwardian-era America (largely in the context of the love story that didn't happen), it gave it barely a sniff.

It wasn't a bad movie and it had its moments, but it wasn't true to the book, nor the real story.