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What are you reading in 2012?

Benjamin Grimm Jan 01 2012 06:13 AM

The 2011 thread will remain open for a while in case anyone wants to post their end-of-year list of books that they read. Please post 2012 books in this thread. Me, right now I'm reading Ron Chernow's big fat biography of George Washington.

Frayed Knot Jan 01 2012 10:43 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

ROTHSTEIN: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series -- David Pietrusza

TheOldMole Jan 03 2012 07:23 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Just started the 4th in the Song of Ice and Fire series, and I think I'm losing interest. Read The Risk Pool by Richard Russo. Liked, didn't love. Read three of the Kate Atkinson Kackson Brodie mysteries. Liked them enough to keep reading. Two Bulldog Drummond novels. Very dated, but I don't mind that. A Scarlet Pimpernel premise -- guy pretends to be a fatuous fop, secretly carrying out deeds do derring-do. Some of that was at the end of 2011.

HahnSolo Jan 04 2012 09:17 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Read [u:9hefgzhh]The Drop[/u:9hefgzhh], the new Harry Bosch novel from Michael Connelly, over a couple of days. I've been on a serious Connelly kick the last few months, after going years without reading him.

TransMonk Jan 09 2012 03:32 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I bought a NOOK tablet on Friday as one of my 2012 resolutions is to read more books. The tablet rocks!

Nymr83 Jan 09 2012 06:58 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

My pile of books never shrinks and I keep reading the new ones as I buy them- as result, I've got books sitting there since 2007-2008 unread. But I've finally gotten to two baseball books- Jim Caple's "the devil wears pinstripes" and Jonah Keri's "the extra 2%" Caple's book is all over the place and doesn't really tell you much of anything. Its funny in places but there's no continuity through the book... I guess it would make good bathroom readin if you were inclined to read there (I'm not) Keri's is an interesting tale of turning around a franchise, it is loaded with interesting anecdotes (that cheap bastard who owned the Rays didn't want to pay for company email!), but it reads like a propoganda piece put out by the current ownership group who are made to be know-it-all saints. Worth a read when its on deep discount on Amazon but don't pay full price. After reading a few star trek books (I can't stand this 'mirror universe' crap, but then they loop it back into the story so I feel lost if I skip those books) I'm looking forward to the original Dracula (only 3.50 on amazon and I needed to add a few bucks too qualify for free shipping on my last order!) After that I am going to dip into the pile and hopefully read a book on Stalingrad that's been sitting there.

Ceetar Jan 09 2012 07:01 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

The Bourne Betrayal

Ashie62 Jan 09 2012 07:27 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Crane Pool Forum

Edgy MD Jan 09 2012 07:35 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Dracula is no big whoop.

bmfc1 Jan 10 2012 05:13 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

[u:akqcjqb1]The Litigators[/u:akqcjqb1], by John Grisham. I've read almost all of his books and this was one of the best. He sometimes fails to end his books well--300 pages are good, 25 pages are bad--but this one was satisfying all the way through.

themetfairy Jan 10 2012 06:32 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

bmfc1 wrote: The Litigators, by John Grisham. I've read almost all of his books and this was one of the best. He sometimes fails to end his books well--300 pages are good, 25 pages are bad--but this one was satisfying all the way through. That's good to know bmfc1. I've always felt that about Grisham's work - good premises that he couldn't end satisfactorily. I'm glad that's not the case with this book.

TransMonk Jan 10 2012 07:17 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Edgy DC wrote: Dracula is no big whoop. This came free with my tablet. I read it back in high school, but might read it again if I fall short of options this year.

Ceetar Jan 10 2012 07:18 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

TransMonk wrote: Edgy DC wrote: Dracula is no big whoop. This came free with my tablet. I read it back in high school, but might read it again if I fall short of options this year. I won't read it unless they change it so he sparkles in the sunlight.

Benjamin Grimm Jan 10 2012 07:23 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I kind of like Dracula. I haven't read it in years, but recently bought a fresh copy for $2. I'll probably reread it in the next year or two.

Nymr83 Jan 10 2012 07:27 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Fun Fact: because of the copyright laws in effect at the time, and the author's inability to follow them, Dracula was in the public domain from the moment it was published in the USA, but was copyrighted in England (and other 'Berne Convention' states of the time)

Edgy MD Jan 10 2012 07:28 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

And that's likely a big reason for it's high profile.

A Boy Named Seo Jan 16 2012 11:16 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Completely devoured this book this weekend: Can't remember a book I plowed through so rabidly without hitting a wall of boredom or just getting tired. As I was reading yesterday, I realized I wasn't gonna put it down til it ended, so I grabbed a beer and just settled in happily. It's a book set in the future and played out in a virtual reality universe, so know that very geeky angle going in. An eccentric billionaire built the virtual reality universe, a place that provided a better existence for most people who lived in poor, dilapidated, resource-depleted America at the time. The billionaire dies and leaves his fortune and the keys to his virtual universe to first to find the easter egg he's planted in his vast universe. He's an 80's pop culture fiend, so navigating through the 'quests' to get to the end will require vaults worth of in-depth knowledge of 80's music, gaming, and movie culture. And the references fly fast, too. The characters are great and it's an awesome geek-fest, even if you've never played 'Joust', hate Duran Duran (what??), or have never sat down to watch The Last Starfighter (again, what??). Very fun. Highly recommend.

Fman99 Jan 16 2012 01:45 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Nice combination of historical and crime based non fiction. This is the third book of his that I've read and they have all been quite good.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jan 16 2012 04:45 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Completely devoured this book this weekend: Just got my copy outta the library.

TheOldMole Jan 16 2012 05:48 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Really liked this. Art, commerce and history.

TheOldMole Jan 16 2012 06:00 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

themetfairy wrote: bmfc1 wrote: The Litigators, by John Grisham. I've read almost all of his books and this was one of the best. He sometimes fails to end his books well--300 pages are good, 25 pages are bad--but this one was satisfying all the way through. That's good to know bmfc1. I've always felt that about Grisham's work - good premises that he couldn't end satisfactorily. I'm glad that's not the case with this book. True of Stephen King too. I wonder if it's a problem for very prolific authors -- by the time they're 2/3 of the way through they're starting to think about the next one.

TransMonk Jan 16 2012 09:07 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Frayed Knot Jan 17 2012 07:23 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

If nothing else that's a funny title & cover.

A Boy Named Seo Jan 17 2012 12:49 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

TransMonk wrote: Just starting or done? How is it?

Edgy MD Jan 17 2012 12:52 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Feels not a trifle gimmicky from this perspective. Speaking of which, what's that Ready, Player One about?

TransMonk Jan 17 2012 12:53 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

About 12 pages in. Gimmicky, yes. Funny, possibly. I'll keep you updated.

A Boy Named Seo Jan 17 2012 01:40 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Edgy DC wrote: Feels not a trifle gimmicky from this perspective. Speaking of which, what's that Ready, Player One about? It's about awesome. A Boy Named Seo wrote: It's a book set in the future and played out in a virtual reality universe, so know that very geeky angle going in. An eccentric billionaire built the virtual reality universe, a place that provided a better existence for most people who lived in poor, dilapidated, resource-depleted America at the time. The billionaire dies and leaves his fortune and the keys to his virtual universe to first to find the easter egg he's planted in his vast universe. He's an 80's pop culture fiend, so navigating through the 'quests' to get to the end will require vaults worth of in-depth knowledge of 80's music, gaming, and movie culture. And the references fly fast, too. The characters are great and it's an awesome geek-fest, even if you've never played 'Joust', hate Duran Duran (what??), or have never sat down to watch The Last Starfighter (again, what??). Very fun. Highly recommend.

Rockin' Doc Jan 21 2012 04:35 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I finished Destiny of the Republic last night. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Offers a wonderful look at how much politics, medicine, and American society has changed since Garfield's time. I very enjoyable look at a tremendous individual that has been largely overlooked and forgotten by history.

Fman99 Jan 21 2012 06:49 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Rockin' Doc wrote: I finished Destiny of the Republic last night. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Offers a wonderful look at how much politics, medicine, and American society has changed since Garfield's time. I very enjoyable look at a tremendous individual that has been largely overlooked and forgotten by history. Nice, that's on my short list. I may get that one next.

Frayed Knot Jan 21 2012 08:06 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Am also going to start that one in the next week or so.

TransMonk Jan 24 2012 12:08 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Feels not a trifle gimmicky from this perspective. This book was horrible. Gimmicky? Very much so. I made a resolution to start finishing books that I begin, but this one was tough. Even diehard fans of The Beatles or zombies may have trouble with this one. Revisiting this one in memory of the author:

Ceetar Jan 24 2012 12:38 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Just finished: Now reading (mainly because the author is awesome):

Mets – Willets Point Jan 24 2012 12:41 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Working my way through this epic tome.

metirish Jan 24 2012 12:50 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012? Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Jan 24 2012 01:10 PM

Have been wanting to read this because I liked Child 44 so much.....just started finished this one...... would have liked this more for the fact I read this series from middle to front and then back....

seawolf17 Jan 24 2012 01:06 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

The cover of that Tom Rob Smith book looks like a butt.

HahnSolo Jan 24 2012 01:28 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Mets – Willets Point wrote: Working my way through this epic tome. Got to try that one again some day. Only got 150 pp or so into the paperback before moving on.

Fman99 Jan 28 2012 07:35 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Just about finished with this one: Unfortunately the title is misleading -- the subject of the book was in the White House during his teen years and the majority of the book focuses on his life after leaving. Not terrible, just not great.

Rockin' Doc Jan 29 2012 07:01 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I finished The President and the Assassin this morning. An interesting analysis of President William McKinley and the troubled life of his assassin, Leon Czolgosz. This is written in a very different style from that of Destiny of the Republic which looked at President James Garfield's assassination, which occurred only 20 years earlier. This book jumps back and forth in time while moving from McKinley's life, US foreign and domestic policies of his administration (Cuban uprising, Spanish -American War, Hawaii annexation, Boxer Rebellion, etc), the life of Czolgosz, and the anarchy movement within America and abroad. The book skips back and forth from subject to subject as well as back and forth along the timeline, but it somehow works. This book is by no means as well written or engaging as Destiny of the Republic, but I still enjoyed it.

Edgy MD Jan 29 2012 07:38 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Cool. Good stuff. The broad filtered through the narrow. Good way to digest history.

Fman99 Jan 29 2012 08:17 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Rockin' Doc wrote: I finished The President and the Assassin this morning. An interesting analysis of President William McKinley and the troubled life of his assassin, Leon Czolgosz. This is written in a very different style from that of Destiny of the Republic which looked at President James Garfield's assassination, which occurred only 20 years earlier. This book jumps back and forth in time while moving from McKinley's life, US foreign and domestic policies of his administration (Cuban uprising, Spanish -American War, Hawaii annexation, Boxer Rebellion, etc), the life of Czolgosz, and the anarchy movement within America and abroad. The book skips back and forth from subject to subject as well as back and forth along the timeline, but it somehow works. This book is by no means as well written or engaging as Destiny of the Republic, but I still enjoyed it. Ironic... I read this book 2-3 months ago and started Destiny of the Republic yesterday. The McKinley book is good, I enjoyed it as well.

Frayed Knot Jan 30 2012 06:53 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Rockin' Doc wrote: I finished The President and the Assassin this morning. And I bet you didn't even realize that you did so on McKinley's birthday. That's right, if that damn assassin hadn't gotten him he'd have turned 169 on Sunday and could right now be filling the role as the wise elder statesman type to today's politicians. Or maybe not.

MFS62 Jan 30 2012 08:03 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Frayed Knot wrote: That's right, if that damn assassin hadn't gotten him he'd have turned 169 on Sunday and could right now be filling the role as the wise elder statesman type to today's politicians. Or maybe not. Well, maybe one (or more) of his grandkids: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/72021.html Later

DocTee Jan 30 2012 08:32 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

As a counterweight to Scott miller, might I suggest this excellent read: [u:1tcc2dsw]Murdering McKinley [/u:1tcc2dsw] by Eric Rauschway. Rauschway is at UC Davis-- excellent historian, engaging writer and, like Edgy says, uses the particular to illustrate the general. Highly recommended.

TransMonk Feb 01 2012 09:27 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I'm finishing up my re-read of the Hitchens book. I enjoyed it the first time and enjoyed it again. It read a bit differently to me now that he is dead, but for the most part, it drove his points home for me a little more. I'm taking these two to Mexico this weekend.

MFS62 Feb 11 2012 11:28 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

A few weeks ago, PBS aired a program about the Smothers Brothers' fight against the FCC and their network over the censorship of their TV show because of their liberal, anti-war views. We just found a book by David Bianculli called "Dangerously Funny - The Uncensored Story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour". I just started it. One tidbit - Rob Reiner was one of their writers, and at 21 was the youngest writer on any tv series. And many of their more controversial things were written by him. Later

Ceetar Feb 11 2012 09:02 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Dexter in the Dark was the third book in the Dexter series, and it's the last one I'll read. I really enjoyed the second book, but this third installment was such a dud I don't think I'll be going back. Just finished this. It did introduce some interesting angles, but was pretty much a dud, I agree. Wasn't real happy with how..sci-fiy? it got. I'll probably continue on though. I enjoyed the first two and enjoy the TV series so there's probably some value ahead.

Rockin' Doc Feb 11 2012 10:00 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Finished this last week. Vivid retelling of a historic journey that very nearly claimed the life of one of America's larger than life personalities. Both a gripping narrative of a perilous journey through the uncharted interior of the Amazon and a personal look at Theodore Roosevelt, the flamboyant, former president. Candice Millard has proven herself, at least to me, to be a very gifted writer (River of Doubt and Destiny of the Republic) and I look forward to her next offering.

Fman99 Feb 12 2012 06:57 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Agree, read both of her books in the last two months and liked them both. I am 1/3 of the way through this one, more outstanding nonfiction history writing. Takes you deeper into Fort Sumter and the early days of the Lincoln administration and a lot of new insight to me, even though I've read dozens of books on the subject.

Rockin' Doc Feb 12 2012 12:31 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I will have to add 1861 to my list of books for this year. I tend to gravitate toward narrative, historical, non-fiction books. The Civil War and Abraham Lincoln are both subjects I find fascinating and have read many good books regarding both.

TheOldMole Feb 12 2012 04:13 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Destiny of the Republic was fascinating. Opened my eyes to a whole part of American history I knew nothing about.

TheOldMole Feb 12 2012 04:15 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Also just finished A Feast for Crows, the fourth Ice and Fire book. I get less and less interested in these as I go along.

TransMonk Feb 12 2012 04:47 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I enjoyed my vacation books and the Megdal Wilpon book. Now, I'm revisiting one of the few fantasy books I have ever enjoyed and it was one of my favorite all-time book 20 years ago. I'm finding that I still enjoy Talisman by Stephen King

Ceetar Feb 12 2012 08:29 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

TheOldMole wrote: Also just finished A Feast for Crows, the fourth Ice and Fire book. I get less and less interested in these as I go along. Fifth one was better. Still, any lasting intrigue I had with the stupid cliffhanger was washed away the second I read something better which in my case was Ghost Story by Jim Butcher.

TheOldMole Feb 15 2012 09:16 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Just tell me who ends up king. I'm guessing it's the dragon girl.

Ceetar Feb 15 2012 09:48 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

TheOldMole wrote: Just tell me who ends up king. I'm guessing it's the dragon girl. That's my guess too (still two books to be written, so that's ~ 15 years) but I'm suspecting Martin is trying to think of a trick ending everyone will hate. Maybe they adopt representative democracy or something.

TransMonk Feb 25 2012 10:31 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

batmagadanleadoff Feb 29 2012 12:19 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Been skimming through this year's BP this past week. SPOILER Skip the rest of this post if you'd rather absorb BP content on your own reading. BP thinks Jason Bay is done: Bay got old and slowed on the Mets dime. His bat speed's too slow. Don't count on CF's new dimensions to materially improve Bay's game going forward is the BP implication here.

Ceetar Feb 29 2012 12:32 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Just finished the Bourne Deception, now reading the Bourne Objective. Hunger Games on deck.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Feb 29 2012 01:01 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I finished previously mentioned books THE TIGER (chilling but rather too much asides) and READY PLAYER ONE while away. I got through 'Ready' in no time, it was imaginative and fun but I didn't love it quite as much as Seo.

TransMonk Feb 29 2012 01:03 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Ready is next in my queue.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Mar 05 2012 07:11 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Started and finished this over the weekend. I think Gilbert's a true comic genius, and was hoping I'd find some secrets of his success in here, but he keeps his distance by more or less staying "in character" -- which I think is funny, but still wanting. Some stuff I didn't know: he has 2 sisters, a wife named Dara, grew up in Coney Island, his dad operated a hardware store and his burst appendix several years back was life-threatening and required a lengthy hospital stay. But mostly he talks about masturbation and the phenomenon of his low-level celebrity through recollections of a season on SNL, his experience on Hollywood Squares, etc. Much of it you could imagine him delivering in his stage voice. I actually got a biggest laugh while he "did impressions" on the printed page. He did a few like this: Here I am doing Jack Nicholson: "You can't handle the truth." Wow. What more can I say? Just in case you were wondering, again, that impression was spot-on. A virtuoso performance. I really, really nailed it. Sounded just like him. After a few more of these "I'm a excellent driver" / "Say hello to my little friend" he mentions he can do impressions of women too, before he lands the haymaker. Sandra Bullock: "Honey, take your tattooed biker dick out of that stripper's pussy and help me find a place on the shelf for my Oscar." The man is a genius.

A Boy Named Seo Mar 06 2012 10:46 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Enjoyed the hell out of this. Even better with baseball starting back up. At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended. Henry's fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight, a longtime bachelor, has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly in love. Owen Dunne, Henry's gay roommate and teammate, becomes caught up in a dangerous affair. Mike Schwartz, the Harpooners' team captain and Henry's best friend, realizes he has guided Henry's career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight, Guert's daughter, returns to Westish after escaping an ill-fated marriage, determined to start a new life. As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets. In the process they forge new bonds, and help one another find their true paths. Written with boundless intelligence and filled with the tenderness of youth, The Art of Fielding is an expansive, warmhearted novel about ambition and its limits, about family and friendship and love, and about commitment--to oneself and to others.

metirish Mar 06 2012 10:57 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Ceetar wrote: Just finished the Bourne Deception, now reading the Bourne Objective. Hunger Games on deck. I did read the Bourne Betrayal, but I just couldn't get around the fact that the Ludlum estate hired Eric Van Lustbader to continue the Bourne series.... Am currently reading The Honourable Schoolboy , the second book in the karla trilogy by John le Carre.

Ceetar Mar 06 2012 11:06 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

metirish wrote: Ceetar wrote: Just finished the Bourne Deception, now reading the Bourne Objective. Hunger Games on deck. I did read the Bourne Betrayal, but I just couldn't get around the fact that the Ludlum estate hired Eric Van Lustbader to continue the Bourne series.... Am currently reading The Honourable Schoolboy , the second book in the karla trilogy by John le Carre. I red Betrayal on a whim. Realized I'd forgotten to pack a book and purchased it in Terminal 5 at JFK. liked it enough to keep reading.

Fman99 Mar 06 2012 01:15 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Just finished this one. Fascinating, if not a bit of a downer. Now on this. Also quite good.

TransMonk Mar 07 2012 09:42 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I finished Watergate last night and found it to be a very enjoyable read. I've never really gotten into historical fiction before, but I think this one is very well written. Considering Nixon's resignation happened at about the time I was conceived, I can't help but think that I may have gotten some of the cultural references to the period if I was 20 years older. But overall, I highly recommend this book. Starting Ready Player One today.

Edgy MD Mar 07 2012 09:52 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

TransMonk wrote: Considering Nixon's resignation happened at about the time I was conceived... I've met some freaks before, but I've got to hand it to your folks. They take the cake. The freak cake.

TransMonk Mar 07 2012 09:56 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Yeah...I'm hoping it's purely coincidental.

TransMonk Mar 12 2012 10:54 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Ready Player One was a quick entertaining read. On to:

TransMonk Mar 27 2012 10:37 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I read 1984 in high school, but have not read Animal Farm. Looking forward to both.

Vic Sage Mar 27 2012 10:44 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Started and finished this over the weekend. I think Gilbert's a true comic genius, and was hoping I'd find some secrets of his success in here, but he keeps his distance by more or less staying "in character" -- which I think is funny, but still wanting. Some stuff I didn't know: he has 2 sisters, a wife named Dara, grew up in Coney Island, his dad operated a hardware store and his burst appendix several years back was life-threatening and required a lengthy hospital stay. But mostly he talks about masturbation and the phenomenon of his low-level celebrity through recollections of a season on SNL, his experience on Hollywood Squares, etc. Much of it you could imagine him delivering in his stage voice. I actually got a biggest laugh while he "did impressions" on the printed page. He did a few like this: Here I am doing Jack Nicholson: "You can't handle the truth." Wow. What more can I say? Just in case you were wondering, again, that impression was spot-on. A virtuoso performance. I really, really nailed it. Sounded just like him. After a few more of these "I'm a excellent driver" / "Say hello to my little friend" he mentions he can do impressions of women too, before he lands the haymaker. Sandra Bullock: "Honey, take your tattooed biker dick out of that stripper's pussy and help me find a place on the shelf for my Oscar." The man is a genius. Big fan, even before i found out (just now) that he is a Coney boy. I saw him on New Year's eve (early 90s, maybe?), opening for Buster Poindexter, at the Beacon theater in nyc. one of the best shows i've ever gone to. And his version of the "aristocrats" is maybe the best in that documentary. sure, he became a self-parody, but since he was a self-parody to begin with, that just makes it more interesting... sort of "meta" comedy.

HahnSolo Mar 27 2012 11:10 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Picked up an ARC of this at the recent Public Library Association meeting: Interesting, Hoosiers-like narrative. Kept picturing Matthew McConaghey as the manager if they ever make this into a movie.

TheOldMole Mar 28 2012 07:10 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Adam and Eve, by Sena Jeter Naslund. Picked it up at random off my local public library's instant Kindle download list. I'd sort of liked her Ahab's Wife, though it wasn't especially a favorite. In case you're thinking of wasting several hours of time that you won't get back, I recommend oyster shucking. There at least you'll have a chance of finding a pearl. The last book I pulled at random from the library's Kindle list was Madame Tussaud, by Michelle Moran. I would never have considered picking it up in a bookstore, or even off the library shelf, because from the cover it looks like a romance novel, but it was a winner. I sent it to my daughter for her birthday -- the brick and mortar version, and she looked at the cover and thought I'd gone crazy, but read it and loved it as much as I did.

Edgy MD Mar 28 2012 07:23 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I'm a little guarded about the subgenres of fiction and non-ficiton that attempt to filter the story through the woman in the great man's life. Ahab's Wife, Galileo's Daughter, The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein. It seem's like you can tack on minimum 35% of sales to your book if you title it The _________'s Daughter.

Benjamin Grimm Mar 28 2012 09:11 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I enjoyed Galileo's Daughter in spite of, not because of, the daughter angle.

Edgy MD Mar 28 2012 10:32 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I'm a little guarded. Certainly not completely contemptuous of.

Frayed Knot Mar 28 2012 10:36 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I liked 'Mona Lisa's Sister' by Graham Parker

metirish Apr 05 2012 08:54 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

FYI Ball Four -Jim Bouton -Kindle edition on sale for $.99

Fman99 Apr 05 2012 08:21 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

More enjoyable non fiction history.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Apr 11 2012 06:14 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

This book, which tells of the rise of KISS and the often foolish life it afforded its lead guitarist, could easily have sucked, but it really didn't. Ace is so straightforward and matter of fact it's actually funny. As you learn, Ace was just a kid from the Bronx who escaped the streets with a guitar. Interested in what he called "theatrical" rock, he hooked on with Kiss, went along for the ride, and soon found himself way too rich for an undisciplined guy in the 1970s. He considers himself to have been the purest musician in Kiss, and is convincing as he describes how their elaborate stage show and relentless image curation robbed from the sense of creativity and spontaneity that drew Ace to rock in the first place. To his credit he doesn't say that being creatively unfulfilled led him to abuse drugs and alcohol (he maintains it was all about having a good time, which the band's success afforded) but you can see how that cognitive dissonance played a role. Along the way you get stories of young Ace at a Steppenwolf concert at Shea Stadium, a good portrait of Gene Simmons (singleminded in his pursuit of the success Kiss was to achieve from the very start, but at the cost of having a life or any real friendships), how he kicked all the other's asses making a solo album, car accidents and on-stage electrocutions, etc etc. He explains how KISS began as an equal partnership of the four founders but after Peter Criss (like Ace, a heavy drug-user) left, it meant Paul and Gene always outvoted him 2-1. He kinda skims through his breakup and later reunion and is imo fair to the others in Kiss till the end where he implies Gene was settling old scores by cutting Ace's daughter out of film project. He's angry today that Kiss is dressing different guitarists in Ace's costumes and makeup, but also, he says, sober for the first time in 40 years. Not a bad read!

Edgy MD Apr 11 2012 06:34 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Steppenwolf is one of those bands that was on the bill for the Peace Festival, but I could never find photo evidence of --- though accounts like Frehely's leave me confident that they did go on. Here's Poco. Great page of photos from that show here, including the Mets locker room used as Johnny Winter's green room

Mets – Willets Point Apr 11 2012 07:32 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Currently reading...

John Cougar Lunchbucket Apr 11 2012 07:37 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Absolutely. Ace mentions in fact that it was the Festival for Peace, and tells of sneaking backstage, being mistaken for a roadie, and winds up tuning John's Kay's guitar for him.

TransMonk Apr 20 2012 02:50 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I began Darwin's The Origin of Species last night. I'm hoping I can make it through.

TransMonk Apr 22 2012 10:38 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012? Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Apr 22 2012 02:01 PM

That was a hopeless hope. I'm thankful for Darwin's research, but I have no problem admitting that I am not smart enough to read much of this one past page 31. On to:

sharpie Apr 22 2012 11:15 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I liked A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD. She's a couple of years younger than me but lived in SF at the same time and writes about places I remember. Another book of hers, THE KEEP, is also recommended.

Benjamin Grimm Apr 22 2012 12:48 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I've thought about reading Darwin too, but I'm afraid I'd have no more success with that than you did. If you want to read about Darwin, try Darwin by Adrian Desmond and James Moore.

TransMonk May 06 2012 10:07 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I greatly enjoyed Goon Squad. Most of my limited experiences in Manhattan revolve around the East Village's music scene, so the book's references to the scene and The Pyramid Club (where I've played) hit home for me. There was also a chapter set in Naples, Italy, which I will be visiting in a couple of weeks, so I was able to have a personal connection to those references due to my study of the region for my upcoming vacation. This was a good collection of inter-connected short stories. I've read that HBO is turning these into a series. If that happens, I will definitely watch. On to Dickey's memoir, which I'm hoping to complete between his start today and his next start.

Fman99 May 06 2012 06:24 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I'm reading The Adventures of Huck Finn. For the first time.

Mets – Willets Point May 10 2012 09:17 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

A good addition to the Sherlock Holmes canon.

Mets – Willets Point May 18 2012 09:46 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Joining the club of CPF'ers who've read Unbroken.

TheOldMole May 21 2012 02:12 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Vic Sage May 21 2012 02:32 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

avi

Fman99 May 21 2012 07:34 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Leisurely making my way through the Gutenberg Project book list, I am now reading Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea." It's not bad, though a bit dry in spots. Suggestions on free books that are in the public domain are appreciated. I figure, there's a wealth of classic literature that I owe it to myself to read, or attempt to read.

Frayed Knot May 21 2012 08:35 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

This author seems to specialize in writing true-life accounts of precocious college students and the audacious pranks and ventures they get into in pursuit of outrageous fortune. - 'The Accidental Billionaires' (which I did not read) was the story of whatsisname and the creation of Facebook while still at Harvard. The book was the main source of the very good movie 'Social Network' - 'Bringing Down the House' (which I did read and liked) dealt with a crew of MIT math whizzes and their adventures in card counting at casinos. It was later made into the very bad movie '21' - This one follows a "disgraced" Mormon estranged from his parents and his college-age decision that he wants to be an astronaut. Or, failing that, to get rich trying. Just started it, but so far it's intriguing.

John Cougar Lunchbucket May 21 2012 09:00 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Contemporary sci-fi novel about an engineer who loses a leg in a lab accident then sets out geeklike to improve his prosthetic. Has a lot of fun with the idea of what makes us human. Could be a very funny movie someday.

Ceetar May 24 2012 02:48 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Contemporary sci-fi novel about an engineer who loses a leg in a lab accident then sets out geeklike to improve his prosthetic. Has a lot of fun with the idea of what makes us human. Could be a very funny movie someday. Oooh, didn't realize he had a new book .(hard to keep up on these people sometimes) I enjoyed Syrup and Jennifer Government, even played the silly web game associated with the latter.

TransMonk Jun 08 2012 08:08 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Last night I finished Love Is A Mixtape by Rob Sheffield (geeky rock wroter for Rolling Stone who is all over the "I Love the..." series on VH1). It details the sometimes funny but often sad relationship with his wife who died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism. All chapters are chronicled by the mixtapes he was listening to at the time of the stories (typically the late 80s and early 90s). I was expecting a much more lighthearted book going in, but it turned out to be somehat of a downer. Still, his frank and honest descriptions of loss made for a good read. I feel for the dude. I'm on to Russ Feingold's latest book. I should probably stay away from political stuff right now, but I'll see what Russ has to say.

Mets – Willets Point Jun 16 2012 07:52 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

TransMonk wrote: Last night I finished Love Is A Mixtape by Rob Sheffield (geeky rock wroter for Rolling Stone who is all over the "I Love the..." series on VH1). It details the sometimes funny but often sad relationship with his wife who died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism. All chapters are chronicled by the mixtapes he was listening to at the time of the stories (typically the late 80s and early 90s). I was expecting a much more lighthearted book going in, but it turned out to be somehat of a downer. Still, his frank and honest descriptions of loss made for a good read. I feel for the dude. I just finished reading Talking to Girls About Duran Duran by the same author. He uses songs from the 1980s as touchpoints for a memoir of his teenage years and early 20s. As someone who grew up in the 80s liking the music of the era I felt a kinship to the author but the more I read, the more I found commonalities with my own life. We both grew up in New England suburbs, we both came from an Irish Catholic background, we were influenced strongly by our sisters, we were exceedingly shy. The more I read the more eerie the similarities became - we both went to college in Virginia, we both were DJs at college radio, we both worked at Harvard Libraries and then there's a chapter where he writes about living with his grandfather in the same neighborhood and the same street where I currently live. Anyhow, that's a little freaky, but it's a good book and probably more of the lighthearted book that TransMonk expected.

TheOldMole Jun 16 2012 08:38 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Fman...on Kindle, for free, you can get several of the novels of Dornford Yates -- droll and winning stories about a wealthy British family between the wars.

HahnSolo Jun 18 2012 06:58 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I finished this in a couple of sittings. Nothing great, only picked it up due to its Mets connection. Not great for Grisham, not great as a baseball story. Certainly get the idea that if the writer of the manuscript was Joe Schlabotnik, it never would have been published. Biggest problem I had was that a lot of the baseball background was innacurate...of course he mentions that he took a lot of historical liberties in the novel in his afterword. would have made my reading a lot less teeth-gnashing had I known that before I started reading. Anyhow, at least we have another pitcher--Warren Tracy--for our Fictional Mets team. Where is that thread anyway?

Edgy MD Jun 18 2012 07:13 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

This is all I got. I'm trying to plow my way through Vonnegut short stories. Mostly great stuff.

Vic Sage Jun 18 2012 07:45 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

i love Vonnegut's short stories; i love his novels, too (most of them anyway). He's somehow able to maintain the charm of his short work in his longer work... I'm not quite sure how he does it. I remember doing an analysis of his entire output at one point; is it in the archives?

bmfc1 Jun 18 2012 07:52 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

HahnSolo wrote: I finished this in a couple of sittings. Nothing great, only picked it up due to its Mets connection. Not great for Grisham, not great as a baseball story. Certainly get the idea that if the writer of the manuscript was Joe Schlabotnik, it never would have been published. Biggest problem I had was that a lot of the baseball background was innacurate...of course he mentions that he took a lot of historical liberties in the novel in his afterword. would have made my reading a lot less teeth-gnashing had I known that before I started reading. Anyhow, at least we have another pitcher--Warren Tracy--for our Fictional Mets team. Where is that thread anyway? I enjoyed it. So many of Grisham's books end badly as if he's trying to remind us that the bad guys usually win. This had an appropriate and satisfying ending. The heroics of the title character were far-fetched but there wouldn't be a story without them. And where else can you find a book with a fictional conversation between Wayne Garrett and Ed Kranepool?

Edgy MD Jun 18 2012 07:56 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I'm going through about three Vonnegut short story books at once. One of them is previously unpublished stuff (but hardly a lesser quality than the rest). It seems most of it was developed for the slick magazine market, particularly women's magazines. Not a lot of supernatural stuff. It's just strange to once again see short stories with a moral center, a moving narrative, and a payoff.

Vic Sage Jun 18 2012 08:21 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I found the Vonnegut exegesis; i wrote it after he died in the DEATH thread: Vonnegut's death is still upsetting me. Despite his age and decline, it still seemed sudden. I was a big fan in my HS days. After being introduced to his work with CAT'S CRADLE, i went back and read his entire output, from PLAYER PIANO through BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS. After that, either i changed or he did because his work, which had always been original, funny, insightful and profound began, with SLAPSTICK and beyond, to seem trite, shtick-laden and attenuated. In his dotage, he went off to write more and more non-fiction and i was unwilling to take that trip with him. But the 7 novels and 2 short story collections he turned out over the first 20 years of his career was enough to put him in the pantheon of great American writers of the 20th century. Novels: * Player Piano (or, Utopia) (1952) - It reminded me of BRAVE NEW WORLD and 1984, both of which i read during the same period. But only Vonnegut and Chaplin could make you laugh about our loss of humanity from mechanization. Still, the writing is not as fluid and economical as it would later become [B ] * The Sirens of Titan (1959) - Vonnegut takes on religion in the guise of comic science fiction, and he starts to use characters and places and themes he would return to in later works. A great and influential book. [A] * Mother Night (1961) - Vonnegut takes his first crack at his WWII novel, and ends up with something else. He introduces various devices of metafiction (devices which become a staple of his later work), in which he pretends that the fiction is real to tell the story about the theme that "we are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." Behind it all is an exploration of the nature of guilt. Its very powerful stuff. [A] * Cat's Cradle (1963) - The quintessential Vonnegut book... an indictment of religion and the arms race, disguised as humorous SF. It had a profound effect on my world view. Busy, busy, busy. [A+] * God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (or, Pearls Before Swine) (1965) - It took me a little bit by surprise because, while it is his usual biting social satire, it has a sweetness and gentility not commonly found in his novels. There is even some nostalgia for the small town mid-western life he grew up in. This piece of metafiction, while not SF, introduces a minor character, Kilgore Trout, who is a disheveled SF writer that appears in Vonnegut's later books. SF writer Philip Jose Farmer would later write a novel AS "Kilgore Trout" ("Venus on the Half shell"), based on Vonnegut's description of the character. [B ] * Slaughterhouse-Five (or, The Children's Crusade) (1969) - The one he'll be remembered for. This is his "great American novel" about his adventures in WWII, in the form of a SF novel about time travel, with his usual metafictional devices and appearances by most of his repertory cast. It's up there with CATCH-22 and NAKED AND THE DEAD. And so it goes [A+] * Breakfast of Champions (or, Goodbye Blue Monday!) (1973) - Kilgore Trout gets center stage in Vonnegut's surrealist "fin de siècle" novel. He uses his whole bag of tricks -- metafiction, recurring characters, deadpan satire -- and at the end, he personally frees all his characters, clearly intending to never use them again (although he did, from time to time). Its all a mess, but a fascinating end to the cycle of unique fiction Vonnegut spawned over 20 years. [C+] Everything that came after paled in comparison, though occasionally showed flashes of the old brilliance. * Slapstick (or, Lonesome No More!) (1976) - Hi Ho. [C] * Jailbird (1979) - couldn't finish it * Deadeye Dick (1982) - couldn't finish it * Galapagos: A Novel (1985) - didn't even start it * Bluebeard (The Autobiography of Rabo Karabekian) (1987) - ditto. * Hocus Pocus (1990) - finished it, unfortunately [D] * Timequake (1997) - His last novel... I couldn't finish it. Short stories: * Canary in a Cathouse (1961) - Didn't read it. * Welcome to the Monkey House (1968) - Inconsistent, but some great stories, especially "Harrison Bergeron" [B-] * Bagombo Snuff Box (1999) - Didn't read it. Essays: * Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons (1974) * Palm Sunday (1981) * Nothing is lost save honor (1984) * Fates Worse than Death (an Autobiographical Collage) (1990) * God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999) * A Man Without a Country (2005) "...if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, `Kurt is up in heaven now.'ť That's my favorite joke." - from A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.

TransMonk Jun 26 2012 11:31 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

A Boy Named Seo wrote: Enjoyed the hell out of this. Even better with baseball starting back up. I'm up to this one. I'm only about 75 pages into this 500 pager...but it is very good.

themetfairy Jun 29 2012 01:00 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

HahnSolo wrote: I finished this in a couple of sittings. Nothing great, only picked it up due to its Mets connection. Not great for Grisham, not great as a baseball story. Certainly get the idea that if the writer of the manuscript was Joe Schlabotnik, it never would have been published. Biggest problem I had was that a lot of the baseball background was innacurate...of course he mentions that he took a lot of historical liberties in the novel in his afterword. would have made my reading a lot less teeth-gnashing had I known that before I started reading. I didn't love it. About a third of the way in I was hit by the absurdity of where the plot was heading, and I found the rest of it to be an exercise in frustration. I need to take a break from Grisham - his work just annoys me at this point.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jun 29 2012 01:04 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

TransMonk wrote: A Boy Named Seo wrote: Enjoyed the hell out of this. Even better with baseball starting back up. I'm up to this one. I'm only about 75 pages into this 500 pager...but it is very good. Just got it myself. I'm on like, page 4.

TransMonk Jun 29 2012 01:17 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

It's the best novel I've read in a really long time. Granted, I'm only halfway through, it could all fall apart.

TransMonk Jul 08 2012 05:26 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I finally got to finish The Art of Fielding. I really liked it and would recommend it to anyone. On to:

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jul 08 2012 05:41 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: TransMonk wrote: A Boy Named Seo wrote: Enjoyed the hell out of this. Even better with baseball starting back up. I'm up to this one. I'm only about 75 pages into this 500 pager...but it is very good. Just got it myself. I'm on like, page 4. Killed it this week. very engrossing and ghey.

Mets – Willets Point Jul 08 2012 05:50 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Listening to this as an audiobook narrated by Keith himself and a couple of other guys (including Johnny Depp). I expected he'd be a good storyteller and he's not disappointed.

Edgy MD Jul 17 2012 01:45 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Just finished this doorstopper, a marathon or a read I've been running since I found it discarded while I was on jury duty last year. All filled with a sense of accomplishment until I just found out that it's part of a trilogy. AGGH!!! Maybe I'll save the others for the next two times I get called in on a murder one case.

Ceetar Jul 17 2012 01:51 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I really like Christopher Moore's books, they're quirky and weird. But this one I'm struggling with. Mostly deals with french painters from hundreds of years ago and it's just not jiving with me. tempted to just stop reading it.

Nymr83 Jul 17 2012 04:48 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I'm almost finished with "Twelve Desperate Miles", the true story of an American banana boat and its captain drafted into service by the navy and used as part of Operation Torch as well as the story of a French-Morrocan river pilot who escapes to England and returns to help guide the invading Americans... Its not a bad book so far. My biggest complaint would be the number of pages devoted to telling us all about Patton, because he matters to the story but not enough to warrant the amount of attention I felt he got... You just want it to end and get you back to Malvergne or the Contessa.

The Second Spitter Jul 18 2012 11:04 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Currently reading through Shelby Foote's Civil War trilogy. His writing style is quite appealing. Before that I re-read Dick Marcinko's autobiography (for the 3rd time) . Superb read. Very inspirational. Read it!

metsguyinmichigan Jul 18 2012 01:46 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

My daughter has me reading the Hunger Games trilogy. Better than I thought.

Fman99 Jul 19 2012 06:48 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Edgy DC wrote: Just finished this doorstopper, a marathon or a read I've been running since I found it discarded while I was on jury duty last year. All filled with a sense of accomplishment until I just found out that it's part of a trilogy. AGGH!!! Maybe I'll save the others for the next two times I get called in on a murder one case. I liked this one also, bought it at the local public library book sale a year or two ago. I didn't know there were two more volumes... I will look for them now.

seawolf17 Jul 19 2012 07:16 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

metsguyinmichigan wrote: My daughter has me reading the Hunger Games trilogy. Better than I thought. Agreed. I actually enjoyed them.

Ceetar Jul 19 2012 07:34 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

seawolf17 wrote: metsguyinmichigan wrote: My daughter has me reading the Hunger Games trilogy. Better than I thought. Agreed. I actually enjoyed them. I've been slacking on books lately so it's a somewhat small sample, but was my favorite set of the year.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jul 19 2012 07:43 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

seawolf17 wrote: metsguyinmichigan wrote: My daughter has me reading the Hunger Games trilogy. Better than I thought. Agreed. I actually enjoyed them. We've been reading Harry Potter with Lunchpail, onto the 4th book now and wondering how we'll deal with it if and when teen Harry discovers his *other* magic wand.

soupcan Jul 22 2012 06:05 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Just finished this: It's been out for a few years but I was just recently told about it. If you run, it's a must-read. Great book. Born To Run

metsguyinmichigan Jul 22 2012 06:32 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: seawolf17 wrote: metsguyinmichigan wrote: My daughter has me reading the Hunger Games trilogy. Better than I thought. Agreed. I actually enjoyed them. We've been reading Harry Potter with Lunchpail, onto the 4th book now and wondering how we'll deal with it if and when teen Harry discovers his *other* magic wand. Fear not.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jul 22 2012 07:05 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Just finished this: It's been out for a few years but I was just recently told about it. If you run, it's a must-read. Great book. Born To Run I wrote about that one a few WAYRNs ago, the writer came to speak at my local bookstore, got a signed copy and we discussed my achilles tendonitis. Nice guy, true believer, and I realized while I was there I was just about the only one at the event who hadn't already read the book and worshipped the guy. Turns out the group at the event had done some long barefoot run together before the gathering. I thought the book was almost too wide-reaching, I liked the points he made about the athletic equipment industry's dubious stewardship of good form and the stories of the crazy Mexicans but tired a little on his "born to run" theory.

soupcan Jul 23 2012 07:57 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I wrote about that one a few WAYRNs ago, the writer came to speak at my local bookstore, got a signed copy and we discussed my achilles tendonitis. Nice guy, true believer, and I realized while I was there I was just about the only one at the event who hadn't already read the book and worshipped the guy. Turns out the group at the event had done some long barefoot run together before the gathering. I thought the book was almost too wide-reaching, I liked the points he made about the athletic equipment industry's dubious stewardship of good form and the stories of the crazy Mexicans but tired a little on his "born to run" theory. Oh, I totally drank the Kool-Aid on this one. Loved the whole book. Loved the running stories, the characters, the evolutionary theories, everything. Did McDougall give you any good advise on the achilles issue? I ask because your and my similarities continue to get similar. I've developed some tendonitis in my achilles as well. Its not stopping me from running but its there. I even went to try on a pair of those 'toe sneakers' but had a devil of a time trying to get my toes in the respective toe holes. Kind of like trying to put on a glove that had the lining turned inside out.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jul 23 2012 08:16 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

No real insights. He seemed to think that a shoe that did less to "correct" my stride would be in order but I'm still in the same model I was in then. I'm about due for new kicks and may look into the free runners In general, keep your calves stretched for achilles soreness and be patient because once they get sore they like to stay that way. That's all I got.

soupcan Jul 23 2012 08:32 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Responded to you in the 'Running' thread...

bmfc1 Jul 30 2012 07:07 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: TransMonk wrote: A Boy Named Seo wrote: Enjoyed the hell out of this. Even better with baseball starting back up. I'm up to this one. I'm only about 75 pages into this 500 pager...but it is very good. Just got it myself. I'm on like, page 4. Killed it this week. very engrossing and ghey. There are 300 pages of beautiful writing about baseball and if this was all there was, I would say that this is one of the greatest works of fiction about baseball of all time. However, the book is 550 pages and there are other characters--the University President; his daughter; the roommate. Perhaps someone at the publisher said "a book about baseball won't sell, so add a female character and some sex." The book would go for fifty pages with these other characters and I would wonder what the main character was doing. I breezed through it so I will say I enjoyed it, but I would have loved a book just about the baseball elements.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jul 30 2012 07:12 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

But then there'd be no gay.

bmfc1 Jul 30 2012 07:40 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: But then there'd be no gay. True. I'm all for gay (and gay for all?), and even baseball + gay could be FABULOUS!, but here there was the baseball, and there was the gay, and I wanted the baseball.

Mets – Willets Point Aug 16 2012 09:59 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Just started "reading" the audiobook of The Art of Fielding. And I thought you all were kidding about the sassy gay roommate.

Mets – Willets Point Aug 23 2012 02:45 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Mets – Willets Point wrote: Just started "reading" the audiobook of The Art of Fielding. And I thought you all were kidding about the sassy gay roommate. Am I the only one who thinks the author is channeling A Prayer for Owen Meany?

Frayed Knot Aug 23 2012 03:37 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

The ground in eastern Pennsylvania is essentially made out of coal. And not just coal but anthracite coal, the harder, nearly pure-carbon and cleaner burning version that is considered superior to the softer and sootier bituminous coal that makes up most of the rest of the mining industry. By some accounts, Pennsylvania has 3/4 of the worlds anthracite, something that was good for Pennsylvania for a while. It created jobs (albeit tough, dangerous ones), drew immigrants, and the power reaped from that coal created other industries for the state like its steel mills and so on. But one of the problems with anthracite coal is that once it starts burning it's almost impossible to make it stop burning and to stop giving off carbon monoxide and other gasses that the burn produces. Those fires are especially tough to put out, or even pinpoint, when the coal that's on fire is the stuff that's still underground. And when those underground places are/were underneath the towns that grew up around the idea of getting the coal out of the ground then it's obviously not good news for the residents. One such fire started burning near Centralia, Pennsylvania around 1962. It's still burning. And the town that used to have over 1,000 residents now has somewhere around a dozen.

Ceetar Aug 23 2012 10:11 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Only like 20 pages in. But it's fun so far. Post-apocalyptic world where very thing is divided in classes based on some sort of color identification. A little Hunger Games esque in the way it seems to be set up.

cooby Aug 28 2012 09:11 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I absolutely, positively cannot rave enough about Tana French. She writes books slowly, so you know they are really her, and the quality shows. (are you listening James Patterson, etc). Unbelievably wonderful mysteries. She has four books, I have read all four, I would recommend all or any of them.

Ceetar Aug 28 2012 09:29 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Ceetar wrote: Only like 20 pages in. But it's fun so far. Post-apocalyptic world where very thing is divided in classes based on some sort of color identification. A little Hunger Games esque in the way it seems to be set up. This was pretty awesome. Flew through it. It's amazing how Fforde can set up this crazy world and it's not tedious in explanation and just sorta makes sense. There is apparently two sequels and a prequel planned, but not out yet. darn.

Fman99 Aug 30 2012 09:01 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I've been reading almost exclusively nonfiction/history for the past few months. Some of my recent picks, all of which I'd recommend.

Mets – Willets Point Aug 31 2012 09:47 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Fman99 wrote: Fascinating cover art here. A woman in lingerie on one side. Teddy Roosevelt on the other. And between them dangles a misshapen penis.

Ceetar Sep 01 2012 07:52 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Mets – Willets Point wrote: Fman99 wrote: Fascinating cover art here. A woman in lingerie on one side. Teddy Roosevelt on the other. And between them dangles a misshapen penis. misshapen? hmm..

John Cougar Lunchbucket Sep 06 2012 08:07 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I read some book by a guy called R.A. Dickey. I was pleased to learn that he cheated on his wife. Thinking of getting Wifey an e-reader. Any recommendations?

Ceetar Sep 06 2012 08:11 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I read some book by a guy called R.A. Dickey. I was pleased to learn that he cheated on his wife. Thinking of getting Wifey an e-reader. Any recommendations? The Kindle Touch seems good. my wife likes it. I've read things on it and it's nice. Battery lasts forever. easy to get books to it. visible in sunlight, feels sturdy. bought a case with a light.

metirish Sep 06 2012 08:12 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I read some book by a guy called R.A. Dickey. I was pleased to learn that he cheated on his wife. Thinking of getting Wifey an e-reader. Any recommendations? wait for Amazon's "event" that just started.......probably going to announce new Kindle Fire........I have one and love it.....still for reading it's hard to beat the kindle keyboard http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002FQJT3Q/?ta ... B002FQJT3Q actually , it starts 10am pacific time

John Cougar Lunchbucket Sep 06 2012 09:08 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Thanks. We have a laptop, bberry and android phone, so I guess on the one hand we don;t need too many bells and whistles, on the other, don't wanna get last year's tech. Mom-in-law has a nook, it was nice to play angry birds on as well as read.

Edgy MD Sep 06 2012 09:16 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I'm reading this baby. Ted Williams is never boring, even if he doesn't manage to get shot down, survive two months on a leaky raft, and then endure starvation and torture and humiliation in a Japanese POW camp. The basic premise is that Ted Williams, even when he wasn't at war with imperialists or communists, was all to often at war with someone.

metirish Sep 06 2012 09:45 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Thanks. We have a laptop, bberry and android phone, so I guess on the one hand we don;t need too many bells and whistles, on the other, don't wanna get last year's tech. Mom-in-law has a nook, it was nice to play angry birds on as well as read. Nothing against the Nook but I think Barnes and Noble are not long for the road......being able to lend e-books from nypl.org is great too......basically works as a physical lending does.

seawolf17 Sep 06 2012 09:58 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Edgy DC wrote: The basic premise is that Ted Williams, even when he wasn't at war with imperialists or communists, was all to often at war with someone. He should be at war with whoever did the horrific Photoshop job on the cover.

Edgy MD Sep 06 2012 10:08 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Yeah, I have to confess, sometimes a crappy cover has an appeal to me. It tells me I'm reading somebody's thesis, or unadulterated heartfelt project, that maybe won't read as smoothly as an artistically covered major publisher's product --- may even be a slog --- but neither will it be expurgated or bowlderized or indiffently assembled regurgitations for mass consumption. I also have a fascination with baseball at war. I must have a half a dozen Yogi books, but none of them tell me how many men he shot.

Vic Sage Sep 06 2012 10:55 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

i wish i could figure out how to post pictures in this thread. i'm such an idiot.

Edgy MD Sep 06 2012 10:58 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Which web browser to you use?

Ceetar Sep 06 2012 12:02 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Vic Sage wrote: i wish i could figure out how to post pictures in this thread. i'm such an idiot. generally, find the picture you want, right click on it and do 'copy image URL'. if you're in IE you need to click 'properties' and select everything in the Address: (url) field. paste that between the img /img tags.

metirish Sep 06 2012 12:03 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Bezos just announced a $69 kihndle....that's a steal.

Fman99 Sep 06 2012 08:25 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I read some book by a guy called R.A. Dickey. I was pleased to learn that he cheated on his wife. Thinking of getting Wifey an e-reader. Any recommendations? If it's purely for reading, and you don't care about surfing the web with it or using it with backlighting, I'd suggest the Nook Simple Touch. This is the one I have and I swear by it. Just $100, too. Price may go down with the new Amazon at $70, I would bet. Maybe this is the first $50 eReader? It's lightweight, portable, and great in natural light/sunlight. I have a canvas cover and AA light to use with it so I can read in bed at the end of the day without disturbing the wife. Half the cost of the Kindle HD, and while not $69 like the Kindle I can't speak for that device. I don't know anyone who has one. BN.com also sells a Nook with built in backlighting for $140 that I can't speak to, it came out since I got mine.

themetfairy Sep 06 2012 08:31 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Before buying an e-reader, keep in mind that you can just get the free Kindle app for a computer, phone or tablet. If she's using one of these regularly anyway, she may be just as happy with the app instead of worrying about another piece of electronics.

Ashie62 Sep 06 2012 09:15 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

themetfairy wrote: Before buying an e-reader, keep in mind that you can just get the free Kindle app for a computer, phone or tablet. If she's using one of these regularly anyway, she may be just as happy with the app instead of worrying about another piece of electronics. E-Readers are about to be free..just buy your professors e book lol

Vic Sage Sep 06 2012 09:51 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

yea i did it! John Carter kicks ass

Fman99 Sep 30 2012 08:58 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Just finished this one today. This is a seriously good yarn.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Oct 06 2012 08:35 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I finished this recently. It's a work of "fiction" from a former Army public relations man stationed in a noncombat unit in Iraq about a Army public relations man (and others) stationed in a noncombat unit in Iraq. It owes a lot to Catch-22 in style and in approach, and acknowledges as much, so while it's not original like that it's similarly tragic-funny and updated, focusing on the conflictedness and bullshit of the whole war there as sharply experienced by the so-called "Fobbits" (forward-operating base/hobbit) who support the effort but don't fight. I don't for a second doubt that Iraq is exactly as fucked up as the book shows and it chills.

themetfairy Oct 17 2012 01:13 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I'm a house hostage while we're having our bathrooms done, so I needed something and decided to get this for the Kindle. I just started it, but it seems readable so far.

Mets – Willets Point Nov 02 2012 09:22 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

You can stop ragging on me for reading too much because this guy reads 125 books a year and finds time to write books too!

RealityChuck Nov 04 2012 12:10 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Mine is also a signed first edition, with color paintings throughout.

Benjamin Grimm Nov 04 2012 06:30 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I like the looks of that book.

Frayed Knot Nov 04 2012 07:36 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I like the looks of that book. Particularly with her showing glimpses of her bleu sacre.

Ceetar Nov 04 2012 07:48 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

RealityChuck wrote: Mine is also a signed first edition, with color paintings throughout. nice, mine was a Kindle version, so none of that cool stuff. I actually found this one to be the only one I didn't particularly care for of Moore's (Lamb is still the best). Maybe I just don't like Paris and french painters. It picked up about halfway through though. I'm almost finished with.. it's a little..well..I dunno. slow? weird?

John Cougar Lunchbucket Nov 04 2012 08:17 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Found this in the library. "King Larry" is Larry Hilbrom, a co-founder and the "H" in the DHL overnight couriers. I never knew this (who would?!?) but in addition to groundbreaking work to creating the overnight courier biz and pioneering global biz -- cut a lot of red tape along the way -- he was a reckless, creepy eccentric billionaire who made lots of enemies while devoting his energies and $$ to among other things, trying to take down the US gov't, doing biz in North Vietnam and feeding an appetite for pubescent Asian virgins. Died in a plane wreck. Adversaries and colleagues feed on and/or run from his legacy. Good job of reporting an incredible story, though there's a lot to keep straight and ocassionally gets bogged down in the deets. But, wow. This guy was a piece of work.

seawolf17 Nov 05 2012 05:08 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Reading "Nonbeliever Nation: The Rise of Secular Americans." Fascinating and terrifying all at the same time.

Vic Sage Nov 06 2012 10:14 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

why would you find the rise of secular Americans "terrifying"?

Mets – Willets Point Nov 06 2012 10:19 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Vic Sage wrote: why would you find the rise of secular Americans "terrifying"? I thought I saw 'wolf state that the "religious right" was the terrifying part of the book but I don't see that here so he must have wrote that somewhere else. Or I'm going insane.

Benjamin Grimm Nov 06 2012 01:18 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Vic Sage wrote: why would you find the rise of secular Americans "terrifying"? I agree. To me it sounds like a good thing.

Ceetar Nov 06 2012 01:20 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I'm also listening to Casino Royale on audiobook and the 6th book of the Dresden Files.

seawolf17 Nov 06 2012 01:40 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Mets – Willets Point wrote: Vic Sage wrote: why would you find the rise of secular Americans "terrifying"? I thought I saw 'wolf state that the "religious right" was the terrifying part of the book but I don't see that here so he must have wrote that somewhere else. Or I'm going insane. Willets is right. It's the other way around. (I think I posted that on Twitter.)

Frayed Knot Nov 06 2012 02:00 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

An American Insurrection: The Battle of Oxford, Mississippi, 1962 - William Doyle Not a new book - originally published in 2001. The story of James Meredith's (eventual) admission to Ol' Miss in 1962. Suffice to say that's it was a very different time and a very different place from what most of us know. 'Bout 1/3 of the way through it so far -- just about to the spot where some major shit is about to hit a very large fan.

Mets – Willets Point Nov 06 2012 02:04 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

For some reason the first thing to pop into my head after seeing Oxford, MS was William Faulkner, but I suppose he was gone by 1962.

Frayed Knot Nov 06 2012 03:19 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Faulkner, who lived practically on the campus itself, died in the summer of '62 while most of the action of this story takes place just a few months later.

RealityChuck Nov 06 2012 04:01 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I like the looks of that book. Particularly with her showing glimpses of her bleu sacre. Here's the cover without the dust jacket:

Vic Sage Nov 16 2012 01:07 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Mix SHOELESS JOE with THE NATURAL, add a dollop of Tony C. and the Mets `73 season, and you get this entertaining read with a high "Mets content" quotient. I'm not a Grisham fan, but my wife is and she suggested it to me. It was short, so i finished it quickly and i liked it, more or less, though its totally derivative with an overly sentimental and obvious resolution.

bmfc1 Nov 17 2012 11:44 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I love Grisham and also enjoyed Calico Joe. If you want a book which has a fictional conversation between Ed Kranepool and Wayne Garrett, this is the book for you.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Nov 20 2012 02:42 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

My cramming for the Classic Rock championship was so intense I spent a few hours with this recently published book: Carol in case you didn't know was the night-time Deej at WPLJ when I was a teen so I'll always have a thing for her. In the book she reveals that she's a nerdy first daughter of serious Yiddish family from Queens, growing up almost as a first generation American might, wide-eyed and naiive, but drawn to rock radio despite a UPenn degree. The publicity promises steamy love scenes with Steven Tyler and David Coverdale and Paul Stanley but they are very tame, as is Carol you'll find out. Her marriage to dickish MTV Veejay Mark Goodman was a disaster as Goodman was shtupping everyone in sight while Carol battled breast cancer, then ovarian cancer, cancer cancer cancer for her. She's been completely de-boobed for 20 years and more recently ladypartectomied and still battling, I had no idea. It was interesting to hear her take on the differences between her various radio employers, and on the changing formats, and (less so) on music in general. And seeing as she's worked for every rock radio station in the city now for more than 40 years while the entire industry has collapsed, a biz lesson in the career value of not making a real big stink and, uh, keeping on doing whatever it is you do.

Edgy MD Nov 20 2012 02:55 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Mark Goodman, you Zeppelin-worshipping turd.

Fman99 Nov 20 2012 06:48 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

About 2/3 of the way through this. Engrossing, for those fans of non-fiction/history.

Mets – Willets Point Nov 20 2012 06:49 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

How are the sex scenes?

Fman99 Nov 20 2012 06:55 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Mets – Willets Point wrote: How are the sex scenes? They are implicit. Which is fortunate, considering these two are in men-only prisons for the majority of the story. Still, holding out hope that it turns briefly into a Cinemax "awesome jail" movie, with illustrations and what not.

cooby Nov 20 2012 07:06 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

lollollol...

seawolf17 Nov 21 2012 07:50 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Started reading a Three Investigators book with MiniWolf last night -- far and away my favorite series as a kid. (No sex scenes, thankfully.)

Ceetar Nov 21 2012 07:52 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Ordered the new Dresden Files book last night. looking forward to that. Been re-"reading" them in audio book format in the car. still haven't finished the Castle by Kafka. about 30 pages left, but I'd misplaced it for a couple of days and now haven't gotten back to it.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Nov 21 2012 08:07 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

seawolf17 wrote: Started reading a Three Investigators book with MiniWolf last night -- far and away my favorite series as a kid. (No sex scenes, thankfully.) The 'Pail is really into the 'Wimpy Kid' books at the moment, he can read them himself but I like reading them with him because they are very funny.

Chad Ochoseis Nov 21 2012 08:16 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: The 'Pail is really into the 'Wimpy Kid' books at the moment, he can read them himself but I like reading them with him because they are very funny. Getting ready to hit the local Barnes & Noble during lunch hour to buy a few of these for my eight year old nephew, who is also a big fan. Any particular recommendations?

John Cougar Lunchbucket Nov 21 2012 08:19 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

We've read the first 3 (the 7th was just published), I'd just go in order I suppose. First one has a red cover, 2nd is light blue "Rodrick Rules" , 3rd is light green, forget the title.

seawolf17 Nov 21 2012 08:22 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

MW is rocking the Cam Jansen series as well. Digging the mysteries.

Vic Sage Nov 21 2012 08:36 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

the wimpy kid series were a fun book phase with Sage Jr. He started with Captain Underpants (which got old pretty quickly for me, though he stuck with them for quite a while), then moved through his sister's JUNIE B JONES books (which are surprisingly funny) before finding WIMPY. But he's since moved on to anything by Rick Riordan. He also just read the HOBBIT for a school project (his choice). I was very proud. Hopefully, that will lead to the RING trilogy (but not SILMARILLION, god please). re: Carol Miller. What Bucket said, ditto. Miller started at WPLJ when i was in HS, and suddenly i was in love. That silky voice, in the tradition of Allison "the nightbird" steele, talked directly to me (so i'm not sure who 'Bucket was listening to). We shared my first Springsteen experience together. It was a special moment. After i left college, she moved on to WNEW, but it was not the same for me. Sure, we could still be friends, but the heat was gone. I'm sorry to hear her personal life has been difficult (bad marriage, cancers), but that's what she gets for not marrying me in the first place. And i think the restraining order was excessive. REally, Carol... was that necessary?

Mets – Willets Point Nov 21 2012 08:40 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Fman99 wrote: Mets – Willets Point wrote: How are the sex scenes? They are implicit. Which is fortunate, considering these two are in men-only prisons for the majority of the story. Still, holding out hope that it turns briefly into a Cinemax "awesome jail" movie, with illustrations and what not. Yeah, they were in prison for seven years from arrest to execution iirc.

Ceetar Nov 21 2012 08:44 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

seawolf17 wrote: MW is rocking the Cam Jansen series as well. Digging the mysteries. Click. I loved those books.

Fman99 Nov 21 2012 07:10 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: seawolf17 wrote: Started reading a Three Investigators book with MiniWolf last night -- far and away my favorite series as a kid. (No sex scenes, thankfully.) The 'Pail is really into the 'Wimpy Kid' books at the moment, he can read them himself but I like reading them with him because they are very funny. My son devoured all of those. He also enjoyed the "Big Nate" series, which is along the same lines and targeting the same reading audience.

themetfairy Dec 03 2012 08:10 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Required reading for anyone here or any Mets fan on your holiday list. A pleasurable trip down Memory Lane :)

Mets – Willets Point Jan 01 2013 09:38 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

2012 list. Lots of audibooks and graphic novels to pad my stats. My ten favorite books I read in the year are in bold. A Soul To Steal by Rob Blackwell Pedaling Revolution by Jeff Mapes Saturday by Ian MacEwan (A) American Gods by Neil Gaiman Green Metropolis by David Owen (A) Best Mets by Matthew Silverman Moon Yellowstone & Grand Teton: Including Jackson Hole by Don Pitcher The Rough Guide to Yellowstone & Grand Teton by Stephen Timblin A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill The Sandman : Preludes & Nocturnes : [volume 1] by Neil Gaiman The Fiery Trial : Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton Doctor Who. Volume 1, Fugitive by Tony Lee Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life by James Martin God After Darwin by John F. Haught The House of Silk by Anthony Horwitz Sleepwalk With Me by Mike Birbiglia The Walking Dead Book 2 by Robert Kirkman Bookhunter by Jason Shiga Unbroken by Lauren Hillenbrand (A) A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit The Last Icon: Tom Seaver and His Times by Steven Travers Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man’s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut by Rob Sheffield The spirit level : why greater equality makes societies stronger by Richard G. Wilkinson The Clockwise Man by Justin Richards Plugged by Eoin Colfer (A) Marco Polo didn’t go there by Rolf Potts Big questions, or, Asomatognosia : whose hand is it anyway by Anders Nilsen Empire State by Jason Shiga All That We Share by Jay Waljasper Life by Keith Richards with James Fox Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín Straphanger by Taras Grescoe Doctor Who. Volume 2, Tesseract by Tony Lee Doctor Who. Volume 3, Final sacrifice by Tony Lee Doctor Who. Series 2, Volume 1, The Ripper by Tony Lee City : a guidebook for the urban age by P.D. Smith Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel 1989: Bob Dylan Didn’t Have This To Sing About by Joshua Clover The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach (A) As if an enemy’s country : the British occupation of Boston and the origins of revolution by Richard Archer Feynman by Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta (A) Wherever I Wind Up by R.A. Dickey with Wayne Coffey Bonobo Handshake by Vanessa Woods (A) The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern The Sandman. [Volume 2], Doll’s house by Neil Gaiman The Sandman. [Volume 3], Dream Country by Nei Gaiman The Sandman. [Volume 4], Season of Mists by Neil Gaiman The Woman Who Died A Lot by Jasper Fforde Spook by Mary Roach (A) The Walking Dead 3 by Robert Kirkman The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat by Hal Herzog (A) The Song of the Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde The Walking Dead 4 by Robert Kirkman The Sandman. [Volume 5], A Game of You by Neil Gaiman The Polish Boxer by Eduardo Halfon Sailor Twain, or The Mermaid in the Hudson by Mark Siegel The Walking Dead 5 by Robert Kirkman The Walking Dead 6 by Robert Kirkman Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders by Larry Millet Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan (A) The Walking Dead. Volume 15, We find ourselves by Robert Kirkman The Walking Dead. Volume 16, A Larger World by Robert Kirkman The Magic Maker by Susan Cooper (A) The Walking Dead. Volume 17: Something to Fear by Robert Kirkman The Thoreau You Don’t Know by Robert Sullivan The Submission by Amy Waldman (A)

TransMonk Jan 01 2013 10:21 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Favorite 5 bolded: The Advanced Genius Theory: Are They Out of Their Minds or Ahead of Their Time? by Jason Hartley - 3 stars out of 5 Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion by Alan Goldsher - 1 stars out of 5 Wilpon's Folly - The Story of a Man, His Fortune, and the New York Mets by Howard Megdal - 4 stars out of 5 The Talisman by Stephen King - 5 stars out of 5 The Fear Index by Robert Harris - 2 stars out of 5 Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon - 4 stars out of 5 God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens - 4 stars out of 5 Watergate: A Novel by Thomas Mallon - 4 stars out of 5 Ready Player One by Ernest Cline - 3 stars out of 5 Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 by Charles Murray - 2 stars out of 5 Animal Farm & 1984 by George Orwell - 5 stars out of 5 A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan - 4 stars out of 5 Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball by R.A. Dickey - 3 stars out of 5 Rick Steves' Snapshot: Naples & The Amalfi Coast (Rick Steves' Snapshot) by Rick Steves - 3 stars out of 5 Calico Joe by John Grisham - 4 stars out of 5 No One Knows: The Queens of the Stone Age Story by Joel McIver - 2 stars out of 5 Love Is a Mix Tape: Life, Loss, and What I Listened To by Rob Sheffield - 4 stars out of 5 While America Sleeps: A Wake-up Call for the Post-9/11 Era by Russ Feingold - 3 stars out of 5 The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach - 5 stars out of 5 Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier by Neil deGrasse Tyson - 3 stars out of 5 Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man's Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut by Rob Sheffield - 4 stars out of 5 Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad - 5 stars out of 5 Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag by Henry Rollins - 4 stars out of 5 Take Your Eye Off the Ball: How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look by Pat Kirwan - 4 stars out of 5 Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science by Charles Wheelan - 5 stars out of 5 The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future by Joseph E. Stiglitz - 1 stars out of 5 Making Rumours: The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album by Ken Caillat - 4 stars out of 5 The New New Rules: A Funny Look At How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass by Bill Maher - 4 stars out of 5 Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy by Christopher Hayes - 3 stars out of 5 Heft by Liz Moore - 3 stars out of 5 Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell - 4 stars out of 5 The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - But Some Don't by Nate Silver - 5 stars out of 5 Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon - 3 stars out of 5 The Expectant Father: Facts, Tips and Advice for Dads-to-Be by Armin A. Brott - 3 stars out of 5 How Much is Enough?: Money and the Good Life by Robert Skidelsky - 2 stars out of 5

Rockin' Doc Jan 01 2013 01:15 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I didn't have much time for the gym or the forum the past 6 months, but I was still able to get some reading in. My favorites are in bold. Lusitania by Diana Preston Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard The President and the Assassin by Scott Miller The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard We Is Got Him by Carrie Hagen The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant Devil In theGrove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, & the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King Bottom of the 33rd : Hope, Redemption, & Baseball’s longest Game by Dan Barry Citizen Soldiers by Stephen E. Ambrose Summer For the Gods by Edward J. Larson The Invisible Wall by Harry Bernstein The Dream by Harry Bernstein Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson Isaac’s Storm: A Man, A Storm & Deadliest Hurricane In History by Erik Larson Zeitoun by David Eggars The Greater Journey by David McCullough Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi Firehouse by David Halberstam The Killing Zone by Frederick Downs, Jr. The Violinist’s Thumb by Sam Kean The Hornet’s Sting by Mark Ryan Don’t Know Much About History by Kenneth C. Davis The Things They Carried With Them by Tim O’Brien I’m A Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson An Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Adrift by Steven Callahan Following Atticus by Tom Ryan To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee Catcher In the Rye by J.D. Salinger In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Mets – Willets Point Jan 01 2013 02:16 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad - 5 stars out of 5 I've been meaning to read this forever. A five-star review from an actual indie rocker is more incentive to do so.

Ceetar Jan 01 2013 02:18 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I don't keep a list. maybe I should. I'm sure two of my favorites were Hunger Games and Cold Days

batmagadanleadoff Jan 01 2013 03:10 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

I didn't have much time for the gym or the forum the past 6 months, but I was still able to get some reading in. My favorites are in bold. .... In Cold Blood by Truman Capote I've been meaning to re-read In Cold Blood (I've read it twice) and did get to re-read it about two weeks ago. I don't think that there's a bad page in the whole book. If the topic still holds your interest, you can make a movie day out of the Clutter murders. In Cold Blood (1967) Roger Ebert / June 9, 2002 In the years since Truman Capote published In Cold Blood in 1966, the true crime genre has expanded to fill whole sections of the book stores. Factual accounts of crime were common enough before, but Capote combined in-depth reporting with the techniques of the New Journalism, then in its golden age; his book, he said, was a "non-fiction novel." He told of the senseless 1959 killing of the four members of the Clutter family, living in a ranch home outside Holcomb, Kan., and the patient police work that led to the arrest of two clueless ex-cons. The newsmagazines were filled with the saga of Capote's reporting--how the effete society creature from Manhattan moved to Kansas and established first-name relationships, even friendships, with the convicted killers Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, the police investigator Alvin Dewey, and local residents. Capote described a photographic memory that allowed him to remember conversations verbatim, and his book's construction allowed him to delay the description of the murder until the end, so that he could make his point that six people died in cold blood: The Clutters, and their killers. The book was intended as opposition to capital punishment, and some critics believed Capote had grown so close to Smith and Hickock that he was blinded by sympathy for their luckless lives, and lost focus on the massacre of the Clutters. In Cold Blood was the great best seller of its time, and a year later Richard Brooks made a stark black and white film from the book, using Conrad Hall's widescreen compositions to capture the flat, wide, windswept plains where the murders took place. He had originally hoped to use Paul Newman and Steve McQueen as the two killers, but that casting would have hopelessly skewed the film in the wrong direction, making Smith and Hickock into glamorous Dostoevskian heroes who would have been wrong, all wrong, for this sad and shabby story. Eventually he found two newcomers, Scott Wilson and Robert Blake, who embodied the drifters with their unshaped, witless personalities. As individuals, a psychiatrist in the film tells us, they would have been incapable of murder; together they formed a personality that took four lives. The Smith character says: "When Dick first told me the plan, it didn't even seem real. And then the closer we got, the more real it became." The plan was for him to kill the Clutters; Hickock, who knew himself incapable of murder, wanted to leave no witnesses, and so found himself a man "crazy enough" to pull the triggers. That Smith, who is the nicer of the two, the one who wants to back out, who feels pity for the Clutters, is the one who kills them is explained in the film by flashbacks to his own tortured childhood. In the most famous line from book or movie, he observes, "I thought Mr. Clutter was a very nice gentleman. I thought so right up to the time I cut his throat." The film generated controversy from those who found it gratuitously violent (even though all the killings take place offscreen), an apology for murderers, a kneejerk liberal attack on capital punishment. It was much more shocking in 1967 than it would be today; and was linked with "Bonnie and Clyde," another 1967 film, in punditry about the decay of Hollywood values. But it won Oscar nominations for Brooks' direction and screenplay, Conrad Hall's cinematography, and the score by Quincy Jones (which launched his Hollywood career). "In Cold Blood" achieved renewed notoriety in 2002 with the arrest of Robert Blake for the alleged murder of his wife. Conrad Hall's most famous shot began to turn up on all the newscasts: A closeup of Blake's face on the night Perry Smith is scheduled to be hanged, with light shining onto it through a rainy window so that the rain seems to be tears running down his skin. To the degree that there's any connection between "In Cold Blood" and Blake's real-life troubles, it can be explained by typecasting: Robert Blake, in person and in many of his characters, seems born to be a victim pushed around by others, dismissed because of his short stature, carrying old grievances and wounds. For his entire professional life he was haunted by resentment about the way his family and the studios treated him as a hard-working child star, who was in the Our Gang comedies (billed as Mickey Gubitsoi and later as Bobby Blake) and played Little Beaver in the Red Ryder movies; he had made nearly 100 features and shorts by the time, at 10, he had a bit role in "Treasure of the Sierra Madre," as the little Mexican boy who sells the lottery ticket to Humphrey Bogart. Blake's unhappy childhood seems to find a mirror in the tortured childhood of Perry Smith, who is seen in flashbacks idolizing a glamorous Mexican mother who appears with her husband in a rodeo show before alcoholism turns her into a prostitute. The moment of Herbert Clutter's murder, in the movie, is intercut with a flashback to Perry's enraged father turning a shotgun on the boy and pulling the trigger; unloaded, that gun seemingly waited for decades for Smith to pull its trigger and shoot back at his father. Just as Capote plundered real lives for his "non-fiction novel," so Brooks shot on real locations, using Holcomb and the actual Clutter home, and hiring local people as extras. There is creepy voodoo at work in scenes where we see actors recreating the Clutter's happy lives in the very house where the real family lived. Was this necessary? When I interviewed Blake in 1968, he said: "If we shot it in Nebraska, people would say, 'Isn't that just like Hollywood? It happens in Kansas and they shoot it in Nebraska.' " Brooks' great achievement in the film is to portray Smith and Hickock as the unexceptional, dim-witted, morally adrift losers they were. There is an outlaw tradition in Hollywood that tends to glamorize killers, but there is nothing attractive about Perry Smith, chewing aspirin by the handful because of the pain of legs torn apart in a motorcycle accident, or Dick Hickock, fixated on "leaving no witnesses." The film follows them on a road odyssey down long, lonely highways, shows them escaping to Mexico only to return, reduces their dreams of wealth to an extraordinary sequence where they team with a little boy and his grandfather in collecting empty soda bottles for the 3-cent redemption fee. From time to time during the film, investigator Alvin Dewey (John Forsyth) talks to a journalist (Paul Stewart) who is apparently meant to suggest Capote; in the scenes after Hickock and Smith are on Death Row, he steps in as a narrator, and engages in fairly heavy-handed dialogue about the uselessness of capital punishment. This character and everything he says are flaws in the film, which would have been better advised to stay with the flat minimalism of the earlier scenes. Brooks is wise, for example, to shoot the killings with no musical score, simply the background sound of the wind howling outside. The film's message goes astray for several reasons, the best being that most people will agree that Hickock and Smith deserved to die. The main body of the film generates considerable sympathy for the two killers, who were indeed warped by miserable childhoods, but essentially the film finds, as the book did, that the Clutters died for stupid, senseless reasons. The Smith character expresses this best, after it becomes clear that a safe containing $10,000 does not exist: "We're ridiculous. You tapping on the walls for a safe that isn't there, tap-tap-tap, like some nutty woodpecker. And me, crawling around on the floor with my legs on fire, and all to steal a kid's silver dollar." http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbc ... 90301/1023 Capote BY ROGER EBERT / October 21, 2005 Cast & Credits Truman Capote: Philip Seymour Hoffman Harper Lee: Catherine Keener Perry Smith: Clifton Collins Jr. Alvin Dewey: Chris Cooper Jack Dunphy: Bruce Greenwood William Shawn: Bob Balaban Dick Hickock: Mark Pellegrino Sony Pictures Classics presents a film directed by Bennett Miller. Written by Dan Futterman. Based on the book Capote by Gerald Clarke. Running time: 114 minutes. Rated R (for some violent images and brief strong language). Add_to_queue_mini_off On Nov. 16, 1959, Truman Capote noticed a news item about four members of a Kansas farm family who were shotgunned to death. He telephoned William Shawn, editor of The New Yorker, wondering if Shawn would be interested in an article about the murders. Later in his life, Capote said that if he had known what would happen as a result of this impulse, he would not have stopped in Holcomb, Kan., but would have kept right on going "like a bat out of hell." At first Capote thought the story would be about how a rural community was dealing with the tragedy. "I don't care one way or the other if you catch who did this," he tells an agent from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. Then two drifters, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, are arrested and charged with the crime. As Capote gets to know them, he's consumed by a story that would make him rich and famous, and destroy him. His "non-fiction novel," In Cold Blood, became a best seller and inspired a movie, but Capote was emotionally devastated by the experience and it hastened his death. Bennett Miller's "Capote" is about that crucial period of less than six years in Capote's life. As he talks to the killers, to law officers and to the neighbors of the murdered Clutter family, Capote's project takes on depth and shape as the story of conflicting fates. But at the heart of his reporting is an irredeemable conflict: He wins the trust of the two convicted killers and essentially falls in love with Perry Smith, while needing them to die to supply an ending for his book. "If they win this appeal," he tells his friend Harper Lee, "I may have a complete nervous breakdown." After they are hanged on April 14, 1965, he tells Harper, "There wasn't anything I could have done to save them." She says: "Maybe, but the fact is you didn't want to." "Capote" is a film of uncommon strength and insight, about a man whose great achievement requires the surrender of his self-respect. Philip Seymour Hoffman's precise, uncanny performance as Capote doesn't imitate the author so much as channel him, as a man whose peculiarities mask great intelligence and deep wounds. As the story opens Capote is a well-known writer (of Breakfast at Tiffany's, among others), a popular guest on talk shows, a man whose small stature, large ego and affectations of speech and appearance make him an outsider wherever he goes. Trying to win the confidence of a young girl in Kansas, he tells her: "Ever since I was a child, folks have thought they had me pegged, because of the way I am, the way I talk." But he was able to enter a world far removed from Manhattan, and write a great book about ordinary Midwesterners and two pathetic, heartless killers. Could anyone be less like Truman Capote than Perry Smith? Yet they were both mistreated and passed around as children, had issues with distant and remote mothers, had secret fantasies. "It's like Perry and I grew up in the same house, and one day he went out the back door and I went out the front," he tells Harper Lee. The film, written by Dan Futterman and based on the book the book Capote by Gerald Clarke, focuses on the way a writer works on a story and the story works on him. Capote wins the wary acceptance of Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), the agent assigned to the case. Over dinner in Alvin and Mary Dewey's kitchen, he entertains them with stories about John Huston and Humphrey Bogart. As he talks, he studies their house like an anthropologist. He convinces the local funeral director into letting him view the mutilated bodies of the Clutters. Later, Perry Smith will tell him he liked the father, Herb Clutter: "I thought he was a very nice, gentle man. I thought so right up until I slit his throat." On his trips to Kansas he takes along a southern friend from childhood, Harper Lee (Catherine Keener). So long does it take him to finish his book that Lee in the meantime has time to publish her famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird, sell it to the movies, and attend the world premiere with Gregory Peck. Lee is a practical, grounded woman who clearly sees that Truman cares for Smith and yet will exploit him for his book. "Do you hold him in esteem, Truman?" she asks, and he is defensive: "Well, he's a gold mine." Perry Smith and Dick Hickock are played by Clifton Collins Jr. and Mark Pellegrino. Hickock is not developed as deeply as in Richard Brooks' film "In Cold Blood" (1967), where he was played by Scott Wilson; the emphasis this time is on Smith, played in 1967 by Robert Blake and here by Collins as a haunted, repressed man in constant pain, who chews aspirin by the handful and yet shelters a certain poetry; his drawings and journal move Capote, who sees him as a man who was born a victim and deserves, not forgiveness, but pity. The other key characters are Capote's lover, Jack Dunphy (Bruce Greenwood), and his editor at the New Yorker, William Shawn (Bob Balaban). "Jack thinks I'm using Perry," Truman tells Harper. "He also thinks I fell in love with him in Kansas." Shawn thinks In Cold Blood, when it is finally written, is "going to change how people write." He prints the entire book in his magazine. The movie "In Cold Blood" had no speaking role for Capote, who in a sense stood behind the camera with the director. If "Capote" had simply flipped the coin and told the story of the Clutter murders from Capote's point of view, it might have been a good movie, but what makes it so powerful is that it looks with merciless perception at Capote's moral disintegration. "If I leave here without understanding you," Capote tells Perry Smith during one of many visits to his cell, "the world will see you as a monster. I don't want that." He is able to persuade Smith and Hickock to tell him what happened on the night of the murders. He learns heartbreaking details, such as that they "put a different pillow under the boy's head just to shoot him." Capote tells them he will support their appeals and help them find another lawyer. He betrays them. Smith eventually understands that, and accepts his fate. "Two weeks, and finito," he tells Capote as his execution draws near. Another good line for the book. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbc ... 28006/1023 Movie Review | 'Infamous' Infamous (2006) NYT Critics' Pick Truman Capote’s Journey on 'In Cold Blood,' Again By A. O. SCOTT Published: October 13, 2006 Truman Capote is surely a large enough figure — or perhaps I mean small enough — to fill out two motion pictures. Since multiple literary lives are the norm in book publishing, why not in the movies? Capote, a fascinating, sometimes appalling literary celebrity in his lifetime, has been posthumously served by two highly readable biographies, Gerald Clarke’s elegantly written portrait and George Plimpton’s engrossing collage of interviews and recollections. Now those books have served as the scaffolding for cinematic interpretations of part of Capote’s career that are not quite complementary, but also not really in competition with each other. There is no reason to choose between Bennett Miller’s “Capote,” which came out almost exactly a year ago, and Douglas McGrath’s “Infamous,” which opens today. Both concentrate on the period, from the late 1950’s through the mid 60’s, during which Capote researched and wrote “In Cold Blood.” And both stand out above the biopic pack. “Infamous, ” the picture under consideration here, based on Plimpton’s book, is well worth your attention. It is quick-witted, stylish and well acted. The release of two movies on the same subject is somewhat unusual, and the arrival in close succession of two good movies that tell more or less identical stories, each one distinguished by real intelligence in conception and execution, is downright uncanny. In Mr. McGrath’s version, Capote is played by Toby Jones as a clever imp of the Manhattan social scene. He describes himself as “a wind-up toy” and is the pet and confidant of a loose network of lunching ladies, including Slim Keith (Hope Davis), Marella Agnelli (Isabella Rossellini) and Babe Paley (a divine Sigourney Weaver). (Capote’s circle also includes the publisher Bennett Cerf, ebulliently played by Peter Bogdanovich.) Capote’s betrayal of his friends’ confidences is habitual, and more naughty than cruel. One day he happens upon a news article about a gruesome quadruple homicide — an entire family slaughtered — in a small Kansas town, and then. ... Well, by now we know what happens next. In the company of his friend Nelle Harper Lee (Sandra Bullock, whose mellifluous Alabama accent, like the performance in which it is embedded, is a marvel of observant precision), Capote transplants himself to Holcomb, Kan., where the killings took place. There, some of the locals pretend to mistake him for a woman, while others recognize him as an ambassador from a faraway world of glitter and glamour. He brags that he once beat Humphrey Bogart at arm-wrestling, and his prowess when challenged by some skeptical Kansans is a sign of the strength and ferocity that lie beneath his goosey, fluttering surface. Capote’s character is illuminated by testimony from actors playing his friends and contemporaries, including a deliciously feline impersonation of the young Gore Vidal by Michael Panes. (When asked what he thought of Capote’s writing, the real Vidal is supposed to have answered, “I have diabetes.”) Jeff Daniels is in fine, low-key form as Alvin Dewey, who leads the investigation of the murders and whose doughty Midwestern masculinity makes him an amusing (and frequently amused) foil for the writer. Mr. Jones’s impersonation is touching and credible, and his notion of the character is interestingly different from that of Philip Seymour Hoffman, star of “Capote.” In general, “Infamous” is warmer and more tender, if also a bit thinner and showier, than “Capote,” which focused on the deep ethical questions raised by the writing of “In Cold Blood” and emphasized the writer’s cold, manipulative narcissism. The contrast between the two films is most apparent with respect to Capote’s relationship with Perry Smith, one of the killers and a central character in “In Cold Blood.” Daniel Craig, the next James Bond, endows Smith with a coiled, frightening sexual intensity. Unlike Clifton Collins Jr.’s volatile lost boy in the earlier film, Mr. Craig’s Smith is more predator than prey, even when he’s at Capote’s mercy. Whereas Mr. Miller’s film explored Capote’s power over Smith, Mr. McGrath’s reverses the charge, placing the writer very much in the killer’s thrall. And also in love with him. The connection between them makes Capote’s ambiguous inability to help Smith and his accomplice, Dick Hickok, as they moved toward execution a matter of weakness rather than callousness. Capote’s book has overwhelmed him, and he is undone as much by sensitivity as by vanity. “Infamous” is less a parable of literary ethics than a showcase of literary personality, and it is in the end more touching than troubling. It does, however, contain one scene — the very first, as it happens — that is itself a small tour de force. Capote is at the El Morocco with Babe Paley, feasting his eyes and ears on a singer played by Gwyneth Paltrow (who vanishes from the picture as soon as her song is over). In midsong, her voice catches and falters, as if a real surge of bitter, unbidden feeling had disrupted the lyric’s smooth description of heartbreak. The nightclub audience, Capote included, holds its breath: are they witnessing something excruciating and real, or a performance whose mastery resides in its perfect mimicry of authentic, uncontrollable emotion? (And what exactly is the audience in the cinema looking at when we see a movie star playing a singer pretending to be a lovelorn, anonymous woman?) Some related questions shadow “In Cold Blood,” and for that matter Capote himself. The book is reportage, as he notoriously said, “using the techniques of fiction.” And he himself was an actor in much of his life, adopting a persona that both was and wasn’t his true (so to speak) self. No wonder he has proved so attractive to filmmakers and ambitious actors: he was, supremely and enigmatically, his own invention, and now he’s theirs to reinvent. http://movies.nytimes.com/2006/10/13/mo ... .html?_r=0 Clutter murders Topps Heritage baseball card

sharpie Jan 02 2013 09:05 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012? Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Jan 02 2013 10:14 AM

My list. 53 books. 5 favorite bolded. It appears that TELEGRAPH AVENUE by Michael Chabon is the only book of mine that shows up on anyone else's list for this year (TransMonk's). BOOZEHOUND – Jason Wilson CORONADO – Dennis Lehane THE PARTICULAR SADNESS OF LEMON CAKE – Aimee Bender HALF EMPTY – David Rakoff THE TAILOR OF PANAMA – John LeCarre UNDER THE VOLCANO – Malcolm Lowry A MULTITUDE OF SINS – Richard Ford VANISHED SMILE – R.A. Scotti THE WHITE CASTLE – Orhan Pamuk LEAVING TANGIER -- Tahar Ben Jelloun THE DAY LASTS MORE THAN A HUNDRED YEARS – Chingiz Aitmatov REMAINDER -- Tom McCarthy THE BOOK OF NIGHT WOMEN – Marlon James KNOCKEMSTIFF – Donald Ray Pollock THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY -- Erik Larson SAG HARBOR – Colson Whitehead A SIMPLE PLAN – Scott Smith THE LIBERATED BRIDE – A.B. Yehoshua WHICH LIE DID I TELL – William Goldman THE EXPATS – Chris Pavone A SHORT HISTORY OF TRACTORS IN UKRAINIAN – Marina Lewycka THE MAGICIAN OF LUBLIN – Isaac Bashevis Singer BLOODS A ROVER – James Ellroy THE BUDDHA IN THE ATTIC -- Julie Otsuka TRAIN DREAMS – Denis Johnson THE LEMON TABLE -- Julian Barnes STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG – Kate Atkinson 1Q84 -- Haruki Murakami GIRLCHILD – Tupelo Hassman SEA AND SARDINIA – D.H. Lawrence THE BOTTOM OF THE HARBOR -- Joseph Mitchell DOUBLECROSS -- Ben MacIntyre MOBY DICK -- Herman Melville THE BABES IN THE WOOD – Ruth Rendell OUT STEALING HORSES -- Per Petterson DRIFT -- Rachel Maddow THE GOODBYE KISS -- Massimo Carlotto VENDETTA -- Michael Dibdin THE SPECTATOR BIRD -- Wallace Stegner A HEART SO WHITE -- Javier Marias CHARLATAN -- Pope Brock TELEGRAPH AVENUE -- Michael Chabon MILLROY THE MAGICIAN – Paul Theroux GONE GIRL -- Gillian Flynn SHUTTER ISLAND -- Dennis Lehane BARNEY’S VERSION -- Mordecai Richler SCOOP -- Evelyn Waugh STAY AWAKE -- Dan Chaon THE RED AND THE BLACK -- Stendahl HALF THE BLOOD OF BROOKLYN -- Charlie Huston DEFENDING JACOB -- William Landay THE CATCH -- Gary Myers THE YELLOW BIRDS – Kevin Powers

The Second Spitter Jan 02 2013 09:14 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Impressive list. Indeed, the white castle is a great read.

metsmarathon Jan 02 2013 11:31 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

i read a LOT of kids books this year, and maybe one or three grownup books. yeah, it might just be one book. one damned pathetic book. i scarecely qualify as literate. that book was 1491. it was good.

Benjamin Grimm Jan 10 2013 09:24 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

Finally have a chance to post this. 1 Washington Ron Chernow **** 2 Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown Paul Theroux **** 3 Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight Alexandra Fuller *** 4 Green Hills of Africa Ernest Hemingway ** 5 Born Free: A Lioness of Two Worlds Joy Adamson *** 6 When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa Peter Godwin ***** 7 No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Alexander McCall Smith *** 8 In the Footsteps of Eve: The Mystery of Human Origins Lee Berger ** 9 Last Resort, The: A Memoir of Zimbabwe Douglas Rogers **** 10 My Traitor's Heart: A South African Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe, and His Conscience Rian Malan ***** 11 Empire Settings: A Novel of South Africa David Schmahmann *** 12 Elephant Memories: Thirteen Years in the Life of an Elephant Family Cynthia Moss **** 13 Diamonds, Gold, and War: The British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa Martin Cruz Meredith *** 14 Fear, The: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe Peter Godwin ***** 15 Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela Nelson Mandela ***** 16 Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa Antjie Krog *** 17 Tomorrow Is Another Country: The Inside Story of South Africa's Road to Change Allister Sparks *** 18 Whatever You Do, Don't Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide Peter Allison *** 19 July's People Nadine Gordimer ** 20 Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa Mark Mathabane **** 21 Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void Mary Roach *** 22 American Gods Neil Gaiman ** 23 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Susanna Clarke **** 24 Unfamiliar Fishes Sarah Vowell *** 25 Fourth Part of the World, The: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map That Gave America Its Name Toby Lester *** 26 Ragman's Son, The Kirk Douglas *** 27 All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque ***** 28 Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds Bernd Heinrich **** 29 Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption Laura Hillenbrand **** 30 Travels in Siberia Ian Frazier **** 31 Making of King Kong, The: The Story Behind a Film Classic Orville Goldner, George Turner **** 32 For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Chicago Simon Baatz *** 33 Toy Story: The Art and Making of the Animated Film John Lasseter **** 34 Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American Life Lori D. Ginzberg **** 35 Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman Jon Krakauer *** 36 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot *** 37 Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front Todd DePastino *** 38 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway *** Books 2 through 20 were all pre-vacation reading for my trip to Africa. No baseball books this year; first time since 2007.

Ceetar Jan 10 2013 09:32 AM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

A Memory of Light, the 14th and final book in the Wheel of Time series. Also 'reading' Turn Coat by Jim Butcher again, via audiobook during commute time.

Vic Sage Jan 10 2013 01:49 PM Re: What are you reading in 2012?

of the lists already offered here -- [u:2epw80lw]I only saw the movie:[/u:2epw80lw] UNDER THE VOLCANO – Malcolm Lowry A SIMPLE PLAN – Scott Smith MOBY DICK -- Herman Melville SHUTTER ISLAND -- Dennis Lehane Wiseguy -- Nicholas Pileggi To Kill A Mockingbird -- Harper Lee In Cold Blood -- Truman Capote [u:2epw80lw]I started it but didn't finish:[/u:2epw80lw] TELEGRAPH AVENUE -- Michael Chabon MOBY DICK -- Herman Melville Manhood for Amateurs -- Michael Chabon [u:2epw80lw]I read it, but not this year:[/u:2epw80lw] Catcher In the Rye -- J.D. Salinger Animal Farm & 1984 -- George Orwell American Gods -- Neil Gaiman The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen -- Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill The Sandman [all] -- Neil Gaiman The Old Man & the Sea -- Hemingway [u:2epw80lw]I read in 2012:[/u:2epw80lw] Calico Joe - John Grisham Princess of Mars - ER Burroughs Gods of Mars - ER Burroughs Warlord of Mars - ER Burroughs A Dance with Dragons - GRR Martin Yiddish Policeman's Union - M. Chabon TELEGRAPH AVENUE -- Michael Chabon (unfinished) While Mortals Sleep - K. Vonnegut The Graveyard book - N. Gaiman The Mysterious Stranger - Mark Twain Fantasy of the 20th Century: An Illustrated History - Randy Broecker Marvel Comics: The untold story - Sean Howe Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most Enduring Hero - Larry Tye Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human - Grant Morrison 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die: The Ultimate Guide to Comic Books, Graphic Novels and Manga - Paul Gravett Black Widow: Deadly Origin - Paul Cornell (gn) Richard Stark's Parker, Vol. 1: The Hunter - Darwyn Cooke (gn) Richard Stark's Parker, Vol. 2: The Outfit - Darwyn Cooke (gn) Walking Dead V1 - Robert Kirkman (gn) Before Watchmen - misc. (comic series) plus some other stuff i can't remember right now... oh, yeah, also: Salesman In Beijing - Arthur Miller Oba, the last samurai - Don Jones Journals of Spalding Gray - S. Gray Tales of Old Japan - AB Mitford Bluebeard - Vonnegut World War Z - Max Brooks Joss Whedon: The Complete Companion (The Essential Guide to the Whedonverse) -- Kyle Garret