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What are you reading in 2013?

Benjamin Grimm Jan 01 2013 07:41 AM

The 2012 topic will remain unlocked for those of us who like to post their end-of-year reading list. Please post your 2013 reading material in this thread. Here's what I'm reading right now. Just barely into it; Franklin is still only about 12 years old.

Frayed Knot Jan 01 2013 08:50 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Finally tackling this one after years of meaning to get around to it and having read several of the author's other works. Long (about 150 of the near 1,000 pages in so far) but it rolls along well.

TransMonk Jan 01 2013 09:18 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jan 02 2013 09:30 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I guess we're all starting 2013 with presidential biographies. This book is really eye-opening, focusing on events leading up to Obama's decision to get into politics, going back to detailed sketches of his great-grandparents, tracing them from Africa and Kansas to Hawaii and Indonesia. I was only vaguely familiar with the details of Obama's story, but there is something I didn't know on almost every page and there's hundreds of em. Half the time I'm wondering why we don't know more of Obama's story and the other half I'm realizing it's because it's just too much to handle. One takeaway was what a complete dick Obama's father was. Wow.

Mets – Willets Point Jan 02 2013 09:40 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Half the time I'm wondering why we don't know more of Obama's story... Cover-up by the liberal lamestream media to hide that Obama was created as a plot by Saul Alinsky. Duh.

RealityChuck Jan 02 2013 11:56 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

MacEvoy wrote some excellent fantasy novels in the 80s, including Tea with the Black Dragon. This was her first full-length work since 1993 (a fix-up including a couple of short works plus new stories).

metirish Jan 03 2013 10:55 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Just started this, been wanting to read it for a while , kindle edition on sale right now for $3.99 .

Ceetar Jan 18 2013 08:55 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

14th and final book of the Wheel of Time (and it's feeling rushed..hah..) I thought about re-reading before starting this but that would take me months so.. I'm listening to the first audiobook concurrently, which is weird.

Edgy MD Jan 18 2013 08:57 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Ken Jennings looks at the world through the facet of his childhood obsession with maps.

Swan Swan H Jan 18 2013 09:55 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

An analysis of twelve shows that have impacted the way TV drama is produced and perceived over the past thirty years or so (The Sopranos, Oz, The Wire, Deadwood, The Shield, Lost, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 24, Battlestar Galactica, Friday Night Lights, Mad Men, Breaking Bad) by TV critic Alan Sepinwall. I've liked his work for years, and this is fine lunchtime reading.

Mets – Willets Point Jan 18 2013 01:07 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Edgy MD wrote: Ken Jennings looks at the world through the facet of his childhood obsession with maps. I grew up a maphead as well so I really enjoyed this book. One of these days I'm going to sign up for that Road Atlas Rally.

cooby Jan 22 2013 08:28 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

My old M R James book is crumbling and I requested this for Christmas...reading it one precious story at a time. M R James is the best ghost story writer, hands down.

Fman99 Jan 22 2013 07:36 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

My mother in law is quite possibly the worst gift given in the history of humankind. Not out of a desire to suck at it, but more as a resultant effect of her self-absorption and buying gifts that are "fun for her to shop for," more than, you know, "things you might like." She usually gets me 1-2 books per year as gifts as well as the token Mets/Jets knick knacks and such (this year it was a Mets notepad, for example). The books usually are the kids that start with "101 Facts about..." or "Things You Never Knew About..." or, in short, books that you'd read on the toilet, but not as books. This year I did get one of these (a book of "surprising facts about Lincoln" that Fboy is reading). The other one, which she found miraculously, was this one. This is a terrific read -- pretty deep, for those of you who don't already read a lot of nonfiction/history, maybe too much so. But I thought it was great - it gave me real insight into the influences behind the actions of guys like John Jay, Hamilton, Madison, Laurens, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Washington, and many of the other characters of the era. I'm adding "Maphead" and the Isaacson, Morris and Massie books to my wish list, I read and enjoyed Massie's book on Peter the Great a few years back. I just started this one, also good so far. He's a compelling writer, I am finding.

metsmarathon Jan 22 2013 07:46 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

i'm not doing much reading lately. but i too got a gift book that might not necessarily fall under the "gifts you might like" category. now, i'm not a super-educator myself, and while i'm sure she meant well, i can't help but interpret this book as "stop raising an idiot" i don't think it's what she meant. but i still can't quite bring myself to read it. .. a previous unread title:

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jan 22 2013 09:03 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Fman99 wrote: I just started this one, also good so far. He's a compelling writer, I am finding. quite a bit of Maraniss's book is spent clarifying, and untangling the "composite truths" of this book. But yes, he is also complimentary of O's writing ability.

Mets – Willets Point Jan 23 2013 08:23 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I want to be in a book club with Fman.

cooby Jan 23 2013 09:04 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I want to be on his mother in law's gift list. :)

RealityChuck Jan 23 2013 09:53 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Fascinating look at the history and stories of Chinese food in America. Though I'm mystified by her claim that the first restaurant to deliver hot food was a Chinese restaurant in the early 70s. Pizza delivery was established long before that.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jan 23 2013 10:04 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

RealityChuck wrote: Fascinating look at the history and stories of Chinese food in America. Though I'm mystified by her claim that the first restaurant to deliver hot food was a Chinese restaurant in the early 70s. Pizza delivery was established long before that. I thought this book had lots of interesting material to cover, but she did it really poorly. It was really interesting to learn for example how almost all the Chinese take-outs in the USA are run by Chinese from the same region, and the description of newly arrived immigrants boarding buses beneath the Manhattan bridge bound for restuarants in whatever small city was pretty powerful. But I could care less what her and her friends eat when they go out for Chinese on the Upper West Side, and the whole list of best restaurants at the end is a waste. She also spends way too much time telling us how many dead ends she ran into in research. Poo poo platter of a book.

RealityChuck Feb 01 2013 08:12 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

More nonfiction:

TransMonk Feb 02 2013 01:34 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Finished The Denial of Death (meh) and The Sense of An Ending (yeah!). I'm currently reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to my wife's belly. It is doing double duty by letting my daughter hear my voice and providing a literary backdrop to the historical period of the second (in a trilogy) of TR books that I am currently in the middle of:

metirish Feb 05 2013 09:26 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Talk about a labor of love. Finnegans Wake becomes a hit book in China

Mets – Willets Point Feb 05 2013 09:35 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

metirish wrote: Talk about a labor of love. Finnegans Wake becomes a hit book in China I bet it makes more sense in Chinese, even if you don't speak Chinese.

metirish Feb 05 2013 09:38 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Mets – Willets Point wrote: metirish wrote: Talk about a labor of love. Finnegans Wake becomes a hit book in China I bet it makes more sense in Chinese, even if you don't speak Chinese. Yes, the wisecracks on Twitter is when will it get translated into english.

TheOldMole Feb 05 2013 10:27 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

TheOldMole Feb 05 2013 10:28 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

And a really awful book, Jimmy Breslin's book on Damon Runyon. Every page is devoted to Breslin's smug attitude of superiority toward everyone.

Mets – Willets Point Feb 05 2013 10:43 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

metirish wrote: metirish wrote: Talk about a labor of love. Finnegans Wake becomes a hit book in China I bet it makes more sense in Chinese, even if you don't speak Chinese. Yes, the wisecracks on Twitter is when will it get translated into english. I wish I'd thought of that quip.

themetfairy Feb 15 2013 09:59 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

This is light fare, but a fun ride. Dave Barry always knows how to weave together an entertaining tale.

batmagadanleadoff Feb 16 2013 10:23 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Mendelssohn is on the Roof had first come to my attention and piqued my interest some 25 years ago when it was alluded to in a New York Times Book Review on Weil's other book, Life With a Star. Out of print back then, I began a fruitless search for the book, eventually resigning myself to never obtaining a copy. A few weeks ago, while reading HHhH, I came across a reference to Mendelssohn again, which prompted me to quick search Amazon.com and lo and behold, Mendelssohn is back in print. Here's the premise, or starting point really: in Nazi occupied Prague, the roof of a music hall/opera house displays life sized statues of some of history's most prominent musical figures. A Nazi bigwig, presumably Czech acting protector Reinhard Heydrich, is offended by the presence of famous Hungarian composer Mendelssohn's statue on that rooftop: Mendelssohn was Jewish. So Heydrich orders some underlings to remove Mendelssohn's statute from the music hall roof. The underlings arrive at the roof only to discover that the statues are unidentified and bear no plaques or other clues that would help them identify Mendelssohn. The workers are reluctant, actually terrified, to ask their superiors for further assistance because of the violent and arbitrary nature of the SS. So they decide to measure the noses of all the statues, reasoning that the statue with the largest nose must be that of the Jew Mendelssohn. As it turns out, the largest nose belongs to the statue of Wagner, uber German composer, and well known for his large protruding snout. HHhH: “Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich”, or “Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich”. The most dangerous man in Hitler’s cabinet, Reinhard Heydrich was known as the “Butcher of Prague.” He was feared by all and loathed by most. With his cold Aryan features and implacable cruelty, Heydrich seemed indestructible—until two men, a Slovak and a Czech recruited by the British secret service, killed him in broad daylight on a bustling street in Prague, and thus changed the course of History. Who were these men, arguably two of the most discreet heroes of the twentieth century? In Laurent Binet’s captivating debut novel, we follow Jozef Gab?ik and Jan Kubiš from their dramatic escape of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia to England; from their recruitment to their harrowing parachute drop into a war zone, from their stealth attack on Heydrich’s car to their own brutal death in the basement of a Prague church. A seemingly effortlessly blend of historical truth, personal memory, and Laurent Binet’s remarkable imagination, HHhH—an international bestseller and winner of the prestigious Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman—is a work at once thrilling and intellectually engrossing, a fast-paced novel of the Second World War that is also a profound meditation on the nature of writing and the debt we owe to history. HHhH is one of The New York Times' Notable Books of 2012.

Edgy MD Feb 16 2013 10:28 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

That's the sort of review I hope to see more of here.

TransMonk Feb 16 2013 02:01 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

RealityChuck Feb 17 2013 05:22 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013? Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Feb 19 2013 10:59 AM

Reviewing it for TangentOnline.

Fman99 Feb 17 2013 06:32 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

TransMonk Feb 19 2013 08:21 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Benjamin Grimm Feb 19 2013 08:46 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Edgy MD wrote: That's the sort of review I hope to see more of here. You mean instead of images of cover art?

Edgy MD Feb 19 2013 08:52 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Yeah, a deeper opinion, like we get in the film forum, serves better.

TransMonk Feb 19 2013 09:24 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I'm really enjoying the Edmund Morris Roosevelt series. That dude knew how to use all 24 hours in a day. I thought The Jungle was excellent, but the overt Socialist message of the final few chapters was a let down. The story spoke for itself for hundreds of pages and then Sinclair clobbers his readers over the head with what seemed like a political ad at the end.

batmagadanleadoff Feb 20 2013 10:26 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

TransMonk wrote: I'm really enjoying the Edmund Morris Roosevelt series. That dude knew how to use all 24 hours in a day. I thought The Jungle was excellent, but the overt Socialist message of the final few chapters was a let down. The story spoke for itself for hundreds of pages and then Sinclair clobbers his readers over the head with what seemed like a political ad at the end. Holy Henry Bemis! TransMonk's knockin' 'em out at a Willets-like pace.

Ceetar Feb 23 2013 12:04 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Enjoyed this one, going to check out the other books by the same author. I'm not sure how to explain without spoilers, because it gets very twisty. But basically, Nick's wife disappears on the morning of their fifth anniversary, and there are very suspicious things going on that may or may not be related to the disappearance. It's told in alternating chapters between Husband and Wife (The wife's story starting in the past via diary entries, about how they met and what not). You never quite know where it's going, or what's going to happen next. Even the main characters are keeping secrets from us so nothing is ever completely clear. It's part whodunit, part 'marriage is crazy'. There's no clearly defined good guy versus bad guy . It was a fun read.

TransMonk Mar 04 2013 10:25 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013? Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Mar 05 2013 11:56 AM

I have to say, I'm very happy in the time in put into the Edmund Morris Teddy Roosevelt trilogy. It took 2 1/2 months (while reading other things in between) and over 2000 pages, but each book was as good as the last. Going in, I knew that Roosevelt was a very accomplished individual, but after reading the bio, I found that I really had no idea of all of the things he got done in his 60 years of life. Considering that only one of the three books chronicles the events of his actual Presidency, there are so many other important events (political, military, literary, exploratory) that he took part in that I was mostly in the dark about. His lore has been perpetuated by caricature and myth (as he was one of the last great American heroes before film documentation really took off) that it is tough to get a really good look at him and all he did without investing the time. That being said, my wife is about 2 weeks away from her third trimester and I have a pile of baby books to get through.

Edgy MD Mar 04 2013 10:38 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Morris came off as a real tool in the publicity blitz around his Reagan bio. But the family had hand-picked him based on his Roosevelt work.

TransMonk Mar 04 2013 11:04 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

From what I hear, the Reagan book is sub-par, too.

themetfairy Mar 04 2013 11:08 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

TransMonk wrote: That being said, my wife is about 2 weeks away from her third trimester and I have a pile of baby books to get through. Is Dr. Spock on that pile? I know it sounds old fashioned, and in the Internet era it's probably not quite as much of a necessity as when my kids were little, but I did find it to be a very helpful resource to have around.

Vic Sage Mar 04 2013 11:12 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

we had a whole pile of baby books before our daughter was born. They were very useful; we had a table with a short leg and we used one to keep it from tipping. Also, the bigger ones were good at killing bugs. then, when our son was born, he liked to snuggle with them. ultimately, the dogs peed on them, so overall, very useful.

Benjamin Grimm Mar 04 2013 11:21 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

They're far more useful when you're expecting your first, and insanely curious about what's going to happen and what it's going to be like. After the baby had arrived, we found that we rarely referred to those books.

Frayed Knot Mar 04 2013 11:44 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

TransMonk wrote: From what I hear, the Reagan book is sub-par, too. The main complaint was that Morris picked such an odd method as his story-telling device. Despite being hand-picked by Reagan and given almost total access during the presidency with promises of no interference or attempts at influence; nearly seven decades of life prior to the White House including much of it public as SAG Prez and California Governor; numerous hand-written speeches and thought pieces made while in private business for General Electric which formed and/or reflected the basis for the philosophies he would later use for governing, Morris chose to tell the story through the eyes of made-up characters that he placed at the scenes of different parts of Reagan's pre-Prez life. Not that that means he fudged the basic facts or anything but it seemed like such a weird way to do scholarly type work on such a public figure especially given the unique position he had been granted. I remember looking forward to reading it when I first heard about it but then soured on the idea when I starting hearing more details and in the end never bothered.

TransMonk Mar 04 2013 11:47 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Benjamin Grimm wrote: They're far more useful when you're expecting your first, and insanely curious about what's going to happen and what it's going to be like. After the baby had arrived, we found that we rarely referred to those books. 'Zactly.

Benjamin Grimm Mar 04 2013 12:07 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Frayed Knot wrote: Morris chose to tell the story through the eyes of made-up characters that he placed at the scenes of different parts of Reagan's pre-Prez life. He even cited fictional sources and interviews with fictional people in the notes at the end of the book. That smells so bad that it, so far anyway, has led me to steer clear of his Theodore Roosevelt books, even if they are legitimate.

Edgy MD Mar 04 2013 12:20 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

When his book was released around the same time as the much-anticipated Angela's Ashes sequel 'Tis, he decided it was appropriate to engage in promotional trash talk against Frank McCourt while on the circuit, making me think, "This guy's a wee bit off his nut." And yeah, turned me off of the Roosevelt series, too.

TransMonk Mar 08 2013 08:04 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Domestic Violets (horrible name) was an easy enjoyable read. A very common male mid-life crisis story whose characters were all a bit too snarky to be realistic, but still it was a fun few hours spent. I'm moving on from Roosevelt to Wilson on a transitional note: We'll see if this author's telling of the 1912 election varies from the Morris version.

metirish Mar 13 2013 10:48 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

metirish wrote: Just started this, been wanting to read it for a while , kindle edition on sale right now for $3.99 . haven't gotten through this yet, that's not a reflection on the book,more on me and a reading slump I'm in. I'm determined to finish it.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Mar 13 2013 10:51 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I'm getting killed by a slow plow through a long book myself: On youse guy's recommendation, WHAT IT TAKES by Richard Ben Cramer. He really had some fun with that. Lots of exclamation points!!

TransMonk Mar 13 2013 10:54 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

A focus on the post-Sex Pistols punk scene with a slant towards British bands (as opposed to the New York scene). Should be fun.

metirish Mar 13 2013 10:57 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Question on average how long would it take you to get through an 800 page book like say the Stephen King one above assuming that it's readable and you like it how long to get though your average work of fiction - 350 pages to 400 your big ass historical book? How many books you reading in a tree month span?

John Cougar Lunchbucket Mar 13 2013 11:00 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I don't schedule enough time to read, WHAT IT TAKES I think is something like 1,100 pages and I'm halfway through after about 6 weeks. Willets or Ben Grimm finish before lunch.

RealityChuck Mar 13 2013 11:13 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

(No connection with any other author's book.)

Benjamin Grimm Mar 13 2013 11:17 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

In recent years I've been averaging about 36 books per year, which is three per month. I read mostly non-fiction, so that reduces the total a bit. A 400-page novel would take me about a week. A 400-page non-fiction book might take 10 days. I'm currently a little more than halfway through a meaty, but very interesting, 600-page biography of D.W. Griffith and I've been reading it for nine days now. I often read a string of related books prior to a planned vacation (last year I read 19 books in a row about Africa) and I thought I'd like to try a consecutive run about a subject not related to planned travel. I chose the silent movie era, and the Griffith book is the seventh of eight that I'll be reading. I read a terrific biography/filmography of Douglas Fairbanks, a bio of Clara Bow, a collection of essays about Chaplin, a couple of overviews of the era, and a sometimes laughably bad self-published work about the Fatty Arbuckle trials. The eighth and final book of this run is going to be The Parade's Gone By, which seems to be regarding as the definitive book about this topic. I think it's a collection of oral histories, much like what The Glory of their Times was for baseball.

TransMonk Mar 13 2013 11:26 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I'm with Grimm. I try to get through 3 big books a month. It's been more so far this year as I've made an effort to skip the TV reruns and spend on hour reading before bed. It really helps to have good books.

sharpie Mar 13 2013 11:56 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I've averaged 52 books a year (one a week) for about 25 years. Taking a train to work helps. Watching very little in the way of TV shows helps as well. Audio books don't count toward that number (not that I listen to them very much) nor do books I read to my children. I read more during the winter months (no baseball distractions) and a lot on vacations. I do try to read about a place that I'm going to but I don't do it always. Sometimes long, sometimes short. Fiction and non-fiction. Try to read books written by non-Americans about as often as American books. Helps that mrs. sharpie is reading her way alphabetically through translated fiction from every country in the world (she's on, I think, Senegal and is currently very enthusiastic about a book from Sao Tome and Principe).

metirish Mar 13 2013 12:11 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Damn, I feel inadequate. Very rare that I tear through a book in a week.....I would say the last time it happened was "Unbroken".

TransMonk Mar 13 2013 01:05 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I should also mention that January, February and March are easy reading for me without the distraction of baseball, football and the out of doors. Once baseball starts, my reading may take a hit.

dinosaur jesus Mar 13 2013 07:27 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

This. I thought a book that took the "evil" part of "evil empire" literally might be fun, but even for a Yankee hater it's a bit much. I think the problem is that I'm actually not a Yankee hater. The networks and the sportswriters seem to think that we all either love or hate the Yankees, and either way we we're passionate about it. But that's crap. What I'm finding reading this is that I'm mostly just indifferent to them. Still, there's some good stuff in here. For instance: Jeter made Homer Bush cry once by making fun of his name. He tried to do the same to Knoblauch, but Knoblauch nearly took his head off with a relay throw at second, and that was the end of that. ("I'm sorry, Derek. God knows where the ball's going when it leaves my hand, but I sure don't.") And one of his teammates in the early 2000s--the writer doesn't say who, but he hints pretty strongly that it's Clay Bellinger--got heavily into human growth hormone without proper supervision, and is now eight and a half feet tall.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Mar 14 2013 05:39 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I'm like killing amazon trying to find this. Brill

TransMonk Mar 17 2013 08:37 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

The post-punk Rip It Up... was not as fun as it hoped. I spent most of it wishing he was covering more of the Amreican bands from the time that I was more familiar with rather than the English bands that I found more obscure and don't have the taste for. I read most of Hitless Wonder book in one sitting. My band played with the author's band several times back in the late '90s. His band made it a couple steps closer to the big time than my band ever did, but otherwise, reading this book was like reading a lot of my life story between the ages of 18-36. Surreal, but very, very enjoyable. On to Woodrow Wilson.

Fman99 Mar 17 2013 07:55 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I read 35-40 books a year, averaging a book about every 10-12 days. Most of what I read is nonfiction, of the historical variety, though I do mix in fiction every 5-6 books as a change of pace. The only time I read is on my lunch break at work and the last 20-30 minutes of the day, in bed. I just finished the Ken Jennings "Maphead" book recommended by another CPF'er in this thread or last year's equivalent and I enjoyed it greatly. I can relate to that young love of maps that he describes, I had that same thing as a kid. Going to try some geocaching with the kids this summer to see if they enjoy it, I suspect it's right up Fboy's alley.

metirish Mar 18 2013 06:24 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I don't know how you do it with all the running, the two kids, the naps that you take ....where's the time?

Edgy MD Mar 18 2013 07:18 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I have five books on my dresser at any given time, and maybe two in my pack. Maybe three I'll finish. One and a half a month. And it ain't James Joyce I'm reading neither.

Fman99 Mar 18 2013 10:12 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

metirish wrote: I don't know how you do it with all the running, the two kids, the naps that you take ....where's the time? The things that are important to you are the things you make time to do. It helps to take advantage of technology -- I get email from BN.com and follow this thread to get ideas on what to read next. I download free samples and try those first. I keep my Nook at work and read on my Nexus tablet at home, which is backlit and easier to use while reading in bed. And as soon as I finish a book I start a new one. I don't let it cut into family time -- the reading, that is. If the kids are watching cartoons or playing with their toys, that's when I get my miles in. It also helps that I don't watch any television, besides live sports. Everything else on TV is tedious to me. Comedies that aren't funny and dramas where I can't stomach the dialogue. "Reality" TV. Etc. Thanks anyway.

metirish Mar 18 2013 10:50 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I didn't mean it as a slight towards you Fman, apologies that it looked that way.

Mets – Willets Point Mar 18 2013 05:41 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Fman99 wrote: I just finished the Ken Jennings "Maphead" book recommended by another CPF'er in this thread or last year's equivalent and I enjoyed it greatly. I can relate to that young love of maps that he describes, I had that same thing as a kid. Going to try some geocaching with the kids this summer to see if they enjoy it, I suspect it's right up Fboy's alley. Who knew that there were so many map geeks in the CPF.

Fman99 Mar 18 2013 07:37 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

metirish wrote: I didn't mean it as a slight towards you Fman, apologies that it looked that way. No worries, man, I didn't take it that way at all. I was just explaining how I squeeze it all in. I'm a busy guy, no doubt -- I also do all of the cooking in my house. I run, in both figurative and literal senses, non-stop from the time I get out of work until the kids are in bed, at which point I pour a cold one and take a deep breath.

Frayed Knot Mar 18 2013 08:30 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Fman99 wrote: metirish wrote: I don't know how you do it with all the running, the two kids, the naps that you take ....where's the time? The things that are important to you are the things you make time to do. It helps to take advantage of technology -- I get email from BN.com and follow this thread to get ideas on what to read next. I download free samples and try those first. I keep my Nook at work and read on my Nexus tablet at home, which is backlit and easier to use while reading in bed. And as soon as I finish a book I start a new one. I don't let it cut into family time -- the reading, that is. If the kids are watching cartoons or playing with their toys, that's when I get my miles in. It also helps that I don't watch any television, besides live sports. Everything else on TV is tedious to me. Comedies that aren't funny and dramas where I can't stomach the dialogue. "Reality" TV. Etc. Thanks anyway. Plus he only reads the first and last pages of each book and merely infers all the rest. It's amazing how much time that saves.

batmagadanleadoff Mar 19 2013 03:44 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Gerald Clarke has written, what so far, appears to be a masterpiece on the life of Truman Capote, arguably his generation's greatest writer. Clarke's writing is breezy, yet very evocative. I'd like to read more from this author, but it appears that his only other book is a Judy Garland biography, but I'm not sufficiently interested in the actress who played Dorothy to take on that tome, at 500+ pages. Here's an excerpt from Capote, where the author describes the New York of 1947, the year that Truman, who had, to that point, published only a few short stories, nevertheless used his considerable talents and social charms to infiltrate and then become the darling of the New York smart set: It is impossible to conceive of so much excitement being aroused today by such a young writer with such a slim output. The New York that resounded with [Truman Capote’s] name in those years just after the war has now vanished, and a new city, different in spirit as well as body, has taken its place. That Manhattan was the unchallenged center of the planet, ‘the supreme metropolis of the present’ as [Cyril] Connolly told his English readers; it was what London had once been and what Rome had been so long before that. The great capitals of Europe lay prostrate and impoverished from the battles that had raged around them; European intellectuals, who had sought refuge in seedy but congenial West Side caravansaries lingered on; and the cities of the Sunbelt – there was no such word then – basked in sleepy obscurity, unaware that soon they would seek to become rival centers themselves. Political decisions were made in Washington, but most of the other decisions that counted in the United States – those involving the disposition of money and fame and the recognition of literary and artistic achievement – were made on that rocky island, that diamond iceberg between the rivers. No wonder successful New Yorkers felt proud, and perhaps a little smug, about being who they were: they had all climbed to the top of what Disraeli had called the ‘greasy pole.’ And no wonder that Truman, who arrived at that dizzying height before he was old enough to vote, found the view so exhilarating. The El still rumbled along a dingy Third Avenue, coal dust had turned the limestone and brick of Park Avenue to a sooty gray, and summers, in that era before universal air conditioning, meant hot and sleepless nights listening to the sound of a whirring fan. But it was also a time, as John Cheever observed long after, ‘when the city of New York was still filled with a river light, when you heard the Benny Goodman quartet from a radio in the corner stationery store, and when almost everybody wore a hat.’ For those who dwelt along those streets and avenues, there was a feeling of romance and wonder about their city that is now hard to reconstruct, even in imagination. Green-and-yellow double-decker buses, so elegant and imposing that they were called Queen Marys, after the Cunard steamer, cruised serenely down Fifth Avenue; incoming ocean liners preened themselves as they passed the Statue of Liberty; and a regal red carpet was rolled out at the old Penn Station each night when the Twentieth Century Limited arrived from the West with its pampered freight of Hollywood stars. The skyline itself was romantic; the first flat-roofed glass skyscrapers had yet to be erected and Manhattan was still an island of grand and ebullient architectural fantasies – minarets, ziggurats, domes, pyramids and spires. Banks resembled cathedrals, office buildings masqueraded as palaces, and spike-topped towers unabashedly vied for a place in the clouds. Except for a few seamy areas, people walked wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted: street crime was rare. Hustling for news, eight major papers made everything that happened in the five boroughs, no matter how trivial, sound grave and consequential, while a battalion of gossip columnists, like nosy telephone operators in a small town, made the city seem smaller than it was with their breathless chatter about the famous, and those who would like to be famous. Broadway was a never-ending feast; theatergoers, sated with the variety before them, probably expected every year to be as bountiful as 1947, which not only saw the openings of A Streetcar Named Desire, Brigadoon, and Finian’s Rainbow, but enjoyed also the continuing runs of Oklahoma!, Annie Get Your Gun, Harvey and Born Yesterday. To Connolly, and many others, so much exuberance and vitality painted ‘an unforgettable picture of what a city ought to be: that is, continuously insolent and alive, a place where one can buy a book or meet a friend at any hour of the day or night, where every language is spoken and xenophobia almost unknown, where every purse and appetite is catered for, where every street with every quarter and the people who inhabit them are fulfilling their function, not slipping back into apathy, indifference, decay. If Paris is the setting for a romance, New York is the perfect city in which to get over one, to get over anything. Here the lost douceur de vivre is forgotten and the intoxication of living takes its place.’ The darling of the gods, as Howard had called Truman, was becoming the darling of half of Manhattan as well. The members of New York’s smart set were as fascinated as nearly everyone else by ‘this extraordinary boy’, as Phyllis Cerf called him.” From the back outer dust jacket: This man Gerald Clarke who's writing this book about me - do you know him? He's one of the lead writers at Time Magazine, He's really a very good writer. His book, it better be fantastic, because he's worked on it for eight years. I've never known such research. This is the first book he's written. I don't want to read it, but he certainly knows more about me than anybody else does, including myself. Truman Capote Capote died in 1984, four years before Clarke's biography would be released. "In this work of prodigious research gracefully presented, Mr. Clarke, who had his subject's confidence during the last years, gives Capote what the writer himself, in a last grand, gutsy gesture, declare he wanted: a book in which nothing, nothing at all, was left out. Mr. Clarke, a former senior writer at Time magazine, makes us take a longer look at Capote than I, for one, ever thought I wanted to take, and the result is mesmerizing, a fine-tuned balance—unusual for an author so immersed in his subject—of empathy and dispassion. The book reads as if it had been written alongside the life, rather than after it, like a car following a train, the driver picking up passengers as they alight, always catching the right people at the right time." Front page, New York Times Book Review, June 12, 1988. Reviewed by Molly Haskell "It's probably impossible to write a bad book about Truman Capote, but Clarke has written a masterpiece...What Jimmy Breslin said in his review of In Cold Blood—'And suddenly there is nothing else you want to read'—is the way I felt about this astonishing work." Newsday, June 1, 1988. Reviewed by Florence King [youtube]Etr7xGWV67Q[/youtube] [youtube]afkLKI-n4PE[/youtube] [youtube]PgorXYt3qrc&feature=fvwp[/youtube]

Fman99 Mar 19 2013 06:52 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Funny because I just read "In Cold Blood" for the first time earlier this year. I enjoyed it immensely. Capote does a great job of uncovering the details in a gradual enough pace to keep the reader engaged. You know who did it fairly early, and how they did it about 1/3 of the way in, but the "why" takes 2/3 of the book to be revealed.

metirish Mar 20 2013 05:41 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

metirish wrote: metirish wrote: Just started this, been wanting to read it for a while , kindle edition on sale right now for $3.99 . haven't gotten through this yet, that's not a reflection on the book,more on me and a reading slump I'm in. I'm determined to finish it. Inspired by this thread and the recent conversations I have had in it I finished this one...I love King when he writes books like this....it is basically a time travel novel, specifically Jake Epping is going back in time from 2011 to 1958 with the intent on stopping Oswald from killing Kennedy......brilliantly told .....

HahnSolo Mar 20 2013 05:51 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I read 11/22/63 when it first came out and enjoyed it immensely.

Fman99 Mar 21 2013 10:36 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

HahnSolo wrote: I read 11/22/63 when it first came out and enjoyed it immensely. His books are great when he's not falling into his whole "characters' inner monologues taking the voices of people from their past" thing. That gets tired real quick, it's lazy I think of him to fall into it even if it's his gimmick. I just re-read "The Stand" within the last few months and was pleasantly surprised at how well it holds up. That book, not coincidentally, has very little of that type of writing in it that I just mentioned.

Mets – Willets Point Mar 21 2013 11:02 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I'm not reading nearly enough.

metirish Mar 22 2013 09:15 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Just started this and liking it a lot, has great potential , free to read as part of my Amazon Prime membership Nadia’s memories of her father are not happy ones. An angry, secretive man, he died when she was thirteen, leaving his past shrouded in mystery. When a stranger claims to have known her father during his early years in Eastern Europe, she agrees to meet—only to watch the man shot dead on a city sidewalk. With his last breath, he whispers a cryptic clue, one that will propel Nadia on a high-stakes treasure hunt from New York to her ancestral homeland of Ukraine. There she meets an unlikely ally: Adam, a teenage hockey prodigy who honed his skills on the abandoned cooling ponds of Chernobyl. Physically and emotionally scarred by radiation syndrome, Adam possesses a secret that could change the world—if she can keep him alive long enough to do it. A twisting tale of greed, secrets, and lies, The Boy from Reactor 4 will keep readers guessing until the final heart-stopping page.

Vic Sage Mar 22 2013 09:46 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Arthur Miller's diary of going over to China to direct a local production of DEATH OF A SALESMAN in 1983. Fascinating. The Kirkus review: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-revi ... n-beijing/

John Cougar Lunchbucket Apr 07 2013 09:02 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

US servicemen who survived a firefight with Al Queada are paraded around as heroes at a Dallas Cowboys game on Thanksgiving. Bruisingly funny and sad and kind of a thriller and love story and buddy book too. Better than that FOBBIT book also about fucked-up Iraq veterans that I read. What a tragedy this war has been.

sharpie Apr 07 2013 09:26 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Loved that book. Better than THE YELLOW BIRDS, another Iraq war book.

Vic Sage Apr 08 2013 10:33 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Peter David's 2nd volume of The Hidden Earth Chronicles. So far, as good as the first. Don't steal this book... buy a copy and help out Peter David: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19282

metirish Apr 12 2013 06:55 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

d been waiting for this to come out as a kindle book...it finally did

The Second Spitter Apr 12 2013 08:15 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I'm currently re-reading "The Ugly American" maybe for the 5th time. No hyperbole, this is the greatest book ever .

John Cougar Lunchbucket Apr 18 2013 01:13 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Stumbled across this at my local library while looking for something else. The writer makes a case for 1970 being a kind of watershed year for music & culture evident in the making and aftermath of four of the year's biggest albums: DEJA VU by CSNY; LET IT BE by the Beatles; BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER by Simon & Garfunkel and SWEET BABY JAMES by James Taylor. The first three acts were in the process of breaking up that year, while Taylor is emerging as a new kind of "anti-star"/solo performer better suited for the new decade, Browne says. But you don't necessarily have to buy that to enjoy the book, which is told in low-key, fly-on-the-wall style scenes that revealed quite a bit about all these acts without being exhaustive or heavy or all that exciting; he gives you what he has and keeps it moving. I learned, for example, that Paul Simon was booed and abruptly left the stage at the Concert for Peace at Shea Stadium, which was his 1st performance sans Garfunkel. All of the rockers come off as big egos with frightening drug habits, but driven primarily by the same mundane kinds of concerns and insecurities you or I have. Lots of good stuff especially on Steven Stills and Crosby. I was surprised to have learned the writer had not in fact experienced those times directly If you like these albums, worth a quick read.

batmagadanleadoff Apr 18 2013 04:15 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Top 10 albums of 1970, according to this site: 10. Nick Drake, Bryter Layter 9. Van Morrison, Moondance 8. Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin III 7. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Cosmo's Factory 6. The Who, Live at Leeds 5. Miles Davis, Bitches Brew 4. Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath 3. The Stooges, Fun House 2. Neil Young, After the Gold Rush 1. Black Sabbath, Paranoid 15. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Déjà vu 16. Simon & Garfunkel, Bridge Over Troubled Water 44. The Beatles, Let it Be 297. James Taylor, Sweet Baby James

John Cougar Lunchbucket Apr 18 2013 05:39 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Yeah, wasn't the best albums necessarily, just four of the "biggest" that year. They also dovetailed with one another as Taylor had a Beatles connection, several of them were shtupping Joni Mitchell, they encountered one another at festivals, etc etc. I do like that site. In today's liner notes-less world of streaming, lots of good info there on players, dates, orginal track listings, in addition to pretty tough reviews.

John Cougar Lunchbucket May 03 2013 07:48 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

This book was a scream. Rod is a very funny storyteller whose led a pretty colorful life, and resists the opportunity this project presented to settle old scores or to polish his poofy image. He just lets loose and tells it, unafraid to poke fun at himself for almost anything he did. I LOLed on a crowded 7 train as Rod described touring America for the first time with the Jeff Beck Group, and making a great impression on important industry people who'd come up afterward and tell him "Fucking great show, Jeff! And that's a good guitarist you've got there too!" All the more funny because Beck was so deathly serious all the time and had quit the Yardbirds so as to highlight his work, only to choose a front man too well. Us Mets fans will relate to his devotion to the Scottish club team Celtic which he madly supports. Though he was born and grew up in London, his dad was a Scot and also a Celtic supporter so it's in his blood.

soupcan May 03 2013 02:09 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013? Edited 1 time(s), most recently on May 03 2013 02:15 PM

Kings of the Road tells the story of running during that golden period from 1972 to 1981 when Shorter, Rodgers, and Salazar captured the imagination of the American public as they passed their figurative baton from one to the other. These three men were American running during those years, while the sport enjoyed a popularity never equaled. As America now experiences a similar running boom, Kings of the Road is a stirring, inspiring narrative of three men pushing themselves toward greatness and taking their country along for the ride. I dug this the most. I was picking up my daughter from her friend's house, when the friend's dad (who is also a runner) showed me this book that his friend wrote - I actually know the author too but had no idea he was a writer. I remember watching and hearing about Rodgers, Shorter and Salazer during their heydays in the '70s and '80s. Found it fascinating to hear stories and details from races where they ran against one another and was constantly amazed by their race times even though I knew they were all incredible runners and champions. Good solid read if you have any desire to learn more about these guys or the beginning of the running boom in the U.S.

Benjamin Grimm May 03 2013 02:13 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I'm reading A Game of Thrones. I've been watching the HBO series, and I find that reading the book adds a lot of clarity to the events of the show.

Ceetar May 03 2013 02:31 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I'm reading A Game of Thrones. I've been watching the HBO series, and I find that reading the book adds a lot of clarity to the events of the show. My wife is ALWAYS asking me to clarify things. Of course, most of the time my answer seems to be "I don't remember, he'll be dead and forgotten soon"

Mets – Willets Point May 03 2013 02:33 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

"Running go boom," is an unfortunate metaphor for these times.

batmagadanleadoff May 03 2013 02:49 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Heydays of marathoning, indeed. Then, those runners, and the NYC marathon would make the cover of SI. And that was when SI really mattered.

Frayed Knot May 03 2013 03:13 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

SI, today, would probably argue that they're not limited in their thinking by pointing out that their covers feature both pro AND college football.

Mets – Willets Point May 03 2013 04:41 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Frayed Knot wrote: SI, today, would probably argue that they're not limited in their thinking by pointing out that their covers feature both pro AND college football. ...in June!

Frayed Knot May 03 2013 05:13 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Mets – Willets Point wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: SI, today, would probably argue that they're not limited in their thinking by pointing out that their covers feature both pro AND college football. ...in June! Well sure, the draft, intra-squad spring college games, plus all those mini-camps and "optional" training clinics aren't going to analyze themselves.

Zvon May 03 2013 05:25 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

metirish wrote: metirish wrote: metirish wrote: Just started this, been wanting to read it for a while , kindle edition on sale right now for $3.99 . haven't gotten through this yet, that's not a reflection on the book,more on me and a reading slump I'm in. I'm determined to finish it. Inspired by this thread and the recent conversations I have had in it I finished this one...I love King when he writes books like this....it is basically a time travel novel, specifically Jake Epping is going back in time from 2011 to 1958 with the intent on stopping Oswald from killing Kennedy......brilliantly told ..... Fman99 wrote: HahnSolo wrote: I read 11/22/63 when it first came out and enjoyed it immensely. His books are great when he's not falling into his whole "characters' inner monologues taking the voices of people from their past" thing. That gets tired real quick, it's lazy I think of him to fall into it even if it's his gimmick. I just re-read "The Stand" within the last few months and was pleasantly surprised at how well it holds up. That book, not coincidentally, has very little of that type of writing in it that I just mentioned. I read 11/22/63 twice already. I enjoyed it very much. Yes, basically a time travel story but also very much a love story. "The Stand" is hands down my fav King book. The part where Larry went through the Lincoln Tunnel is one of the best passages I've ever read in any book.

Chad Ochoseis May 03 2013 06:37 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

The one good big idea is that there are no good big ideas. Discuss cogently.

Edgy MD May 04 2013 05:53 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Billboard's top albums of nineteen sebenty 1) Simon/Garfunkel Bridge Over Troubled Water (Columbia) 2) Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin II (Atlantic) 3) Chicago Chicago (Columbia) 4) The Beatles Abbey Road (Apple/Capitol/EMI) 5) Santana Santana (Columbia) Somebody should do a book about Columbia in 1970.

Ashie62 Jun 01 2013 04:56 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Got an advance copy of Doc...harrowing..

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jun 17 2013 11:59 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

That's a stunning cover portrait. I'm not really interested in Dwight right now though. Here's what I just finished. I read where some heavy Bruce fanatics uncovered some factual mistakes that ought not have been made but I'm not at that level and took this book for what it was. It's got some interesting stuff especially about his early life and his mysterious post-superstar period and it's kinder to early manager Mike Appel than Dave Marsh was, if I remember Marsh's writing. Carlin is the first biographer to whom Bruce granted access, but what comes through is a guy who's not particularly forthright about anything he doesn't want you know anyway, with more than a few "we'll leave it at that" type quotes. Carlin doesn't exactly shy from addressing the fact that Bruce can be a bit of a moody, demanding, womanizing, asshole but doesn't confront him on that, at least successfully. There's one point where Bruce is asked about his short-lived first marriage and the answer he gets is "what'd she tell you?" Like that. The book does a good job I think of relaying Bruce's special magnetism and his effect on people. His career was shaped by people (Appel, Jon Landau, his band, his fans, a neighbor who supported his high school band, a surfboard manufacturer who bankrolled his early bands) who'd do anything for him because they so believed in him, even if they wind up getting hurt or fired along the way.

TransMonk Jun 27 2013 09:16 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Recently completed: I enjoyed them all...especially the book about Detroit. I have a feeling some will either take or leave the author's writing style, but he takes a journalist's look at a dying city and still holds out hope. I've read some other baby books and some management books for work in the meantime as well. Currently, I'm reading:

Benjamin Grimm Jun 27 2013 09:22 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I've read The Road. The 1913 book is currently on my Amazon wish list. The Detroit book intrigues me. The author was interviewed by Bill Maher on his show a month or two ago and it sounded interesting.

TransMonk Jun 27 2013 09:31 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Benjamin Grimm wrote: The Detroit book intrigues me. The author was interviewed by Bill Maher on his show a month or two ago and it sounded interesting. That's where I heard about it, too. The guy is a sarcastic investigative journalist (reminds me of Fletch without the disguises). An entertaining read about a depressing topic.

Swan Swan H Jun 27 2013 11:55 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I just finished the Howie Rose book - a nice, easy read. I'm currently about halfway through this one. It's my lunchtime read, so it's going slowly, but it's good so far.

TransMonk Jun 27 2013 12:48 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Ooo, ooo, ooo...I'm adding that to my queue.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jun 27 2013 01:05 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Saw that in the library the other day, on the list.

Ceetar Jun 27 2013 01:17 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Swan Swan H wrote: I just finished the Howie Rose book - a nice, easy read. 82% through that one. Just got past the part that makes me want Bobby Valentine back.

RealityChuck Jun 27 2013 02:10 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Just an amazing book. I saw Gaiman last Thursday as part of his signing tour. 1500 people showed up, and ended up autographic for everyone (it took four hours). He also read from the book and his upcoming children's book, and answered questions about them and about things in general. Wonderful experience.

Benjamin Grimm Jun 27 2013 02:12 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I read his American Gods last year, and after a promising start, I got more and more disinterested as the book went on. I hope that this book is better than that one.

Mets – Willets Point Jun 27 2013 02:30 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I read his American Gods last year, and after a promising start, I got more and more disinterested as the book went on. My experience was the opposite. I felt most of the first 250 pages could be excised, but the latter half of the book was pretty decent. Don't know if would have slogged through that far if it wasn't for a book club.

Vic Sage Jun 27 2013 03:29 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Just an amazing book. I saw Gaiman last Thursday as part of his signing tour. 1500 people showed up, and ended up autographic for everyone (it took four hours). He also read from the book and his upcoming children's book, and answered questions about them and about things in general. Wonderful experience. i saw him on WEDNESDAY night, at symphony space. Yes, he was terrific. He also autographed my copy of THE GRAVEYARD BOOK for my son and a trade PB of the 1st volume of SANDMAN. But yeah, that autograph line was ridiculous. They should have had signed copies at the door, if you didn't want to wait. It would then have made the wait for those who stayed a bit more tolerable. I actually read quite a bit of the book just while standing on that line. I like it very much so far. And i don't know what you chaps are talking about, re: AMERICAN GODS. I love that book.

RealityChuck Jun 27 2013 04:54 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Just an amazing book. I saw Gaiman last Thursday as part of his signing tour. 1500 people showed up, and ended up autographic for everyone (it took four hours). He also read from the book and his upcoming children's book, and answered questions about them and about things in general. Wonderful experience. i saw him on WEDNESDAY night, at symphony space. Yes, he was terrific. He also autographed my copy of THE GRAVEYARD BOOK for my son and a trade PB of the 1st volume of SANDMAN. But yeah, that autograph line was ridiculous. They should have had signed copies at the door, if you didn't want to wait. It would then have made the wait for those who stayed a bit more tolerable. I actually read quite a bit of the book just while standing on that line. I like it very much so far. And i don't know what you chaps are talking about, re: AMERICAN GODS. I love that book. At Saratoga, they did offer signed books if you didn't want to stand in line (plus a CD by his wife that would make a great stage musical), but I don't think many took up the offer. They may have given up on the idea after that.

seawolf17 Jun 27 2013 06:07 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

RealityChuck wrote: At Saratoga, they did offer signed books if you didn't want to stand in line (plus a CD by his wife that would make a great stage musical), but I don't think many took up the offer. They may have given up on the idea after that. That AFP record was one of my favorite records of 2012. Like nothing else I listen to, but oddly mesmerizing.

Fman99 Jun 27 2013 08:47 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I'm re-reading "To Kill a Mockingbird" for the first time in at least ten years. It's still great.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jun 27 2013 09:44 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Fman99 wrote: I'm re-reading "To Kill a Mockingbird" for the first time in at least ten years. It's still great. The greatest.

RealityChuck Jun 28 2013 06:27 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

seawolf17 wrote: RealityChuck wrote: At Saratoga, they did offer signed books if you didn't want to stand in line (plus a CD by his wife that would make a great stage musical), but I don't think many took up the offer. They may have given up on the idea after that. That AFP record was one of my favorite records of 2012. Like nothing else I listen to, but oddly mesmerizing. It was "Evelyn Evelyn" and I loved it.

Rockin' Doc Jun 28 2013 10:57 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Fman99 wrote: I'm re-reading "To Kill a Mockingbird" for the first time in at least ten years. It's still great. The greatest. It's a classic for good reason. After "To Kill A Mockingbird" Ms. Lee assisted Truman Capote research his classic, "In Cold Blood". It is a shame that Harper Lee never wrote another book. She was truly gifted.

batmagadanleadoff Jun 29 2013 09:56 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Rockin' Doc wrote: John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Fman99 wrote: I'm re-reading "To Kill a Mockingbird" for the first time in at least ten years. It's still great. The greatest. It's a classic for good reason. After "To Kill A Mockingbird" Ms. Lee assisted Truman Capote research his classic, "In Cold Blood". It is a shame that Harper Lee never wrote another book. She was truly gifted. Truman Capote and (Nelle) Harper Lee were practically next door neighbors growing up. The character "Dill", who visits Jem and Scout during summers in Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, was based on the real life Truman Capote. ____________ Here's what I'm reading. Thoroughly researched and a quick, breezy read.

Edgy MD Jun 29 2013 03:40 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

What's with the past tense? Harper Lee's still earthbound, last I checked.

DocTee Jun 29 2013 07:15 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

My local library did not have 1913, so I went with Adam Hoschild ("Ghosts of Leopold") and his "To End All Wars"...to use Ashie's term, "harrowing." A look at WWI through the eyes of those who fought against war and all its excesses. What was lost in 1913 was not peace, but the chance of peace. And that is tragic.

Frayed Knot Jun 29 2013 07:32 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013? Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Jul 01 2013 09:12 AM

I'm on this war right now -- Subtitled: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico And you thought the Iraq War was conducted under concocted circumstances and opposition too weak to object? This one war was a total land-grab with more than a wee bit of racism thrown in.

batmagadanleadoff Jun 29 2013 10:34 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Edgy MD wrote: What's with the past tense? Harper Lee's still earthbound, last I checked. Perhaps you're right, and I should've used "is based" instead of "was based". But does the tense depend on whether or not Harper Lee is still alive?

Rockin' Doc Jun 29 2013 10:56 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Edgy MD wrote: What's with the past tense? Harper Lee's still earthbound, last I checked. Perhaps you're right, and I should've used "is based" instead of "was based". But does the tense depend on whether or not Harper Lee is still alive? I think Edgy was addressing my statement that "She was truly gifted". No ill health or disrespect meant to Ms. Lee.

batmagadanleadoff Jun 30 2013 09:55 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Rockin' Doc wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: Edgy MD wrote: What's with the past tense? Harper Lee's still earthbound, last I checked. Perhaps you're right, and I should've used "is based" instead of "was based". But does the tense depend on whether or not Harper Lee is still alive? I think Edgy was addressing my statement that "She was truly gifted". No ill health or disrespect meant to Ms. Lee.

Mets – Willets Point Jul 01 2013 09:08 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I'm on this war right now -- Subtitled: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico And you thought the Iraq War was conducted under concocted circumstances and opposition to weak to object? This one war was a total land-grab with more than a wee bit of racism thrown in. I'm adding this to my reading list.

Fman99 Jul 02 2013 12:58 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I'm on this war right now -- Subtitled: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico And you thought the Iraq War was conducted under concocted circumstances and opposition to weak to object? This one war was a total land-grab with more than a wee bit of racism thrown in. I'm adding this to my reading list. I read and enjoyed that one as well. I just finished this one -- it's as much a look at Manhattan in the year 1800 as it is a murder trial recap, but worth reading for those with an interest in either.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jul 08 2013 08:22 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I'm into rockstar bios now. As a longtime but casual fan of Queen, I found this book's description of the transformation of an awkward teen immigrant Farrokh Bulsara into Freddie Mercury, Exquisitely Fabulous Rock Star to be pretty fascinating. The other story, which sorta comes along with it, is a reminder of a fairly recent but seemingly ancient times when even a three-alarm flaming gay like Freddie Mercury had to try and keep his orientation a secret to everyone including himself. This followed him to his death, he of course became one of the highest profile AIDS victims ever but only admitted to even having the disease in the final week of his life. Book is a little cobbled together and lengthy but makes a good case for Queen and its baldfaced determination to make themselves huge. May was a cerebral, square virtuoso who played a homemade guitar. Drummer Roger Taylor was the engine of the band's great ambition to become superstars. Bass player John Deacon said little but looked after their business affairs. Freddie lived a life of ridiculous excess, was never without hanger-on attendants, was bitchy, arranged for department stores to open nights just for him wherever he went, maintained multiple relationships with guys and women but slutted all the time, inhabiting the larger-than-life character he created on stage to overcome big insecurities. All four guys wrote songs, which accounted for their diverse but inconsistent output. May was the proggy guy into science fiction, wrote much of the "Flash Gordon" pieces as well as "We Will Rock You"; Deacon wrote "You're My best Friend" then led Queen toward funk and disco; Freddie was responsible for the stunning vocal gymnastics of "Rhapsody" etc., and also had a soft spot for the cheesy 1920s olde-timey stuff they did; Taylor wrote a few songs on every LP but was the last to write a huge hit ("Radio GaGa").

Edgy MD Jul 08 2013 08:42 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I never took Queen seriously until I saw Mercury interviewed and realized what an introvert he was, and that this insane demigod thing was a creation.

Vic Sage Jul 08 2013 08:45 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

i love Queen. Their over-the-top bombast is right in my wheelhouse, and what you refer to as "inconsistency" i call eclectic and varied in style. Their was a TV doc (VH1 i think) on Mercury some years ago that was pretty interesting, covering the topics you mention.

batmagadanleadoff Jul 08 2013 09:19 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Queen at The Garden. My first rock concert. Around the time Bing Crosby died. I remember this detail because the Empire State Building's lights were green, in Bing's honor. News of the World tour. Freddie Mercury came out for We Are the Champions in an, ugh, MFY's starter baseball jacket, alluding to the World Series going on and announcing that the MFY's had taken that night's game from the Dodgers. A few days before Reggie would go Reggie, Reggie, Reggie.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jul 08 2013 09:37 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

News of the World was the first LP I ever bought with my own $$. Fun Fact: Was origianlly to be titled "Duck Soup" but for a request from Groucho Marx who was a good sport about the previous "Day the Races" and "Night at the Opera" Groucho reportedly asked Queen to name the album after his forthcoming film, 'The Rolling Stones Greatest Hits.'

HahnSolo Jul 08 2013 09:45 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: News of the World was the first LP I ever bought with my own $$. Me too.

batmagadanleadoff Jul 08 2013 09:45 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

So which Queen was the big Marx Bros. fan? (First album I bought with my $$ was, I think, Abbey Road).

batmagadanleadoff Jul 08 2013 09:56 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Queen at The Garden. My first rock concert. Around the time Bing Crosby died. I remember this detail because the Empire State Building's lights were green, in Bing's honor. News of the World tour. Freddie Mercury came out for We Are the Champions in an, ugh, MFY's starter baseball jacket, alluding to the World Series going on and announcing that the MFY's had taken that night's game from the Dodgers. A few days before Reggie would go Reggie, Reggie, Reggie. My memory is betraying me. According to a list of Queen concerts I just looked up, Queen played the Garden on Dec 1 and 2, 1977. I definitely remember the MFY jacket, but Bing died in Oct of 1977, during the WS, and I remember the green ESB lights and hearing on the radio on the drive to MSG that they were for Bing. I need to figger this one out some.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jul 08 2013 10:11 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Freddie had a thing for the 1920s and 1930s, it was probably him. Also the whole "opera" motif was his, that was the genesis of it. Book did mention that the MFYs had adopted "champions" as their theme song. Queen were very calculated and had created both "We Will Rock You" and "We are the Champions" with the idea of pleasing large crowds at sports arenas where'd they'd begun to play. Freddie was said to draw inspiration from cheers at soccer matches for "Champions." May had audience participation in mind as a basis for "Rock You"

Edgy MD Jul 08 2013 12:12 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Sheesh, the idea that that was calculated was genius. The amount of money they must make from those songs playing in sports areanae must be incalculable. That they invented jock rock is amazing enough, but that they did it intentionally is astounding. "Another One Bites..." is a big sports song too.

Fman99 Jul 09 2013 09:42 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

TransMonk wrote: Benjamin Grimm wrote: The Detroit book intrigues me. The author was interviewed by Bill Maher on his show a month or two ago and it sounded interesting. That's where I heard about it, too. The guy is a sarcastic investigative journalist (reminds me of Fletch without the disguises). An entertaining read about a depressing topic. Started this one last night, so far, so good.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jul 19 2013 09:04 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Swan Swan H wrote: I just finished the Howie Rose book - a nice, easy read. I'm currently about halfway through this one. It's my lunchtime read, so it's going slowly, but it's good so far. eh, this was okay. Author is former Spin editor-in-chief and it reads like something written by an editor-in-chief, out to please everyone, lots of name dropping & stuff. It was a good idea but quickly got out of control and off into things I didn't care about.

Edgy MD Jul 19 2013 10:10 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I could live with not hearing the song anymore.* It's really cool how he works the chord changes into the lyrics, but the secret to the song's popular ascent is clearly that it's a hymn that makes reference to bondage and that's cool and iconoclastic, and even cooler when it comes from a creepy old guy, and young sexy guys always want to borrow authority from creepy old guys, but it seems a bit overblown to try to get a book out of that. *Although that might mean hearing "Suzanne" twice as much, so forget I said that.

metirish Aug 09 2013 07:59 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Coming in January I love the premise here, Doyle revisits the characters from The Commitments in this sequel to see how they made out after the high of the Celtic Tiger and subsequent collapse. A review http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/j ... yle-review Roddy interview http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/a ... ommitments

metirish Aug 09 2013 08:12 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

It occurs to me that my post is ripe for a future thread on the subject.

Benjamin Grimm Aug 09 2013 08:25 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I've been stuck on the same book for about a month now, an unabridged, 1,463-page translation of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. I'm mostly enjoying it, but Hugo sometimes goes off on 50-page tangents that have little (or nothing) to do with the story he's telling. These sections tend to bog me down a bit.

Mets – Willets Point Aug 09 2013 08:32 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013? Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Aug 09 2013 11:29 AM

I read Les Miserables one summer during high school over the course of a month or so. The editors of the edition I read had actually moved two entire chapters to the back of the book as optional reading since they were so tangential to the story. Still, I enjoyed reading the book. I learned a lot about French history and culture from the tangents, which I think was part of Hugo's point in writing the book.

Benjamin Grimm Aug 09 2013 09:00 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I agree with that. The tangents aren't uninteresting, they're just slower reading than the parts that drive the story forward. So far (I'm around page 1,000) there have been long tangents about the battle of Waterloo, monasteries and convents in France, and a justification of why he lets some of his characters speak in "argot". And there have been shorted tangents too; he goes into a lot of background details for relatively minor characters. The first 59 pages are all about the bishop that gives Jean Valjean the candlesticks. In the movie versions that I've seen, the bishop plays an important, but brief, part. In the book, the bishop's character is developed to a degree that we fully understand where he's coming from. It's definitely an interesting book, but also not for everyone. It requires a lot of patience, especially since many of the people and places he mentions may have been generally known to his contemporary French audience, but not so much for an American reading the book 150 years later.

Mets – Willets Point Aug 09 2013 11:31 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

My favorite tangent was about the Paris sewers. I can't remember if that was an entire chapter or not.

Benjamin Grimm Aug 09 2013 12:03 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I haven't gotten to that yet. I was in the Paris sewers just a few weeks ago, and some of the displays down there mentioned Hugo and Jean Valjean.

Frayed Knot Aug 09 2013 12:56 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I was in the Paris sewers just a few weeks ago, Did you see Edouard Norton?

Benjamin Grimm Aug 09 2013 01:32 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I didn't see him, but he was definitely on my mind.

RealityChuck Aug 12 2013 07:39 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Wonderful collection of short biographies/appreciations of science fiction writers of the 40s-70s who are in danger of being forgotten.

batmagadanleadoff Aug 12 2013 11:41 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Wonderful collection of short biographies/appreciations of science fiction writers of the 40s-70s who are in danger of being forgotten. The other day, I turned to this collection of Sci-Fi stories, which I've owned since I was a teen-ager. I re-discovered the anthology a few years ago while going through some old things that I haven't seen in quite a long time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scienc ... %80%931964 I read “The Little Black Bag” by Cyril M. Kornbluth, first published in 1950, right smack in the middle of the era covered by your current read. I found the story so enjoyable that I read it again, as soon as I finished it. Short story re-reads are easy.

RealityChuck Aug 12 2013 11:55 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Many of the authors in the Webster book have stories in that anthology (including Kornbluth, who wrote "The Little Black Bag."

John Cougar Lunchbucket Aug 13 2013 07:52 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Ken Calliat was a young recording engineer hired to mix the single version of "Rhiannon" then stayed on to engineer (and eventually, co-produce) Fleetwood Mac's RUMOURS album. The book tells the story of its recording in Sausalito, Miami & LA during 1977. It is less about the drama of the breakups within the band we've all heard about since he's kind of a second-hand observer of much of that, but more about how the songs and recordings came to life. Ken spends a lot of time patting himself on the back for his creative placement of microphones and other recording ideas, and the tech talk is a little much in places. He also spends an awful lot of time reflecting back on all the good-looking California chicks he banged back then. He also talks up his daughter, teen pop star Colbie Callait. But it is interesting to hear how the songs came along. "The Chain" for example started as a Christine McVeigh blues song then got reworked late in the game when Stevie contributed all new verses. "Songbird" was recorded in an empty auditorium, etc etc. He points out places in each song to hear different effects, etc etc. While recording they learn that their previous record is making a long steady ascent up the charts and it becomes clear that a second straight hit LP will set them all for life, which sharpens everyone's attention on making the best product possible. They all drink and snort coke and smoke pot. Mick Fleetwood is the gentlemanly but whacky leader. Bassist John McVeigh a surly hard-drinker but with Mick provides a rock-solid base. Christine (by now split with John and shtupping one of their mutual friends) is the tough-talking woman-in-a-mans-world. Their new American guitarist, Lindsey Buckingham, is a genius guitarist and writer but a complete asshole (hits girls, bosses people around, insincerely apologizes for selfish behavior etc etc). His flaky ex-girlfriend, Stevie Nicks, is not regarded by any of the others as a musician in their league but she brings charisma and determination to be a star they all lack. She may or may not have had an affair with Mick in Hawaii during a break in recording.

TransMonk Aug 13 2013 08:12 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

The Rumors book is a decent read. If nothing else it made me listen to an album I had heard dozens of times before in a different way after.

HahnSolo Aug 15 2013 07:59 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Just finished this one...pretty entertaining romp from Joe Hill. Really channels his dad (Stephen King) with a nice mix of horror and supernatural. Just starting this one. I think Philbrick is a fantastic writer and am looking forward to it.

Rockin' Doc Aug 15 2013 07:06 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Bunker Hill by Nathaniel Philbrick is in the que for the near future. Will be interested to hear what you think of it once you get into the book.

themetfairy Aug 20 2013 01:58 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Hang a Crooked Number I asked G-Fafif for a book recommendation last week, and he passed on this link to Matt Callan's novel. I'm about a third of the way through it. It's set in the not so distant future after a presumed terrorist attack on New York and its protagonist is a minor league ballplayer in the Mets organization who is also a spy. The writing is engaging; while I'm not sure where the story is headed, it's captivating. And hey, it's free - so you have nothing to lose by giving it a shot!

Ceetar Aug 20 2013 08:24 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

themetfairy wrote: Hang a Crooked Number I asked G-Fafif for a book recommendation last week, and he passed on this link to Matt Callan's novel. I'm about a third of the way through it. It's set in the not so distant future after a presumed terrorist attack on New York and its protagonist is a minor league ballplayer in the Mets organization who is also a spy. The writing is engaging; while I'm not sure where the story is headed, it's captivating. And hey, it's free - so you have nothing to lose by giving it a shot! Just finished. It's good.

Fman99 Aug 21 2013 04:38 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Rockin' Doc wrote: Bunker Hill by Nathaniel Philbrick is in the que for the near future. Will be interested to hear what you think of it once you get into the book. I read and enjoyed it recently myself. His books have all been worthwhile reads.

batmagadanleadoff Aug 24 2013 08:45 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

A re-read. Some of my favorite lines from the novel that didn't make the films: Italian-Americans “must learn from the philanthropists like the Rockefellers – first you rob everybody, then you give to the poor.” “I don't trust society to protect us, I have no intention of placing my fate in the hands of men whose only qualification is that they managed to con a block of people to vote for them.” “Lawyers can steal more money with a briefcase than a thousand men with guns and masks."

John Cougar Lunchbucket Aug 25 2013 07:37 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I took this on my vacation. This is a bit of a gonzo biography where the writer -- a musician himself -- endeavors to write about Gordon Lightfoot without the subject's approval or participation (Lightfoot we learn not only famously private but may or may not be harboring resentment over remarks the writer himself had made in the past). So Bidini instead fashions the book as a series of letters to Lightfoot, interspersed with chapters detailing the 1972 Mariposa folk festival and the goings-on that week in Canada and the world (the Fisher-Spassky chess match in Iceland; the largest jailbreak in Canadian history; controversy over Bobby Hull's flight to the WHA; the eclipse mentioned in "You're So Vain" etc etc etc). The stuff on hockey and the jailbreak is screamingly funny, and his novel approach to the bio is really ballsy. If like me you don't know a lot about Lightfoot you'll learn much: He's a huge figure in Canada, basically their first pop star, and also, that he's been a bit of an asshole. But telling that story while ostensibly addressing said asshole directly is just astonishingly daring as a writer and one conclusion you might draw is that it takes one to know one. But as said above it's also very funny, slashingly revealing, and softens a bit as Bidini sort of takes in what he's done. Two lightfeet up.

Mets – Willets Point Aug 26 2013 09:03 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: US servicemen who survived a firefight with Al Queada are paraded around as heroes at a Dallas Cowboys game on Thanksgiving. Bruisingly funny and sad and kind of a thriller and love story and buddy book too. Better than that FOBBIT book also about fucked-up Iraq veterans that I read. What a tragedy this war has been. Finally finished this after reading it in bits and pieces for a couple of months. I've taken to calling it "Willets Point's Long Summertime Read." The book has a lot of intricate details about the Bravo Squad's day at Cowboys Stadium, piling on the excess and hypocrisy of the 'Murricans surrounding them. It's not at all subtle, but I like it for the details, if not the big picture.

bmfc1 Aug 28 2013 05:32 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I loved [u:14zeq7rw]Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk[/u:14zeq7rw]. Well written, moves fast, no BS, great attention to detail, great humping scene, and an ending that will break your heart.

sharpie Aug 28 2013 07:07 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Me too on Billy Lynn. Spent much of New Years Day reading it.

themetfairy Aug 30 2013 12:42 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Howie had a book signing outside of the Mets HOF prior to Tuesday night's game. We brought along our unsigned copy - In light of our encounter in Texas two years ago, we asked Howie to make out the autograph "To Kelvin." The author kindly obliged -

Edgy MD Aug 30 2013 01:15 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Great stuff. I ever meet Howie, I hope I have my copy of Mets by the Numbers, too.

Mets – Willets Point Sep 14 2013 10:28 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

This graphic novel tells the true life story of the only baseball player to die from an injury on the field, Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians, who was beaned in the head by a pitch from the New York Yankees' Carl Mays in a 1920 ballgame in New York's Polo Ground. Lawless finds some common history among the two men both born in Kentucky in the same year building up their parallel stories leading to the fateful fastball. Chapman is charismatic and popular with his teammates and fans while Mays is an outsider who is not well-liked setting up the perfect hero and villain scenario. Yet, Lawless makes sure to give Mays his fair due. Lawless details the incident and its aftermath with grim and fascinating details. For example, did you know that Mays and Yankees' first baseman Wally Pipp fielded the ball that bounced off Chapman's head thinking that it was a bunt?

batmagadanleadoff Sep 15 2013 01:53 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

This graphic novel tells the true life story of the only baseball player to die from an injury on the field, Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians, who was beaned in the head by a pitch from the New York Yankees' Carl Mays in a 1920 ballgame in New York's Polo Ground. Lawless finds some common history among the two men both born in Kentucky in the same year building up their parallel stories leading to the fateful fastball. Chapman is charismatic and popular with his teammates and fans while Mays is an outsider who is not well-liked setting up the perfect hero and villain scenario. Yet, Lawless makes sure to give Mays his fair due. Lawless details the incident and its aftermath with grim and fascinating details. For example, did you know that Mays and Yankees' first baseman Wally Pipp fielded the ball that bounced off Chapman's head thinking that it was a bunt? I read this book a few years ago. Baseball in 1920: Ray Chapman is the only major league baseball player killed during a game. Major changes are instituted as a result. The spitball is abolished, new balls are put into play more often, and rules are enforced preventing players from mutilating the baseball to their benefit. These changes usher in the live-ball era. Babe Ruth, who is sold to the Yankees that same year, hits 54 HR's, destroying the old record (his own) and out-homering most teams singlehandedly. The Black Sox scandal unfolds. Baseball's owners install Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the game's commissioner -- baseball's first.

Benjamin Grimm Sep 15 2013 04:27 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I read that book too. It wasn't accurately titled. It should have been titled "The Pennant Race of 1920" because the Chapman incident was not the main story.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Sep 15 2013 06:12 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I liked the Sowell book too.

Vic Sage Sep 15 2013 08:43 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Another beautiful fable from that beautiful fabulist, Neil Gaiman. He did a reading of this in NYC a few months ago, and he autographed everybody's books after.

Mets – Willets Point Oct 01 2013 11:47 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

David Bowie's 100 Favorite Books. Some interesting choices. Not quite as weird as one might expect.

Ceetar Oct 01 2013 12:19 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

and and all at once, though in different formats. (audio, hard cover, and .doc file)

themetfairy Oct 01 2013 12:25 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I had thought that Sara Paretsky was done with the V.I. Warshawski series, so I was very surprised to see that she has had some new releases in the past few years. I binge read the early books during the late stages of my pregnancy with my firstborn; it's nice to have a stack of her books to get through again.

Benjamin Grimm Oct 01 2013 12:39 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

It looked like I was going to go oh-for-David Bowie, but suddenly near the end of his list, I found three books that I had read: [list:1q0q6x1q]The Leopard, Giuseppe Di Lampedusa, 1958 Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, 1955 Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell, 1949 [/list:u:1q0q6x1q]

sharpie Oct 01 2013 12:53 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

15 Bowiebooks: THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO WONDER BOYS THE BIRD ARTIST FLAUBERT'S PARROT DARKNESS AT NOON RAW (magazine, not every issue but enough of 'em, though cheating to put this on a book list) METROPOLITAN LIFE LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN IN COLD BLOOD THE FIRE NEXT TIME A CLOCKWORK ORANGE THE LEOPARD ON THE ROAD LOLITA 1984

Edgy MD Oct 01 2013 12:59 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I'm a little suspicious about that Bowie list.

sharpie Oct 10 2013 09:36 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Alice Munro wins the Nobel Prize. Always happy if I happen to have read the winner and happier still if I like their work. Often I've not only not read their work but haven't heard of them. She's a great writer who writes pretty much exclusively short stories about people in small town Ontario. Stories are complex and stay with you long after you've read them.

Vic Sage Oct 10 2013 10:11 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013? Edited 2 time(s), most recently on Dec 19 2013 02:34 PM

The Coast of Utopia (trilogy), Tom Stoppard, 2007 - i didn't read it, but i saw it, and it was amazing. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon, 1995 - one of my favorite contemporary novelists; didn't read it but loved the movie A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn, 1980 - life changing text i read in HS A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole, 1980 - overrated and overripe Raw (a ‘graphix magazine’) 1980-91 - sometimes good, sometimes shiite Mystery Train, Greil Marcus, 1975 - seminal work of RockCrit Last Exit to Brooklyn, Hubert Selby Jr. , 1966 - saw the movie; made me not want to read the book In Cold Blood, Truman Capote, 1965 - wow. both book and movie. wow. Herzog, Saul Bellow, 1964 - couldn't get thru it The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea, Yukio Mishima, 1963 - Interesting (flawed) film; didn't read. MISHIMA is also an interesting film, By Paul Shrader The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin, 1963 - i think i was supposed to have read this in HS, but don't remember it at all A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess, 1962 - This kicked my ass, and Kubrick's film does it justice. Inside the Whale and Other Essays, George Orwell, 1962 - didn't read this collection, but read 2 other great Orwell collections (one includes TO SHOOT AN ELEPHANT, the other has POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, which was another life changer for me) On The Road, Jack Kerouac, 1957 - a chore, but sometimes a lightning strike Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, 1955 - was supposed to read it in a lit class in college; i may have read it, but i was drunk at the time. Good movie, though. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell, 1948 - one of the all-timers Black Boy, Richard Wright, 1945 - another book i know i had and was supposed to read (probably same HS class as the Baldwin book), but no recollection. I must have cut that class alot. The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell, 1937 - dull, heavy-handed (even for orwell) Berlin Alexanderplatz, Alfred Döblin, 1929 - Didn't read, but an amazing German TV series by Fassbinder Lady Chatterley’s Lover, D.H. Lawrence, 1928 - Crap i read in college (or part of)... no wait, that was WOMEN IN LOVE. this one i never bothered with. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925 - one of the great american novels; one of my personal faves. The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot, 1922 - has anybody actually read this? the only reason i'm familiar with Eliot's THE HOLLOW MEN is Brando read part of it aloud in APOCALYPSE NOW McTeague, Frank Norris, 1899 - famously made into Von Stoheim's desecrated masterpiece, GREED. I saw the 2-hour version, but i didn't read. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert, 1856 - another required reading in college that i threw out the window Inferno, from the Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri, about 1308-1321 - it feels like i've read it, as so much has been quoted or alluded to in other works, but no, never did. The Iliad, Homer - in translation, of course. my Greek is rusty.

Mets – Willets Point Oct 10 2013 10:27 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Alice Munro wins the Nobel Prize. I haven't read anything by Munro. Oh the shame! Here's my Bowie list: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao On The Road Lolita Nineteen Eighty-Four As I lay Dying The Great Gatsby The Waste Land McTeague Inferno, from the Divine Comedy

Mets – Willets Point Oct 10 2013 10:31 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Vic Sage wrote: Lady Chatterley’s Lover, D.H. Lawrence, 1928 - Crap i read in college (or part of)... no wait, that was WOMEN IN LOVE. this one i never bothered with. Surely you watched the Sylvia Kristel adaptation?1

metsmarathon Oct 10 2013 11:10 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

i know i read 1984, and i read some or all of hte inferno and i think i read some or all of the illiad.

Frayed Knot Oct 10 2013 11:17 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I never did read '1984', opting instead to just listen to the 'Paul McCartney and Wings' version. Man did that save a lot of time!

RealityChuck Oct 10 2013 11:18 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Currently, three things, about three different types of heroes..

Fman99 Oct 12 2013 04:59 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I read that Washington book and enjoyed it. Currently about a quarter of the way through this one. Good Civil War era historical fiction, enjoying it thus far.

Mets – Willets Point Oct 21 2013 09:46 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

This can open a whole can full of arguments: the Most Famous Book Set in Every State.

Edgy MD Oct 21 2013 10:11 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I'm reading Which is set on and around the Silk Road, and which is set in multiple major and minor league locales. There's something motivating about reading a mass market paperback that's 50 years old or more: "Can I finish this before it disintegrates in my hands?"

Edgy MD Oct 21 2013 10:16 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

"Most famous" is a hard-to-pin down criterion, but I question if No Country for Old Men is the most famous novel set in Texas, or rather a novel that produced a cool movie. Giant, Lonesome Dove (and a half dozen other McMurtry titles) and Texas (MIchener) all seem to be better qualifiers. I worked in booksellling a lot and I wouldn't even call that the most famous McCarthy book set in Texas.

themetfairy Nov 17 2013 05:29 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I read it when it first came out, but re-reading it now is fascinating.

Fman99 Nov 17 2013 08:12 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I'm about halfway through Doris Kearns Goodwin's new book about Teddy Roosevelt, William H. Taft and the "muckraker" journalists of the era. It's a good read, so far.

TransMonk Nov 18 2013 06:53 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Fman99 wrote: I'm about halfway through Doris Kearns Goodwin's new book about Teddy Roosevelt, William H. Taft and the "muckraker" journalists of the era. It's a good read, so far. This is in my queue. I also finished Class A Baseball this past weekend. I thought it was a very good read.

Rockin' Doc Nov 18 2013 02:32 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

The Bully Pulpit is on my short list for the near future. Doris Kearns Goodwin is a magnificent writer, I have read several of her books and have enjoyed each of them. Recently finished Wilson by A. Scot Berg. Good read if you historical biographies. Should be a lot a great deal of overlap with some of the material in The Bully Pulpit.

seawolf17 Nov 18 2013 02:38 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I read it when it first came out, but re-reading it now is fascinating. Carl Bernstein: current Stony Brook School of Journalism faculty member.

Benjamin Grimm Nov 18 2013 02:46 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Their follow-up book, The Final Days, is also very good.

sharpie Nov 18 2013 03:03 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Carl Bernstein: left me a profanity-laced voice mail about 15 years ago (a work thing, he was being a jerk).

TransMonk Nov 18 2013 03:16 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Rockin' Doc wrote: Recently finished Wilson by A. Scot Berg. Good read if you historical biographies. Should be a lot a great deal of overlap with some of the material in The Bully Pulpit. Also in my queue. I've got a lot of reading to do.

Vic Sage Nov 18 2013 08:35 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Edgy, how'd you like the Chabon book? I loved that one. High adventure.

Fman99 Dec 18 2013 08:27 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I've read a number of books, of varying types and levels of enjoyment, but just ripped through this piece of fiction and thought it worthy of comment. I wasn't sure how much I was going to like it, having had very mixed results with Chabon's past work. I loved The Yiddish Policeman's Union, but had tried to read both Telegraph Avenue and also Gentlemen of the Road only to give up on them within the first two pages. But I liked this one a bunch. Still have to go out and get his book that won the Pulizter Prize for fiction. Luckily we received another BN gift card from my folks for Xmas/Hannukah this year.

Edgy MD Dec 18 2013 09:01 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Vic Sage wrote: Edgy, how'd you like the Chabon book? I loved that one. High adventure. Liked Summerland more. I liked each individual chapter, but the episodes didn't tie together very tightly. This may be because I'd been busy and only reading late at night. Very much appreciate in general Chabon's desire to bring back stories for boys, and I certainly appreciate this as a particular attempt.

sharpie Dec 19 2013 07:09 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Mysteries of Pittsburgh is okay. An early work, he hadn't yet found his voice I think. Of the five books of his I've read, I'd put them in this order: Kavalier and Clay Wonder Boys Telegraph Avenue Yiddish Policeman's... Mysteries of Pittsburgh Really 2 through 4 could go in any order. I thought Yiddish Policeman's was a better idea than follow through as I felt the story got away from him.

Edgy MD Dec 19 2013 07:25 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Fman99 wrote: ...but had tried to read both Telegraph Avenue and also Gentlemen of the Road only to give up on them within the first two pages. But I liked this one a bunch. It's funny that Chabon has that effect on people. Sage described a similar issue with Summerland, I think. I think there's something about his starts that demands you either surrender or go back. But Dickens and Dostoyevsky had that same effect on me. It took me two or three false starts to get off the ground on Yiddish Policeman's Union, but once I hit Chapter 3, I was fighting sleep and showing up late for work because these things were interfering with my suddenly passionate commitment to THE BOOK. I ended up devouring that thing.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Dec 19 2013 07:34 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I think Pete's done super work, but this thing was a crashing bore. I never would have guessed that Roger would come off as more interesting, but where Pete talks about how Roger goes about his work were my favorite parts of the book. I could care less for his on-again, off-again relationship with his wife and booze, which 90% of the rest of it was. And his porno explanation comes off like Andy Petitte denying steroids. YAWN

Edgy MD Dec 19 2013 10:13 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

And let's be clear: that's a kiddy porn explanation. The real hangup I always had with that I-was-doing-research defense is that, when the Who decided to relaunch Quadrophenia, they had Gary Glitter on board to play the leader of the rockers. Don't know how chummy he/they were with the guy, but it sure put a chink into Pete's story that I have trouble getting past.

Vic Sage Dec 19 2013 02:30 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

...but had tried to read both Telegraph Avenue and also Gentlemen of the Road only to give up on them within the first two pages. But I liked this one a bunch. It's funny that Chabon has that effect on people. Sage described a similar issue with Summerland, I think. I think there's something about his starts that demands you either surrender or go back. But Dickens and Dostoyevsky had that same effect on me. It took me two or three false starts to get off the ground on Yiddish Policeman's Union, but once I hit Chapter 3, I was fighting sleep and showing up late for work because these things were interfering with my suddenly passionate commitment to THE BOOK. I ended up devouring that thing. Exactly...to all of this. Chabon is like the girl with the curl... when he's good, he's very very good, but when he's bad, he's horrid. The problem is you never really know whether its a good one or a bad one until you're well into into it. I've started and stopped reading his stuff more than any other writer i can think of, besides Dickens. 1/3 of his stuff i've loved; another 1/3 i hated; the last 1/3 i haven't read yet. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988) - 1st novel; have not read nor have i seen the movie A Model World and Other Stories (1991) - short stories; have not read Wonder Boys (1995) - loved the movie; have not read Werewolves in Their Youth (1999) - more short stories; have not read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000) - this was his 1st work i read and it was one of my greatest reading experiences ever... Summerland (2002) - ...which was why this one was so disappointing. Fantasy and baseball and i can't get into it? Something's wrong here. i think i'll give it another go at some point. The Final Solution (2004) - picked it up in an airport and i didn't get what it was doing, at first, but i was stuck on the plane so i kept going. Ended up loving it. The Yiddish Policemen's Union (2007) - i started this one 3 different times; it's now one of my favorites Gentlemen of the Road (2007) - i loved this one from page 1 and never looked back Maps and Legends (2008) - essay collection; read some of these in original publications, but didn't read many. Manhood for Amateurs (October 2009) - essays, largely about fatherhood. Someone gave me this one as a gift; i hated it. stopped pretty early. Telegraph Avenue (2012) - i really gave this one a serious try, really i did. Got about halfway through, then i thought "why am i doing this to myself" and stopped; i have no intention of going back. He was also involved with the Dark Horse comic book series, THE ESCAPIST, based on his character from K&CLAY. It was pretty good. I'm thinking of picking up WONDER BOYS and giving SUMMERLAND another shot. Is PITTSBURGH worth my time, do you think? Anybody read any of the short stories? my ranking: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay Gentlemen of the Road The Yiddish Policemen's Union The Final Solution The Escapist partial reading: Maps and Legends (will finish) Summerland (may try again) Manhood for Amateurs (no) Telegraph Avenue (no) didn't read yet: Wonder Boys (yes) The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (maybe) A Model World and Other Stories (probably not) Werewolves in Their Youth (probably not)

HahnSolo Dec 19 2013 02:59 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I read Wonder Boys shortly after it came out--never saw the movie--and it gets a high recommendation from me. I put it just below Kavalier and Clay. I've tried YPU a couple times and haven't gotten too far on either read. Right now I'm on about page 120 of Telegraph Avenue, and, well, I'm not in love at least not yet. But I don't dislike it enough to stop reading.

Fman99 Dec 20 2013 07:14 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Vic Sage wrote: Is PITTSBURGH worth my time, do you think? Anybody read any of the short stories? I think so. I enjoyed it. It's got that first novel kind of feel -- like an author trying to find his voice and style of writing. It's also only 300 pages -- so even if you don't love it, it's not a tome the way some of his later books are.

batmagadanleadoff Dec 20 2013 09:23 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I bought Mysteries of Pittsburgh around the time it was first published. There was a buzz about that book and also, a good friend of mine raved about it and recommended it to me. Couldn't get past the first 10 or 15 pages. I tried like three times to read it. Truly, I did. Three times. Edgy MD wrote: Fman99 wrote: ...but had tried to read both Telegraph Avenue and also Gentlemen of the Road only to give up on them within the first two pages. But I liked this one a bunch. It's funny that Chabon has that effect on people. Sage described a similar issue with Summerland, I think. I think there's something about his starts that demands you either surrender or go back. But Dickens and Dostoyevsky had that same effect on me. It took me two or three false starts to get off the ground on Yiddish Policeman's Union, but once I hit Chapter 3, I was fighting sleep and showing up late for work because these things were interfering with my suddenly passionate commitment to THE BOOK. I ended up devouring that thing. I've had trouble with breaking through Dickens, too. But not for the same reasons I couldn't get in to Mysteries. Dickens's prose could come off as fucking impenetrable, especially 150 years after the fact. It's gaudy, excessive and overly ostentatious. Mysteries was just plain boring.

Benjamin Grimm Dec 30 2013 09:29 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Books that I read in 2013: Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Walter Isaacson American Silent Film William K. Everson Wolves at the Door: The Trials of Fatty Arbuckle David Kizer Douglas Fairbanks Jeffrey Vance Clara Bow: Runnin' Wild David Stenn Essential Chaplin, The: Perspectives on the Life and Art of the Great Comedian Richard Schickel Silent Movies: The Birth of Film and the Triumph of Movie Culture Peter Kobel D.W. Griffith: An American Life Richard Schickel Parade's Gone By, The Kevin Brownlow Invention of Hugo Cabret, The Brian Selznick Bold Spirit: Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America Linda Lawrence Hunt Game of Thrones, A George R. R. Martin 1831: Year of Eclipse Louis P. Masur Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused Mike Dash Island at the Center of the World, The: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America Russell Shorto Diary of a Young Girl, The Anne Frank Eiffel's Tower Jill Jonnes Judgment of Paris, The: The Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism Ross King Les Misérables Victor Hugo Flip: The Inside Story of TV's First Black Superstar Kevin Cook Kingdom Under Glass: A Tale of Obsession, Adventure, and One Man's Quest to Preserve the World's Great Animals Jay Kirk The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century Ian Mortimer An Empire of Ice: Scott, Shackleton, and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Science Edward J. Larson Spies of the Balkans Alan Furst New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan Jill Lepore Moloka'i Alan Brennert Last Rhinos, The: My Battle to Save One of the World's Greatest Creatures Lawrence Anthony Weaver on Strategy Earl Weaver Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War Nathaniel Philbrick Clash of Kings, A George R. R. Martin Over Here!: New York City During World War II Lorraine B. Diehl Charlotte: Being a True Account of an Actress's Flamboyant Adventures in Eighteenth-Century London's Wild and Wicked Theatrical World Kathryn Shevelow Antarctic Destinies: Scott, Shackleton, and the Changing Face of Heroism Stephanie Barczewski Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth Reza Aslan Outliers: The Story of Success Malcolm Gladwell Mosquito Coast, The Paul Theroux Joe Louis: Hard Times Man Randy Roberts About an average year for me: I typically end up reading around 35 books, and this year I read 37. In recent years I've tended to read about 80 per cent non-fiction, and this year 30 of the 37 books were non-fiction. Early in the year I read a string of eight consecutive books about the silent movie era, and I enjoyed being immersed (in a way) in that subject. This year I gave five stars (in Goodreads) to three of the books: Douglas Fairbanks, D.W. Griffith: An American Life and, to my surprise, The Judgment of Paris. Other books I liked a lot were Island at the Center of the World, a look at the Dutch history of New York City, The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, and the unabridged Les Miserables, a monster-sized 1,462 page book. Kingdom Under Glass was a dud. New York Burning was also disappointing. But the worst book by far was Wolves at the Door a self-published book that had some interesting material but was, by far, the worst-written book I've ever read. When I ordered it, I didn't realize it was self-published; I'll have to be more careful in the future. It definitely made me appreciate the value that a good editor provides.

Edgy MD Dec 30 2013 09:42 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

What triggered the run on books about early Hollywood? What broad conclusions have you gleaned?

batmagadanleadoff Dec 30 2013 09:45 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Books that I read in 2013: ... Bummer. After skimming your list, one of the books that I though would interest me was Wolves at the Door. Then I read your commentary. There are several Earl Weaver books. Did you read the one where Weaver recalls going bonkers on Reggie Jackson after he stole second base without Weaver's permission?

Benjamin Grimm Dec 30 2013 09:59 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Edgy MD wrote: What triggered the run on books about early Hollywood? What broad conclusions have you gleaned? Sometimes, prior to a vacation, I read a run of books about my destination, and I really enjoy the process. I decided to try doing something similar about another subject, one not related to travel, and I chose the silent movie era because it's become a recent interest of mine. Broad conclusions? Hmmm... For one, I've completely erased whatever early prejudice I may have had about silent movies being some primitive precursor to "real movies". They were an art form in their own right. I also came to appreciate the perspective that the audiences of the time didn't see the lack of sound as a limitation. The movies weren't even known as "silent" movies until later, after sound had been introduced. I think a lot of people assume that the main reason that many of the silent stars didn't continue their careers in the sound era was because they had heavy accents or funny voices (like Jean Hagen's character in Singin' in the Rain) but a bigger reason is that the whole method of making films changed dramatically. At least in the early days of sound, actors had to be very conscious of the microphone, and there was much less spontaneity on the set. Actors like Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford felt so constrained that they simply didn't enjoy making movies anymore. And Clara Bow was terrified of the microphone. And finally, it really struck me how many of the early stars came from broken homes; a lot of them had one parent (or two!) who just wasn't a part of their lives. I don't know if it was, overall, a more common situation 90 and 100 years ago, or if there was something about that situation that drew people to show business at that time.

Edgy MD Dec 30 2013 10:15 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

That's really good stuff. I guess Laurel & Hardy were the most successful at transitioning from silents to talkies.

TransMonk Dec 30 2013 10:22 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

The kid limited me to 24 in 2013, but these few months coming up between football and baseball is typically when I get my most reading in. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Morris, Edmund - 4 stars The Sense of an Ending - Barnes, Julian - 4 stars The Denial of Death - Becker, Ernest - 2 stars Theodore Rex - Morris, Edmund - 4 stars Long Shot - Piazza, Mike - 2 stars The Jungle - Sinclair, Upton - 4 stars Colonel Roosevelt - Morris, Edmund - 4 stars The Birth Partner - Simkin, Penny - 4 stars The Dad's Playbook to Labor & Birth: A Practical and Strategic Guide to Preparing for the Big Day - Halvorsen, Theresa - 3 stars Domestic Violets - Norman, Matthew - 3 stars 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs--The Election that Changed the Country - Chace, James - 3 stars Rip It Up and Start Again - Reynolds, Simon - 2 stars Hitless Wonder: A Life in Minor League Rock and Roll - Oestreich, Joe - 5 stars The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz, #1) - Baum, L. Frank - 5 stars Woodrow Wilson: A Biography - Jr., John Milton Cooper - 2 stars Detroit: An American Autopsy - LeDuff, Charlie - 4 stars The Road - McCarthy, Cormac - 4 stars The Essential Drucker - Drucker, Peter F. - 3 stars The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer - Karp, Harvey - 4 stars 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War - Emmerson, Charles - 4 stars The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 - Clark, Christopher Munro - 2 stars The Guns of August - Tuchman, Barbara W. - 3 stars Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge - Yarm, Mark - 4 stars Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere - Mann, Lucas - 5 stars

seawolf17 Dec 30 2013 10:29 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

The two baby books in the middle of Monk's list are hilarious.

Benjamin Grimm Dec 30 2013 11:26 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Edgy MD wrote: I guess Laurel & Hardy were the most successful at transitioning from silents to talkies. There's also Chaplin. And Garbo. But it's quite a short list. batmagadanleadoff wrote: There are several Earl Weaver books. Did you read the one where Weaver recalls going bonkers on Reggie Jackson after he stole second base without Weaver's permission? I'm not sure if Weaver included that particular anecdote, but there were a few stories about conflicts with Reggie. It was mainly a book about Weaver's take on baseball strategy; it wasn't at all an autobiography.

seawolf17 Dec 30 2013 12:27 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

The best Weaver -- and Reggie -- anecdotes came from the Ron Luciano books. Some of the first baseball books I ever read back in the day; thought they were hilarious.

Frayed Knot Dec 30 2013 02:00 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I never tracked my books read before, mainly because I don't reckon it had ever occurred to me to do so. Also, prior to this place anyway, I either never knew anybody who did this or the people I knew who did it kept it to themselves. But I've enjoyed reading the lists here in the past and have gotten some good suggestions from several of them, so this year I kept a running list and figured I'd contribute to thread. [table:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]DREADNOUGHT: England, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Robert K. Massie[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]THE DREYFUS AFFAIR: The Scandal that Tore France in Two[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Piers Paul Read[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]NO EASY DAY: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Mark Owen w/Kevin Maurer[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]PACKING FOR MARS: The Curious Science of Life in the Void[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Mary Roach[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]KILLING KENNEDY: The End of Camelot[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Bill O'Reilly / Martin Dugard[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]MAPHEAD: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Ken Jennings[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]FOURTH PART OF THE WORLD: The Race to the Ends of the Earth ...[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Toby Lester[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]CUSTER[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Larry McMurtry[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]SHADOWBOSSES: Government Unions Control America and Rob Taxpayers Blind[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Mallory Factor[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]THE BASEBALL CODES: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Jason Turbow[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]LONG SHOT[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Mike Piazza[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]NEAR-EARTH OBJECTS: Finding Them Before They Find You[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Donald K. Yeomans[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]DARWIN'S GHOSTS: The Secret History of Evolution[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Rebecca Stout[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]BARACK OBAMA: The Story[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]David Maraniss[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]LIVING WITH GUNS: A Liberal's Case for the Second Amendment[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Craig Whitney[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]THE THIRD BULLET: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Stephen Hunter[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]BONK: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Mary Rocah[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]CLEMENTE: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]David Maraniss[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST: An Unlikely Explorer and the African Adventure that Took the Victorian World by Storm[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Monte Reel[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]ROUND ABOUT THE EARTH: Circumnavigation from Magellan to Orbit[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Joyce E. Chaplain[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]COOLIDGE[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Amity Shlaes[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]THE SIGNAL AND THE NOISE: Why So Many Predictions Fail - But Some Don't[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Nate Silver[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]AL CAPP: A Life to the Contrary[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Michael Schmaker / Denis Kitchen[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]LAST APE STANDING[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Chip Walter[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]SOUTHERN LEAGUE: Baseball, Civil Rights, and the Deep South's Most Compelling Pennant Race[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Larry Colton[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]A WICKED WAR: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 Invansion of Mexico[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Amy Greenberg[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]THE VICTORY SEASON: The End of WWII and the Birth of Baseball's Golden Age[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Robert Weintraub[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]PEPPER: A History of the World's Most Infulential Spice[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Marjorie Shaffer[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]CLASS A: Baseball in the MIddle of Everywhere[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Lucas Mann[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]11/22/63: A Novel[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Stephen King[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]MRS. PAINE'S GARAGE and the Murder of John F. Kennedy[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Thomas Mallon[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]THE LAST OUTLAWS: The Lives and Legends of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Thom Hatch[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]THE SKIES BELONG TO US: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Brendan Koerner[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]LOOPERS: A Caddie's Twenty-Year Golf Odyssey[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]John Dunn[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]DOC: A Memoir[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Dwight Gooden[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]ROUND UP THE USUAL SUSPECTS: The Making of Casablanca[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Aljean Harmetz[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]HELLFIRE: Jerry Lee Lewis[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Nick Tosches[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]THE BRILLIANT DISASTER: JFK, Castro, and America's Doomed invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Jim Rasenberger[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]THE BIRD: The Life and Legacy of Mark Fidrych[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Doug Wilson[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]OLD MAN RIVER: The Mississippi River in North American History[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Paul Schneider[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]SCATTER, ADAPT, REMEMBER: How Humans will Survive a Mass Extinction[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Annalee Newitz[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]ZEALOT: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Reza Aslan[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]LEAGUE OF DENIAL: The NFL, Concussions, and the Battle for Truth[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Mark Fainaru-Wada & Steve Fainaru[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]DETROIT: An American Autopsy[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Charlie LeDuff[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]AN ENGLISH AFFAIR: Sex, Class and Power in the Age of Profumo[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Richard Treadwell[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]THE SYSTEM: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Jeff Benedict / Armen Keteyian[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]YES, I COULD CARE LESS: How to Be a Language Snob Without Being a Jerk[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Bill Walsh[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]LAWRENCE IN ARABIA: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]Scott Anderson[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][tr:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]THEY MARCHED INTO SUNLIGHT: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967[/td:1jh3gtji][td:1jh3gtji]David Maraniss[/td:1jh3gtji][/tr:1jh3gtji][/table:1jh3gtji]

Rockin' Doc Dec 30 2013 06:37 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

1. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo 2. A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead 3. Thunderstruck by Erik Larson 4. The King Years by Taylor Branch 5. Argo by Antonio Menendez & Matt Baglio 6. What Remains by Carole Radziwill 7. The Hour of Peril by Daniel Stashower 8. I Suck at Girls by Justin Halpern 9. Seal of God by Chad Wiliams & David Thomas 10. Sweetness by Jeff Pearlman 11. Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff 12. Cooperstown Confidential by Zev Chafets 13. Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides 14. The Day My Brain Exploded by Ashok Rajamani 15. Sergeant Rex by Damien Lewis 16. Into the Abyss by Carol Shaben 17. The Good Soldiers by David Finkel 18. Walking the Bible by Bruce Feiler 19. Blood Done Sign My Name by Timothy B. Tyson 20. The Feud: The Hatfields & McCoys by Dean King 21. I Never Had It Made by Alfred Duckett & Jackie Robinson 22. A Street Cat Named Bob by James Bowen 23. Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides 24. A Wicked War by Amy S. Greenberg 25. Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War by T.J. Stiles 26. Southern League by Larry Colton 27. Bunker Hill by Nathaniel Philbrick 28. Manson by Jeff Guinn 29. Wilson by A. Scott Berg 30. The Bad Guys Won by Jeff Pearlman 31. Twelve Years A Slave by Soloman Northup 32. 1858 by Bruce Chadwick 33. Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan 34. The Boy on the Wooden Box by Leon Leyson 35. A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Fman99 Dec 30 2013 08:41 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Everything in by BN.com purchase history for 2013, plus the 2-3 physical books I can recall reading this past year. As usual, 80-90% history with a dash of fiction thrown in. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon The Mysteries of Pittsburgh - Michael Chabon The Bully Pulpit - Doris Kearns Goodwin The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride - Daniel James Brown America's Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation - Kenneth C. Davis Kings of the Road: How Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, and Alberto Salazar Made Running Go Boom - Cameron Stracher Pilgrim's Wilderness: A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier - Tom Kizzia Detroit: An American Autopsy - Charlie LeDuff Duel with the Devil: The True Story of How Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr Teamed Up to Take on America's First Sensational Murder Mystery - Paul Collins Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution - Nathaniel Philbrick The Feud: The Hatfields and McCoys: The True Story - Dean King The Last Outlaws: The Lives and Legends of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - Thom Hatch Pandora's Lunchbox: How Processed Food Took Over the American Meal - Melanie Warner Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941 - Lynne Olson Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World - Matthew Goodman Between Man and Beast: An Unlikely Explorer, the Evolution Debates, and the African Adventure that Took the Victorian World by Storm - Monte Reel Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks - Ken Jennings Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us - Michael Moss The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece - Roseanne Montillo The Age of Edison: Electric Light and the Invention of Modern America - Ernest Freeberg The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War - Daniel Stashower The Inventor and the Tycoon: A Gilded Age Murder and the Birth of Moving Pictures - Edward Ball Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies - Ben Macintyre Nemesis - Philip Roth The Monster Maker and other Science Fiction Classics - compiled by Michael Kelahan

metsmarathon Dec 30 2013 08:59 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

i did not read many books this year at all... i shall endeavor to change that.

Ceetar Dec 30 2013 09:04 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I don't keep track, although I know I reread the Wheel of Time series and the Dresden Files series via audiobook. And the Divergent trilogy. And all of Ian Fleming's Bond books. A Memory Of Light was probably my favorite, just for finishing up a multi-book, multi-author, multi-decade series of an immensely intricate world.

batmagadanleadoff Dec 30 2013 10:02 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

batmagadanleadoff wrote: There are several Earl Weaver books. Did you read the one where Weaver recalls going bonkers on Reggie Jackson after he stole second base without Weaver's permission? I'm not sure if Weaver included that particular anecdote, but there were a few stories about conflicts with Reggie. It was mainly a book about Weaver's take on baseball strategy; it wasn't at all an autobiography.

Weaver' went bonkers on Reggie to make a tactical point: Reggie's successful steal of second then allowed the opposing second baseman to play the hole, rather than closer to the bag in anticipation of a possible steal. The batter, if I remember, either had a knack for hitting grounders through the right infield hole and into right field or was a potent hitter who could now be walked. Or both.

Nymr83 Dec 31 2013 06:18 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Fair Warning to anyone who liked Doris Kearns Goodwin's 'Team of Rivals': her autobiographical 'Wait til Next Year' sucks.

Edgy MD Dec 31 2013 06:35 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I ate it up. But she grew up like four blocks from me.

Benjamin Grimm Dec 31 2013 06:47 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

I really enjoyed Wait Til Next Year too. It certainly wouldn't occur to me to warn anyone away from it. I recommended it to my mother, who grew up in the 1950's as a Dodger fan, and she loved it. I'm noticing a few books that are showing up on several lists this year: Between Man and Beast I hadn't been aware of this book until recently. I have a copy on my shelf and will probably read it some time in 2014. Those who read it: what did you think? Detroit: An American Autopsy I know about this book because I saw the author being interviewed by Bill Maher a while back. It sounds intriguing... I may get myself a copy. How was it? Zealot I'm among those who did read this one. I'm aware that it's controversial, because it looks at Jesus as a human and not as the Son of God. That characterization didn't offend me. I thought the book interesting, even though the conclusions the author drew were often built on sketchy evidence.

Frayed Knot Dec 31 2013 07:21 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Between Man and Beast I hadn't been aware of this book until recently. I have a copy on my shelf and will probably read it some time in 2014. Those who read it: what did you think? --- Not bad. I tend to enjoy these explorer/science-y type of books that dial you back to a time where something we take for granted was either unknown or just becoming available. In this case it's hard to believe there was a time when the existence of the mighty gorilla was considered a myth even among the educated classes. This one's a bit different than some of this type of tale in that it centers on an almost totally unknown figure (then and now) who was NOT an upper-crust European galavanting around dark corners of the globe seeking knowledge while figuring that gave them the right to impose their way of life on the area. Detroit: An American Autopsy I know about this book because I saw the author being interviewed by Bill Maher a while back. It sounds intriguing... I may get myself a copy. How was it? --- I thought this was terrific. The author doesn't attempt to offer ways out of the current mess so much as he does a great job of sketching the depths of despair that this once great American city finds itself in and how parts of his family was caught up in the mess over the years. Zealot I'm among those who did read this one. I'm aware that it's controversial, because it looks at Jesus as a human and not as the Son of God. That characterization didn't offend me. I thought the book interesting, even though the conclusions the author drew were often built on sketchy evidence. --- I think it's only controversial if you go in expecting it to be something it makes no claim at. If you're looking for an explanation about conditions in present-day Israel during the 1st century AD (or I guess CE is the new all purpose designation these days) and how they would have affected the early life of Jesus then it's both interesting and informative. Sure some of the conclusions are sketchy, but they almost have to be given the paucity of concrete facts and I think he at least reaches those conclusions by considering all available evidence. If, on the other hand, one goes in with the outlook that nothing other than the backing of the gospels as unquestioned, historical artifacts is acceptable then those folks are essentially asking to be offended.

seawolf17 Dec 31 2013 07:54 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

[Detroit: An American Autopsy I know about this book because I saw the author being interviewed by Bill Maher a while back. It sounds intriguing... I may get myself a copy. How was it? --- I thought this was terrific. The author doesn't attempt to offer ways out of the current mess so much as he does a great job of sketching the depths of despair that this once great American city finds itself in and how parts of his family was caught up in the mess over the years. Definitely. It's an interesting mix between LeDuff's autobiography and an indictment of how bad things have gotten. Intensely personal. One Michigander I know can't stand this guy. It might be MGIM, but I don't specifically remember that. Could be a friend from some other circle.

Fman99 Dec 31 2013 08:11 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Nymr83 wrote: Fair Warning to anyone who liked Doris Kearns Goodwin's 'Team of Rivals': her autobiographical 'Wait til Next Year' sucks. I liked it, admittedly, it was lighter fare than her other work, but I still found it entertaining.

Fman99 Dec 31 2013 09:22 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Between Man and Beast I hadn't been aware of this book until recently. I have a copy on my shelf and will probably read it some time in 2014. Those who read it: what did you think? Detroit: An American Autopsy I know about this book because I saw the author being interviewed by Bill Maher a while back. It sounds intriguing... I may get myself a copy. How was it? I enjoyed both of them and would recommend them. Between Man and Beast is good solid historical nonfiction. I don't ask for much -- only that someone tell a story I don't already know and do it in an engaging fashion. This book met both criteria. Detroit is a very different book in mood but still an fine read. Not the most positive or uplifting story, but, at the same time, the author is invested in the subject (it being his hometown) and it reads that way.

Rockin' Doc Dec 31 2013 10:05 PM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

Fair Warning to anyone who liked Doris Kearns Goodwin's 'Team of Rivals': her autobiographical 'Wait til Next Year' sucks. I liked it, admittedly, it was lighter fare than her other work, but I still found it entertaining. Team of Rivals was an awesome book. Wait til Next Year was definitely not of the same caliber (not many books are) as Team of Rivals, however I still found it to be an enjoyable book.

sharpie Jan 02 2014 07:35 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

My list. I wait til 2014 to post a 2013 list. 57 books. BILLY LYNN'S LONG HALFTIME WALK -- Ben Fountain GOOD OMENS -- Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman WHERE THE GOD OF LOVE HANGS OUT -- Amy Bloom CONFESSIONS OF A YAKUZA -- Junichi Saga THE SELECTED STORIES OF RICHARD BAUSCH -- Richard Bausch CUTTING FOR STONE -- Abraham Verghese TENTH OF DECEMBER -- George Saunders ELEGY FOR APRIL -- Benjamin Black THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM -- Barbara W. Tuchman WHILE THE WOMEN ARE SLEEPING -- Javier Marias BEST EUROPEAN FICTION 2012 -- Aleksandar Hemon (ed) MOHAWK -- Richard Russo HOW TO GET FILTHY RICH IN RISING ASIA -- Mohsin Hamid IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS -- Erik Larson DON'T CRY -- Mary Gaitskill THE DINNER -- Herman Koch THE MEMORY OF LOVE -- Aminatta Forna CHRONIC CITY -- Jonathan Lethem I DREAMED I WAS A VERY CLEAN TRAMP -- Richard Hell NW -- Zadie Smith EQUATOR -- Miguel Sousa Taveras THE UNCONQUERED -- Scott Wallace SWAMPLANDIA! -- Karen Russell CRUMBTOWN -- Joe Connelly THE FLAMETHROWERS -- Rachel Kushner SOME PREFER NETTLES -- Junichiro Tanazaki ROD: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Rod Stewart HEADHUNTERS -- Jo Nesbo BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS -- Katherine Boo THE ATTACK -- Yasmina Khadra UNBROKEN -- Laura Hillenbrand ET TU, BABE -- Mark Leyner CORPUS CHRISTI -- Bret Anthony Johnston WHAT IS THE WHAT -- Dave Eggers THE PAINTED VEIL -- W. Somerset Maugham DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN -- Thomas Mallon HEADS IN BEDS -- Jacob Tomsky THE WET AND THE DRY -- Lawrence Osborne MIDAQ ALLEY -- Naguib Mahfouz SAMEDI THE DEAFNESS -- Jesse Ball HELLHOUND ON HIS TRAIL -- Hampton Sides GODS WITHOUT MEN -- Hariku Kunzru THE QUALITY OF MERCY -- Barry Unsworth THE MINOTAUR -- Barbara Vine HONORED GUEST -- Joy Williams BIRCHWOOD -- John Banville HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TURK! -- Jakob Arjouni THE PASSAGE OF POWER -- Robert A. Caro FALLING SIDEWAYS -- Thomas E. Kennedy THE GOOD THIEF -- Hannah Tinti FACELESS KILLERS -- Henning Mankell X-RAY: The Unauthorized Autobiography -- Ray Davies VAMPIRES IN THE LEMON GROVE -- Karen Russell WHEN I WAS MORTAL -- Javier Marias CLASS A -- Lucas Mann THE GOOD LORD BIRD -- James McBride NONE TO ACCOMPANY ME -- Nadine Gordimer

Mets – Willets Point Jan 03 2014 11:47 AM Re: What are you reading in 2013?

January Band of Demons by Rob Blackwell – ***1/2 The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt (A) – *1/2 Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku (A) – ** February Walkable City by Jeff Speck – **** A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage (A) – *** Take Five: Poems in 5/4 Time by Tad Richards – *** The Price of Inequality by Joseph E. Stiglitz (A) – *** March Falling Upward by Richard Rohr (A) – ** When spiritual but not religious is not enough : seeing god in surprising places, even the church by Lillian Daniel – *** April Doctor Who: The Forgotten by Tony Lee – ** We3 by Grant Morrison – * Free Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy (A) – *** Transatlantic by Colum McCann – **** Laika by Nick Abadzis – **** Back to Our Future by David Sirotta – ***1.2 Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield (A) – **** May A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon (A) – ** Through Time by Andrew Cartmel – *** The Discontinuity Guide by Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping – **1/2 June Cape Cod by Henry David Thoureau – ***1/2 Star Trek the next generation / Doctor Who. Assimilation² written by Scott & David Tipton with Tony Lee ; art by J.K. Woodward v1 – *** Atlantic by Simon Winchester (A) – ** Who Could That Be At This Hour? by Lemony Snicket – *** Doctor Who : the writer’s tale by Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook – ** July Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein – ****1/2 My Song by Harry Belafonte (A) – ***1/2 Because I Said So by Ken Jennings – **1/2 August Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain – *** Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier (A) – ** September Rivals by Tim Green – *** Honus & Me by Dan Gutman – ***1/2 Hit By Pitch by Molly Lawless – **** The Wet and the Dry by Lawrence Osborne – *1/2 Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut – *** October Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks (A) – *** The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud (A) – ** Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson (A) – ** November The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (A) – **** Fighting Traffic by Peter Norton – ***1/2 Distant Corners by David Wangerin – ***1/2 December Quiet by Susan Cain (A) – *** Give the Devil His Due by Rob Blackwell – ***1/2 The Technologists by Matthew Pearl (A) They Might Be Giants’ Flood by S. Alexander Reed and Phillip Sandifer – **** The Fault in Our Stars by John Green – ****1/2 Fables: Legends in Exile by Bill Willingham – **