Bachman and Dewey and Hanks (split from Youth Sports Action)

[Edgy MD]

In Fredrik Bachman's Us Against You, a hockey rivalry consumes two small towns, leading to escalating incidents among the supporters as the on-ice matchup approaches, which ultimately ends up getting the goaltender for the protagonists' side killed.

As the two teams prepare to square off in the devastating aftermath, not even sure they hate each other anymore, the team who didn't lose their goaltender gifts their backup to the team in mourning. Not his equipment. They gave them their alternate goalie.

Without sportsmanship, athletics is at best a waste of time. At worst, it's a poor substitute for the aggression and betrayal and gouging in society that it is supposed to sublimate.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Reading The Winners, which is Backman's 3rd and final of the Beartown saga now. It just came out...and helped get me through the hospitalization. E-readers not allowed so a 700 page hardcover.

Great writer

The loaned goalie, Mumbles, plays a role in this one

[Frayed Knot]

Reading The Winners, which is Backman's 3rd and final of the Beartown saga now. It just came out... a 700 page hardcover.

Great writer

The loaned goalie, Mumbles, plays a role in this one

Plowed through this bad boy in about four days.
Thanks LCS/WS gap.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

I've got about 100 pages to go

[The Hot Corner]

I am almost half way through The Winners. I hope to make serious progress over the weekend. Work really interferes with reading.

[Frayed Knot]

Nearly 700 pages and it's not long enough.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Reading The Winners, which is Backman's 3rd and final of the Beartown saga now. It just came out... a 700 page hardcover.

Great writer

The loaned goalie, Mumbles, plays a role in this one

Plowed through this bad boy in about four days.
Thanks LCS/WS gap.

I ended up at my local public library today. I haven't been inside of a public library, other than the main one with the marble lions at 42nd Street in Manhattan in about 40 years. This is a really long story I have here but I'm gonna shorten it and get right to the point I wanna make here.

So I took out a library card while I was there. (I did not go there to become a member, or to take out a book, or to browse or use their computers, etc. That was not the purpose of my visit.)

And I ended up borrowing Backman's The Winners because I remembered it from this forum and the posts above. (Hardcover, practically brand new condition!).

So, is that book readable without having read the first two installments of the hockey trilogy?

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Yes but if you're in the library get those two. Beantown ins one and us against you I think) is no. 2

[batmagadanleadoff]

Yes but if you're in the library get those two. Beantown ins one and us against you I think) is no. 2

You might not believe this, but they no longer use those index card catalogs in the little wooden pull out cabinets anymore to look up books. It's all computerized , now.

[Edgy MD]

Beartown, although Beantown would be good too.

[Frayed Knot]

Read 'em in order.
BEARTOWN
US AGAINST YOU
THE WINNERS

Each can stand on its own but multiple characters are common to all three so why join after their stories are already half-told? It's one thing to read (in THE WINNERS) about Benji coming back home after a year or two away. But it's another to know the full back story on Benji and Why he was away in the first place even though Bachman does insert some catch-up info for those not in on the first two installments.

And if BEARTOWN turns out to not be your cuppa then you don't need to bother with the others.
And if BEARTOWN is your cuppa then you've got a great winter's worth of reading ahead of you. The trilogy might take you straight to Opening Day.

[Frayed Knot]

Not to hijack the thread entirety, but a side issue involving Bachman and his books.
An American-ized version of his (I think) debut novel, A MAN CALLED OVE, is due out in January. There was a reasonably good Swedish language film adaptation a few years back. But this will be Tom Hanks in A MAN CALLED OTTO so safe to say they've Americanized it.
Let's just call me apprehensive about this one.

[Edgy MD]

In your defense, Beartown is a novel of youth sports action, among other things. In fact, I guess that's how I ended up bringing it up in this thread.

No actor in recent memory has enjoyed the range of professional options that Hanks gets. Given that, it's surprising how many weak choices he can make.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Yes but if you're in the library get those two. Beantown ins one and us against you I think) is no. 2

You might not believe this, but they no longer use those index card catalogs in the little wooden pull out cabinets anymore to look up books. It's all computerized , now.

The Dewey Decimal System! That's what I was thinking of. Anyways, I think it's pretty much obsolete. Don't know if it's extinct. But you can look up books way easier these days. At least at the public library. The books were organized just like in a retail book store (also on its way to extinction, by the way) -- by subject (e.g., fiction, science fiction, mystery, etc.,) and then by author's last name and then book title.

[whippoorwill]

I think they still use it at my library.
I worked at a little church library for a while about 25 years ago and the Dewey Decimal system is really complicated

[Frayed Knot]

We may need a split-off here.

You might not believe this, but they no longer use those index card catalogs in the little wooden pull out cabinets anymore to look up books. It's all computerized , now.
...
The Dewey Decimal System! That's what I was thinking of. Anyways, I think it's pretty much obsolete. Don't know if it's extinct. But you can look up books way easier these days.
At least at the public library. The books were organized just like in a retail book store (also on its way to extinction, by the way) -- by subject (e.g., fiction, science fiction, mystery, etc.,)
and then by author's last name and then book title.

You're talking about the Fiction section here, but those titles have always been sorted by Author/Title rather than numerically. Same with biographies although those are sorted by
the name of the subject rather than the author.
But, as Cooby notes above, the D.D. system is still alive and well for non-fiction titles and those correspond for similar books between my library branch and yours: books about
history, sports, technology, etc. will be found in the same numerical section all over.

I find it hard to believe that you think we'd find it hard to believe that the old card catalog drawers have since been replaced by computers for the purpose of looking up books.
But I suppose that if you really haven't been in a library in four decades then you might find that to be surprising news.

[Edgy MD]

Melvil Dewey was a great American genius/nut case. His name was actually originally "Melville," but he shortened as part of his great, quixotic campaign to reform American spelling into a phonetic minimalism that shed the ethnic conventions of English words' origins. He even shortened his last name to "Dui," but that unsurprisingly didn't stick.

He was a founding member of the American Library Association, chief librarian of Columbia U., creator of the classification system that bears his name, and father of multiple august Gilded Age institutions that still thrive today. It all came crashing down amid a cascade of accusations of sexual harassment, antisemitism, and racism, leading to his resignation from offices and boards of organizations that were his own brainchildren.

Can you imagine how big an asshole a leading citizen would have to have been to destroy his reputation and career with sexual harassment, antisemitism, and racism in 1905? It took the ALA until 2019, however, to stop naming their top honor after him.

[batmagadanleadoff]

You're talking about the Fiction section here, but those titles have always been sorted by Author/Title rather than numerically. Same with biographies although those are sorted by
the name of the subject rather than the author.

I missed the Non-Fiction section. Non-fiction was in another section of the library and on a higher level. So I didn't go there. I didn't get to browse the books nearly as much as I would've liked to, being pressed for time. So I browsed the fiction section only, and briefly, and running out of time and patience, I ended up checking out "New Arrivals" on an unshelved rack on wheels quickly, and picked the Backman book from there.

I find it hard to believe that you think we'd find it hard to believe that the old card catalog drawers have since been replaced by computers for the purpose of looking up books.

I didn't really think youse would find that hard to believe. I was being tongue in cheek. Are you really like the only one who didn't get that or are you just being obtuse?

But I suppose that if you really haven't been in a library in four decades then you might find that to be surprising news.

/rolls eyes. (See above about tongue and cheek) I would've been shocked if there wasn't a computerized database and pc monitors by which to search books. I said public library other than the main "lion" branch. So that "other" would include the main branch and private or college/university libraries that I've visited quite a few times over the last 40 years or so.