What are you reading right NOW?!?!

[Willets Point]

Cool book in which the author tries to expand on an historical event with passages written as if they were by the participants in the event themselves. Very controversial at the time of its release (1991) among historians.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I read his book Citizens a few years ago and it was very interesting and very confusing.

Is this book about one historical event in particular, or about a bunch of different ones?

[Willets Point]

Two events: the death of General Wolfe in the 7 Years War and the murder of George Parkman at Harvard in the 1850's. They're slightly related in that Parkman's nephew Francis was an historian whose history helped mold the popular image of General Wolfe.

[Guest cooby]

sharpie wrote: ]Actually, though, except for a few of them lying on the break room table, and the ones on the unused desk, all of the ones I took were off the "borrowing shelf" I'm talking about those ones on the break room table. Having a nice break, reading Proof of Intent, leave it on the table for, like, two minutes, and poof it's gone.

Hey, I'll put it back Monday...it's like messing with their heads

[A Boy Named Seo]

John Albert was one time the drummer for Bad Religion and Christian Death and is also a recovering drug addict. Wrecking Crew is about how he and a bunch of other recovering junkies, alcoholics, sex addicts, and cross-dressers (okay, just one cross-dresser) form a hardball team here in LA, and how that team and the game of baseball gave all these guys something to care about, something to look forward to and work towards, and a supportive (if kinda fucked up) family that most of the guys on the team never had.

It's a funny, often times sad, and strangely inspiring story. I think a lot of you would really dig it.

[Guest sharpie]

It was the suggested book for the CPF reading group but then that whole idea seemed to drift away.

[A Boy Named Seo]

Oh, well it's a good one. You guys should read it.

[A Boy Named Seo]

Here's another one I recently finished that most of you around here have probably read. If not, run don't walk to your nearest book dealer and secure yourself a copy. It's the first book I can remember immediately looking forward to the next read it as soon as I finished it.

The Universal Baseball Association Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover is about a single, lonesome 50-something year old guy who creates a dice baseball game that he soon becomes immersed in and before long, we don't know who is running the show, Henry over the game or vice versa. Cue eerie, dramatic music... Dum - dum- dum!

Wonderfully written, very smart, incredibly funny, and if you were ever baseball dice guy/gal, you can sadly kind of indentify.

One of my all-time faves.

Here's an old cover.

[Guest sharpie]

A top 5 all-time baseball book.

[Willets Point]

I'm doing some baseball reading too:



First chapter is about Eddie Gaedal so I guess he decided not to build up to that.

[seawolf17]

Loved that Coover book. Big thumbs up.

[Guest sharpie]

Veeck - as in Wreck was also good. Not as good a the Coover book, but good.

[Guest Edgy DC]

[A Boy Named Seo]

Edgy, I dug that one a lot, though I've heard a bunch of critical critics didn't. Maybe it's because I was depressed when I read it and wished I was in their suicide gang. The only Hornby book I haven't really enjoyed was How to be Good and I loved the ending.

I recently finished Silent Bob Speaks, and was pretty disappointed. I think Kevin Smith is really smart and funny, but this collection of essays from his weblog or whatever just provided a less-than-funny insight into the creator of a bunch of dick and fart jokes. I'd pass like gas on this unless you just love the guy.



I've now just started Bob Dylan Chronicles, Vol. I and have Speaking with the Angel going on the side. That's another Hornby book, but it's really a bunch of short stories by a bunch of different writers. I think Hornby himself only has one contribution.





This weekend my bro got me Music Lust by KCRW morning DJ Nic Harcourt. It looks like a book full of look-how-smart-I-am lists and I-know-all-these-bands-and-you-don't essays and I can't wait to jump in. I'm insecure like that.

[Guest sharpie]

Loved Dylan's Chronicles Vol. 1. Looking forward to Vol. 2 though I don't think anyone knows when that will be.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Is Boy Named Seo posting again?

Should we restart the Parody Challenge?

[A Boy Named Seo]

I'm trying to show my face more. Less so in the main forum because by the time I check in, somebody's already said what I'm thinking about this potential trade proposal, that free agent guy, or that crazy looking bowl of chili that Mrs. Ishii is proudly holding on display.

And I like the flow of the Parody Challenge quite a bit more when I have nothing in the world to do with it. And if I never enter again, my winning percentage will still upper echelon, so I'm cool with dat.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Grover has a word for that.

Nice to hear from you.

[Willets Point]

That's Ann Benson not Anna Benson .

[Guest Edgy DC]

Something about that name makes them pose in repose.

Funny thing about Speaking with the Angels, the collection of short stories Seo mentions above, is that the best story in it was the one by Colin Firth.

[Frayed Knot]

So just what were the Americas like just before that Columbus guy bumped into the Dominican Republic on his way to somewhere else?
(he was probably the last guy there for gold love rather than gold gloves)




More speculation than cold hard facts, the author tries making the case that the new world was more populated and more advanced than widely suspected.

[Guest martin]

i forget which thread it was in, but all the praise for the coover book, the universal baseball association, from you guys convinced me to pick it up a while back.

i have not read it yet and it was sitting on my shelf, and i let a friend of mine borrow it. i talked to him today and he is already crazy about it. i am really looking forward to it. gracias.

[metirish]

I just bought this book, can't wait to read it,I'll save it for the plane ride to Ireland for Christmas......

] Book Description When Hella Winston began talking with Hasidic Jews for her doctoral dissertation in sociology, she was excited to be meeting with members of the highly insular Brooklyn Satmar sect. Several Jewish journalists and scholars have produced admiring books describing the Lubavitch way of life and the group"s outreach efforts, but very little has been written about the other Hasidic sects, despite their combined greater numbers. Unlike Lubavitch, members of these other groups do not engage in outreach and are raised to avoid all unnecessary contact with outside society. Winston"s access was unprecedented. She never could have guessed what would happen next�that she would be introduced, slowly and covertly, to Hasidim deeply unhappy with their highly restrictive way of life and sometimes desperately struggling to leave their communities. First there was Yossi, a young man yearning to leave but, like most male Hasidim, a Yiddish speaker with only fourth grade English and math skills. Then she met Dini, a wife and mother called before the all-male modesty patrol because someone had spotted her outside a bar in a T-shirt and miniskirt. There were others still who had actually left. Unchosen tells the story of these and other "rebel" Hasidim, serious questioners who long for greater personal and intellectual freedom than their communities allow. In so doing, Unchosen forces us to reexamine the history of these communities and asks us to consider what we choose not to see when we romanticize them. Hella Winston is pursuing her Ph.D. in sociology at the Graduate Center for the City University of New York. She lives in New York City.

[MFS62]

Hey, literary folks. I have a question.
I was in my local Barnes and Noble today and saw there is a series of mystery books called "Murder, She Wrote".
They are co-authored by a guy named Bain and Jessica Fletcher!!!
Of course, Jessica was the name of the woman crime solver and mystery writer in the TV series with the same name as the book series.

Is this the first time a fictional character has been listed as the "author" of a book, muchless a series of books?

Later

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

I FINALLY finished the Lupica book (it was a very good read, as his fiction usually is), and I hope to polish this off this weekend -



I was ahead enough in my studies that I felt I could take the long weekend off from schoolwork. I've read, I've gone to three movies, and I ran a 10K this morning. I feel like by Monday I'll be ready for the final few weeks of the semester :)

[patchyfogg]

Not reading it yet, because it comes out in March 2006. But, it's never too early to think about it.

[u:b61c0f39f6]Pedro, Carlos, and Omar: A Season in the Big Apple with "Los Mets"[/u:b61c0f39f6] by Adam Rubin

[url]http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=Bf2N7DeCY5&isbn=1592288758&itm=1[/url]

[Willets Point]

[Willets Point]

This travelogue has the unfortunate quality of being almost funny which for a book can be worse than being not funny. I'll read more and see if the tone changes to not irk me so much.

[HahnSolo]

PANIC, by Jeff Abbott, published by Dutton.

A young documentary filmmaker goes home and walks in on his mother being murdered. If that wasn't bad enough, he discovers that the life his parents led was a lie...and now the bad guys are after him.

It's definitely not the standard mystery/thriller. This is the first time I've read Abbott, but he's had other novels in the past. I may check those out.

Recommended.

[Guest cooby]

I got this for my Food Network-lovin'-daughter's-boyfriend



I've been flipping through it and it's kinda neat