What are you reading right NOW?!?!

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I read a few books about Japan before --

Tokyo Underworld is Robert Whiting not writing about baseball: It tells of a seedy guy from the Bronx who struck it rich by starting a pizza joint in potswar occupied Japan, and his -- and japan's -- ties to organized crime. Not bad, I think they're making a movie...

The other one was about a canadian teacher who hitch-hiked the country following the cherry blossoms. This was a sweeter book, since he met regular folk. I believe it's called Canadian Guy Hitch-Hikes to Hokkaido or something.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I have "You Gotta Have Wa" coming up soon. I also have a book about some guy walking across Japan, don't know if it's the one you mentioned or not.

[Willets Point]

I read the book about the guy walking from one end of Japan to another. He absolutely refused to get in a car so it's a different book from one with hitchhiking.

[Guest sharpie]

]I didn't buy the encyclopedias, but I did consider it. Now, in the Internet age, buying a printed encyclopedia seems so quaint.

About 5 years ago mrs. sharpie got a used set of World Books from a library (don't remember how much, but cheap). As most of our books are in our dining room, volumes are often taken out during family dinners. Just last week we got in a heated discussion about llamas and it got us the info we wanted right away. The computer is a floor away and if that set of encyclopedias wasn't handy we wouldn't have bothered to look up whatever it was we wanted to find out about llamas.

[Willets Point]

¡ Cuidado estan llamas!

[Guest cooby]

Shirley Jackson is just about as eclectic as Paul Gallico. Love them both, and this old book, which I found at the library last week (744 pages, including short stories, "The Bird's Nest, "Life Among the Savages", "Raising Demons"....) just has me keep saying "wow"

[Willets Point]

Paul Gallico is terrific. I still remember when I was little I went to the library with my Mom and sister and we all ended up each with a Paul Gallico book - I had a children's book, my sister had a novel and my mom had a non-fiction book. We were surprised they were all by the same author.

[stevejrogers]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: I did contact him a few times several years ago. I was interested in determining Dyar Miller's 56-to-49 switch and the other odd goings-on of 1980 as I recall it. I got to him through the retrosheet guy. I think he was worried a bit that I was moving in on his territory, or maybe he was just too busy, but we didn't get very far helping one another. Maybe we can now.

Yup, you should, he neglected Hojo's brief stint as Johnson44! And I do believe that change garnered quite a hubub here in the area (44 being a sluggers number, ect)

[stevejrogers]

="Johnny Dickshot"]Received this yesterday: Awesome piece of research, even if it overlooks Hubie Brooks was #61 for a short while in 1980. Gotta double check everything, discovered a few discrepancies between his data & mine already

Heh, do you have a book that I've been trying to find a cheap copy of for years (hell the Westchester Library System doesn't even have it) it came out around, eh I want to say 1996-1997, called "Baseball By The Numbers" or something to that effect. The only copy I ever located was through my college's library network system and it had a cover price of around 80-90 bucks!

Probably outdated by now though

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Outdated and inaccurate, or at least parts. Plus it's basically just an encyclopedia without any actual writing.

[Willets Point]

Reading one of the classics I never read in school.

[Frayed Knot]

Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer



** SPOILER WARNING**
Lincoln dies and Booth gets caught!!!!



Interesting slice of American history that brought out a couple of things I didn't know:

- I hadn't realized is how famous Booth was even prior the the assasination. He was one of the country's best known actors at the time so this was the equivelent of say Tom Cruise deciding to murder George Bush (maybe not a stretch if Tom keeps flipping out). OK, so the concept of "fame" in that day doesn't exactly translate to the same thing today (Booth never stooped to doing Oprah for instance) but, because the murder took place in a DC theatre where Booth was well known, there were dozens of people who recognized as he jumped and ran so it was never a question of who did it, only where he went and to what extent he had help. Many in the Gov't thought he had Confederate Gov't help (he didn't) and the atmosphere smacked somewhat of the initial conspiracy theories surrounding Kennedy's death where LBJ's first thought was that Russia and/or Cuba was involved.

- it's striking to read about how tough travel was in those days. Booth didn't get much more than 50 or 60 miles in those 12 days. Of course his broken leg didn't help but at one point he's held up for 4 days trying to get across the Potomoc River. Guess he forgot his EZ-Pass.

- the author doesn't say whether the expression; 'Your name is Mud(d)' eminated from Dr. Mudd, the physician who fixed Booth's broken leg and later spent time in prison because of it (he was later pardoned). At various times over the years I heard both that it is and is not true - but the author never offers an opinion here. Mudd's family long propped up the story that he was an innocent who had no idea of Booth's identity. Oh he knew all right, he even knew Booth before hand and Booth headed to Mudd's place specifically because he knew he was sympathetic to the Southern side. Mudd also knew what Booth had done before sending him away and was clearly guilty of aiding and abetting an assassin and lying to the gov't on his whereabouts.

[seawolf17]

Credit both of you with good selections; I loved [u:336de5c217]The Inferno[/u:336de5c217], and I'm about to start [u:336de5c217]Manhunt[/u:336de5c217], which my wife LOVED.

[Willets Point]

="Frayed Knot"] ** SPOILER WARNING** Licoln dies and Booth gets caught!!!!

Damn you! Next you're going to tell me the ending of Titanic.

I've heard it said that Booth's apperance on the stage was thought to be a cameo appearance by some in the audience. He also knew the play and timed the assasination to be at the moment when the audience was laughing at a good joke.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Dr. Mudd's grandson was still alive (at least until recently) and working to get his grandfather's name cleared. I read an article about him only a few years ago but don't remember if he lived to see his goal realized.

Grandson Mudd was in his 90's, and was born after his grandfather had died.

During the whole O.J. Simpson thing a few years ago, I wondered about other famous people who had become killers, and my first thoughts were of Booth and Aaron Burr. Maybe I should have also thought of Fatty Arbuckle. (Was he charged with murder or rape? I can't remember.)

Robert Blake is another, of course.

[Frayed Knot]

]I've heard it said that Booth's apperance on the stage was thought to be a cameo appearance by some in the audience. He also knew the play and timed the assasination to be at the moment when the audience was laughing at a good joke.

All true.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Oh, hey, I did get an acknowledgement in the Numbers book. Hoorah!

[Willets Point]

seawolf17 wrote: Credit both of you with good selections; I loved The Inferno,

I'm feeling pretty dumb because I'm reading it but not really comprehending it.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

="Johnny Dickshot"]Oh, hey, I did get an acknowledgement in the Numbers book. Hoorah!

Cool! I've heard from a few authors who were writing books but the UMDB hasn't gotten any acknowledgements that I'm aware of. (Jeff Pearlman had told me there would be one. Oh well.)

Congratulations!

And Willets, don't feel dumb. I suspect I wouldn't understand much of Dante's Inferno either. (I have trouble understanding The Towering Inferno!) Good for you for giving it a try.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

My website is not listed among the resources but my name is in the acknowledgements. I'll take it, along with a credit in that film, as my rep as a basball magnate grows.

[stevejrogers]

I'm afraid to say this, but I finished listening to this on audio-books



Nothing earth shattering or new. Montville does try hard though but says quite often that there is alot of "fog" with certain portions of Ruth's life. Obvious his childhood prior to St. Marys, his parent's and how they died and Helen's life.

A decent upgrade of Robert Creamer's Babe: The Legend Comes To Life but mostly just an upgrade.

Probably the only thing of note that is new that the book debunks the debunking of the link between the selling of Ruth and the production of No No Nanette, and essentially agreeing with past thinking that said Ruth was sold in part because Frazzee needed the money to finance his Broadway productions.

Good read (or listen as the case may be) though

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

Someone gave D-Dad a copy of Big Bam, so I'm just starting it. It looks like it should be skimmable. I wouldn't have gone out of my way to buy it, but since it's around, I'll look it over.

BTW, The Brethren was a good read. In typical Grisham fashion, it was an interesting premise with interesting enough characters, but Grisham seemed to write himself into a corner and came up with a less than satisfying ending. It was still worth reading, but this is one of the reasons that I had taken a break from Grisham for a while.

ON EDIT - I'm finding Montvilles speculation about Ruth's early childhood, differentiated from established fact by use of italics, to be highly annoying. Was the father reading a newspaper? Wasn't he? Who the heck cares?

[Guest cooby]

Is The Brethen the one about the lawyers in prison? If so, that was my favorite Grisham


On edit: I don't mean that the way it sounds

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

cooby wrote: Is The Brethen the one about the lawyers in prison? If so, that was my favorite Grisham On edit: I don't mean that the way it sounds

Yes, it was. Disbarred judges, actually. And it sounded just fine to me.

[stevejrogers]

Listening to this one now



Up to 1940, much more info on the young Ted obviously than the young George Ruth

So far a good listen

[Willets Point]

[Guest cooby]

A little more Shirley

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

I actually haven't started this yet, but my textbook for one of my fall classes arrived today. I'll probably start perusing it once I finish The Testament.

[Willets Point]

Ooh a page turner...at first I thought you were refering to it as the testament as if it were scripture for librarians

[Guest cooby]

lol, so did I...


Scarlet! Start a thread and report on the RIS book!