Anybody read a good book lately?

[rjs246]

I thoroughly enjoyed Dante. Haven't every tried to tackle Milton though.

[PhillyPhreak54]

I took Matt's suggestion and picked up ESPN: The Uncensored History the other day...I'll dig into it soon.

I also read that the book that the ESPN series The Bronx Is Burning is based on, Ladies and Gentleman The Bronx Is Burning by Jonathan Mahler, is excellent

I will pick that one up next. It doesn't just talk baseball, but captures the mood of NYC in 1976 and 1977 when Son of Sam (that case interests the hell out of me, as does The Zodiac in San Fran) was running around plugging people.

[Drunkmasterflex]

I read Eagle Recon, it is about an SF type unit of Marines during Vietnam.  The author was out here at one of the Shopettes selling it.  It was interesting, but it was horribly written.  It was way too short, there was no character development, and it was like reading a script to a cheesy 80's war movie.

[MURP]

read "Education of a Coach" the Belichick book.  Decent overall,  had some good insight on the behind the scenes stuff and how Belichick became such a great coach. 

[SD_Eagle5]

I bought The Alphabet of Manliness by Maddox and have been skimming through it. Some of it is legitimately hilarious. Some of it is stupid beyond comprehension. Similar to his site. When he's on, though, he farging cracks me up.

Finished it lastnight and this is pretty accurate. The O for Obedience chapter is gold.

[rjs246]

Read Ender's Game over the weekend. I am a nerd and this book was awesome. Non-nerds need not give it a look.

[rjs246]

For any book reading nerd who want to nerd it up by keeping track of what you've read, what you want to read and what your friends have read, Check out this web site.

[Diomedes]

thanks for the link.  I have made lists of books I've read and want to read before, but never kept it up for long.  I suspect if I use this site it will end up being the same thing because i'm a farging loser though

[SunMo]

went camping this weekend and spent most of my time reading Jimmy Norton's book Happy Ending's

it's basically a bunch of essays with no cohesion but for someone who is a fan of his it was really good read.

http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Endings-Tales-Meaty-Breasted-Zilch/dp/1416950222/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-9568898-0243108?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185131617&sr=8-1

[Seabiscuit36]

Started to read Black Brothers Inc. about the philly Black Mafia.  Really seems to tie in well to Frank Matthews and the new flick American Gangster.  I only tend to read about sports or illegal activities so this fit right in. 

[Rome]

I just finished re-reading Wolf: A False Memoir by Jim Harrison and I'm starting in on Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates next.

[NGM]

Read Ender's Game over the weekend. I am a nerd and this book was awesome. Non-nerds need not give it a look.

You'll be interested to know (if you didn't already) that WB is making this movie.  Card actually penned the screenplay, so it shouldn't totally suck. 

[rjs246]

So I finished No Country for Old Men this weekend. If it had been written by anyone other than McCarthy I would have been far more impressed. But after reading Blood Meridian and The Road it seemed kind of pedestrian. In fact, I got the feeling throughout the book that he was basically telling the same story that he was telling in Blood Meridian only this time he inserted some protagonists that the readers could root for to make the story more palatable.

Anyway, all of that aside I thoroughly enjoyed it. The fact that this book, which was excellent, was 'weak' for him speaks volumes about how high he has set the bar for himself.

By the way, it's being made into a semi-star-studded movie to be released later this year.

[rjs246]

Oh yeah, I also read Hannibal Rising last week. Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs were outstanding books that Thomas Harris had to do a lot of criminal and forensic research in order to create and deliver the stories. That effort paid off and both of those books are outstanding. Hannibal and Hannibal Rising aren't even close to being as good. They were just money-grab pieces where he made up some stories about Hannibal Lecter and threw them together into a couple of books. Hannibal Rising was a little better than Hannibal, but not much.

[PhillyPhanInDC]

Reading Blaze by Richard Bachman (Stephen King's pseudonym). Pretty good stuff. According to the foreward, the book was written back in King's early days, and it shows. Pretty visceral stuff at times. A good read so far.