Fredrik Backman's duology about a hawkeytown in sveden qualifies for the Amazon buy 2 discount:



i've only read Beartown so far; queueing up Beartown's companion Us Against You for the weekend. Beartown's ostensibly about a small town in Sweden obsessed with the local juniors hockey. While there is hockey o'plenty, it's a book about relationships--husbands to wives, sons/daughters to parents, coaches to coached and a town to hockey and the outside world and itself

I haven't read the book, but the HBO miniseries based on it was awful. Essentially it argued that masculinity is to blame for every social ill in existence.

_________________

Be careful with Hussrababe's recommendations. That last one traumatized me. Great book, though.

_________________

I just finished the Ghosts of Manilla. (Shoutout to Antioch for mentioning it.) It was excellent. The legend of Muhammed Ali as an icon and political activist is a complete fabrication. His #metoo moments were criminal. And he didn't have a political thought beyond what the Nation of Islam told him. The book is just honest and pays tribute to him for being a great boxer, without all of the hero worship that has pushed all of his blemishes to the side.

_________________
Why are only 14 percent of black CPS 11th-graders proficient in English?

I don't recall the book explicitly making that argument, but several of the male characters do have faults and I can see someone using that, if they wanted to, to make that point.

I've read a few of his books. Britt-Marie Was Here is good. The main character reminds me of a combination of two people I know.

I thought A Man Called Ove was an excellent movie, but I have not read the book.

Just started it, right at the open.

“ For example, both the research literature and government reports that summarize and assess the state of climate science say clearly that heat waves in the US are now no more common than they were in 1900, and that the warmest temperatures in the US have not risen in the past fifty years.

When I tell people this, most are incredulous. Some gasp. And some get downright hostile. But these are almost certainly not the only climate facts you haven’t heard. Here are three more that might surprise you, drawn directly from recent published research or the latest assessments of climate science published by the US government and the UN:

•​Humans have had no detectable impact on hurricanes over the past century.
•​Greenland’s ice sheet isn’t shrinking any more rapidly today than it was eighty years ago.
•​The net economic impact of human-induced climate change will be minimal through at least the end of this century.”

_________________
Hawaii (fuck) You

Amazon will be banning that heresy.

Interesting....and logical.

_________________

great book i've read a few times - 'the crisis years': kennedy and khruschev, 1960-1963 by michael beschloss.

when foggy bottom had quality at low, mid and high levels. kennedy was told more than once, to avoid philosophical/ideological debates with khruschev. kennedy either ignored the advice/was bullied by khruschev and their first summit in vienna was a disaster.

khruschev thought kennedy weak and inexperienced and the cuban missile crisis egg was hatched.

I read Spencer's Mountain a few weeks back. It's the novel on which The Waltons was based. It's interesting that in the show, if I am not mistaken, the Waltons have this big house and their own slice of a mountain, but in the book, they live in a sort of shitty little mining town and the family lost the mountain to splitting the inheritance among nine sons. The mountain is also pockmarked with mining holes. It's supposedly about a new beginning for everyone, but the most striking things were about the end of five or six generations living in the same way.

_________________

Journey to the End of the Night by Celine. It's a book I wish I would have read when I was 20, as it seems perfect for those with a youthful, nihilistic view of the world. That said, I'd it put in my Literary Hall of Fame, between Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Bernhard's Woodcutters. You can see the massive influence Celine had on Kerouac, Bukowski, Vonnegut, Houellebecq, etc. with just his first book. I will have to read Death on the Installment Plan as well. His anti-semitism and tacit support of Nazism happened after his first two books were written...so not problematic!

I just finished Nothin' To Lose: The Making of Kiss (1972-1975) by Ken Sharp. I'm not the biggest Kiss fan but I like reading about bands from the 70s. This is a serious work with hundreds of interviews and a lot of great stories. Kiss was an unusual band because their record company was behind them in a big way so they had a bigger show as an opener than a lot of headliners. It was always a struggle to get enough room on the stage and there were times when they had to leave their huge sign up when the headliner was playing which caused some friction. Their interactions with bands like Aerosmith, Blue Oyster Cult, Rush, and the New York Dolls are pretty funny. I thought it was a great book and a fun read.

Someone please suggest a decent book. Non-fiction, preferably. What have you read that is good?

_________________

Have you heard of Leopold and Loeb? 1924 in Kenwood

Guns of August is an all-timer. Well worth it.

I just finished When A Crocodile Eats the Sun and liked it quite a bit. Some of its a little fantastical, but overall its a great little book that ties historical and family drama together.

_________________
"Yes, I would just like to say I'm sailing with the rock, and I'll be back, like Independence Day, with Jesus. June 6, like the movie. Big mother ship and all, I'll be back, I'll be back."

Yep. Went to high school just north of there, so was always intrigued. So many facets to that case.

_________________

By Barbara Tuchman? I think I read that one--I can't remember, but I have it on my phone. Her book about the Fourteenth Century was really entertaining...anyway, I'm going to check that out tonight. I think someone on here recommended it...

_________________

Non-fiction
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
I Used to Be Charming: The Rest of Eve Babitz
The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice
How to Read and Why
Underland: A Deep Time Journey
The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II

Fiction
Journey to the End of the Night (reread, one of my favorites)

Celine! Never read this....probably should.

I think I'll definitely read Underland. Thanks.

_________________

If you like football you might check out Bringing the Heat by Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down, Killing Pablo, Guests of the Ayatollah). He was embedded with the 1992 Philadelphia Eagles for the entire season. It was the season Jerome Brown was killed. This was a loaded team that should of went to the Superbowl but they fired Buddy Ryan the year previous and replaced him with one of the worst coaches ever Rich Kotite. All kinds of crazy stuff happened with this team. Mike Golic didn't look great...he was not popular with his teammates. I thought Reggie White came across well. He was trying to make a difference and didn't want any publicity. He wasn't trying to help his brand. Cunningham was strange. I thought it was a great book.

Just because I am somewhat of a King completist, just listened to Billy Summers. Pretty boring and I like King's books that aren't in the horror genre. He wedged the "outlook" into it so clumsily. He also aluded to Corona but completely missed the mark on including it which was strange in the timeline. The book felt lazy.... Not terrible but not a standout. Mediocre killer for hire story.

I also finally finished Infinite Jest and well that is what it is. I loved it but surely understand why people don't finish that book, it is a lot of work.

Finally finished 1984. I’m sure it was something great back in the day but I really didn’t enjoy it much. Considering reading The Jungle for the 3rd time as it’s been many years and it’s a favorite but I also want to try something new.

_________________
Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Interesting about 1984, what didn't you like? The story or the style? Of the dystopian classics I think I have 1984 as #3 With Fahrenheit 451 being my favorite the Brave New World, then 1984. I actually think Orwel's story is better than huxley but I enjoy Huxley's style more...

The World of Yesterday - Stefan Zweig

Zweig's memoir of his life experiences, he conversed with and became fast friends with any person he admired that he met: Rilke, Rodin, Rolland, Freud, Verhaeren, Theodor Herzl, Goethe’s niece, etc. He saw Emperor Karl at a border station, as he left (abdicated) Austria, ending nearly a 1,000 year reign by the Habsburgs. He lived through WWI and part way through WWII (spoiler alert). What a time to be alive.

It took me a long time to get through. I almost quit halfway through I just found it boring.

_________________
Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

The Trial by Kafka was amazingly depressing.

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

I'm not Tommy, but thanks for the rec dude/dudette. One of those books that are so engrossing that you take it with you to the bathroom only to develop hemorrhoids lol.

Pretty stunned somebody picked up the rec and I'm really glad you loved it. The parts about the Goeben and Braslau, Tannenberg and the fateful turn of the German Army in front of Gallieni's Paris Garrison definitely captured me the same way. I couldn't put it down either. Makes me want to read it again.

_________________
"Yes, I would just like to say I'm sailing with the rock, and I'll be back, like Independence Day, with Jesus. June 6, like the movie. Big mother ship and all, I'll be back, I'll be back."

I'm a big fan of Donna Tartt. I thought The Goldfinch was a masterpiece and The Little Friend is a great novel as well. Oddly enough, I had never read The Secret History until very recently.

The Secret History is the book that made her reputation. It's considered a great American novel. Boy, was I disappointed.

First, as one who studied literature myself, of course I'm impressed by Tartt's knowledge and usage of various literary devices and her ability to take a trope and turn it on it's head. But it all comes off as a little masturbatory. Like, "look what I can do." It's sort of a literary version of Joe Satriani's guitar playing. So I can understand why it was so beloved by critics and the salon set.

Also, I may not be as much of a Gen-Xer as I like to think. There's that whole school of Gen-X writers, many of them who went to Bennington, who write protagonists who are completely amoral. Unlike Hemingway's heroes/antiheroes like Jake Barnes and Frederic Henry or even modern television antiheroes like Walter White and Tony Soprano who have their own sets of morals, these protagonists seemingly have no moral code at all. It's very difficult for me to appreciate a book which features characters I care nothing about. I don't even hate them. I just think they're assholes. Fuck Richard Papen and Henry Winter.

_________________
The Court will accord substantial deference to the government's immigration policies, particularly those that implicate matters of national security.

Loved “The Goldfinch” as well. Wasn’t aware of The Little Friend. I’m currently working through Never Let Me Go which is ok but a bit slow. I have Freedom by Jonathan Franzen on deck. I e heard good things but not sure what to expect there. JORR have you tried his prose?

_________________
Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami