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Tobia
Social climber
Denial
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 1, 2015 - 02:18pm PT
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The Summer of '49 by David Halberstam is a great "baseball book". I look forward to reading Driving Mr. Yogi .
I love baseball myself, I wasn't very good at hitting, only fielding. I got to throw the ball some with my nephew on Thanksgiving, first time in a few years.
He was a standout in high school and helped his team win the state championship in 2011. Funny thing, I have a bunch of my left handed gloves from years ago. He forgot to bring his right handed glove; but it made no difference because he is ambidextrous at hitting and fielding. Not sure if he got to pitch both ways in high school; but batted that way often.
I'm working on Moanin' At Midnight, The Life & Times of Howlin' Wolf by James Segrest and Mark Hoffman.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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The Summer of '49 by David Halberstam is a great "baseball book".
I second Tobia's opinion. Why is it that baseball seems to do so well in lit relative to the other big sports? There are reams of good baseball books, but the shortlist of the good books on the other major sports is pretty small. For football, I think of Semi-Tough (classic, in my opinion), North Dallas Forty, The Blind Side, and Friday Night Lights (also classic). I don't know of any great basketball books. But there's a really long list of good and great and classic baseball books...
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Tobia
Social climber
Denial
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 3, 2015 - 03:26am PT
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My guess as to the answer to your question concerning the quality and number of books written about baseball is that baseball was the greatest game before the advent of televised sports events, as well the fact that the sport's complexity and strategy makes better literary material.
David Halberstam wrote two other books on baseball, October 1964 and The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship.
According to Halberstam's biography, printed on the back jacket of his last work, The Coldest Winter, (published posthumously) he died in an automobile accident that occurred on his way to an interview for his next book about the 1958 NFL Championship Game.
An article concerning the 1958 game in Wikipedia states the game was between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants that became known as the "The Greatest Game Ever Played" and the beginning of the rise of the NFL as the leading (spectator) sport in the United States. The book was completed by Frank Gifford, who was quarterback for the NY Giants.
I read a few football books when I was a youngster: Jerry Kramer's Instant Replay, Joe Namath's I Can't Wait Until Tomorrow...'Cause I Get Better Looking Every Day, and in later years The Junction Boys; which was the story of Bear Bryant's era at Texas A&M. I also read North Dallas Forty at some point.
Halberstam also wrote three other books concerning sports, none of which I have read. Those include books about Bill Walton, Michael Jordan and Bill Bellichick,
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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I didn't realize Halberstam had done so much sports writing. I really enjoyed The Coldest Winter. You're probably right about the dynamics of baseball/football lit, but if that's the case, where are the excellent modern books about football, since the rise of TV to rule our lives? Although we might not have enough perspective yet to winnow out the good ones.
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DanaB
climber
CT
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Greg, have you read The Game by Ken Dryden? You mentioned the relative lack of books on sports other than baseball.
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Byran
climber
San Jose, CA
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At the end of every year I like to look over what I read through the year. Make sure I'm staying on track with my reading goals. I thought I'd share this here in the form of mini-reviews in case someone is looking for book recommendations. Title and author is followed by a rating and then very brief (5 words or less) synopsis/word-association.
Notre Dame de Paris - Victor Hugo 10/10
Heartache, self-loathing... architecture!
The Right Stuff - Tom Wolfe 10/10
Manly men playing with rocketships.
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo 9/10
Humanity, God... La France!
Time Machine - H. G. Wells 9/10
The unlikely future of mankind.
Island of Dr. Moreau- H. G. Wells 9/10
Unsettling scifi horror.
Age of Reason - Thomas Paine 8/10
This week on Mythbusters: Christianity.
Shanghai - Stella Dong 8/10
History of the International Settlement.
The Creators - Daniel Boorstin 8/10
History of the arts/humanities.
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 8/10
You know the story.
Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith 8/10
Free trade, prosperous nations.
Elements of Style - Strunk and White 8/10
Learn to write good.
War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells 7/10
Better without Tom Cruise.
First Men in the Moon - H. G. Wells 7/10
Yes "IN" the moon.
The Language Instict - Stephen Pinker 7/10
Linguistics theory 101.
Fail Falling - Royal Robbins 6/10
The first one is better.
Hiding in the Mirror - Lawrence Krauss 6/10
Over-my-head quantum theory.
Invisible Man - H. G. Wells 6/10
Interesting premise, weak characters.
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Joron
Trad climber
Hoodland, Oregon
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Totally agree on the Bacigalupi books. Shipbreaker is also good.
Just finished Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel by Carl Safina. Very good insight into emotion and intelligence in elephants, wolves and killer whales.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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William Finnegan's Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life.
Genuine magic animates his pen. Without question, the best book about surfing ever written. Stands with Quartered Safe Out Here and With the Old Breed as one of the best memoirs I've ever read.
Having invested a significant portion of my existence in pursuit of both endeavors, I don't think a book this good has yet been written about climbing.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Good respective list from Bryan. Wish I had that much quiet time to read. I've been eyeing The Invisible Man, which is on my shelf, after enjoying two other Wells' novels, The Time Machine and The Lost World. Both are good fun but really more adventure yarns than anything else. Maybe I'll save it for later. I've been meaning to go back to Steppenwolf but wasn't too impressed with Narcissus and Goldmun, so I back burnered it after a couple of chapters.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Nice review Greg.
I'd agree with you on Barbarian Days...very well done. And a lucky guy to be there early on in Fiji and Indonesia.
Have you read Tapping the Source or Dogs of Winter by Kem Nunn? Both are fiction, and more mystery/thrillers, but I'd argue equally good writing about surfing.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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SteveP.... Thanks. As for Kem Nunn, I've read them both. Enjoyed them both, too. I seem to recall them both tipping a little too far into "magical realism" for my tastes. I wasn't as convinced by the surfing scenes as I wanted/needed to be. (It has been a long time since I read them, so I could be wildly misremembering.)
I think it was Tapping the Source that had the description of a commando trip to what was clearly supposed to be the secret spots west of Goleta, where i grew up. I've been fortunate to come to know a few of those spots pretty well in the last 35 years. I wasn't completely sold.
But that's nit-picking, too. Both were really good California novels. Surf noir.
Back to Barbarian Days... being one of the first nine people in the world to discover Tavarua... it boggles the mind. Three MONTHS of trading waves there with just your buddy in the water... How much perfection can one man stand? Finnegan knows. And then Lagundri Bay under just slightly more crowded circumstances? That's one of the waves in the world I would most like to try, but I sure won't get it with five other guys. (Rifles, J-Bay, Lagundri Bay, P-Pass... I'm going to try to get to them once my son goes off to college and I have large chunks of time on my hands again. Wouldn't mind ramping up the climbing ambitions again, either.) I got nothing to complain about. I've had my share of low-crowd go-outs on fantastic waves.
It's just never enough.
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Adventurer
Mountain climber
Virginia
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"The Little Paris Book Shop" by Nina George
and "Sir Vidia's Shadow" by Paul Theroux
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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The Devil's Chessboard by David Talbot (founder of salon.com) about the life of the first director of the CIA, Allen Dulles, who oversaw:
1) the 1954 coup d'etat that overthrew Arbenz who was trying to implement democratic reforms in Guatemala,
2) Operation Ajax that overthrew the democratically elected Mosaddegh government because they nationalized Iran's oil industry,
3) the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, and
4) project MKUltra (aka Mind Control Program) that experimented with LSD and hypnosis techniques on subjects without their consent.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Feb 14, 2016 - 11:35am PT
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The Last Thousand: One's School's Promise in a Nation at War by Jeffrey Stern.
Not all is nihilistic chaos in Afghanistan. There is hope, however tenuous.
Good book. Astonishing story.
My review of it is in today's Washington Post.
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micronut
Trad climber
Fresno/Clovis, ca
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Feb 14, 2016 - 12:19pm PT
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I read fairly heavy stuff this winter ( couldn't get enough of Cormack McCarthy.)
So I'm reading some cotton candy right now and it's really fun.
Tourist Season by carl Hiassen. He writes corny murder mystery/investigative reporter stuff that pokes fun of Florida and its gawdy, sleasy, tacky side. Fun characters and outrageous understatement. The perfect summertime reads. Makes me feel like I'm on vacation mentally. Tourist Season starts off with the body of a well known Shriner found floating in the ocean zipped up in a suitcase. The legs are missing and the body is covered in suntan oil and a rubber alligator shoved down his throat. A skinny Cuban car thief and a large washed up ex-NFL star turned petty burglar are the most likely culprits right now early in the book. But another Shriner has just gone missing and a poorly written ransom note has just turned up from a group calling themselves the "Noches del Deciembre." The writing is silly and casual and not heavy on any level.
He also wrote Bad Monkey. Which was really fun.
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Tobia
Social climber
Denial
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 19, 2016 - 04:59am PT
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I read two good biographies on musicians lately:
Skydog: The Duane Allman Story by Randy Poe. Of the books related to the Allman Brothers Band this is has been this best so far.
The other book, Moanin' At Midnight: The Life & Times of Howlin' Wolf by James Segrest and Mark Hoffman is a well researched and informative biography of not just the Wolf but also the history of the Delta & Mississippi Hill Blues.
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perswig
climber
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Mar 19, 2016 - 07:29am PT
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Left of Bang, Patrick van Horne, Jason Riley
Risk management, situational awareness; applicable to most walks of life.
Some of the discussion of subconscious cues and how not to smother them with higher-function interpretation suggests info covered in Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell.
Dale
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