Kolek planning to go pro
Reading Devil in the White City at the moment. So far so good.
Not for adults, but I've been reading books to my 7-9 year old boys by an author, Stuart Gibbs.They are phenomenal. If you have boys (and maybe girls) in the 7-14 range, these are great. The first series is about a 12 year old boy who is recruited to "Spy School" and becomes a young CIA agent.Follow up books .. Spy Camp, Evil Spy School. Also, Space Case and Spaced Out.
So why is Devil in the White City so popular right now? It is a good read but seems odd that an old book is being read by so many now.Edit: Now I see that a movie is being made from it by Scorsese with DiCaprio.
Ah, i didn't even realize they were making a movie of it. I just finally got to it on my ever-growing book pile.
It's still "in development". You've got time.
Just finished "Neptune's Inferno, the US Navy at Guadalcanal" by James D. Hornfischer.This book delves into the mental condition of warriors thrown into battles in which career training didn't prepare them for the speed and lethality of a well prepared enemy. It's a story of officers in command using peace time methods to prepare their ships and ground troops for combat and those methods causing the death of thousands and the loss of many capital ships. Its a story about the daily learning of the right lessons to defeat the Japanese Navy and Army, fighting close to all their bases and Americans fighting from thousands of miles from their bases.Great story and one that should be taught in any American History class in middle school and high school.
Bump.need some fresh reading ideas. fiction or non-fiction suggestions welcome.
Just finished John Grisham's latest novel, "Sooley."It's about a basketball player from South Sudan who leaves his extremely rough existence in that ravaged nation to play basketball in America. About 2/3 of it is basketball-related and the rest is about what the folks in South Sudan deal with.The South Sudan stuff was fascinating and heartbreaking, and Grisham obviously did extensive research. I knew it was effed up there, but learned a lot. Grisham is a fine writer and he did a good job developing most characters. It is a novel, though, and quite a bit of the basketball-related stuff is beyond unbelievable fiction. Without giving too many spoilers ... if you think the shooting percentage in Hoosiers is ridiculously high, wait till you get a load of Sooley's shooting from 3-point range (and not just 3s, but everything is a "30-footer," or more). He also went from redshirt to super-duper-star in about half a second, which of course doesn't happen.Not the best Grisham novel, and nowhere near the best basketball book I've read, but a pretty easy read that I'm glad to have done.Oh ... and there's even a Marquette hook:Sooley's coach goes on to take our most recent job opening! Seriously. Sorry, Shaka!!
Agree with your comments, especially Grisham's decision to make Sooley into a super star "in about half a second". I wish Grisham had taken a very different route and had Sooley becoming a star over several seasons. The ending was, to me, just a really bad idea. I laughed when the coach took the Marquette job. Grisham knew Wojo was a goner long before many MU fans who said he'd be coaching another year at MU!Grisham is a big fan of baseball and pulled his car over to watch a youth team play not too far from where I live. Grisham lives about an hour North of me in Charlottesville. The field and other facilities were pretty bad so he paid for a first class facility to replace it. I heard he has done that in at least one other location.
American Marxism is a must read, aina?