blackdogbooks 2010 Chapter 1

Welcome to the doghouse!!!



A list of favorites from 2009 can be found down in #19 below.

2010 completed list:

11. Under the Dome by Stephen King
10. The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers by Thomas Mullen
9. Wake Up Dead by Roger Smith
8. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
7. The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett
6. Stones into Schools by Greg Mortenson
5. A Convenient Spy by Dan Stober and Ian Hoffman
4. The Creed of Violence by Boston Teran
3. The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston
2. Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathaniel West
1. Then Came the Evening by Brian Hart

Here you are, BDB. Starred and ready for another great year of your reading.
(Missing the yellow snow around this thread!)

Merry Christmas!

Glad you're back! Halloween reading wouldn't be the same this year otherwise...

Oh good, I was worried since I hadn't found your thread yet! Starred of course :)

Glad to see some of you regulars back again!!!

Glad to see you back again, Mac! I am looking forward to more of your wonderful reviews in 2010.

here you are!

A Christmas star for you, BDB. Looking forward to your "bare bones" reviews in 2010!

All these stars!!! WoooHooo!!!!

It looks like you're one to track this year! Haha, good luck.

Leaving a small mark to be able to find you back :-)
Anita

Hello, Hello!

More of my old friends!!! that's great.

It looks like I starred you without actually saying hello. Whoops!

Glad you made it over and stepped out of the shadows. I picked up a book by a local author yesterday that is the first of my picks for the upcoming year's Halloween reading. I thought of you as I perused it. The Vamire Tapestry.

In addition to mentioning it to you, I thought I would list it here so that anyone who wanted to get a copy located for October would have plenty of time, as it is not a widely known book. But, even though it is published on our University Press, it was reviewed favorably by the Washington Post, NY Times Book Review, and Stephen King.

The touchstone doesn't seem to be working but you can all find it on my recently added.

That looks like a good one. I looked it up on Amazon, and it's available in paperback and Kindle formats. I never did finish The Woman in White, although I haven't given up on it, either - it's one I keep returning to in between other books. Thanks for the heads-up!

The next two books I want to pick up are the Norton critical editions of Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Howdy, blackdog!

I didn't finish The Woman in White either. I will this year at some point.

Hello to you also, jadebird!

Favorites for 2009 include:

Bird by Bird, Joy Writing, and Reading and Writing, all books related to writing.

Joker One, You Learn by Living, and Three Cups of Tea, my Non-Fiction favorites. Joker One also was an ER book. And my favorite ER/ARC favorites for the year included that title and Shanghai Girls.

Favorite fiction classics: An American Tragedy, Winesburg, Ohio, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Howards End, and Dracula.

Favorite fiction: The Time Traveler's Wife, The Wood Wife, Ghost, and The Face.

You can check out my upcoming reading at my profile page. I have a stack of a few that I am starting the year with.

Happy New Year everyone!

Posting a new first post to anchor the thread. Welcome to all!

aha, found you..Happy New Year and happy 2010 reading, Mac.

Hi. I have you starred too:) Like so many others I am looking forward to follow your readingprogress this year. I see you enjoyed The Time Traveller's wife last year. Hopefully I will recieve it from amazon shortly and then it will be near the top of my TBR pile. Have a nice day!

Congratulations on reaching your 75 books last year, Mac! I was rooting for you! And I figured you'd get the message over here better than over there. Here's to Good Reading!

Found you and starred you!

Three Cups of Tea was one of my top favorites in 2008 (I just bought Stones into Schools for a 2010 read and The Wood Wife was a favorite for me in 2009.

Happy New Year!

I have you starred now!

You are starred, sir.

Oh, there you are!

>24 MusicMom41:: I'll be interested to hear what you have to say about Stones into Schools, Carolyn. I saw it in the store but couldn't decide if it was just the same (essentially) story as Three Cups of Tea, which I loved, or whether it had something new to say.

#24, 28: Tad, Stones into Schools seems to have more to say. and this time, Mortenson has written the book himself. From the talk we heard him give, his message is starting to seep into the military and political world. And his mission has expanded to a greater area while drawing a narrower focus on the education of girls. So, the book addresses those two things, and gets into his newest adventures.

I hope to read it soon, though there are a handful of books I have to read first before getting to it. It's about fourth down on the TBR stack.

Glad to see all you folks back here again.

>29 blackdogbooks:: And I'm glad to see that Mortenson is writing his own book this time. I want to hear about what he's doing in Pakistan and Afghanistan in his words rather than through a third party who lacks his passion.

Happy New Year!

Thanks for posting your favourites - Three Cups of Tea goes up the pile. . I was one of those rare dissenters who really did not like The Time Travellers Wife - in fact I couldn't finish it. I did, however, love Dracula.

All the best for a HAPPY NEW YEAR, BDB!

Thanks for the well wishes. I owe a review and have started on Miss Lonelyhearts, a group read with the Salon group.

Book #1, Then Came the Evening, by Brian Hart
Fiction
ER/ARC Book
My Review on the book's home page:

Not everyone lives in Middle Class America, with three bedrooms, two cars in the garage, and a Labrador retriever at the foot of the bed. There is a world living at the very edge of existence, full of people for whom the ends never meet. Stories from this world can be interesting and enlightening; offering a glimpse of people whose nobility outshines their position in life or who improve their circumstances with grit and will. Some stories from this world, though, revel in determinism, tuning out all hope. Brian Hart’s Then Came the Evening is such a story.

Bandy Dorner, just stateside from a tour in Vietnam, wakes up from a drinking binge to find his home burned to the ground, his wife missing, and the local police about to arrest him. Bandy shoots and kills one of the officers in a struggle. Almost two decades later, as he is about to be released from prison, Bandy’s ex-wife, a meth addict and lot-lizard at a truck stop, sends him word that his son is coming to visit him. A lifetime of bitterness hangs over these three broken lives as they unsuccessfully try to reconcile and cobble together a family.

A certain reality hovers around Hart’s story, as he describes people who act out of a sense of family obligation. There are those who choose a course in life based on an identity created from raw genetics rather than from genuine care and love. These people make choices out of a fear of losing the only identity they can maintain, one which was bestowed on them as a result of their birth or their children’s birth. While the phenomenon is real, it makes for a difficult and often empty reading experience, especially when there is no growth to the characters.

Hart exhibits a gift for language, especially in his description of the Idaho landscape. But he does not exhibit a gift for creating characters for whom readers can develop some connection. Dorner and his family seem to do everything possible to alienate each other and everyone around them, and, in so doing, the reader. Hart pitches Dorner, and the others, as unable to overcome who they are, destined to repeat their mistakes over and over again. A certain dose of determinism might be healthy. But Hart absolutely wallows in it.

Bottom Line: A brutally deterministic story with little hope to brighten it.

2 bones!!

HI Mac!

Sorry that your first read was not a good one. Better luck with the next one!

Happy Sunday to you.

Linda

Good review--but I think I will steer clear of the book! I refer to have a ray of hope or some redeeming value in my depressing books. We get enough absolute bleakness keeping up with the news.

ETA Thumbs up!

Book #2, Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathaniel West
Fiction
Classic

My Review on the book's home page:

You need not abandon all hope upon picking up Nathaniel West’s classic Miss Lonelyhearts, but you shouldn’t expect to find any on the pages of the short book either. After the thickly applied irony wears thin, there is little to recommend West’s examination of human suffering.

Miss Lonelyhearts is a lonely, bitter man, employed as an advice columnist by a heartless, sardonic editor. The days of genuine care and concern for despair-ridden readers have long since passed up Miss L by the time the story picks up. As he reads the first letter West includes, the hopeless writer muses that he can no longer even find the letters funny. To have ever been able to find a joke in any of the dark, sad letters posted to him suggests a problem of near clinical proportions.

As the story progresses, it grows clearer that Miss L is unable to connect with any genuine human emotion. When he ponders on the advice he might give some of his readers, he toys with the idea of suggesting religion and Christ as an answer to their overwhelming need. But thinking about Christ only makes him physically sick. At one point, the very sight of a crucifix with an impaled and bleeding Christ brings him to the point of hysteria. He takes the icon down from above his bed, removes the Christ figure from the cross and re-hangs the Christ alone. The metaphor clearly identifies Miss L’s need to separate himself from all emotion, from all of the messiest parts of the human condition. The pattern is played out again and again in the story, with Miss L’s girlfriend, Betty; with his editor’s wife; and with the various suffering readers who try to impose their pungent, aching humanity on Miss L.

West is a gifted writer, and the language of his noirish novel is crisp and clean. The characters are larger than life and interesting. But West’s Miss L never grows, never advances past his disconnected aloofness. In fact, West’s climax finds Miss L gunned down by a crippled reader who had asked for help. Miss L misunderstands the cripple’s purpose and runs into the man’s arms, finally embracing the human suffering that he so long avoided. And it kills him. So, there’s not much hope on hand for Miss L, or for anyone who reads about him.

Bottom Line: A well-written, but unfriendly story about a man who can’t bring himself to get involved in all the most human parts of living.

2 1/2 bones!!

That was a very good review, but I have to admit that sadness and depression is not my first choice at the moment. Might skip that one, but maybe I will pick it up some other time.

I had to read Miss Lonelyhearts for a college course way back when, and I remember feeling pretty much the same about it. Intellectually I understand that it has value and is well-written, but personally I really didn't like it. Sounds like it's time for a bit of enjoyable fluff, no? ;)

Great review of Miss Lonelyhearts. I knew that was a term for an advice columnist, but I had never heard of this book.

Wow! Two downers in a row. Another great review, but maybe we should just skip to the Halloween reads now. Is it the winter weather?

Last night I finished Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indriðason which I thought was pretty dark--but compared to yours its was "sweetness and light!" Not really--but it did have elements of hope. If you like mysteries you might try that one--it wouldn't be too much of a shock to your system but would be a step in the right direction--towards a bit sunshine! :-)

Great review!

Mac, I do hope you get in a lighter read soon!

Well, at least I don't have to exert myself to add the last few to the TBR pile...

Oh, my! I just read a book about a cemetery, and it was much more uplifting than either of your books!

I hope you find some brighter pages to turn soon!

Well, BDB, I won't be reading Then Came the Evening because as a light deprived Canuck, things are bleak enough at the moment. And I read Miss Lonelyhearts in uni and once was enough.

Maybe you need to read some Bertie Wooster as a restorative!

Thanks for all of the worry, but I got away from the downers pretty quick. I've still got to post a couple more reviews and the next two are for reads that I enjoyed a good deal more. Though, I can't say that the pages were exactly brighter, they were a lot more fun to read! Stay tuned.

And thanks for all the thumbs on the review.

Finally found you! I really enjoyed both reviews and it is a pity that your reviews turned out to be more enjoyable to read than the books. Glad to hear that you have some good ones lined up though.

Hi there--just dropping in to say that I've started reading The Dark Tower as my evening book (as opposed to my commuting read, the break read, and the lunch reads). So far Roland is intriguing.

Thanks Trish!

Prop, Roland is probably one of my favorite characters of all time. He only grows more intriguing as the story continues. And, with the number of books in the series, that's a real tribute to King's abilities. He really explores this guy deeply.

As with any book or series there are lulls and things I didn't enjoy, but it is one of the best books/series of books I've ever read. A real favorite.

Just knowing what an adventure you've begun makes me a little envious.

Dear Black Dog Books, Thanks so much for your review of Then Came the Evening. I just got a copy of this book through bookmooch.com and maybe it will go lower on my to-read stack. ----

This makes me look back on some of my reading. Do I need my main character to evolve in order to be glad that I read the book?

That's a good question. I have read books where the main character doesn't evolve much, but there was at least hope that he/she would. The problems with Hart's book is the overaarching message he seemed to be sending: "These people will always fail, even in their meager successes. They will never be able to completely shake their miserable lot in life." There were a few times where a nugget of a softer message tried to glimmer through, a message that the growth experienced by the main character's wife and son would be at his expense and the growth would be in very small increments, the son achieving more than the mother. But by the time the book was done, I felt like I'd been battered beyond any hope.

So, do good stories always have growth in the characters they follow. I think they either have growth or they give the reader hope of growth. That's not to say that good stries have happy endings. Not at all, sometimes growth and hope are had at great cost.

Book #3, The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston

My Review on the book's home page:

In 1979, a group of scientists and doctors, unknown to most of the world, eradicated the smallpox virus from the planet, sort of. The eradication program was led by a World Health Organization scientist, D. A. Henderson, who initially thought program was destined to fail. But, in a matter of 14 years, using a ring of containment strategy, inoculating everyone in a verified victim’s potential ring of exposure, this mother of all viruses ceased to naturally infect humans. That’s where the “sort of” rears its ugly head.

As the virus was winding its way down to extinction, it began to infect humans in a creative, and infinitely more deadly, way. People in different parts of the world began to ruminate on what would be lost if the virus was completely eradicated. The speed and effectiveness with which the virus could kill enamored those who would turn it into a weapon. The virus’ potential as a weapon also infected the minds of those who wished it dead. These people worried that biological attack using smallpox could turn into a global pandemic if sufficient stores of verified inoculations were not available. Smallpox, now more enchantress than communicable disease, survived true extinction bewitching scientists and doctors and politicians around the world. It still lives in freezers, waiting to break out of stasis and burn through a world wide population that no longer carries any immunity for it whatsoever. And how many countries and laboratories maintain samples of smallpox is unknown and, using Iraq’s nuclear and biological capabilities as a measuring stick, probably beyond the reach of true verification.

With The Demon in the Freezer, Preston proves again that the truth is more frightening than fiction could ever hope to be. His ability to deliver a message, without losing any of the hallmarks of true story-telling, sets him apart from most modern day non-fiction writers. The people who play a role in this story are never reduced to surface area examination. The locales where the story takes place are described in vivid and imaginative detail.

On balance, I was probably more stirred up after reading Hot Zone, Preston’s earlier book about the Ebola virus. But that may have more to do with the fact that I read that book on an airplane full of coughing, sneezing, and wheezing vectors. The Demon in the Freezer paints a more terrifying picture because it follows a super virus from the fields of infection into the dark and twisted imaginations of the scientists and researchers and politicians who hold its future in their hands. As I finished the book, I rubbed the inoculation scar on my upper left arm, now realizing that the scar no longer carries any comfort.

Bottom Line: Another real life horror story, and good story-telling.

4 bones!!!!

Great review, BDB! I'll look for this at Borders this weekend.

Nice. Gonna have to find that one...

Wow, very good review.

#53: I just read that one this past week too! I enjoyed it and gave it 4 stars (analogous to your 4 bones I venture to say). I also agree with you about The Hot Zone, which has to be flat out the scariest book I have ever read.

Thanks everyone. I have to say I thought about kidzdoc and doc nuetron while reading this one. I think you both will enjoy it.

I already had The Demon in the Freezer, on my wishlist, but for good measure, I've added Hot Zone. Our local library has it, too.

ETA to add Great review! Thumbs up from me!

Thanks, tymfos. You should like them both.

Great review! That's going on my wishlist.

My mum once asked her dad what to read at a point when she was rather down and looking for something to cheer her up. I'm still shocked that his suggestions were:

Miss Lonelyhearts
and
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore

Both good books, but....

#18 You should definitely finish The Woman in White, I am sure you would like it. Dracula was one of my best reads for 2009 too, I haven't been able to put up my best reads for the year yet, maybe by this weekend...

#62 elkiedee- hmmm, Grandpa had unusual taste in cheery reading. Brian Moore is one of my favorite writers, and The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne is such great writing, but I can't see it pulling someone out of a funk. Unless he was saying, "Well, things might be bad but at least you're not Judith Hearne!"

I can only imagine that must have been his reasoning. Judith Hearne is an excellent book but any recommendation would have to be accompanied by a warning that it's not very cheerful.

I've added The Demon in the Freezer to my wishlist - thanks for the great review!

Thanks for all of the positive comments and the discussion on uppers vs. downers in literature.

I owe you guys a couple of reviews and promise to post one by the end of the week.

Book #4 The Creed of Violence by Boston Teran

My Review on the book's home page:

Boston Teran’s new novel of political intrigue, The Creed of Violence, shimmers like a mirage on the baking desert floor, threatening to combust at any moment, and constantly evaporating into new shapes.

In the days just before revolution erupts in Mexico, a truck, loaded with weapons bound for blood, stops along a lonely, chapped road for a man on foot. The man, Rawbone, poisons the driver and steals the truck’s payload. When he tries to fence the weapons in the dusty, border town of El Paso, a young agent of the newly formed Bureau of Investigations, John Lourdes, arrests him. In the calculating stare of his prey, Lourdes recognizes a man whom he never expected to see again, a man whom he promised himself he’d kill if he ever found. Bound together, the two set out to transport the weapons to their intended destination, Rawbone in hopes of earning his freedom and Lourdes intent on uncovering an international conspiracy. The fragile partnership between these seeming opposites blossoms into something unexpected as they probe each other’s dark souls.

Teran walks a high wire in this relentless thriller, balancing personal tales of loss and regret with a larger story of corruption and greed. Rawbone and Lourdes are both children of a bloody desert barrio who mourn the loss of youthful innocence yet revel in the keen instincts and quickly violent nature the transformation wrought in them. Teran tells their personal story of redemption against the backdrop of American intervention into a budding civil war and a private security company named Agua Negra – black water – which foments revolution in hopes of securing interests in undeveloped oil fields. These rich and complex layers make for a captivating read.

As to Teran’s style, there will be those who compare him to Cormac McCarthy, especially given the story’s setting and time. And, while he exhibits McCarthy’s raw emotion and seething violence, his rich, graceful sentences and subtly intelligent dialog are more reminiscent of Hemingway. Not everyone will agree that Teran deserves such a comparison, but, in my book, he earned it.

A favorite read for the New Year.

Five bones!!!!!

Mac- Another terrific review! I have wish-listed this baby! Of course, I'm a big McCarthy fan, also! Good job!

Thanks, Mark.

#68: I will definitely have to look for that one! Great review, Mac.

Never heard of Teran, BDB. Thanks for the recommend - 5 bones is high praise indeed.

Thanks, kiwidoc and alcottacre. This was a great find.

Still owe at least one review and hope to finish another book this weekend, but the Teran book above is definitely going on my favorite list for the year. Nice to find something so good, early in the reading year.

Thumbs up for the great review--It will make the Hot Review list, I'm sure.

This is not "my kind of book"--but then lately I've readi a lot of "not my kind of books" that you recommended and haven't been sorry yet. On to the wishlist it goes.

The Creed of Violence isn't anywhere near as gritty as some of the others I've recommended. and the writing is superb. You'll like it, I'm sure.

And thanks for the kind words about my reivew and for the thumb.

comparisons to McCarthy and Hemingway? Its going on my list for sure

Just caught up reading your thread and am intrigued by Demon in the Freezer. The Teran book sounds good, but I'm not sure I can handle the violence. Both excellent reviews, two thumbs up!

Thanks for the thumbs on the reviews.

I didn't find the violence in the Teran book too graphic.

AndreaBurke, I hope the McCarthy and Hemingway comparison's are not overstated. Both are favorites for me. The language, more than anything, reminded me of Hemingway.

And thanks thomasandmary for stopping by my thread.

Book #5, A Convenient Spy by Dan Stober and ian Hoffman

My Review on the book's home page:

The pages where James Bond and Jason Bourne engage in thrilling intrigue and heart-pounding action bear little resemblance to the ambiguous and morally grey world of real life spies and counterintelligence. A fiction writer would have a difficult time transforming the obsequious and unsure Wen Ho Lee into an international man of mystery. But, as we all know, truth is stranger than fiction.

Beginning in 1988, Lee, a code writer in the area of hydrodynamics, began downloading massive amounts of information related to three United States nuclear weapon systems. He transferred the information from the classified computer systems of Los Alamos National Laboratory to an unclassified system, accessible through the internet, and then made back-up tapes of it, sometimes taking the tapes home with him. Though an unprecedented security breach, these actions didn’t immediately qualify him as a spy. To reach the level of espionage, Lee had to give these secrets to an operative of a foreign government with the intention of harming the United States. Whether he committed such an act or not remains a mystery.

The story of how Lee came to the attention of the CIA and the FBI, and then became one of the most polarizing figures in the modern day world of crime and espionage, is one of obsession, ambition, and bureaucracy gone to seed. Every person involved in this cautionary tale came away stained, from the President and the Secretary of Energy down to the scientists with whom Lee worked and the street agents who investigated Lee. In the end, Lee can easily be called a liar and thief, but was he a spy? Many of his actions fit the classic mold of espionage, including overseas meetings with foreign operatives that went unreported until he was confronted about them. On the other hand, Lee inexplicably used the broad daylight to commit much of his theft.

Stober and Hoffman transformed Lee’s muddled story into a readable and interesting book. The authors bounded down rabbit trails to the point of exhaustion, but they seemed genuinely concerned that the information at the end of those trails was absolutely necessary for an honest and fair evaluation of Lee. And, while some might shy away from a book about the science of nuclear weapons, Stober and Hoffman adequately dumbed down the subject matter to make it accessible to the common reader.

Bottom Line: A surprisingly readable and always interesting book about the ambiguous real world of spies.

4 bones!!!!

Double post..............oops.

Still owe a couple of reviews. A good reading month. Good Non-Fiction.

Hi Mac- A good review! This one looks promising! I've missed seeing you around! Have a great Sunday!

Hey Mac, great review, I am generally not much into spy books, but this one looks promising.

Right up my alley...one well-deserved thumbs up and on the list it goes!

Thanks msf59, Piyush, and Doc. I actually thought about you, Doc, a couple of times reading it; you and TadAd both.

I've done some work over the years at Los Alamos, but not in the classified areas. Still, Lee is a very touchy subject out there.

#80: Adding that one to the BlackHole. It looks like one I would enjoy. Thanks for the review (thumbs up, Mac) and recommendation.

Thanks for the thumb, Ms. Acre

A well-deserved thumb!

Another thumb! I think this is going on the list to read . . .

Thanks for all the thumbs everybody!!!

I always admire it when two people can collaborate on a book successfully and make it seamless. Your review makes this spy book look very intriguing. I like anything well written, so on the pile it goes. Thanks, Mac.

With 5 bones - the Teran looks like it is a must read!

Mac
regarding message #68. If you gave this book five bones, then it must be incredibly good.

Thanks Whisper and Kiwidoc, The Creed of Violence is my first 2010 favorite.

It is now added to the tbr pile. Thumbs up from me as well.

Book #6, Stones into Schools by Greg Mortenson

My Review on the book's home page:

If ever a story inspired faith in the human capacity for compassion, nobility, and generosity, Greg Mortenson’s, as told in his new non-fiction book Stones into Schools, is the one.

Near the end of Mortenson’s previous book, Three Cups of Tea, he tells of a ragged and leathery band of horsemen from the Wahkan Corridor of Afghanistan emerging from a mist, their mounts galloping as if something was on their heels. The urgency of their gait announced the looming winter snows, which would choke off the pass to their home from rest of the world for the next eight months. Their mission was inspired by stories of a strange American who was building schools in the rural villages of northwestern Pakistan, and encouraging girls to attend. They wanted a school for their children, for their girls.

The Wakhan Corridor is one of the most forbidding and harsh locales in the world, surrounded by China, Afgahnistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, part of the former Soviet Union. The average life expectancy is forty-four; the maternal mortality rate is second only to Liberia; and there is only one road connecting it to the outside world, a rutted and jagged single lane that is barely passable four months of the year. No destination better suits Mortenson’s philosophy of seeking out the “people at the end of the road” for his efforts. True to form, he promised the weathered emissaries that he would build them a school with no idea of how to do it. Mortenson’s efforts, along with his odd-ball A-Team on the ground in the region, to build a school in the Wakhan Corridor provide the archetype, albeit a rather extreme one, for all of their other school projects in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Moternson’s simple message of peace and progress through education, especially for girls, has gained a great deal of traction around the world. Three Cups of Tea is now required reading for every Special Operations soldier who deploys to Afghanistan. One Lieutenant Colonel, who commanded forces in one of the most volatile regions of Afghanistan, used Mortenson’s own model of engaging village and tribal leaders to help restore some measure of stability, and then he convinced Mortenson to build schools there. Several members of the United States Congress nominated Mortenson for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009; though, sadly, the honor was awarded to President Obama. And Mortenson now spends about eight to nine months of the year on the road collecting thousands of dollars from cash-strapped Americans who are eager to reach out in some small way to people in need, people they understand who need education more than soldiers.

Mortenson’s compassion and generosity shine through even more brightly here than in Three Cups of Tea because he personally penned this new book. But nothing in the pages of Stones into Schools gleams like Mortenson’s humility. This shy introvert didn’t write this book as an egotistical act. He was obviously moved by a sense of purpose and obligation that we would all do well to find in ourselves. Imagine what Central Asia would look like if all American military leaders and politicians focused half of this country’s efforts and resources in the region on education and community building instead of military power. Imagine what the schools in our own country would look like if we had more educators and leaders who felt the way Mortenson does about the power of education. Imagine what our country would look like if we all had just a small measure of his spirit.

Bottom Line: I’ve rarely thought of any book as a ‘must read,’ but Mortenson’s books might just change the way you view the world. If they inspire you to act in even the smallest of ways, then the promise of his message will endure. Please read Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools.



Five bones!!!!!

Wow!!! What a great review, Mac. Coincidentally, I just got off the phone with my dad (literally five minutes ago), and he just finished Stones into Schools too. Between the two of you, I'm definitely reading this one. I loved Three Cups of Tea.

Great review! I really must get around to reading Three Cups of Tea, which is already sitting on my shelf....

Thanks for the thumbs; there almost as good as bones!

Mac- Wonderful review! It's cool that I just finished Three Cups of Tea today and found it quite moving. It's an adventure story, with a stirring message!

Great review of A Convenient Spy. Right now I'm reading a similar story about a spy in the Washington's army around the time of the American Revolution called An Artist in Treason. I hope to finish it this weekend and will add A Convenient Spy to my wishlist. Although entirely different times their stories would be an interesting contrast--James Wilkinson was an opportunist who seemed to have committed treason to get money to support his life-style while still serving as a commanding officer--even though his passing on of information the Spain wasn't entirely unrecognized. Fascinating subject--

Stones into Schools is on my "TBR soon" shelf so I will come back to read your review when I get it read. I'm really looking forward to that one and will now push it to the top of the list.

I will be reading Stones into Schools in the next week or so. I hope you like it as much as you did, Mac!

>96 blackdogbooks:: I was excited to learn that Mortenson had written this sequel himself. I did not like the writing of his co-writer in Three Cups of Tea. This is definitely a "must read" for me.

Stones into Schools is definitely a more personal book. You can feel it throughout.

Your review gave me chills. Fantastic.

Great review of Stones into Schools. I have to add it to my wish list or to be bought list.

Thanks Luxx and torontoc. I hope everyone enjoys the book as much as I did.

Your Stones into Schools has been thumbed by me, too, bdb. Great review.

Thanks kiwidoc.

I owe a review or two. Hope to get one posted in the next couple of days on a book I think you gusy will all like. It's about books!

Book #7, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett

My Review on the book's home page:

A book about a man with a compulsion to steal and collect books tempts on so many different levels. There are more than a few of us bibliophiles who will identify with the criminal at the heart of this story on some level, John Charles Gilkey.

Between 1999 and 2003, Gilkey stole an estimated $100,000 in rare and antique books from dealers around the country. Over the course of his entire criminal career, between 1990 and the present, the value of the books and other collectibles he’s stolen may be double or triple that. Allison Hoover Bartlett set out to unlock the mysteries of Gilkey’s seemingly uncontrollable compulsion. Her conclusion, that Gilkey found an otherwise unattainable identity by obtaining and collecting such valuable, may explain some small piece of his psyche, and the psyche of all those who collect.

Bartlett possesses a keen instinct in sifting the chaff from the wheat while interviewing Gilkey, a con artist and master manipulator. And her research for these interviews would raise the gooseflesh on even the most aloof bibliophile, as it takes her to antiquarian book fairs and dimly lit rare book rooms around the country.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much captures the complicated, if mundane, world of white collar crime, as well as the thrill of high-dollar, art theft.

Bottom Line: A solid true crime story examining the mind of a con artist, and a salivating read for any book lover.

4 bones!!!!

#110: You liked that one a lot more than I did, Mac. Great review as usual. Thumbs up from me!

Good review! Sounds very good! Very original!

Ms. A, It mat be that I enjoyed the fragile dance between the author and the thief as she tried to interview him because it was a little familiar to me.

#113: True, Mac. So much of reading is in the reader's experience and/or perspective, isn't it?

Sounds good - an addition for the wishlist!

Hope you enjoy it, Scaifea.

Book #8, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

My Review on the book's home page:

Occasionally, I forget I’m reading. Those rare, happy moments when the story completely transcends the page keep me coming back to the printed word again and again. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle captured my imagination in just such a way.

Advance praise for the book, and some early glowing reviews, created a level of hype that often does a book like this a disservice. Inevitably, the reading experience for every reader doesn’t match the hype. So, rather than lavish the book and its writer, David Wroblewski, with too many more superlatives, I just want to mention a couple of things in my encouragement to read this book.

One common thread for many of the negative reviews is a feeling that the ending cheats the reader in some way. My defense here is that the book is a re-working of Shakespere’s Hamlet. I am by no means a huge fan of the bard, but I know enough about his tragedies to know a little about what to expect in the last few scenes. And, while my expectations were met, the ending felt absolutely true to the themes of the book. Edgar, before setting himself on Hamlet’s fatal path, considers and decides that there are sometimes grave consequences for choices, even when those choices ring with sincere nobility and genuine goodness.

Another oft voiced complaint centers around Wroblewski’s narratives written from the perspectives of the dogs that are central to the story. In full disclosure, I am a dog person. But I found the short canine narratives compelling. They were balanced, neither over-humanized nor overly simplistic. Did Wroblewski accurately tap into the mind of a dog? Did he attribute too much or too little intelligence to their thought process? How are we to really know? But the short passages felt like an honest and instinctive attempt to describe how dogs relate to the world around them.

The final thing that should recommend this book to you is Wroblewski’s rare talent for language. The prose sings with a beauty that is rare in modern American literature. If anything breaks your reading trance, it will be the urge to pause and re-read, to bask in the talent of a true word-smith.

Another favorite read for the year.

Five bones!!!!!

The crickets are getting loud in here these days, but I have only myself to blame. I have not been in the same circulation as the last couple of years.

Some good books this year, and some really bad ones. Not so much in between.

Now reading a Stephen King.

Don't worry, we're still paying attention. Which King?

#117: Another great review, Mac! Kudos once again.

>117 blackdogbooks: I don't know if I'll read the book, Mac, but I loved the review. Thumbs up!

Thanks for piping up everyone.

Doc, Under the Dome.

Roni, I know you're not neccessarily a dog person, but the book is really exceptional.

BDB

You've convinced me. I've been avoiding Sawtelle--influenced by the negative reviews (and by the fact I often avoid Oprah books until I'm convinced they are worth the effort)-- but your review was great and it sounds like a book I would enjoy. Thumbs up! It's on the wishlist and the TBR list so I'll be reminded to hunt for it.

I really think you'll like it. Even The Road was an Oprah book. Sometimes you have to forgive the marketing of a book and just read it anyway.

Thanks for the thumb.

Mac, it's more that I'm not a tragedy person. I like endings that have some hope at least, even if they are not upbeat and transformational. I tend to over-catharticize on the tragedies--this is the person who left the musical productions of Camelot and Cabaret in wrenching tears over the tragedy of it all. It makes me wary.

Finally! Someone else who liked Edgar Sawtelle as much as I did! I was getting tired of holding up the banner by myself.

Roni, Well, then, you are probably rightly avoiding this one. As you might expect from the source material, it doesn't end well for everyone. That's not to say that it is ultimately dark or hopeless. In fact, I found a lot of hope in the nobility of the young man for whom the story is named, more than I found in Shakespeare's original probably. But we'll understand if you pass on this one.

Donna, glad to help wave this banner.

BDB

You are right, of course! After all, Oprah recommended Anna Karenina and I plan to read that one this year. :-D

Hi Mac- Good review! I appreciate your enthusiasm! I thought somewhat less of the book. I felt it could have used some editing and I kind of lost focus on it, about mid-way through. The novel contains some very good writing, no question about it!

I read your hot reveiw and had to stop by to say, I'm so glad you enjoyed The Story of Edgar Sawtelle! I loved it when I read it awhile back and it's among my favorite books, I could hardly put it down. Thumbs up on your review!

I'm number nine to give a thumbs up on your excellent, incredible review of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. It was added to the tbr pile last year, but now, I have to read it.

Thanks Mac. You are not usually so glowing about a book and thus I believe this one really reasonated with you.

Thanks to lorie and Whisper for the thumbs.

Mark, I remember you were a little cool on the book but still enjoyed it. I never got lost, I was pretty much riveted throughout. But it looks like we solidly agree about his talented writing.

Book #9, Wake Up Dead by Roger Smith
ER/ARC Book
Fiction

My Review on the book's home page:

Wake Up Dead needs burying.

The book world doesn’t need another thriller, laced with foul language, blood, and graphic violence, hoping to garner praise as “gritty” or “visceral.” Good thrillers are grounded in reality. And good, gritty noir writing subtly exposes the darkness of the human soul. Wake Up Dead is neither realistic nor subtle.

Billy Afrika, a mercenary capable of the inhuman feat of knocking out 400 push-ups every morning, hits his home-town streets of Cape Town, South Africa, in search of Joe Palmer, a gun-runner who owes him money. Roxy, Joe’s wife, ruins any chance for Billy to collect when she shoots Joe between the eyes, using a gun left behind when she and Joe are car-jacked. The car-jackers, Disco and Godwynn, are none too happy to be pinned with a murder they didn’t commit, and they set out to exact revenge on Roxy, or at least earn a little more money from her. The pimple ridden detective investigating the murder, Ernie Maggott, suspects Roxy is the killer and begins haunting her. Billy, still hoping to cash in, signs on as Roxy’s one-man, personal security detail, trying to protect her from all of them.

These characters feel like they were pulled from a 1980s B-movie that loops late night on free cable. Even the character names scream midnight, drive-in movie popcorn. The dizzying plot turns will make your head spin, until the last few pages, where the finale threatens downright whiplash.

The prose of the book matches the fantasy and cheese of the plot and characters. Women are found “battling jeans that sliced into her flesh like a delicatessen blade into cold cuts.” Another clothing war was alliteratively described this way, “The bottle blonde battled brutally tight” jeans. Comparing people’s skin or body parts also seems to be a favorite, so that one character had “brown skin tinged gray like meat gone rancid” and another had “skin the color of strong tea left to stand.” At some point, Roxy notices two men staring at her with eyes “like oily kalamata olives.”

To be fair, I know how hard it is to tell a story, how difficult it is to put words to paper. I frequently hear stories about struggling writers, endlessly sending manuscripts to editors and agents only to be met with an equally endless string of rejection notices. But I can’t recommend this book to anyone. I wouldn’t have made it past the first ten pages if I hadn’t promised to write a review.

1 bone!

I'll skip this one. Better luck with the next book.

Wow. Thanks for taking a bullet for us, bdb. No way I'm touching that one!

Sometimes these reviews for bad books are harder to write than the ones for good books.

On the plus side, I found some cool Western and local books at one of my local thrift stores yesterday.

I am joining the chorus of skipping Wake Up Dead too.

Congratulations on the cool Western and local books!

This is one of the best reviews of a bad book I've read in a while!

Sometimes these reviews for bad books are harder to write than the ones for good books.

Hehe, not for me - I'm a very cranky reader, and whining about bad books seems easier than explaining why I enjoyed a particular book.

Your review was great, as usual.

Thanks for all the thumbs on the review, especially for one that you're all gonna skip!

Mac- Funny, I had recently read a positive review on Wake-Up Dead, sent by my local library and I downloaded the audio of it, all set to tune in and then... If you would have given it 3 bones, I might have taken a chance but 1 bone..yikes! Great timing, my friend!

msf59, I requested the book because the premise sounded kinda cool....it just didn't pan out. If you still have it, I'd be interested in your opinion of the first few pages, if you can stand 'em. Who knows, maybe you'll like it.

I've been very good this year, buying only four books up until today. I added quite a few to the library that were purchased before the new year, but only four new buys this year, 1 classic, A Dance to the Music of Time, and 3 local non-fiction, history books. I'm proud of my self. Obviously reading more than buying.

Today that ends, of course, as I am going to a favorite used and rare shop and intend on buying. But I am using restraint this year, more than I thought I had.

Hoping to find some more classics that I am missing from my lists of 100 best.

Book #10 The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers by Thomas Mullen
ER Book

My Review on the book's home page:

The beauty and the horror of Thomas Mullen’s book, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, rest in his refusal to answer the principal question in the reader’s mind: “Why don’t the Fireson brothers die?”

Jason and Whit Fireson, depression-era bank robbers and public enemies, wake up on a small-town coroner’s cold, metal examining table, ventilated by large caliber, fatal gunshot wounds. Neither can remember how they came to die, nor how their re-quickening took place. Over the next two weeks, the brothers retrace their steps in hopes of learning who double-crossed them. They leave bodies and pain and confusion in their wake, and they die again, and again.

Mullen’s 1930s Midwest and the people struggling to survive there, bear a strong resemblance to landscape and personalities of Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. And Jason Fireson’s swagger covers a multitude of sins and an ocean of regret, making him more of a character from a Greek tragedy than one from a Jimmy Cagney or Bogart movie. For such a young author, Mullen deftly steps into one of this country’s most complex and tumultuous times, striking a careful balance between the action of a thriller and the spirit of noir. He tackles the issues of identity and self-perception with a soul older than its years.

Still, the question nags, “Why don’t they die?” I suspect that Mullen leaves the question unanswered to allow the reader room to breathe, allow for individual answers about the nature of good and evil and all the space in between.

Bottom Line: This story sneaks up on you disguised as a crime thriller, and reveals itself, by pages, as thought provoking literature.

4 ½ bones!!!!!

Nice review! On to the wishlist it goes...

Sounds like a good one!

Indeed - sounds very intriguing! Definitely going on the wishlist...

Out of interest, where/what is this favourite rare/used book shop (you never know, I may be in the same neck of the woods one day...)? You'll have to let us know what you stagger out with ;o)

Definitely added The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers to the BlackHole. Great review once again, Mac.

Thanks for the thumbs and nice words on the review. I think you'll all enjoy the book.

Favorite shop in Santa Fe. Staggered out with 100 Years of Solitude, Dr. Zhivago, A Clockwork Orange, and Nobody's Fool.

Mac- Good review! I heard a couple podcasts, discussing Firefly Brothers and one featured the author and the book sounded so interesting, right up my alley. Have you read The Hot Kid by Elmore Leonard? It follows the same time-frame and subject matter, it might not be as literary, but its loads of fun.

I'm number five in thumbing your wonderful review. 4.5 stars from you is quite an acknowledgment that you really liked the book.

It is now on the ever growing tbr pile. Yet another incredible review from you!

>144 blackdogbooks:: That does sound interesting.

msf59, I've never read much Leonard, though we wathced a television show last night from one of his short stories called "Justified".

I've been wanting to read the non-fiction Public Enemies though.

thanks for the thumbs and the comments on the review.

Book #11, Under the Dome by Stephen King

My Review on the book's home page:

With his new novel, Under the Dome, Stephen King confirms himself as the modern day Charles Dickens. I know that my declaration will turn derisive noses skyward and furrow many a sourpuss brow in the stolid and hushed halls of the intelligentsia. After all, how can I compare such a purveyor of pulp to one of the lions of literature? So, let me defend my position.

No other contemporary novelist populates their fiction with such a Dickensian multitude of characters, all distinct and teeming with life. The fair to middling book typically features a handful of people to follow through a couple hundred pages, a few wholly dimensional and others mostly cardboard. Good solid literary efforts offer several dozen well-drawn characters, ranging from the one-time mention to the core players. And then, there’s King, who has imagined and translated enough characters to populate the moons of Jupiter. More than that, if the people of King’s works were to all be relocated to a common planet, the resulting civilization would be immediately viable, with all manner of social, political, racial, and religious strata represented.

That King has so well documented the people of a particular region and social class, the far-Northeast blue-collar, also compares well with Dickens’ facility for the English underclass. Their stories throb with rich, believable detail that is the product of an instinctive eye for human nature.

Under the Dome show-cases King’s talent for character driven story-telling, capturing an entire town under a mysterious, invisible globe, evident only when humans or the forces of nature run into it. It’s not the first time that King’s afflicted a town, or the world, and watched, as from above, while they dealt with some plague – think The Stand or Salems Lot or Needful Things, some of his best in the type. In the end, the cause of the town’s affliction or its solution is not as important as how the town meets the curse, how they behave under the most extreme of circumstances. Some find nobility while others find only rock-bottom selfishness.

One of the other similarities between King and Dickens is their interest in faith and religion. Though it might surprise many, King has always struck me as deeply spiritual. While his books tend toward the graphic, and he often lampoons religious zealotry, a bright thread of good vs. evil always runs through these books. And the good, which is almost always informed by common-sense, Golden Rule values, usually wins out in the end. I often wonder if King isn’t constantly working out his own ideas about faith and God in writing these stories.

In full disclosure, I am one of King’s faithful Constant Readers. But I challenge those who would pigeon-hole him as a horror hack to read some of his better work, like Under the Dome. A surprise lurks, if you would take the challenge.

4 ½ bones!!!!

You almost make me wish I liked Stephen King's books, Mac. Unfortunately, I just cannot make myself do horror. Nice review though and a thumbs up from me!

Someday I'll tempt you over. Thanks for the thumb.

I am so late to this party...but have to say I like your reviews, even though I know I probably won't read some of the books...you make me curious! Great review of Under the Dome by one of the more frustrating writers alive...as in "when he's good he is sublime...but when he's bad he's unreadable"..in my opinion Keep up the good work; i love the "bones", and i gave your review a Thumbs Up.

Mac- Good review, sir! I was a big fan of a couple of his latter books, Lisey's Story & Duma Key. Just After Sunset & Cell, not so much. I was on the fence about this one though but you may have corrected that position. A friend at work is going to lend me the book, somewhere down the road, so Ill give it a shot!

Thanks for the thumb, jdthloue; I agree that King is not consistent, though I find him readable even at his worst.

Mark, given the ones you liked there, you should like this one.

Your review of Under the Dome sent me off ot check out some Stephen King book reviews. I think I'm starting to weaken. Maybe I should try at least one before I can give myself permission to completely write him off. What would you recommend as a start--remembering I don't like horror but love Dracula! :-D

I will be reading Blaze this year but I'd like to try a "real" SK book. I thought The Stand sounded interesting and "bearable"--but it is really long. I plan to read a couple of westerns this year (The Virginian is on my "short shelf now) so that may be why that one looked doable. You've "stretched" me in many areas of reading--I'm getting much better of straying from my "comfort zone!"

BTW--I know it's early, but I'm hoping we'll have the Halloween reads again this year! Last year was fabulous!

#156: I tried him again last year, just to see, and he is still a no go for me. I am not going to sweat it - there are enough other authors out there whose works I do enjoy.

Thank you for the enthusiastic review of Under the Dome. I have it waiting for me on the shelf. It's taking up quite a lot of space there which is part of the problem as to why I can't seem to get to it. I've had a love/hate thing going on with King and his books for the last few decades so I'm hoping this one falls on the love side!

I know that Stephen King is a talented writer - it was obvious to me when I read On Writing.
Books that are even remotely scary terrify me, however, so I've stayed away from his other writings.
I know I'm missing out on something good, though.

Good review - and onto the wishlist it goes!

...and I agree with amwmsw04, I'm not sure that I'd lump Stephen King in with most pulp fiction writers - certainly, he's prolific, but he writes a good deal better than, oooh, let's pick the not-so-random Dan Brown, for example (in my opinion anyway!)...

Never thought of comparing him to Dickens though - I shall have to think about that a bit, next time I read something by either author! ;o)

Thanks for all the comments guys. For those of you who are worried about "scary-horror" type stuff, Under the Dome is really horror lite. The scary part is his look into the human capacity for evil more than blood and things jumping oout of the dark. This one wasn't creepy on the level of say Pet Semetary or The Shining. So, it'd make a good one to read for King but avoid the ghosts and goblins.

MusicMom, If you've got Blaze, you've got a great place to start. The Stand is wonderful stuff, but it is a bit long. Under the Dome could be a good one to try also, or Needful Things (a vampire story kinda like Dracula, or The Dead Zone.

Unfortunately, I am not yet convinced to go back to reading King, bdog. I stopped reading him after Needful Things as it seemed to me at that time that he was just recycling old plots and characters. I thought I'd already seen everything he had in his bag o' tricks.

Fantastic review of Under the Dome! I was the 16th thumb!!! You make a good point in msg# 165, about the human capacity for evil. I have always found King's all-too-human villains much more horrifying than the supernatural elements.

I think your comparison with Dickens is quite valid. Another point to add to the argument is that Dickens was something of a pulp writer in his day, since much of his work was published serially in magazines for more general audiences. And didn't King consciously emulate this format with the initial publication of The Green Mile?

I have read and enjoyed several Stephen King novels to varying degrees, but I don't love his works well enough to seek out more. I am of the opinion that his books would benefit from some editing to get the diarrhea of the keyboard under some semblance of control. And I get irritated by the bizarre, unexplained loose ends that litter his stories, though I'm told that they do make sense as part of the entire ouevre.

For people concerned about the horror element, many of his later works move away from that genre. I hear that this is particularly true for the Dark Tower series.

Dark Tower is just superb. Not as much of the horror, you're right; and good solid fantasy story.

Siome day I'll get you back to the King, fourpawz.

Thanks for all the thumbs!!

Thumbs up from me. I stopped reading King awhile back. The book Cugo was upsetting. But, your review tempts me to harken back to the books that I really enjoyed. I thought The Shining was his best!

Thumbs up from me for your review!

Uncle Stevie and I go way back, I'll always be a constant reader as long as he writes. Under the Dome is on hold until I have plenty of time to let go, once Uncle Stevie grabs me I'm a goner.

#170 Amongst the few King's I have read, The Shining has been my favourite too!

BDB, quick question - how is it that manage to link to your own review on a book's home page, rather than the list of the whole lot of reviews?

flissp,

When I post my review, I copy the link (everything in the quotations above) directly from my post. Though I thought that the other reviews followed anyway. I could be wrong about that.

Can't get the link to show up for you so I'm gonna put it in your profile on a message.

>173 flissp: & 174:

1) Go to the Reviews page for the book and find your review.

2) Click on symbol beneath your review that looks like three links of a chain.

3) Ignore the fact that this takes you to a page that doesn't look like what you want (see below*) and copy the URL from the Address bar of your browser.

4) Use this in a <a href="..."> HTML command in your post.

The URL you copy should have the word "reviews" in it, e.g.:

http://www.librarything.com/work/1143577/reviews/58148200

*The page you see at that address won't be the page others see because LT is sensitive to your user id and shows you a page to edit the review, while other see a page to read the review.

What Tad said.....

I was kinda hopin' he'd swoop in and answer your question better than I did.

I've been on the fence about reading Under the Dome, the reviews I've seen have mostly been in the 3 out of 5 range, but if it gets 4 and a half bones, I'll give it a try.

So, ignoring the battle of the blooated paychecks last night, today is opening day for baseball and I am taking the day off of work to gorge on the sport. the first game doesn't start until around 12:00, so I'll write a little and read a little. Maybe I'll even get a few pages read in between innings.

I finished the first book in the trilogy A Dance to the Music of Time last night. It's an interesting read; well-written from a language standpoint but not much in the way of story yet. The characters are odd, too. Widmerpool and Stringham and Templer seem to be different personas that are vexing our narrator, one I don't suspect is entirely reliable. So, more of a character study, and one which is undertaken through how the narrator views those around him, painting his own inner feelings with his views on his cohorts. Not sure how I'm gonna like it. Hoping it expands a little with the next couple installments.

MusicMom, don't worry, I'm compiling a list of possible Halloween reads again. I'll announce the list in a month or so.

Oh yeah, Go Giants.

Thanks Mac and Tad for your computer expertise!

#178: I am glad to know that someone has been looking forward to Opening Day as much as I have.

Lincecum versus Oswalt - my money is on the young guy. The biggest question for the Giants is are they going to have enough offense. They certainly have the arms.

I am headed to opening day at Nationals Park right now. Must get there early (I'm actually running a little late), since the Prez is throwing out the first pitch. Between the White House Easter Egg Roll, the cherry blossoms, Nat's opening day and normal everyday traffic commuting should be a blast today.

Go Nats! May you have a .500 record this year!

I was going to go to NYC today, but I decided to stay in and watch the Phillies play the Nationals on TV. Roy Halladay makes his first start for the Fightin' Phils today.

180- You are definitely not the only one! It's all my husband has been talking about lately, lol...

I like baseball, just not quite as much as he does. :)

#178 Looks like there are many waiting for the release of your Halloween list already :)

A whole day of books, writing, and baseball. And the Giants won!!!!!

The Nats didn't fare as well, jmaloney17. Hope you still enjoyed the day at the park.

Yep, the Nats stink. There is no way around it. Our pitcher choked. No surprise there.

The day at the park would have been wonderful anyway, if it were not for the obnoxious Philly fans. For one DC is just lame. People tend to not go to day games because they have to work, and most are Type As, so they really do have to work or their brains might explode. So the consequences are that the stadium is about 80% Phillies fans. And they all came down on buses from Philly, so they had been drinking for 3 or more hours before they even walked in the stadium.

Needless to say, I got a beer thrown at me because the Phillies hit a home run and I happened to be a Nats fan, my boyfriend almost got in a fight "defending my honor" and I had to listen to the Philly chant for three hours. We really could not take it anymore, so we left in the 7th inning. Which I don't like to do. I really try to stay for the whole game, particularly when we lose. It is no wonder we lost. I imagine it is very difficult to play at home when most of the fans are visitors. I go to 15-20 games a year, so believe me when I say that the fans are usually cheering for the other team. But NONE are as bad as the Philly fans. The Cubs and the Mets are a close second, but the Philly fans really give their city a bad name.

So what could have been a wonderful day enjoying the game, the weather, a beer and a Ben's Half Smoke All-the-Way ended up a waste of my vacation time.

Boo!

#174&5 Thank you BDB & Tad! It's something that's bugged me...

#186: I am sorry opening day was so bad for you, Jennifer. I am frustrated myself with MLB.com because I am trying to watch games from yesterday and cannot - I pay for the privelege of watching every single game, but for some reason MLB.com messes up at least the first 2 weeks of baseball every year. I guess I should not be surprised that they managed to do it again this year.

#186 - I have heard for as long as I can remember that Phillies fans are the worst, from fans and players alike. I did see a bunch of them around town yesterday and they didn't seem to bad, but that may have been because they were away from the stadium.

Being a Phillies fan myself, I have to admit that some (not all) Philadelphia sports fans can be really obnoxious.

(So could their stadium workers, at least years ago. I once was insulted so badly by a ticket-taker at the old Veterans Stadium that management gave us a set of box seat tickets in response to my complaint!)

ETA to modify comments about stadium workers, to be fair to current ones who may be perfectly fine!

I haven't been to a Phillies game in a long time, probably 20 years or more (although I did win 4 tickets from my job to see them play the Braves in Atlanta later this month). I agree with Terri: most Philly sports fans are passionate about their teams, and some are obnoxious beyond belief.

Years ago I went with two white friends to a USFL football game, which featured the Philadelphia Stars and the New Jersey Generals, played at the Vet (the old Veterans Stadium). We sat in the upper deck, although I can't remember if we were in the notorious 700 section. Herschel Walker was playing for the Generals at that time, and was having a great game. There were several drunk fans sitting right behind us, and after a long run by Walker, one of them yelled, "Rip that f***in' n*****'s head off!" As a black guy, I figured that the best thing to do was to ignore the comment, to keep from making a scene. One of my friends decided to confront the guy; if I remember correctly, he offered to "rip his f****in' head off, too!" We left soon after that.

Sounds like quite an adventure, Darryl!

My story (alluded to in #190) is a little less, uh, shall we say volatile? My husband and a classmate and I went to the ballpark to celebrate graduation from theological seminary. The ticket taker at the gate made a really crude, sexist comment to me. (That was back when I looked decent in shorts.) Then, when I complained, he made a worse comment.

I always wondered if the fact that a couple of soon-to-be pastors were among the offended made the Phillies brass any more eager to make amends! (The president of our seminary was throwing out the ceremonial first pitch a week or so later.) But I was more interested in getting them to clean up their act than in getting free tickets. And, I must say, I was never subjected to that kind of behavior again at a Phillies game -- at least, not from stadium workers.

Oh my! Way to bring down a ball game. That's one thing that I don't like about sports - the overly-aggressive fans (and employees, apparently). I refuse to watch football because of how strongly my FIL responds to games (a loss will put him in a crap mood for a week).

O's lost ... but the Caps swept the Penguins! Go hockey! ;)

The last time I felt any fear at a baseball game was when I watched the Giants in LA, with a Giants hat on. I got a lot of attention, but I still flew the black and orange!

Honestly, I generally can take the insults and having someone throw a beer at me. I really was more concerned with the 10 year old boys sitting in the row between us. I would hate for them to think that this was acceptable behavior. The kids were especially well behaved and nice too. And then later in the game when their little sister dripped some ice cream on my head, I think they were afraid that I would be really mad. I felt so bad for them.

Of course the kids did say that 37 was really old. "Like older than my dad!" Ugh...

Of course the kids did say that 37 was really old. "Like older than my dad!"

LOL! That's a worse insult than the one in my story!

#195: But 37 is no age at all...and besides, age is just a number;)

We do not have baseball over here, but I do go to a lot of football (soccer) matches. We do not have the chance to buy alcohol at the stadium, and the away-fans are most of the time seperated from the home-crowd. It is very rare to put on your teams supporter equipment if you are seated with the other teams supporters. Is it the same with you? Besides of the alcohol...obviously.

No, at a baseball game, everyone is all mixed in together. It is usually a hothouse of emotions.

Haven't fully caught up on your thread yet, but I just read your review of The Man Who Loved Books Too Much and since you liked that one I wanted to recommend The Island of Lost Maps. It's quite similar: the true story of Gilbert Bland, a map thief who furnished his collection by razoring maps and illustrations from rare book rooms. It also follows the journalist (the author) who set out to understand him, and throws in lots of background on the history of collecting and of maps. Probably too similar to the one you just read to read any time soon, actually, but I thought you might be interested for the future!

I'm enjoying catching back up in your reviews. They're excellent, as always. :)

Edit: caught up! The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and The many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers have made their way onto my wishlist.

My favorite Bad Philadelphia Fans story is the one told about Mike Schmidt.

Only 15 players have ever hit four home runs in a single game. Mike Schmidt was one of them in the mid-70s. Then, a few years later, he had a game where he hit three home runs earlier in the game and was at the plate for his fourth try—he flied out.

Never mind that only 300-some players in baseball history have ever had three home runs in a game...the Phillies fans booed him.

#200 Only in Philadelphia! (spoken by a former Philadelphian!)

Some of those stories of sports fans sound pretty horrible - I thought only we had hooligans.

I live between the grounds for two of soccer's leading teams here, and I hate weekday evenings when there's a game because both use my train home to get there, and they are often so rude. One night when the trains were down and I was 7 months pregnant, I had to stand on a bus from work to near the Arsenal ground (2/3 miles) before finally getting a vacated seat. Another time a fan getting off at my local station pushed me back into my seat rather than let me get off ahead of him and his friends (I was sat nearer the door).

Hi

I'm catching up today. Thanks for the "reassurance" about the Halloween list--it's a highlight of the year for me.

Bad timing--but Go, Giants! In spite of the loss last night this season is off to a much better start than last year. This was my first telecast because last week we were at the house that doesn't have TV so we listened on the radio. I'm not sure I don't like radio better--I seem to stay in the game better and can more easily tune out the commercials, also, so I can use that time for reading. But hubby definitely prefers TV so we only listen when there is no telecast.

#203 I, too am eagerly looking forward to the Halloween list!

I remember when I was growing up, there were limited games on TV, but old WCAU-AM radio broadcast ALL the Phillies games. And, whenever they weren't on TV, my Mom listened to them all . . . ah, summer nights with the ballgame on the radio. Ballgame on the radio at the store where I worked as a teen. Memories!

WCAU was a high-powered "clear channel" station in those days, and I remember picking up with my GE SuperRadio, faintly, some of those Phillies radio broadcasts when I lived in Boston a few years later -- in the shadow of Fenway park!

I don't think those call letters even exist in radio anymore. Darn shame.

just got all caught up- I'll def. pick up Under the Dome and Edgar now because of your rec. and I'll probably join in on the halloween reads as well! nice reviews!

#204: WCAU 1210 AM was founded in 1922 (third oldest radio station in Philadelphia), and is now WPHT. I agree; why the name change?

The call letters of WCAU still exist, as channel 10, the NBC TV affiliate.

Another episode of horrific Philly fan behavior occurred on Wednesday at a Phillies home game, as a 21 yr old drunken pinhead vomited--intentionally--on an 11 yr old girl, after her father (a policeman from Easton, PA) and older sister caused his buddy to be escorted from the stadium for rude behavior (he spat on them):

Phillies Apologize to Cop for "Pukemon"

Beautiful.

Um...did I mention that I'm going to a Phillies game in Atlanta on Wednesday?

#206 Oh, gross!!!!! :(

I hope the Braves fans are better behaved! :)

The call letters of WCAU still exist, as channel 10, the NBC TV affiliate.

Note I said I didn't think they still existed in radio ;)

I never quite got used to the Philadelphia TV stations swapping their network affilliation -- for so many years WCAU, both radio and TV, were firmly entrenched CBS affiliates; and KYW TV3 was with NBC. (Do you know if the now-named WPHT 1210 AM has any network affiliations that might explain the call letter change? I haven't kept up with those details.)

Darryl, am I correct in recalling your recommendation of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down? A member of our local book-discussion group has offered to loan it to me, and I seem to recall you saying that it was very good.

I don't know about Darryl, but I recommended the book from my reading last year. It's a great read, inspiring and, well, almost bewildering through some passages.

I have your recommendation noted too, BDB!!!

#207: Braves fans are much more behaved than Phillies fans. We'll be sitting 20 rows behind home plate, one section to the right from the center, so the fans there should be well behaved compared to the ones in the upper decks.

I think that this Phillies fan (Mr. "Pukemon") should be forced to clean bathrooms during a month's worth of Phillies games, which should be shown on local TV broadcasts of the games.

I don't believe that WPHT has any network affiliations.

I continue to be confused by the KYW/WCAU switch. I still think of WCAU as a CBS affiliate, and KYW as an NBC station.

Go Giants!!!!! Tiny Tim, aka The Freak, pitched another gem last night and has the Giants purring along. Fun to see all of the baseball fans over here. I think next year, in addition to the Halloween reads, I am going to do a baseball list during spring training, if there is interest in such a list.

And, not to worry all you goblins and ghouls, I will post a Halloween list on my profile page on May 1, leaving everyone time to gather the books ahead of time. Like last year, I will be inlcuding a wide range of dark matter for the witching month; some will be your typical fright fare, while others will be stretching the genre a bit. Then, I will start the thread about September 15 for those interested in an early start.

#211: I am interested in the baseball list, Mac!

#211 Oh yes, the fabled Halloween list :)

scary Halloween and baseball/spring training lists?

You are my kind of reader!

I'd be interested in a spring training list too, Mac - although I'm a little down on baseball right now after losing an awful lot of reading time during the 20-inning Cardinals vs. Mets game yesterday. Worse yet, the Cardinals didn't even pull it out.

Because our field is lovely and our team terrible, there are often more fans for the visitors than the Pirates when I go to a game. I've never seen anyone be rude some friendly teasing, but nothing worse. My fandom has fallen off some, but runs deep. I had a letter to the sports editor defending my beloved John Candelaria published when I was 12. We're hoping to have a .500 season this year :-)

I will make no such promises for Steelers games though. Although how we'll feel and behave this year is anyone's guess. We may not even be nice to each other.

Well, the O's are currently 2 and 11, so it's not clear *why* I'm a fan. But I'll jump into a baseball read next spring. Hope springs eternal!

Darryl, I am unfortunately not too surprized about the philly f, as they were so terrible at the nats game. Porch reader, I watched the last 2 innings with Mather pitc@hing. Hilarious. I was sorry I missed lopez.

Blackdogbooks' Chapter 2 thread is here.