Friday, May 01, 2009

The Reading Post

Books I've Read Recently

Neal Conan, "Play By Play"

NPR host leaves his job to take over play by play for a minor league team during a mini-midlife crisis. Midlife crisis? Baseball? I'm in. It was really well done, though-an interesting read and more than tangentially relevant.

Joe Torre and Tom Verducci, "The Yankee Years"

Made a bit of a fuss when it came out. Turned out to be a pretty good read, all in all. It does seem a bit hypocritical for Torre to go on and on about trust in a tell all book-but if he doesn't tell, there's no book. I liked reading it, but it was kind of creepy, too.

Seth Mnookin, "Feeding the Monster"

Kind of the inverse of "The Yankee Years"-much of the same time period, told from the Red Sox perspective. I had avoided this book for a while-it seemed like it was a little light on baseball, and more into the behind the scenes stuff-I didn't want to read about meetings and personal drama so much. But it was really more of a history of the team, going into a lot more detail, obviously, recently.

WP Kinsella, "Shoeless Joe"

A reread, after catching the end of the movie on TV. Still a winner.

5 comments:

  1. Boy am I out of this book loop! How did I miss that so much has been written on the Red Sox? It must be that dumb girl thing again. Maybe time to cross that line and have a look. Thanks. I never get tired of book talk.

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  2. I read a stat somewhere that there are something like 100,000 books, in and out of print, about baseball.

    A first rate Red Sox book is "Red Sox Century"-it tells an entertaining story, while deflating some myths along the way. Another good one is the Baseball Prospectus book "Mind Game", which details, in a really readable way, some of the statistical innovations that drive the Sox. "Feeding the Monster" isn't bad, just mostly stuff I'd read before.

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  3. Thank you. Recommendations are much appreciated.

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  4. Okay, this is not about reading now. This is my upset that they decided not to show the game here!! I get a day where I can watch and zip. I will have to rely on you for information. Crap. No offense. This is my rant.

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  5. Kinsella's book is one of my all-time favs. Just another Iowa writer's workshop veteran.

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