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August 21
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Mike
is currently reading:
Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas (Paperback)
by Chuck Klosterman
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Mike
is currently reading:
Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception (Artemis Fowl, Book 4)
by Eoin Colfer
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Mike
is currently reading:
Watchmen (Paperback)
by Alan Moore
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Mike
marked as to-read:
Bridge of Sighs (Hardcover)
by Richard Russo
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Mike
marked as to-read:
Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics (Paperback)
by Tim McLoughlin
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Mike
gave
to:
Boomsday (Hardcover)
by Christopher Buckley
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read in August, 2008
Mike said:
"Let's start by saying this…Christopher Buckley is a fucking genius! His books make me laugh in my brain. It's different than laughing out loud at obvious funnies. It's not Will Ferrell funny. It's more George Carlin funny. It's just the way he...more
Let's start by saying this…Christopher Buckley is a fucking genius! His books make me laugh in my brain. It's different than laughing out loud at obvious funnies. It's not Will Ferrell funny. It's more George Carlin funny. It's just the way he distorts and exaggerates the real world to show us just how ridiculous the real world is.
In "Boomsday" Buckley creates a hot, blonde, former military, PR crusader with a predilection for Ayn Rand in Cassandra Devine. During the day she helps her boss create celebrity golf Pro-AM's in North Korea to improve their image and at night she sits at her computer hopped up on Red Bull and blogs about her crusade…to stop the baby boomer generation from forcing our (my) generation to pay for their retirements. You see since there are sooooo many of these "boomers" retiring it takes more of us working longer to pay into social security to accommodate them all. So with the help of her boss Terry Taylor (who is Nick Naylor's protégé from "Thank You for Smoking") and Senator Randolph Jepperson, whom she met in a mine field, she sets attempts to set a new agenda for social security. She proposes that the American government give tax breaks and incentives to the families of anyone over 65 that kills themselves and spares social security to actually have to pay for them. There are also those who oppose her…I mean besides the obvious Boomers, like the current foul-mouthed President who's running the country into the ground like his surname was Bush and the pro-life champion Reverend Gideon Payne who wants to create a monument on the DC Mall for the 43 million fetuses that have been aborted.
There is of course more to it than that but to find out what it is you have to read it. Just the main point alone was worth me having to read this. Be altruistic and kill yourself…that's a great message! I was seriously unhappy when I turned the last page because I didn't want it to end. If you have even the slightest sense of humor and the slightest interest in politics this is a book you shouldn't miss. I can't wait for his next book "Supreme Courtship" where the President of the US nominates a TV judge to the Supreme Court to get back at the Senate for shooting down his other nominees. All hail Buckley…that sick bastard.
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August 02
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Mike
marked as to-read:
Straight Man: A Novel (Paperback)
by Richard Russo
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Mike
marked as to-read:
Leviathan (Contemporary American Fiction)
by Paul Auster
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Mike
gave
to:
The Worst Team Money Could Buy (Paperback)
by Bob Klapisch
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read in June, 2008
Mike said:
" Anyone that had been watching the Mets for the last 25 years or so has ridden the up and down roller coaster they’ve taken us on. From the mid-eighties until 1990 they were spectacular and interesting. In 1990 and 91, they were kind of bad b...more
Anyone that had been watching the Mets for the last 25 years or so has ridden the up and down roller coaster they’ve taken us on. From the mid-eighties until 1990 they were spectacular and interesting. In 1990 and 91, they were kind of bad but interesting in their collapses. When 1992 came around the Mets were trying to get back on top and failing absolutely miserably. “The Worst Team Money Can Buy” by Bob Klapisch and John Harper is kind of a behind-the-scenes, insider look at just how that terrific catastrophe went down in 1992. Klapisch and Harper were New York Mets beat writers for the Daily News and the New York Post respectively.
These are the Mets of Bobby Bonilla, Vince Coleman and Eddie Murray. The Mets of Jeff Torborg and “family values”. The Mets the year after they let Darryl Strawberry walk away to LA. These are the Mets that traded away David Cone for what amounted to a bag of ball in Ryan Thompson and Jeff Kent…even though Kent went on to an arguably hall-of-fame career, none of that happened with the Mets. These are the Mets who were out of the pennant race in any real way by July for the first time since 1984.
More than just talking about game after game of agony, the sportswriters walk us through what happened in the tunnels and clubhouses that brought about the final downfall of those glorious Mets teams of the past. It’s very much the final death throes of those coulda-been dynastic Mets. It’s really quite mesmerizing to get inside the team…beyond just what happens between the white lines of the baseball diamond.
It’s really scary just how close to home some of the things in this book about a 16-year old Mets team ring true in my head about the Mets of today. There’s a passage that particularly jumped out at me towards the end of the book where Klapisch and Harper are really recapping their story. “…the Mets simply weren’t tough. They rarely made late-inning comebacks, going down quietly time after time. They waited and waited for the dramatic three-run, ninth-inning home run, and when they realized no one was there to hit them, the Mets dried up and died. No, all the money couldn’t bring back the kind of soul that had once made the Mets champions. This team didn’t have the personality to thrive in New York, face the press, withstand the booing.” Doesn’t that sound very much like the Mets from the All-Star break of ’07 - Present?
I flew this book at a breakneck pace it seems. I started reading it last night around 1130 or so for an hour I guess before I went to sleep. I spent the majority of the afternoon today finishing it. Really a good read for any baseball fan and a must-read for any Mets fan. Makes me wish there was a book for what was going on the clubhouse for last year’s collapse.
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