What does LB like to read?
After years of ducking the question, I've added a section to my blog http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/ab... listing books for which I have a special fondness. Here's a sample of what you'll find there:
WALTER TEVIS
A brilliant writer who wrote too little and died too young. Much of his work is science fiction (Mockingbird, The Man Who Fell to Earth) but I’m fondest of his contemporary novels. The Queen’s Gambit is a personal favorite, and I’m about due to re-read it again. Ditto The Hustler and it’s under-appreciated sequel, The Color of Money. (The Paul Newman film version of the latter departed entirely from the book on page one; I can understand the filmmaker’s decision, but I don’t have to agree with it.)
. . .BASEBALL STORIES
Jalfieri’s comment tilted me toward baseball stories. I was in the process of ePubbing “Almost Perfect” and had made these observations in the online introduction to the story: “My own favorite baseball stories are all novels. Bernard Malamud’s The Natural is a critical favorite, and justly so, but there are four other books I like even better. Three are by Mark Harris—The Southpaw and its two sequels, Bang the Drum Slowly and A Ticket For a Seamstitch. (Harris wrote a fourth novel about the same character toward the end of his life, and it can be charitably described as disappointing.) And Charles Einstein’s The Only Game in Town is a book I’ve reread several times, with undiminishing enjoyment.” I unaccountably failed to mention W. P Kinsella’s magical Shoeless Joe, which I enjoyed immensely as a book and again as the film, Field of Dreams. And I’ve ordered the Shaara book on Jalfieri’s recommendation.
There's more, and this is a section I'll add to from time to time. Live links for everything, so if anything appeals, you're just a mouse-click away from it.
Come visit!
WALTER TEVIS
A brilliant writer who wrote too little and died too young. Much of his work is science fiction (Mockingbird, The Man Who Fell to Earth) but I’m fondest of his contemporary novels. The Queen’s Gambit is a personal favorite, and I’m about due to re-read it again. Ditto The Hustler and it’s under-appreciated sequel, The Color of Money. (The Paul Newman film version of the latter departed entirely from the book on page one; I can understand the filmmaker’s decision, but I don’t have to agree with it.)
. . .BASEBALL STORIES
Jalfieri’s comment tilted me toward baseball stories. I was in the process of ePubbing “Almost Perfect” and had made these observations in the online introduction to the story: “My own favorite baseball stories are all novels. Bernard Malamud’s The Natural is a critical favorite, and justly so, but there are four other books I like even better. Three are by Mark Harris—The Southpaw and its two sequels, Bang the Drum Slowly and A Ticket For a Seamstitch. (Harris wrote a fourth novel about the same character toward the end of his life, and it can be charitably described as disappointing.) And Charles Einstein’s The Only Game in Town is a book I’ve reread several times, with undiminishing enjoyment.” I unaccountably failed to mention W. P Kinsella’s magical Shoeless Joe, which I enjoyed immensely as a book and again as the film, Field of Dreams. And I’ve ordered the Shaara book on Jalfieri’s recommendation.
There's more, and this is a section I'll add to from time to time. Live links for everything, so if anything appeals, you're just a mouse-click away from it.
Come visit!
No comments have been added yet.
