Read 'Em and Weep: A Bedside Poker Companion

by John Stravinsky

More than 50 million Americans play poker. But poker is much more than a popular game. It is a world unto itself, populated by a multitude of colorful characters -- professionals and amateurs, hustlers and dreamers. From the rich field of all the writers who have ever loved the game, editor John Stravinsky has gathered thirty-nine best-of-breed short stories, essays, excerpts from novels, and Mark Twain, John Updike, James Thurber, Nelson Algren, Martin Amis, and Billy Collins are among the winning hand of renowned writers in this collection who have mined their personal experiences at the poker table. Entertaining, enlightening, and essential, Read 'Em and Weep is a stacked deck of pure poker-reading pleasure.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published December 2, 2003

Reviews

[Audrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Forced to read this for uni as someone who really has zero interest in the game of poker

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book of stand alone stories, selections from larger works, and poems, all about poker, was published in 2004, two years before James Bond switched from playing baccarat in the casinos to playing Texas Hold’Em Poker. This book is a selection of stories of about poker – the big winners, the poor losers, from huge games in Vegas to humble games in barracks and kitchen tables. I very much enjoyed this book, as I do know a little about poker (although when I was working in a casino in table games, I would tell people, “It’s easier for me to tell you what I do not do; I don’t deal roulette, dice, or in the poker room.”

These stories and such run from about 1837 (the first recorded mention of poker), and follow the game through riverboat gamblers, immigrants in New York playing to become Americans, and the advent of the World Series of Poker, with all of the satellite tournaments leading up to the World Series. Among the stories and such that I enjoyed in this volume are “The Woman With Five Hearts” by Stephen Dunn, “A Disreputable Family Holiday in Las Vegas” by Hal Goodman, a selection from the book From Here to Eternity by James Jones, “Everything is Wild” by James Thurber, “A Game, Gentlemen, A Game…” by Barbara Tuchman, “No Game for a Woman” by Mignon McLaughlin, a selection from “Lowball in a Time Capsule” by Dick Miles, and “The Professor’s Yarn” from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain.

My only regret is that I did not get to share this book with my late father (died 1998); for many years he was in a regular weekly poker game, he taught my son to play poker at the age of eight (“Poppop, is it good to have three of something?” “I fold; what do you have, kid?” “A pair of twos.”) And when my dad died, we put four aces in his sleeves, and we put the rest of the deck in with him, or else he would have come back for it. But maybe there is a library wherever he currently is, and perhaps in time, when I cash in my own chips, we can talk about this wonderful poker book.

[Bruceschneider21 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting selection of poker stories. Not much here other than a bit of entertainment

[Rodger Payne · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are more hits than misses in this edited volume.