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Books
scooterdawg
Posts: 3,066 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
So @JRT812 bro suggested a book thread. I’m also an avid reader so I’m down. What are y’all reading now or have read recently that you’d recommend? I read pretty much all genres so my recs are going to be all over the place. Here’s a few from me to get started:
Not recent but I’m relistening to The Last Days of Frankie Machine by Don Winslow. One of my favorite popular authors. I’ve heard him compared to Elmore Leonard but I prefer Winslow. This one is about a retired mobster in San Diego who has the past catch up to him. His best book is called The Power of the Dog, a fictionalization of the start of the cartels and the drug war. Like Narcos, Sicario, and Traffic combined with better writing and characters. Has a great sequel too.
For college football, it’s years old now(2014) but I highly recommend The Program by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyan. It’s got some amazing inside access. Mike Leach, The SEC, BYU and their honor code, and all sorts of other stuff. The Leach stuff alone on how the TT stuff went down and how he ended up at Wash St is worth the price.
In a less football based but still interesting vein there’s Missoula by Jon Krakauer from a few years back. It details the rape scandal that hit the University of Montana’s football team. I like the guys writing, especially Into Thin Air, so I was gonna try this one anyway but it’s pretty astounding the level of crap that went on. May not be your thing if you think “metoo” is a conspiracy or like to blame the victim but if you can listen to what these girls and their families were put through in a small football mad town, and not think it was horrible then I truly hope you don’t have daughters.
One last purely enjoyable one for now: The Girl With All the Gifts by MR Carey. It’s an English zombie tale along the lines of 28 days later but much deeper. An outbreak of “zombie like” plague hits the world and the British Isles. Common story but the backstory I found interesting. It’s caused by a corticeps fungus, a real life type of fungus of which several varieties actually take over an insect or tiny creature’s brain and directs them to either climb high or jump in water so it can explode out of their body and spread it’s spores. The characters are also interesting in that some children were only partially effected so they are confined in a prison disguised as a school to be studied for a cure. Very entertaining IMO.
I’ll try to add some more later and hope to see some recs from others. I’m always looking for new ones. Also is anyone else an Audible/audiobook fan like me for drives/listening while doing other stuff?
Comments
I'm reading some steinbeck rn. Cannery row
That’s one of his I haven’t read actually. Grapes of Wrath wasn’t really my bag but I like East of Eden and of Mice and Men a lot. Let us know how ya like it.
Just finished "The Name of the Wind" and its sequel "The Wise Man's Fear"....both were excellent for anyone who enjoys fantasy.
Two of my favorite fantasy books. A girl I was dating some years back got me into Rothfuss and Martin as I had a bad opinion of fantasy. I loved both but unfortunately they are the two WORST examples of writers not being able to finish a series to the point of pissing off their fans lol. George is going on a decade or more since his last book and Rothfuss isn’t far behind. Both have also put out other books in the meantime making it even more annoying. And both get salty when fans get on them.
If you like Fantasy I recommend the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown. Not the typical medieval fantasy as it’s set in a future universe where lots of planets are colonized, but also not just a Star Trek/Star Wars rip-off or soap opera set in space and most of the action isn’t in space.
@scooterdawg I am a pretty HUGE Tom Clancy fan. I must say that I really do love the Public Library system FREE iPhone, (and ANDROID too) APP(s) and it is called "Overdrive".... as I simply do not have the kind of time that I would like to have, and leisurely turn pages anymore like I did in my younger days? Besides that, I have to use "readers" these days also, and they are a pain! I also enjoy that most public libraries use this free program for their respective "E-libraries" and that is where I have found FREE AUDIO-BOOKS to check out for periods of either 14 days, or sometimes 21 days at a time. I simply download the entire book into my iPhone, and it's done. When the audio-book is due? There are no late fees either! I am currently listening to "Without Remorse" by Tom Clancy.
Great football reads by Jim Dent
Both are true and both are excellent
I’m a Clancy fan from way back. I was reading Red Storm Rising, which is slightly shorter than the Bible, when I was probably 12 lol. I even liked some of the ones he did with other authors before he died. Unlike the crap that James Patterson will slap his name on, the late Clancy books still felt like he had input and had actually picked the right guys to help him write.
Good call on the library. I looked into it before but I was in a rural county in the mountains so no such luck on audiobooks but now that I’m back in Fulton I need to look into it again.
I read a variety of things. I teach middle school and have read a number of young adult books, which often are some of the better books I have read.
Unwind by Neil Schusterman was a very different book. It is a dystopian book that takes place after a second civil war that took place over abortion. The new law states that a child cannot be touched from conception, but parents can choose to have their children harvested from the ages of 13 - 17. The book focuses on 3 teens who are scheduled to be unwound, and not the actual unwinding process.
11/22/63 by Stephen King was excellent. A little long, but great none the less.
Loved 11/22/63. I’m an unabashed King fan but I think that’s one of his most people can get into. I’m a dystopian/post apocalyptic fan so I’ll check out the other one.
@texdawg I’ve heard of the junction boys but never read it. I’ll have to look into it. Thanks!
Junction boys is great. It's about Bear Bryant's first Texas A&M team. He took them to fall camp in Junction, Texas in August. Junction is a southwest Texas town and it's incredibly hot. Unbelievable what he put those boys through.
Twelve Mighty Orphans is probably even better.
@texdawg wasn’t there a made for TV movie a few years back made from the book? Haven’t read the book but the movie was good. I’m a history nerd, so I just finished up The Washingtons by Flora Fraser. About to start Never Caught by Erica Dunbar. In fiction I’d recommend anything written by Louis L’Amour. The Last of the Breed is my favorite!
I think it was an espn produced movie @allyw.
Yes. ESPN made the Junction Boys movie. I believe Tom Berringer played Bear Bryant. Good movie.
As a history nerd you would enjoy Twelve Mighty Orphans. I'm sure I relate to it more than most of you because it deals with Texas High School football in the 30's. But it still is a great read.
I'm reading a biography on Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance. This guy has an incredible mind. I highly recommend it.
My favorite books I read in 2018:
Give and Take - Adam Grant
The Noticer - Andy Andrew's
Idea Man - bio on Paul Allen
The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell