OS Book Club Pt II

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

I made this thread in the baseball forum a few years ago and it's got some recommendations:

https://forums.operationsports.com/forums/pro-baseball/599100-baseball-books.html

I can vouch for The Game by Tom Tango if you haven't read it. Moneyball obviously. Brian Kenny put out a book last year I think, he's a big advanced stats guy. Ben Lindgbergh and Sam Miller wrote a book about their taking an independent league team and trying to run it sabermetrically. It's been on my list forever, but I haven't gotten to it yet, I want to do some baseball stuff soon. I think Money99 has read it. It's called The Only Rule is It Has to Work.

[mattlanta]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

I made this thread in the baseball forum a few years ago and it's got some recommendations:

https://forums.operationsports.com/forums/pro-baseball/599100-baseball-books.html

I can vouch for The Game by Tom Tango if you haven't read it. Moneyball obviously. Brian Kenny put out a book last year I think, he's a big advanced stats guy. Ben Lindgbergh and Sam Miller wrote a book about their taking an independent league team and trying to run it sabermetrically. It's been on my list forever, but I haven't gotten to it yet, I want to do some baseball stuff soon. I think Money99 has read it. It's called The Only Rule is It Has to Work.

Thanks for the suggestions. How about some football or basketball recommendations as well?

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Baseball is my baby, so I stay way more up on that than any other sport. The only basketball books I've read are The Book of Basketball, THE Jordan Rules, and one on different players that came straight out of high school. Don't like football enough to read anything on it, except there was a book recommended here a while back called Take Your Eye Off the Ball 2.0 which is more about just understanding what's going on on the field than about advanced statistics.

A Google search turned up the sites Football Outsiders, Football Perspective, and Advanced Football analytics.

I'm not even sure that books of the same kind exist for other sports, Moneyball really kicked off the advanced stats revolution for the fan and that only came out 15 years ago. Baseball is just such a stat heavy, nerd sport it leans right into this stuff. The only non-baseball book in the Goodreads "Best Spots Analytics books" that I can see at first glance is one called The Essential Smart Football, but I don't know if that's more strategy/tactics or stats.

[ProfessaPackMan]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Basketball and Other Stuff by Shea Serrano from The Ringer. A must read for any Basketball Fan.

Football Books, I haven’t read any outside of books but mainly for Coaching.


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[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Strictly number/stat oriented or general football/basketball?

Kareem has some I want to check out - namely On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance.

Bernard King came out with one last year titled Game Face: A Lifetime of Hard-Earned Lessons On and Off the Court that sounded interesting to me.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

I'd assume it's stat based books. The Kareem book wouldnt even really fit a general basketball book, that's a history book written by a basketball player. He has an actual autobiography and a few others that have more to do with basketball.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Thought this was interesting, the wonders of technology:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/b...res-plays.html

The title is pretty sensationalist, but I thought the application of the software was pretty interesting.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

It's not as surprising considering the plays mentioned are the ones that are more historically and politically based. Pretty cool, nonetheless, to track down one of the works that was influential in his process.

[Money99]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Just finished all 4 books of "The Destroyer" fantasy series by Michael Scott Earle.
Really enjoyed it.

It's about a man, Kaiyer, who is awakened by humans in a tomb but doesn't have any memory of how he got there, or how he was asleep.
He can't even understand their language.

The humans wake him to fight off a race of Elves who are stronger and superior to humans in every way. But according to legends, Kaiyer is even stronger and more fierce than them.
The legends tell of him raising an army and nearly wiping the Elves off the face of the earth.
But now the Elf's are back and they need his help.

Throughout the books the story is told from Kaiyer's perspective and a few other secondary characters.
But what makes the series unique is that Kaiyer's chapters flash back and forth between his timeline. And he has several different points to his history starting from when he was a slave to the Elves all the way to his assent in the Human army.

The sex is overly gratuitous - almost to the point you'd swear it was written by a 14YO horndog.
But there's only about 2 scenes in each novel.
The story is very unique and because you don't get the full history of Kaiyer and what happened to him until Book 4, it makes you want to devour all 4 books as quickly as possible.

Book 5 is apparently on its way. Will be looking forward to that.

P.S. For what it's worth, I'm not a big fantasy reader. I've read my share, but it's not my go-to genre.
This book isn't 'high' fantasy whatsoever. It's a simple read and a really cool concept, IMO.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Finished The Souls of Black Folk, absolutely loved it. The concepts and ideas in it, as well as just the concept of it being basically a study of people by one of their own from another region. It really was just fascinating, like a trip to the time, and Du Bois's writing is so descriptive. Great book, probably my new favorite.

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois

Invisible Man is still my favorite book, but this one is definitely second. Also, it's kind of like Invisible Man is my favorite fiction book, and IJ/Beloved are battling for 2 & 3, whereas this book is my top 4 nonfiction books...and then probably Meditations is 5.

This book is incredible. It's a collection of 14 essays, on everything from Emancipation and its effects, to Booker T. Washington (who I have to let defend himself in his own autobiography), to religion, to race relations in the south, to the death of his own first son. It really is sociology come to life. He is conducting a study on the people of the South, and relaying his findings to the reader. The afterword is a plea that the book not fall on deaf ears, and for it to be taken seriously and acted upon. Lyrical and expressive prose, if all textbooks were written like this...well some would be hard to get through but it would be much more fun to try.

I can't do this justice. Just read it if you haven't. It's too good. Just the idea of Double Consciousness and the Veil is worth reading. There's not an essay in here that isn't perfect. The Two Johns, Alexander Crummell, Sorrow Songs, seriously, all great. I will get into Black Reconstruction sometime later this year. I'm sure it will be very different but I don't doubt it'll be equally great.

Spoiler

"But the hushing of the criticism of honest opponents is a dangerous thing. It leads some of the best of the critics to unfortunate silence and paralysis of effort, and others to burst into speech so passionately and intemperately as to lose listeners. Honest and earnest criticism from those whose interests are most nearly touched,—criticism of writers by readers,—this is the soul of democracy and the safeguard of modern society."

"It is a hard thing to live haunted by the ghost of an untrue dream; to see the wide vision of empire fade into real ashes and dirt; to feel the pang of the conquered, and yet know that with all the Bad that fell on one black day, something was vanquished that deserved to live, something killed that in justice had not dared to die; to know that with the Right that triumphed, triumphed something of Wrong, something sordid and mean, something less than the broadest and best."

"In a world where it means so much to take a man by the hand and sit beside him, to look frankly into his eyes and feel his heart beating with red blood; in a world where a social cigar or a cup of tea together means more than legislative halls and magazine articles and speeches,—one can imagine the consequences of the almost utter absence of such social amenities between estranged races, whose separation extends even to parks and streetcars."

From the death of his son, really heartbreaking:

"I shirk not. I long for work. I pant for a life full of striving. I am no coward, to shrink before the rugged rush of the storm, nor even quail before the awful shadow of the Veil. But hearken, O Death! Is not this my life hard enough,—is not that dull land that stretches its sneering web about me cold enough,—is not all the world beyond these four little walls pitiless enough, but that thou must needs enter here,—thou, O Death?"

"Well sped, my boy, before the world had dubbed your ambition insolence, had held your ideals unattainable, and taught you to cringe and bow. Better far this nameless void that stops my life than a sea of sorrow for you."

Best nonfiction book ever. Moving on to If Beale Street Could Talk, by James Baldwin. Something I've been thinking about is poetry...I've never really read it, but having just read Langston Hughes and knowing his best work (or most known work) is poetry, I feel like I should figure out a way to get some poetry in. I might do a month, or just add in poetry to the rotation so it's fiction, non-fiction, poetry for a little while. There's some Bukowski poems I know I wanna read too. Angelou...tons.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

I have that one on deck after Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.

The poetry thing has been in the back of my mind for a couple months, too. I got Ashleigh the princess saves herself in this one which was Goodreads 2016 Choice Award winner and figured I'd read that sometime this year. Now that I'm reading Maya I just want to dive into her whole body of work.

My only hesitation is not being able to bounce analysis off of anybody on a consistent basis. Literary analysis and discussion is what propels good work to great work for me. I feel like with poetry I would lose out a lot of the power and appreciation for the work because of that lacking.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

That's definitely possible, I would suppose it depends on the kind of poetry you're reading. The Waste Land is what inspired Ellison to write, that in itself makes me think there's probably a ton to unpack there.

I just love words I think. You can see it in Beloved, and will in Invisible Man, but there's just a smoothness and flow to the way the text comes off. Ellison studied music theory before literature and wanted to be a jazz trumpeter. Coates talked about how his favorite rappers influence his writing, I just get the feeling that there will be even more of a musical vibe to poetry given that it relies so much on form. I agree that it will be less about analysis, but I think (or hope) it will make up for it in other ways.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Library of America is putting out a collection of articles and writings chronicling the history of basketball called Basketball: Great Writing About America's Game at the end of this month.

... And I just found out they have one for baseball called Baseball A Literary Anthology. This is a must read for me. The one on football is Football: Great Writing About the National Sport.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

That's definitely possible, I would suppose it depends on the kind of poetry you're reading. The Waste Land is what inspired Ellison to write, that in itself makes me think there's probably a ton to unpack there.

I just love words I think. You can see it in Beloved, and will in Invisible Man, but there's just a smoothness and flow to the way the text comes off. Ellison studied music theory before literature and wanted to be a jazz trumpeter. Coates talked about how his favorite rappers influence his writing, I just get the feeling that there will be even more of a musical vibe to poetry given that it relies so much on form. I agree that it will be less about analysis, but I think (or hope) it will make up for it in other ways.

Very good points.

Something else I've been thinking about in the back of my mind is what separates the masterful authors from those who may put out a masterpiece or two in their career, but aren't necessarily masterful authors. It's the intangible, ease of control that allows an author to put a voice inside your head. Something Bradbury, Morrison, Angelou etc have done. It's something I felt occasionally from Ng while reading Little Fires Everywhere, but not consistenly enough.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Agreed, that's the difference between Pachinko and East of Eden. There's just some moments in Pachinko where word choice is kind of jarring and pulls you out of the experience, like the real character wouldn't react that way or think that way and it's the voice of the narrator, whereas East of Eden you feel like there's no narrator and you're experiencing the lives of the characters firsthand. It's hard to explain, but the way you put it, being the difference between a true master and just someone who produced a masterful work is perfect.