OS Book Club Pt II

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  • Fresh Tendrils
    Strike Hard and Fade Away
    • Jul 2002
    • 36131

    #826
    Re: OS Book Club Pt II

    It's something that was really apparent to me while reading Beloved and something I've been noticing while reading I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - putting these voices in my head with different effects.

    Morrison puts you into the head of each of her character while writing from an omnipresent perspective which I find astounding. Ng approaches the same way, but not all of her characters have a voice and the ones that do are quiet compared to Morrison. Maya Angelou reads like you're sitting down with her and a cup of coffee having a conversation. Bradbury replaces your own reading voice with his and you don't even realize it until the flow of his words are tumulting through your mind like waterfalls.

    It's fun to pick up on. As much praise as video games get for letting you explore worlds books are still the premium in that area to me.



    Comment

    • DieHardYankee26
      BING BONG
      • Feb 2008
      • 10178

      #827
      Re: OS Book Club Pt II

      I might read The Blacker the Berry by Wallace Thurman or Kindred by Octavia Butler instead of doubling up on Langston Hughes just to get another author in.

      Ordered my first batch of Library of America books:

      The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks
      Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial set (essentially everything he ever wrote or thought lol)
      Baseball A Literary Anthology
      Becoming Americans: 4 Centuries of Immigrant Writings
      Both sets of American Speeches (over 1600 pages of speeches from the Revolution until Clinton, I live for this)
      W.E.B. Du Bois Writings

      Went through the whole site and these are the ones I still have to get (thanks for bankrupting me Fresh):

      Spoiler
      Originally posted by G Perico
      If I ain't got it, then I gotta take it
      I can't hide who I am, baby I'm a gangster
      In the Rolls Royce, steppin' on a mink rug
      The clique just a gang of bosses that linked up

      Comment

      • Fresh Tendrils
        Strike Hard and Fade Away
        • Jul 2002
        • 36131

        #828
        Re: OS Book Club Pt II

        Those LoA volumes are great. A little unwieldy depending on their size, but they were worth the price easily.



        Comment

        • DieHardYankee26
          BING BONG
          • Feb 2008
          • 10178

          #829
          Re: OS Book Club Pt II

          Originally posted by Fresh Tendrils
          Those LoA volumes are great. A little unwieldy depending on their size, but they were worth the price easily.
          I don't doubt it. I'm trying to figure out how I want to tackle the Baseball anthology. I looked through some of the contributors, and the list is incredible: Amiri Baraka, Don DeLillo, Robert Frost, Stephen Jay Gould, Stephen King, Phillip Roth, among others. Looks like 60+ articles/stories. I might do one per day starting in March. I'm dying for baseball.
          Originally posted by G Perico
          If I ain't got it, then I gotta take it
          I can't hide who I am, baby I'm a gangster
          In the Rolls Royce, steppin' on a mink rug
          The clique just a gang of bosses that linked up

          Comment

          • dickey1331
            Everyday is Faceurary!
            • Sep 2009
            • 14285

            #830
            Re: OS Book Club Pt II

            Originally posted by Money99
            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.


            I noticed the first book is free on the Kindle store. I’ll have to add it to my list.


            Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
            MLB: Texas Rangers
            Soccer: FC Dallas, Fleetwood Town
            NCAA: SMU, UTA
            NFL: Dallas Cowboys
            NHL: Dallas Stars
            NBA: Dallas Mavericks

            I own a band check it out

            Comment

            • Money99
              Hall Of Fame
              • Sep 2002
              • 12695

              #831
              Re: OS Book Club Pt II

              Originally posted by dickey1331
              I noticed the first book is free on the Kindle store. I’ll have to add it to my list.


              Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
              That's how I got hooked.
              On the recommendation from a friend, I was actually looking for a Conan book and that book came up in a search.
              It had a good review rating and was free so I figured, Why not?
              Glad I did.
              Hope you enjoy it as well!

              Sent from my LG-K210 using Operation Sports mobile app

              Comment

              • hvegasooner
                Pro
                • May 2003
                • 588

                #832
                Re: OS Book Club Pt II

                Just finished Booker T my rise to Wrestling royalty By Booker T Huffman it covers his career from the beginning to WCW, WWE, TNA and then back to WWE and up to the hall of fame. he won 35 titles and the many stories he tells are amazing. and a candid story of his family life outside the ring. Great book 4 stars
                I am the disabled gamer
                twitter- Hvegasooner

                Life is wonderful so get out and enjoy it!


                Playing: FIFA 16, EA Sports UFC 2, WWE 2K16, MLB The Show 16

                Consoles: PS4 Xbox 360 PS2

                Comment

                • Fresh Tendrils
                  Strike Hard and Fade Away
                  • Jul 2002
                  • 36131

                  #833
                  Re: OS Book Club Pt II

                  I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

                  My only complaint is the book ends. Angelou seamlessly weaves together small vignettes of her life and fashions them together in a search for identity for herself, her womanhood, and her race. Her tone is an unguarded one as she retells the peculiar and spectacular events of her early life. Some of these would break others, but she rose above her tribulations and confronts them in a matter of fact manner that creates a poetical flow from bluntly describing her life.

                  As I explained above I think the greatest authors have the ability to put their voice in the head of the reader. I had the sense throughout much of the book that Maya was sitting across the table from me, coffee in hand, and she was telling me about her life in a conversational way. She didn't bat an eye during the hardest parts, but she was pointed in her retellings of her emotions and thought process. As different as my life is from her's I still found it easy to connect to her life and her issues with confidence, her teenage curiosity, and her ability to extrapolate logic even if it was faulty. There is never a sense of a victim when reading this and considering the trials she conquered it would be easy to excuse her for doing so. Yet, she looks back on her life with an "it is what it is" attitude and brings the reader into her life without regret or pity, but with a bevy of understanding through her beautiful mastery of words and phrase.

                  Spoiler


                  My goal is to read the rest of her memoir series throughout the year.



                  Comment

                  • DieHardYankee26
                    BING BONG
                    • Feb 2008
                    • 10178

                    #834
                    Re: OS Book Club Pt II

                    Jonathan Abrams is releasing a book tomorrow called All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of the Wire. People here may remember him from Grantland, the book is an oral history, which he did for Grantland and were always fantastic. His book, From Prep to Pros, on different cases of high school kids and how they prepared to go straight to the NBA while that was allowed is great so I'd expect this to be great as well.

                    I haven't seen The Wire but I already know a relative I'm gonna get this for.
                    Originally posted by G Perico
                    If I ain't got it, then I gotta take it
                    I can't hide who I am, baby I'm a gangster
                    In the Rolls Royce, steppin' on a mink rug
                    The clique just a gang of bosses that linked up

                    Comment

                    • Fresh Tendrils
                      Strike Hard and Fade Away
                      • Jul 2002
                      • 36131

                      #835
                      Re: OS Book Club Pt II

                      Well that's an automatic purchase. I was planning on going through the series again this Summer. Might as well add supplemental reading for it.



                      Comment

                      • DieHardYankee26
                        BING BONG
                        • Feb 2008
                        • 10178

                        #836
                        Re: OS Book Club Pt II

                        If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

                        Baldwin's second to last novel, first person from the perspective of a 19 year old girl in the 70's trying to get her boyfriend out of jail who's been falsely imprisoned. Not much to say, Baldwin is my favorite author/writer/human, it's another hit. I thought it was even better than Go Tell It on the Mountain. I'm excited for the movie. I will continue the quest of reading everything he ever wrote sometime later this year. I especially want to read Just Above My Head, his last novel, seems to encompass a lot of the themes of his smaller novels into one big one. I think I'll love that. People that don't like James Baldwin, don't like themselves.

                        Spoiler


                        On to Ruling Over Monarchs, autobiography of a Negro League umpire. Should be good.
                        Originally posted by G Perico
                        If I ain't got it, then I gotta take it
                        I can't hide who I am, baby I'm a gangster
                        In the Rolls Royce, steppin' on a mink rug
                        The clique just a gang of bosses that linked up

                        Comment

                        • WaitTilNextYear
                          Go Cubs Go
                          • Mar 2013
                          • 16830

                          #837
                          Re: OS Book Club Pt II

                          Finished my romp through some Star Wars canon and near-canon works. In addition to Darth Plagueis, I finished Tarkin (which is a sort of partial biography of Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin) and then Catalyst (which is a direct prequel to the movie Rogue One and centered on the Erso family).

                          Catalyst was the quickest read and probably had the best story. Tarkin is a bit shorter and also an interesting character study. Plagueis is more dense and longer and will test your patience. Ultimately worth the read to see Siddious' origin story though. All of those books were authored by James Luceno.

                          Picking up The Arm by Jeff Passan next...
                          Chicago Cubs | Chicago Bulls | Green Bay Packers | Michigan Wolverines

                          Comment

                          • Qb
                            All Star
                            • Mar 2003
                            • 8797

                            #838
                            Re: OS Book Club Pt II

                            Put in a library request for The Storm Before The Storm by Mike Duncan, author/host of The History of Rome podcast. It focuses on the late Republic leading up to the rise of Caesar, which is something I don't remember too much from my college classes. I feel like we spent more time on Caesar and the subsequent civil war & transition to the Principate. Maybe I'll be surprised; I listened to Hardcore History on the conquest of Gaul (around the same period) and it was more familiar than I expected.

                            Comment

                            • DieHardYankee26
                              BING BONG
                              • Feb 2008
                              • 10178

                              #839
                              Re: OS Book Club Pt II

                              Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants, and Stars: True Tales of Breaking Barriers, Umpiring Baseball Legends, and Wild Adventures in the Negro Leagues by Bob Motley

                              Baseball is life. Baseball history is American history, for better or worse.

                              This is the life story of a man who dreamt of becoming a major league umpire. He originally wanted to play, but after a Negro League team came into his hometown and basically let him try out on the spot and he embarrassed himself, he changed his sights. He fights in a segregated regiment in WW2, comes back to umpire in the Negro Leagues, tries to get into umpire school (can't for years because of his race), then finally gets in and graduates from umpire school at the top of his class only to be told he can't work in the league because of his race.

                              Where the story shines for me is when he's telling tales directly from his time in the Negro Leagues. To have seen players like Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Ernie Banks before they became who we know them as just sounds incredible. The idea that we could've missed out on Willie Mays because of racism is insane. How good was Satchel Paige in his prime if he came into the majors at 41 and pitched to a 165 ERA+? How many homers would Josh Gibson have hit?

                              The thing that stood out to me is the joy and showmanship he describes as having been key to the Negro Leagues success, and it's importance to the community. It became clearer to me why I've been falling further and further away from baseball and more towards basketball. Maybe I need to start watching Winter League games, seems like they're more in tune to the spirit I want to see. Baseball being fun, and people being allowed to have fun within it, seem foreign to me. Hearing that pastors would have to hurry up their sermons to let everyone out and that towns would close down their shops to go to the game, it was like football is to certain towns now. Finding out the Negro League all star games were often outdrawing MLB all star games was cool. I'll add quotes later.

                              Next up is Kindred. I want to find books about Willie Mays and Buck O'Neil now as well, along with a more comprehensive history of the Negro Leagues. I'll save that for later.
                              Originally posted by G Perico
                              If I ain't got it, then I gotta take it
                              I can't hide who I am, baby I'm a gangster
                              In the Rolls Royce, steppin' on a mink rug
                              The clique just a gang of bosses that linked up

                              Comment

                              • mattlanta
                                MVP
                                • Aug 2008
                                • 2384

                                #840
                                Re: OS Book Club Pt II

                                I read The Hobbit for the first time in about 15 years, and I loved it. It's one of the only books that I can count on one hand that I rated a 5 stars on GoodReads. And it's also one of those books that, regardless of your age, you can just sit down and enjoy anywhere. I've downloaded The Fellowship of the Ring on my Kindle app, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to breeze right through it like I did the Hobbit.

                                I still have Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to finish (I'm about halfway through). And I plan on listening to Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell on audiobook when I get the chance.

                                Comment

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