God Save the Fan by Will Leitch

I broke my pattern of alternating one fiction then one nonfiction to read this book. I was really looking forward to reading it for some reason. I read deadspin regularly but that wasn't the only reason. I had been hearing about it seems like for 2 months and it looked really enjoyable. I have to say I did not expect it to be so well written and funny. Yeah I read deadspin like I said but I don't get as invested in a blog like I do with a book. Maybe I'm old fashioned but a book is a physical thing I hold and take with me everywhere every book I read it feels like it is the author talking to me. You don't get that in a blog. You are constantly aware of the collective audience in a blog. I thought this collections of essays was very smart and really makes you look at sports differently. the best bits are when Will takes an issue you think he will have a certain viewpoint on, such as steroids then turns it on its ear. He also says out loud what I've been secretly thinking once a sports issue is on Nacy Grace or Fox news it becomes less interesting to real sports fans.

Manhunt by James Swanson

This is a story we all think we know but don't. the story of Linciln's assasination and the hunt for his killer is fascinating it really comes alive. there were so many aspects I didn't realize such as the fact John Booth was a famous actor who could have made an apointment with Lincoln. i didn't realize there really was a conspiracy among five people and they attacked the Secretary of State also. Real history has never come alive like this for me it did take a while to read but it was worth it .

The Road By Cormac McCarthy

i tried to start this earlier last year but I don't know why i didn't get into it. that sounds real superficial and ridicoulous considering the book but hey I can read what I want. Saw No Country For old Men and I loved it so i went back to this book and i could not put it down. It is not Mad Max even though it is post apocolyptic. It is not a thriller. Reading this book I suddenly was moved emotionally. I fell into the rhythm and poetry of this story. I really empathised with the father and pondered my own relationship with my son. how does he see me? Does he look up to me? would he literally follow me to the end of the earth? The prose is simple but beautiful simple phrases paint whole pictures in my head I loved this book and can't wait to read it again.

Positively Fifth Street By James McManus

I alternate my reading fiction first then non fiction and vow to read a lot more in '08. I definitely need to record what I read more. Fifth Street refers to the fifth community card laid down in Texas Hold em poker otherwise known as the "river". McManus was sent to report on the World Series Of Poker and a scandelous murder trial happening at the same time. the book starts out like gangbusters it has a crazy murder scene that is insane and rockin. but i didn't realize what the book was exactly it alternates between James entering of the tournement and how far he gets with this murder story. I was thrown off at first the tone changes wildly paragraph to paragraph its memoir, no its a history of poker no its a how to book. It never lost me. The poker sequences were my favorite and i wish it stayed with that but that was not what this book is. I did really enjoy the shout outs to other books in this vein ( Into thin Air, Among The Thugs, and of course Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas) Hunter Thompson's ghost is all over this book try as it might though it never reaches that book.

The Abstimence Teacher By Tom Perrotta

The latest from the author of Little Children and Election. I enjoyed the characterizations and shifting points of view. I wasn't thrilled with the parts of the book at the end that reduced it to just a debate about religion. Perrotta does an excellent job of subverting your ideas and reversing the typical roles you would expect

Perfect From Now On By John Sellers

I'm a sucker for books like this . Perfect From Now On reminds me of Chuck Klosterman's work. Meaning a lot of popculture references and an obsessed fan. that shouldn't be a surprise seeing as how Klosterman blurbed this book. My last nonfiction book was was the Rob Sheffield book which this book really reminds me of. The book is really the transformation of an awkward teenage boy with an unhealthy Duran Duran fixation into a hipster with musical taste better than yours or mine. If that sounds bitter I don't mean it to Sellers has a real talent for making me angry with his cooler than you musical tstes yet somehow he really makes me or anyone my age see ourself. I would love to hang out with him and have beers if only to explain why he is wrong in some cases. I just have to say he really does put himself out there and he know what kind of criticism he is going to take. One last thing, there is a little gimmick of making the book HEAVILY footnoted and while it could be annoying I didn't mind it one bit.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

I'm embarresed to say I've never read this classic from 1969. I have to say I was a little lost at first. This is a difficult book to get through I really enjoyed the style and phrasings but the plot and metaphors were a little hard for me. Then I slowed down and realized that plot is not the be all end all of some great books and sometimes a book has a reason for being so stylistic. The bombing of Dresden in which over 20,000 people died is unerplayed these days. It certainly was not something I knew about. Vonnegut was a witness as soldier to it and remebering that is ultimately what the book is about. He is a character in the book adnstarts the first chapter talking about his attempts to write about the bombings he tells you how the story will start and what the last line of the book will be. Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time and starts going backwards and forwards in his life after he is kidnapped by aliens. It's a ridiculous story and I thought that was the story but then I began to realize that the real story is twofold the aliens and time travel are figments of Pilgrim's imagination they are his ways of coping with what happened during the war. whats more since you never forget that the real Kurt is a character in the story and really witnessed the bombing the structure and quck scenes nature of this book is the author's way of trying to comunicate the horror of this but finds you cannot truly do that. this was the first book in a long time that I can't wait to read again I loved this book and feel it will reveal more and more each time I revisit it.