Reading!

[Bel-Cam Jos]

The series is based on the book of the same name by Mark Stein. Maybe worth adding to your reading list (*drool*), BCJ.

http://www.amazon.com/How-States-Got.../dp/0061431389

It is a very good series as SK said. It was broadcast earlier on the History Channel but this current series appears to have been either upgraded or expanded. Great stuff for history buffs!

And to paraphrase The Little Red Hen, "And so I did."

How the States Got Their Shapes Too by Mark Stein. The first book (without the "Too" word) by this author was still checked out from the library, so I read his second. Based on the individuals who were a part of such disagreements, it traces the development of why the boundaries and borders of the USA states are what they are... now. I suspect the maps won't always look the way they do right now. Some parts were a little funny, but it could even be a primer for US history from the pre-Revolution days to the present.

[JimJamBonds]

Sportscasting. I thought this would be about how the media ie. ESPN influences what we watch and think about sports, instead it was about 'conventional wisdom' and pondered other sporting questions. For example: should a team go for it on 4th down or punt? Do strike zones shrink and expand? Do star players get prefered treatment? Does sitting a player after he gets his fifth foul make sense? At times the book got a bit bogged down in details but even though it wasn't quite what I was expecting it was still an interesting read.

[Bel-Cam Jos]

The first time I'd read an Agatha Christie mystery, Death on the Nile. If only murder could be so easily solved. I had heard of the famous detective Hercule Poirot before, and he is characterized as sometimes polite and genteel, but towards the end became more self-assured and blunt. Still, a good story with good who-can-it-be options. She totally ripped off the Clue movie, I'm sure. And I could learn some French phrases, if I wanted to translate them (I figured out a couple on my own).

Summer reading stats so far: 35 books (a new record, by one), about 8700 pages (around 248 per) read. I might have enough time for another book or so (but I'm sure that 40 books is out of the question).

[Bel-Cam Jos]

The ESPN book, Those Guys Have All the Fun by James A. Miller and Tom Shales finally became available at my library. I read its 740+ pages in three fast days; not quite like Harry Potter, but I still wanted to keep reading. It was simply interviews of dozens, maybe even hundreds, of people associated with the sports network over the 30+ years of its existence, so their paragraph(s) went quickly. I really must be a square, because there was MUCH more profanity than I thought the editors would keep (I knew there'd be some). Some are still jerks and idiots (Jim Gray comes to mind, plus several executives), some changed my view of them (Chris Berman to the negative, Tony Kornheiser to the positive), and others were as I expected (most of the "lesser" anchors and experts). For having "fun" in the title, there wasn't much that was funny, exciting, or unusual to me, though.

I might even have a shot at reading 10K pages this summer now.

[JimJamBonds]

Interesting BCJ, the one thing I heard about TGHATF is that its long in the tooth, earlier this summer I read an ESPN behind the scenes book as well (don't recall the name) I wonder how they compare? Also as a side note there is at least 1-3 more ESPN behind the scenes type books out there.

P.S. Not a Gray fan, REALLY not a Berman fan. I've liked Uncle Tony since he had a show on ESPN radio.

[Bel-Cam Jos]

Didn't Dan and Keith co-write one?

Chris Berman was the only broadcaster I sent a card to have signed (ProSet in the early '90s did NFL contributors in addition to players)... never was returned in any form.

[JimJamBonds]

Yes Dan and Keith did a book called 'The Big Show', my library has it but I've never bothered to check it out figuring its mostly fluff.

[JimJamBonds]

To Be A Runner by Martin Dugard. Its less a book and more of a series of articles about running by the author. Its a decent read, nothing groundbreaking, some of the stuff was amusing, some was meh.

[Bel-Cam Jos]

Well, as today's my last day of "summer" (meaning, from the day after school gets out, to the day I return to work), here are the last three books I finished, plus all the stats you've all been drooling over to read.

The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier. I needed an Australia/Antarctica sci-fi book for my book club, so... ta dah! It's about a group (apparently only 3) of Coca Cola representatives who go to Antarctica to look for pure water for the soft drink company, because apparently the world's water supply in this future (never named by year, but I figure it's really only about 2015 or so) is mostly undrinkable in nature. There are two storylines, one of the living Coke employee crossing the ice and storms trying to find her other companions who left a few weeks (days?) ago. The other is of the dead who are in a heaven/limbo place after death (it's like a small city; people hold jobs/can get injured but not die again/travel around/run a daily newspaper/serve and eat food/etc.). Very interesting, and like the new movie Contagion coming out soon, not the kind of thing I want nefarious people to learn about and give them ideas to destroy humanity and the world.

Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland. It's a fictional way that Renoir created his famous painting, by using the facts already known about him and the painting itself. Not very exciting, and hard to keep my attention (took over a week to read), even by the end once the painting gets finished.

Grime and Punishment by Jill Churchill. Always one for a good (bad?) pun, this book was a short one I had laying around, to add one more to the total. From the back of the book, it's about a "suburban detective" single mom. The last chapter has the mystery solved, sort of. It was okay; just a fast read.

Okay; here's the run-down...

Books read in summer 2011: 39 (previous career high for Bel-Cam: 34 in 2007)

Pages read: 10,300 (previous career high for Bel-Cam: 9,100 in '07)

Authors read by first letter of last name...
A= 1
B= 6 (most)
C= 5
D= 1
E= 1
F= 3
G= 3
H= 1
I= 0
J= 1
K= 2
L= 2
M= 5
N= 0
O= 0
P= 3
Q= 0
R= 1
S= 2
T= 0
U= 0
V= 1
W= 0
X= 0
Y= 0
Z= 1

Genres...
Star Wars/SciFi= 6
Young Adult= 5
Sports= 2
Western= 1
Romance= 1
Bio/Autobiography= 2
Humor= 3
Philosophy= 1
History= 3
Travel= 3
Mystery= 3
General Fiction= 9 (most)

[JimJamBonds]

Women In The Second World War by Neil Storey & Molly Housego. When I checked out this book I thought it was about US women, it wasn't until I got home and started reading it that I realized it is about British women... no matter it was still an interesting (but quick) read.