- Jul 14, 2014
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same have credit….not sure if you will be into it… but would recommend Circe.
Just finished it was pretty good. It’s a novel.
Books. For the literati among us.
- Thread starter FootyLovin
- Start date
same have credit….not sure if you will be into it… but would recommend Circe.
Just finished it was pretty good. It’s a novel.
This one?
Can’t say anything about voices because I don’t have audible, but a fun history book I enjoyed was called “salt: a world history”. It gives a lot of brief history on different societies and their relation to salt including how they cooked with it and acquired it. It’s a good ready especially if you are a foodie.
Not a footie book but a sport book which was pretty good especially if you have a bit of time. It’s called “boys in the boat.” It’s a bit slow at the beginning but it’s an enjoyable read if you know anything about rowing/crew.
Not a footie book but a sport book which was pretty good especially if you have a bit of time. It’s called “boys in the boat.” It’s a bit slow at the beginning but it’s an enjoyable read if you know anything about rowing/crew.
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Second this. Also,
A History of God
Confessions of an Economic Hitman
I read history of god when I was first dating my wife. We're an interfaith couple and I remember it being very interesting. Confessions I read in the late 90's I think. Crazy fascinating memoir exposing the history of some of the underbelly of more recent US history. The original publisher of the book I would eventually send my first manuscript to and ended up being the publisher for my 2 books. So I have an extra soft spot for this book.
For history I'd recommend The Power Broker by Robert Caro, although last I checked, there wasn't an audiobook available - it's all about Robert Moses and building out NYC and LI
For history, Destiny Disrupted. Can’t speak to the audiobook, but I read it on paper and it was quite good. Very wide in scope as well, covering 1400-ish years.
I read “A Woman of No Importance” by Sonya Purnell. If you are into history and WW2 specifically, I recommend checking this book out. This is one of the most incredible and most certainly unrecognized figures of that time period who played an integral part in defeating the Nazis.
I also read 1968 by Mark Kurlansky who also wrote Cod and Salt and found it to be a quick and informative read about a remarkable year.
I also read 1968 by Mark Kurlansky who also wrote Cod and Salt and found it to be a quick and informative read about a remarkable year.
Anything by Caro is worth it. Power Broker is great. The Johnson books are terrific, and I don't even like LBJ.
Here are a few reads I liked from the last couple of years. Don't know how many are in audio format.
- Everest 1922 is a fine read by Conefrey about the first British expeditions to map and ultimately try to climb Everest.
- River of Doubt is a terrific book by Candace Millard about Teddy Roosevelt's post-Presidential expedition to map the course of this river deep in the Amazon rain forest; has to be read to be believed.
- Another great book by Millard is River of the Gods about the British expeditions to find the source of the Nile.
- Bloodlands by Snyder is an excellent, if disturbing, account of the mass killings undertaken by Stalin and Hitler in Eastern Europe before and during WWII.
- Black Hawk Down by Bowden is terrific if you haven't read it.
- If you are a Monty Python fan, So Anyway by John Cleese is a fun read.
- Rise & Fall of the Third Reich by Shirer is a must read if you like history.
- Manchester's 3 volume biography of Churchill is terrific.
- I enjoyed Woody Allen's memoir, Apropos of Nothing.
The Perfect Pass: American Genius and the Reinvention of Football, by S.C. Gwynne.
I've followed football for 50 years and never much cared about Xs and Os. I loved this book. Read it in 2 days.
From the late 1970s to early 2000s American football underwent a slow but massive revolution and eventually almost every team at every level featured a pass-dominant offense instead of the run-oriented style that was universal for decades. Several coaches, teams and programs generated the innovation, including Air Coryell in San Diego, Bill Walsh's West Coast offense in San Francisco, LaVell Edwards at BYU, Dennis Erickson's one-back spread, the run-and-shoot developed by multiple innovators, and the Air Raid developed by Hal Mumme (with Mike Leach) at a series of small colleges and eventually the University of Kentucky.
This book is about the Mumme and the Air Raid, and it's fascinating. One of my favorite themes is how Mumme was obsessed with expanding the field and forcing defenders to cover more space which is a very soccer-familiar concept. Another element is simplicity. Multiple times they hit a plateau and they broke through by simplifying the system and reducing their plays. Their playlist was so small it was not written. They practiced and then ran the same plays over and over and because they practiced roughly a dozen or so plays dozens of times every practice instead of a few hundred plays each once or twice a week, they got really good at them, and could beat teams who were bigger and faster. Plus practices were short which made everyone happy.
Today, almost nobody runs a pure Air Raid, but everyone uses multiple Air Raid elements because defenses still have not figured out how to counter them, which is not as true of the other innovative pass offenses mentioned above.
I've followed football for 50 years and never much cared about Xs and Os. I loved this book. Read it in 2 days.
From the late 1970s to early 2000s American football underwent a slow but massive revolution and eventually almost every team at every level featured a pass-dominant offense instead of the run-oriented style that was universal for decades. Several coaches, teams and programs generated the innovation, including Air Coryell in San Diego, Bill Walsh's West Coast offense in San Francisco, LaVell Edwards at BYU, Dennis Erickson's one-back spread, the run-and-shoot developed by multiple innovators, and the Air Raid developed by Hal Mumme (with Mike Leach) at a series of small colleges and eventually the University of Kentucky.
This book is about the Mumme and the Air Raid, and it's fascinating. One of my favorite themes is how Mumme was obsessed with expanding the field and forcing defenders to cover more space which is a very soccer-familiar concept. Another element is simplicity. Multiple times they hit a plateau and they broke through by simplifying the system and reducing their plays. Their playlist was so small it was not written. They practiced and then ran the same plays over and over and because they practiced roughly a dozen or so plays dozens of times every practice instead of a few hundred plays each once or twice a week, they got really good at them, and could beat teams who were bigger and faster. Plus practices were short which made everyone happy.
Today, almost nobody runs a pure Air Raid, but everyone uses multiple Air Raid elements because defenses still have not figured out how to counter them, which is not as true of the other innovative pass offenses mentioned above.
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I've been enjoying the books of Candice Millard, who writes fascinating histories of discrete events. She does a fantastic job of finding compelling stories that have somehow been overlooked. She's written four books so far.
- River of Doubt - Theodore Roosevelt's post-presidential trip deep into the uncharted Amazon Rain Forest.
- Destiny of the Republic - The assassination of James Garfield.
- Hero of the Empire - Winston Churchill's escape from a Boer prison.
- River of the Gods - The English expedition into the heart of Africa to discover the source of the Nile.
The Garfield book got me on my presidential biography kick. I try to read a couple a year and I've made my up to Grover Cleveland. River of Doubt was just mind blowing. In this day and age of GPS, satellites, cell phones, etc, it was crazy to think they could move deep into the jungle and be incommunicado all that time.
Have you ever read anything bu Doris Kearns Goodwin? I highly recommend Team of Rivals (Lincoln), The Bully Pulpit (T. Roosevelt & Taft) and No Ordinary Time (Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt).
I read the Bully Pulpit. Quite good. Need to read the Lincoln Book.
One thing to put on your list is the trilogy on Teddy Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. They are terrific.
Oh man - this is my thread. I'm bummed out it took me so long to snoop in the off-topic forum.
I personally think 'The Mixer' is one of the better books on soccer history. It breaks down the rise of the premier league story by story -- it was a lot easier to read than 'Inverting the Pyramid' which is very informational, but it can be a slog getting through some of the chapters. If you are ever looking for something that would be easy to follow from a tactics perspective in an audio book, there's a book called 'Soccer IQ'. It breaks a lot of things down in the game that seem very common sense, but not a lot of players do very well: from communication on the field, first touch, playing on the touchline, etc. If you're coaching or playing, its worth the quick read.
I'm gonna go browse this thread now and look for the next check-outs at my library!
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I almost never read this kind of book (history / biography), but decided to trust your recommendation. Really was very enjoyable.
I'm maybe 10-20% through the second book of three books in the Scholomance series by Naomi Novik. The first A Deadly Education, was published in 2020. The series concerns a young woman who we first see in a school for magical youth. One parent died before she was born and she grows up disconnected from the world of magic. She is an outsider in a school rife with cliques, cool kids, and a set of wealthy socially connected students who mostly want nothing to do with her. And that setup aside, this book is nothing like Harry Potter.
Among other things, magic in this series always has a cost, as you cannot just say a spell. Magic requires a special energy, which you can obtain through simple physical activity (which goes slowly) or more by means of stealing energy from other living (or formerly living) things . And our heroine is a particular type of magical person who has an affinity for spells of mass violence which she is trying to suppress. Meanwhile she and the other students spend their 4 years at the school trying to stay alive by avoiding the dangerous magical creatures who literally crawl out of the vents or jump out of drawers or disguise themselves as furniture and just want to suck all the energy from them. Most students do not survive and graduation is especially deadly.
It's YA fiction I guess, though I rarely get that feeling I usually get from other YA books where I think "that's kind of simple and immature but consider what you're reading Mark," which is not to say it's deep or complex either. It is completely original and clever and I highly recommend it.
Among other things, magic in this series always has a cost, as you cannot just say a spell. Magic requires a special energy, which you can obtain through simple physical activity (which goes slowly) or more by means of stealing energy from other living (or formerly living) things . And our heroine is a particular type of magical person who has an affinity for spells of mass violence which she is trying to suppress. Meanwhile she and the other students spend their 4 years at the school trying to stay alive by avoiding the dangerous magical creatures who literally crawl out of the vents or jump out of drawers or disguise themselves as furniture and just want to suck all the energy from them. Most students do not survive and graduation is especially deadly.
It's YA fiction I guess, though I rarely get that feeling I usually get from other YA books where I think "that's kind of simple and immature but consider what you're reading Mark," which is not to say it's deep or complex either. It is completely original and clever and I highly recommend it.
Just finished reading Piranesi by Savanna Clarke. It was a nice quick read. If you’ve ever read “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy it is similar in the fact that the narrator/main character gives you very few contexts clues about what’s going on or how/why they are in the setting they are in. But the main difference is in “The road” the main character knows what’s going on but is slowly sharing it with the reader, while in Piranesi the reader and the main character are figuring out the world together. At times you as the reader seem to know even more than the character via clues that are mentioned but aren’t thought about too closely by the character. It’s very good and I definitely recommend.
Haven't read this but I did read Uprooted by the same author. Pretty good.
My recommendations:
Hearts of Oak if you love a kind of Dr. Who/Star Trek/Princess Bride "wtf is going on" story with spare, action-packed writing
Children of Time trilogy if you love a first contact sci fi space opera grounded in evolutionary biology