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writesdave's reviews
360 reviews
Loving Sports When They Don't Love You Back: Dilemmas of the Modern Fan by Jessica Luther, Kavitha Davidson
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks by Ken Jennings
adventurous
challenging
funny
informative
relaxing
medium-paced
4.0
In 10th grade social studies, we had a unit on geography, during which our lesson landed us in New York City. My teacher asked if anyone could name a borough, and I rattled off Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island. He mentioned this to my mom at parent-teacher conferences a couple weeks later, pointing out that no one else in the class knew what a borough was (neither did I, beyond NYC's anointed subdivisions), and my mom nodded knowingly. "Of course, the New York Marathon runs through all five boroughs."
So it makes sense that I spend parts of my days even now reading maps like books, poring over places I want to visit, places I've lived—you know, it doesn't matter. I just love reading maps, whether for planning or edification. I always have, earning the designation as my family's navigator at a young age. Maps help me relate to the world, all of it, near- and far-flung.
Jeopardy legend Ken Jennings apparently suffers from the same affliction, and he plumbed the depths of cartophilia in this book, where he chronicles the National Geographic Society's Geography Bee, catches up with the inventor of geocaching, hangs out in the map rooms at the Library of Congress, and more. I think I love maps, geography and pondering humankind's relationship with the physical world, but I learned I have another level to achieve true mapheadedness from Jennings' entertaining read and the people he found. Cool stuff if you dig this sort of thing, because you are truly not alone.
So it makes sense that I spend parts of my days even now reading maps like books, poring over places I want to visit, places I've lived—you know, it doesn't matter. I just love reading maps, whether for planning or edification. I always have, earning the designation as my family's navigator at a young age. Maps help me relate to the world, all of it, near- and far-flung.
Jeopardy legend Ken Jennings apparently suffers from the same affliction, and he plumbed the depths of cartophilia in this book, where he chronicles the National Geographic Society's Geography Bee, catches up with the inventor of geocaching, hangs out in the map rooms at the Library of Congress, and more. I think I love maps, geography and pondering humankind's relationship with the physical world, but I learned I have another level to achieve true mapheadedness from Jennings' entertaining read and the people he found. Cool stuff if you dig this sort of thing, because you are truly not alone.
Darkness to Sunlight: The Life-Changing Journey of Zaid Abdul-Aziz (Don Smith) by Abdul-Aziz Zaid, Abdul-Aziz Zaid
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
Interesting, engaging and by-the-numbers autobiography of an NBA and college basketball star. Could’ve used another edit.
We Will Win the Day: The Civil Rights Movement, the Black Athlete, and the Quest for Equality by Louis Moore
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
I learned a lot I didn't know before, and what else can you ask of academic-level non-fiction? This book focuses on the people and less on the issues, which is a good move because anyone reading this book will know the issues and not necessarily the people. It does a great job of filling in some blank spaces in the general knowledge.
Could've used another edit, though.
Could've used another edit, though.
Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor
dark
funny
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
In Black History Month, I apparently chose the most cornpone, whitebread novel ever written, penned by one of the most cornpone, whitebread entertainers of our time. I really wanted to like it because these are my people—I grew up in the rural midwest and even attended high school in the Sodom and Gomorrah of St. Cloud, just down the road from fictitious Lake Wobegon (just so you know, St. Cloud people consider Minneapolis-St. Paul [aka The Cities] a den of iniquity, so it makes sense that most of my friends from high school now live there). But it just pissed me off that these people still live in Lake Wobegon, still have their little idyllic town closed off from civilization, still hold the same worldview with pursed-lipped forced "niceness," and still send their kids to the same schools and churches they attended.
I suppose it's nice to have roots (says a guy with two pages of entries on his résumé and zero ties to where he grew up) and know that some things never change. I heard every word of this book in the unique Central Minnesota accent that my parents insist I picked up during the three-and-a-half years I lived there. And I could imagine walking into the Chatterbox for a coffee and conversation, only to realize I've silenced the room because I'm new there and no one knew my parents or grandparents. I could tell that it was meant to be funny, too, but at no point did I laugh at any of it because these people are just sad. It could have been the untreated depression, too. I don't know.
Also, I'm a product of my times because I know these people voted for trump and the papers from Minneapolis, Chicago, New York and DC sent their reporters on anthropological fact-finding missions to understand these people. Truth to tell, if you've ever left where you've grown up and seen any part of the unfamiliar world, you'll never understand these people. So I wholeheartedly recommend this book five years ago to every big-city newspaper editor who ever assigned a reporter to a diner in flyover country; you could have saved a lot of corporate money in pandering to the electorate.
I suppose it's nice to have roots (says a guy with two pages of entries on his résumé and zero ties to where he grew up) and know that some things never change. I heard every word of this book in the unique Central Minnesota accent that my parents insist I picked up during the three-and-a-half years I lived there. And I could imagine walking into the Chatterbox for a coffee and conversation, only to realize I've silenced the room because I'm new there and no one knew my parents or grandparents. I could tell that it was meant to be funny, too, but at no point did I laugh at any of it because these people are just sad. It could have been the untreated depression, too. I don't know.
Also, I'm a product of my times because I know these people voted for trump and the papers from Minneapolis, Chicago, New York and DC sent their reporters on anthropological fact-finding missions to understand these people. Truth to tell, if you've ever left where you've grown up and seen any part of the unfamiliar world, you'll never understand these people. So I wholeheartedly recommend this book five years ago to every big-city newspaper editor who ever assigned a reporter to a diner in flyover country; you could have saved a lot of corporate money in pandering to the electorate.
My Losing Season: A Memoir by Pat Conroy
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Stunningly beautiful sports memoir (four words that don't often appear in succession) by a guy best known for Southern Fiction™, this book is not your average sports memoir in that you'll find few bombshells and a unique devotion to getting it right, manifested in hours of interviews with the principals.
You know Conroy's story—raised in a brutally abusive home, educated at a brutally abusive fake-military academy, emerged as the late 20th century's premier Southern Novelist™. But you probably didn't know he started at point guard for a sorry excuse for a basketball team, coached by a tyrant on a level with his abusive dad. That said, he mined those memories for lessons learned from losing, not least his decision to write for a living, reached on an interminable bus trip from a game and cultivated by a pleasant surprise of a mentor.
The prose is amazing and the memories crystal-clear. Plus, the indelible connection between Conroy's basketball and his writing life emerges early on, giving connoisseurs of the literature-sports interplay a mountaintop experience. I can't explain how enjoyable this book was beyond the word salad I've offered; maybe it just hit right at this point in my life. I can't explain any more clearly than the word salad I've offered here. As an frustrated writer and athlete myself, I offer a nod to Conroy as he sits the bench in the great beyond—he got it right.
You know Conroy's story—raised in a brutally abusive home, educated at a brutally abusive fake-military academy, emerged as the late 20th century's premier Southern Novelist™. But you probably didn't know he started at point guard for a sorry excuse for a basketball team, coached by a tyrant on a level with his abusive dad. That said, he mined those memories for lessons learned from losing, not least his decision to write for a living, reached on an interminable bus trip from a game and cultivated by a pleasant surprise of a mentor.
The prose is amazing and the memories crystal-clear. Plus, the indelible connection between Conroy's basketball and his writing life emerges early on, giving connoisseurs of the literature-sports interplay a mountaintop experience. I can't explain how enjoyable this book was beyond the word salad I've offered; maybe it just hit right at this point in my life. I can't explain any more clearly than the word salad I've offered here. As an frustrated writer and athlete myself, I offer a nod to Conroy as he sits the bench in the great beyond—he got it right.
Got to Be Something Here: The Rise of the Minneapolis Sound by Andrea Swensson
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0