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kurtwombat's reviews
883 reviews
The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit by Ron Shelton
funny
informative
lighthearted
fast-paced
3.75
This book is for a specific audience. You pretty much have to be a fan of the movie Bull Durham to get into this book. I also happen to be a fan of the city of Durham which helps also. If you are, then you will find much of this fascinating--he covers the origin of the story and the birth of it's characters, the crafting of the screenplay and translating it to film in a straightforward informative manner. If you are not a fan of the movie you will likely not care about any of it. Written by the writer/director, the book touches on broader industry topics but usually with a throwaway line or quip. A minor league player himself, his career is treated as a series of impressions rather than a personal history. Alas, I am a fan of the movie and Durham, so this is in my wheelhouse--otherwise this would be three stars.
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson
challenging
informative
tense
slow-paced
4.25
Mostly interesting, sometimes fascinating look at the birth and blossoming of the CRISPR gene editing technology. CRISPR promises to accelerate advancements in science the way AI suggests it might across all fields of technology (and that’s a book I want to read). Thankfully this book was written with non-science readers in mind—I was mostly able to follow the lab work with minimal re-reading—of course I’m not exactly prepared to write a dissertation (on not much of anything). The book focuses on one scientist, Jennifer Doudna, as an access point to the technology. This works well towards the beginning of the book but as more people hop on the CRISPR train, the biography part falls apart. The author warns at the beginning that several scientists involved in this work deserve their own books—this book would have been better served if CRISPR was considered the biographical center. With CRISPR always at the center such topics as the patent and ethics of use battles might not have felt like narrative stalling digressions. The timing of the book benefits from the Covid pandemic which offers another fascinating chapter—Doudna brought back into the narrative as someone working on the cutting edge of testing research. You can feel the author soft stepping around his sources to keep them talking—maybe this is just par for the course in covering such a topic or another downside to treating it like a biography. Well worth the read though some portions will require you to hunker down and push through to the next interesting topic.
Praying for Gil Hodges: A Memoir of the 1955 World Series and One Family's Love of the Brooklyn Dodgersc by Thomas Oliphant
4.0
A lifelong Dodger fan, I certainly enjoyed the detailed recreation of the Dodger's only title in Brooklyn but that is only the surface of Oliphant's look at his childhood. The continually thwarted aspirations of the Dodgers mirrored his loving parent's struggles with financial and health problems while steeping their only child in the unique art and culture of a condensed and thriving Brooklyn post WW II. The Dodger's victory acts as a kind of familial crescendo of bonding, love and the understanding that some moments crystalize perfectly who we are, what we want and just what we need to hold onto.
Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light by Patrick McGilligan
4.0
If you want the nuts and bolts of Hitchcock's personal life and what he had for breakfast...you have come to the wrong book. This is a fabulous book, however, for following his movie career from film to film and follwoing his growth as a filmaker. How he built his movie making family is the focus here more so than his home life...except to the extent that they intersected. Just how important his wife was in his work life is fascinating..she was involved in filmaking before he was. From stories about his loving to work with Peter Lorre except that Lorre's drug addiction got in the way to his notorious manipulation of his leading ladies to the evolution of each movie script before glittering to the screen. A delightful read for movie junkies.
Joker by Brian Azzarello
4.0
A devilish birthday present. Love the art work by Lee Bermejo...vibrant, sharp, detailed, dark spirited and always seemed to choose the best angle. Joker from the Dark Knight film filtered through noir and doom. How dark is dark...turn to the next page and find out.
Hellblazer: Damnation's Flame by Garth Ennis
3.0
A fun, dark and somewhat hallucinatory read. John Constantine, the main character of the Hellblazer series, skirts hell on earth and elsewhere. Conflict with soul supposed to be in the middle of the pack as far as this long lived series goes...this is one I just happened to find at my favorite used bookstore (Reader's Corner in Raleigh, NC) Have found the Graphic Novel movement of interest as it seems a vivid mixture of two things I love....books...movies. It is no accident that the movies seem to love comic books. The value of the human soul seems to be a recurrent theme in this series....also something I find of interest.
Blues for Mister Charlie: A Play by James Baldwin
4.0
James Baldwin's first play is as much a tender revalation of both sides of the racial divide as it is a scathing broadside against racism. Wonderful speeches never feel forced as each character is given a honest voice. A young black man murdered in a small southern town...everyone is complicit...even the victim. And everyone, in the end, is a victim. Baldwin as always expresses what it is to be human.
Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson
4.0
Science Fiction that seems to drift just little past our current reality. Each page carries you just a bit further until suddenly you realize you can't get back. Anything that was intersting about the Matrix films was lifted liberally from Gibson's work. This story deals with celebrity, destiny and the pursuit of dreams realized in quite unreal fashion. Four story lines are gradually intertwined only to unravel in spectacular fashion. Wondrous is his virtual prediction of the internet and all that it allows and can reveal.
The Areas of My Expertise: An Almanac of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order by John Hodgman
4.0
If you find the idea of a Hobo rebellion nearly overturning the American government oddly compelling, this is the book for you. And if there are dozens of facts that you need to have confirmed for you are not true...this is the book for you. A joyous and rye look at the missing facts of American History and how we are left sadder for their never having occurred. I look forward to reading his sequel which even now is sitting quietly, if suspiciously, on my shelf.
Alan's War: The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope by Emmanuel Guibert
4.0
Memoir as matter of fact revalation told through simple yet involving art in graphic novel form. Cope's memories of WWII involve very little actual combat but reveal a lot about the other aspects of army life at that time. Most of the memories are brief but add up on the whole to a life in progress. The novel in most linear though there are some dips here and there to earlier and later in the subject's life. Some of the moments shared are pivotal to that life, others merely gentle revalations of what it is to be human. The simple images are like a framework that the reader is encouraged to fill in with their own take on the memory--as a reader of any novel creates their own images. And of course the war of the title does not only refer to WWII but also struggles of identity involving religion and nationality. A good read, like a long, comfortable conversation drifting into the wee hours of the morning.