writesdave's reviews
309 reviews

No Bull: The Real Story of the Durham Bulls and the Rebirth of a Team and a City by Ron Morris

emotional informative lighthearted reflective fast-paced

3.5

My annual baseball read took me to Durham, N.C., where Ron Morris, longtime sports journalist, chronicled the rise of the Durham Bulls from their revival in the 1980 season through the movie to the present day (at least to the book's publication in 2017). It's a solid look at what it takes to run a minor-league baseball team, as well as a hefty dose of nostalgia from an old sportswriter, linking the early 1990s boom in minor-league baseball to the success of the Bulls after their founding. 

He captured the characters on the team well, devoting a final chapter to where each player landed after his time in Durham. You'll see a few familiar names, too, though again the personalities stand out. A good beat writer like Ron certainly knows a team well enough to bring out those characters.

Ron just needed a more strident editor to close a couple of narrative loops and check some facts. The style is a little dry, too, but I understand the desire to inform and chronicle. No, I couldn't have done any better.

Thanks to my buddy Alex, who knows Ron well, for loaning me the book.

Semicolon: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark by Cecelia Watson

challenging funny informative lighthearted reflective medium-paced

4.5

I rarely read other reviews of any book, but I don't know how many describe a couple hundred pages about a punctuation mark as "fun." And this was fun. Really.

Watson takes an exhaustive (but not exhausting) view of a reviled punctuation mark and offers prime examples of proper use, misuse and overuse, while leaving the reader to decide the semicolon's efficacy. A great book for writers in particular, it is one of those books you didn't know you needed. 

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Thoroughly depressing and beautifully written chronicle of a 1950s marriage, like if "The Dick Van Dyke Show" got rebooted on HBO, and Van Dyke's alcoholism was central to the plot. You have everything the boomers tried to cover up—domestic violence, alcoholism, philandering, lousy jobs they hate, abandoned dreams and stay-at-home moms who self-medicate. The kids get no attention, probably for a reason. Again, it's the train wreck of domestic life that never made it to prime time.

The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey

adventurous challenging emotional informative tense medium-paced

4.5

I'll give it 4.5 stars, as Susan Casey quite proficiently toed the line between grasping and expressing the science while embracing the mysticism of the ocean, specifically the increasingly malevolent waves that scare shore dwellers and thrill surfers. she went literally to the ends of the earth to chase the story, from the staid offices of Lloyd's of London, to an oceanography lab in a rough part of Cape Town, to the idyllic breaks on the north shore of Maui. And she captured the spirit in speaking with the denizens of all three locales (and beyond). 

I'll call it a "fun" read with the qualification that you do need to prepare yourself for doses of science and meathead bravado, but Susan did well.

In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin

adventurous challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

Bruce Chatwin's travel classic has not aged well, as it reads the way you would expect a travelogue from a rich Brit traveling in a poor, downtrodden land lifted out of its savagery by the benevolent Europeans (please note sarcasm). His reverence for the land is admirable and his descriptions beautiful, but note some seriously colonial attitudes on full display. That said, Chatwin is as intrepid a traveler as he is proficient a writer; full marks for his immersive experience. 

This book also goes to show that the people one encounters on one's travels are just as important as sights seen. Much of the narrative pertains to the people who first turned the spotlight to this rough, far-flung corner of the world, including two well-known American outlaws who beat the fuzz to South America before their notorious end. The book tracks with Muir's "Travels in Alaska" in its patronizing treatment of the culture and its lionization of the people and land.

She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

If Job were a woman and stopped believing in god, she'd be Dolores Price. Everything you could imagine that can happen to someone probably happened to Dolores. And for better or worse, Wally Lamb takes us along for the ride.

(I picked up this book because it shares a title with a song, a theme in my reading life.) 

The Chitlin' Circuit: And the Road to Rock 'n' Roll: And the Road to Rock 'n' Roll by Preston Lauterbach

emotional informative lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

4.5

Fun ride through the predominantly rural parts of our fair country, hearing the origins of rock and roll in the rhythm and blues that shook the walls of a network of Black nightclubs and roadhouses. From the turn of the 20th century, when savvy businessmen realized people would pay money to hear live music, to the Civil Rights and Urban Renewal era, where unscrupulous politicians plowed under nearly seven decades of music history in the name of "progress," Lauterbach covers all the bases in a deeply researched and lovingly told story he spent nearly seven years writing.

One on One by Tabitha King

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Miss Wyoming by Douglas Coupland

adventurous dark funny lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

A rollicking mover of a mystery/romance/comedy involving a child actress grown up, her various lovers and a cast of misfits (including her stage mother). Thrill of the chase, to say the least. I loved Coupland's disruption of the time element, as each chapter marks a different stage of the characters' lives, but I found it easy to follow.

A quibble: A car accident in Colorado Springs would not have disrupted traffic between Denver and Cheyenne. Grr. Sincerely, a former Wyomingite.

The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Soccer by David Goldblatt

adventurous challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.5

David Goldblatt deserves kudos for even attempting to chronicle the world's game from its origins to the relatively present day, starting with cave drawings of people kicking around spherical objects through the leadup to the 2006 World Cup (sorry, Zidane headbutting Matarazzi didn't happen before press time). He takes in the cultural, social, political and economic aspects of the game and puts them all in multiple contexts over time. It's a beast of a book but incredibly readable, and it doesn't require any more from me. For the soccer fan, absolutely, but also for the well-rounded sports fan.