Reading Copy

Talking of baseball, our friends at Fine Books & Collections magazine have provided a fascinating article on rare baseball books. Now I can grasp the concepts behind many rare cricket books but baseball is not my strong point so this article was an education for me.

While the historians hit for accuracy in their books, the autobiographies of players often swing and miss by miles. Many early players were barely literate, and if the books weren’t ghostwritten, then their stories were as whitewashed as Tom Sawyer’s fence.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Polar opposites but lots of people love America’s pastime or messing about in the garden….

The Chicago Sun-Times reviews the latest baseball books.

The St Louis Post Dispatch reviews some of the latest gardening books.

Popularity: 24% [?]

The Guardian has an obituary for the French author, Alain Robbe-Grillet.

A Harry Potter nutter is hoping to get a £40,000 pay day by flogging off his collection of 553 first editions reports the Ediniburgh Evening News.

Book recommendation of the day - Uppies and Downies: The Extraordinary Football Games of Britain by Hugh Hornby. Read this article about a real sport to find out why you should buy this book.

Ten literary suicides.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Sports books are one of my passions, particularly football books, American football that is, although I also read soccer books too but they are, of course, football books in reality.

With the Super Bowl around the corner, some of my thoughts and recommendations about great football books are currently on the site. Everyone should read Friday Night Lights.

Since I wrote that piece I’ve actually moved on to another football book - It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium by John Ed Bradley. I’m really enjoying it - the book is written by a former LSU center who turned to writing after his college career ended.

Popularity: 13% [?]

NFL kicker Jason Elam, who plays for the Denver Broncos, has published a spy thriller - Monday Night Jihad (football, terrorism and spying).

Popularity: 15% [?]

The world of baseball is officially imploding today with the publication of the Mitchell Report into steriod abuse among players. Stars like Roger Clemens and many others are now implicated. Let’s remember it was a book that really started the ball rolling here - Game of Shadows written by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, and published in 2006.

Popularity: 12% [?]

A blogger at The Guardian has six football books for us (that’s David Beckham football rather than Peyton Manning football).

The Baltimore Sun recommends new cookbooks.

The NY Times recommends art and architecture books.

Popularity: 23% [?]

The Associate Press is reporting that author David Halberstam died yesterday in a car accident.  Halberstam was on his way to an interview when the crash occurred.

Halberstam began his writing career as a journalist but in 1967 he left daily journalism and began writing books.  His topics varied from politics to sports to civil rights.  In 2002, he was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction for his bestseller, War in a Time of Peace.

Popularity: 18% [?]

I was a bit irked watching Saturday’s hockey game.  No, I’m not referring to the Canucks loss to Dallas, although that was frustrating. I’m referring to the waving of white towels by Dallas fans.  “Towel Power” is a show of fan support for the Vancouver Canucks and to see the Dallas crowd waving white flags seemed almost sacrilegious if not unoriginal. 

Fan traditions go down in sports history.  Take for example the throwing of octopi on the ice by Detroit fans or the tossing of rubber rats by Florida Panther’s fans.  You’ll find these accounts not only on the Internet but in print books such as Hockey Stories On and Off the Ice by Dan Diamond and James Duplacey. The tradition becomes associated with the team and the team’s fans.  Towel Power is a Vancouver Cancucks thing and I think this should have been respected.

I mean I, even in my state of non-hockeyness knew of the history of the Towel incident.  It was 1982 and Canucks’ coach, Roger Neilson, waved a white towel on the end of a hockey stick as  signal of surrender after repeated bad calls by the referees in a Western Conference finals game.  At the next Canucks game in Vancouver, thousands of fans waved white towels in support of Neilson’s gesture. 

This year is the 25th Anniversary of the Towel and at home game 3, towels were handed out to Canucks fans at GM Place.  The Canucks’ official web site states:

“To this day the white towel stands a symbol of the Canucks and their unwavering resolve in the face of stiff odds.  It’s a trademark that’s stood the test of time and reminds us why we are all Canucks.”

So come on Dallas, why don’t you find your own tradition? 

Signed,

The Rookie Hockey Fan

Go Canucks Go in tonight’s Game 7!

Popularity: 18% [?]

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are well under way and here in Victoria, support of the Vancouver Canucks is evident in t-shirts and car flags. 

I’m a newbie hockey fan. Quite frankly I hated it when my brother’s love for the game dominated the family TV.  But for some odd reason, a few years ago, I got swept up in the excitement and am now right there with the die-hards watching the Canucks in their battle for the Cup.

I’m catching on to how the game works and that’s becoming evident by my rantings at the television set which, based on statements from the colour commentators, aren’t too far off the mark.  But is there any help for neophytes like myself to get a better understanding of the game?

My first instinct was to search for Hockey for Dummies and sure enough, it exists!  Another book also caught my attention with its title geared toward watching and not playing the game (and the reference to it being “simple”!) - Ice Hockey Made Simple: A Spectator’s Guide .  I think that will be where I’ll start.

So, there could be hope for me yet!  I may be able to talk up the game with the best of them with a bit of reading and continued watching of hockey games.  I am after all, a Canadian.

And one closing note…”Go Canucks Go!”

Popularity: 10% [?]