Any book recommendations?

Fantasy Fiction: Gardens of the Moon. Book 1 of the Malazan Book of the Fallen.

https://www.amazon.com/Gardens-Moon-Malazan-Book-Fallen/dp/0765348780

SDSU Aztec wrote:

Rojo is going on a vacation and unless he's an intellectual like you guys, he should read something entertaining.

This thread is by wejo, not rojo.

But the book I suggested has a guy dealing with issues at work and with his wife and dealing with his kids.

His manufacturing plant is about to be shut down and his wife leaves him because he's spending too much time at work.

I found it entertaining.

"26.2 miles to happiness" by Paul Tonkinson. He has managed to earn a living as a comedian and media personality in the UK for 25 years. This is his story of trying to run a sub 3-hour London Marathon. A good listen as an audio book. I was particularly interested in his terrible time growing up and hating his stepmother.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7974381/Comedian-Paul-Tonkinson-reveals-hilarious-hurdles-faced-training-marathon.html

I would love some feedback on the opening chapter of my forthcoming book in hopes that I can make this list someday!

(Spoiler alert; it takes place at Hayward Field)

https://www.thelongrunbook.com/talents

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!

~Ben

Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests. Tom Shales

Very interesting and funny behind the scenes look at SNL from day one to the 2010s.

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman.

Seminal work on how the government and big business manipulate the media to accomplish an agenda that the public would never support had the media done its job and reported the truth.

Just finished a great read- " The Third Pole" about a group of mountaineers who go to Everest in 2018 to try to find the body of Sandy Irvine, who with George Mallory were lost close to the summit in 1924.

There is debate whether they reached the summit before succumbing. Mallory's body was found in 1999. Irvine had a mechanical camera that Kodak said would possibly still be intact if found- could verify if they reached the summit.

Pretty disgusting what Everest has become- too many climbers with not enough experience but plenty of money making it a total dumpster fire.

The mountain is littered with trash and discarded supplies as well as dead bodies as it is too hard to get them down. They basically just freeze up there forever.

In 2018 7 people died trying to ascend

"Showdown at Shepherd's Bush: The 1908 Olympics and the Three Runners Who Launched a Sporting Craze" by David Davis (2012). Some quotes:

"For pretending to have finished first, the AAU banned Fred Lorz for life. There was no talk of Thomas Hicks being stripped of his gold medal because, in 1904, drugs in sports were not illegal. Trainers and athletes were experimenting with substances as fast as the scientists unmasked their properties in the laboratory. The energy-boosting capability of amphetamine, first synthesized in 1887, was well recognized, and coca compounds were both legal and popular."

"Strychnine in tiny doses acts as a stimulant for the central nervous system, with what researchers claimed as “positive effects on fatigue and physical exercise.”"

"Thomas Hicks was lucky to have survived the triple threat to his body: sustained physical exertion, heat, and doping. His handler, Lucas, saw it differently. The victory, he wrote, “from a medical standpoint, demonstrated that drugs are of much benefit to athletes along the road, and that warm sponging is much better than cold sponging for an athlete in action.”"

Here is a longer list of running books with ratings and reviews.

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/135433.Best_Running_Books

A movie you might enjoy. "The Games" (1970). There is a sub two-hour attempt made in the 1970 film during the Olympics.

From IMDB: "Four marathon runners (one from England, one from the U.S., a Czechoslovakian, and an Australian Aborigine) prepare to run in the Olympic games. The film follows each one and shows what their motivations are for running in the games."

Non-runners do not like this film, but I thought it was well done. There are real marathon running scenes (extended, not just clips), and there are discussions about doping. And, best of all, one runner takes off on a sub 2-hour marathon attempt ... in the Olympics! And announcing the the race is a guy named Rafer Johnson playing himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT-AfLycsEo

"Barbarian Days" by William Finnegan

aurelius wrote:

"Barbarian Days" by William Finnegan

I literally just finished reading this last week -- it was great.

wejo wrote:

Going away for a couple of days with my wife. Anyone got a book recommendation? I usually read non fiction but am up for a novel as well.

Anything by Robert Bolano. I would avoid chuddy books on athletic pseudo-science.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. Basically a great book about the art of the short story using Russian literature/writers as examples.

The Codebreaker by Walter Isaacson

Trevor Noah's book (Born A Crime) was fantastic

The Kaiser's Holocaust

Talent Is Overrated

- Geoff Colvin

"Narcissis and Goldmund" by Hermann Hesse. It's a lot easier read than you would expect.

Red Storm Rising

Without Remorse

~Both by Tom Clancy

Without Remorse is also a movie on Amazon Prime as of 4/30.

RSR was written by Clancy to see how a Cold War between the US and USSR would go hot, but without nukes. It's actually required reading by military academies!

https://www.reddit.com/r/wargame/comments/5tzgcd/psa_reminder_to_read_red_storm_rising_by_tom/