What are you reading now?

[bambam1729]

IMO, the following is a much better book on the DDR sports program:

Synthetic Medals: East German Athletes' Journey to Hell

https://www.amazon.com/Synthetic-Med...926036&sr=8-14

How do you know that? I had never heard of the book and went to amazon to order it and its not out until Jan 1, 2023????

Faust's Gold is pretty good. Another book, which is older, and also pretty good, although it doesn't go as much into the doping as later books (because it came out in 1979 and it wasn't proven yet), was The Miracle Machine (https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Machi.../dp/069810952X).

[Atticus]

How do you know that? I had never heard of the book and went to amazon to order it and its not out until Jan 1, 2023????

..

the Kindle eBook is available now and can be read on any device with the free Kindle app.

[Black September]

How do you know that? I had never heard of the book and went to amazon to order it and its not out until Jan 1, 2023????

Faust's Gold is pretty good. Another book, which is older, and also pretty good, although it doesn't go as much into the doping as later books (because it came out in 1979 and it wasn't proven yet), was The Miracle Machine (https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Machi.../dp/069810952X).

I read it in July.

The author has some interesting conjecture about Doug Gilbert's death, which I suppose was possible with the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit.

Many years ago I spent time at some of the DDR training sites, eg, Bundesleistungszentrum Kienbaum and the Deutsche Hochschule für Körperkultur in Leipzig, and came to the conclusion that there was far more to their success than state plan 14.25.

[lonewolf]

National Geographic October 1928. Pristine apparently new copy. Christma gift completes my collection of NGs 1918-2022.
I Inherited 1918-1998 from my late MIL. Her collection was a wedding gift from her husband who bought her a $50 lifetime subscription ($985 inflation-adjusted) that she enjoyed for 80 years.

[79]

Death in the Afternoon, by Ernest Hemingway.

[Halfmiler2]

I just finished a novel based on a high school cross country team and thought it quite good. The name is “Where the Lions Roar” and the author is Albert Siuta. It was published last year. I met the author during my track & field travels in Florida this month.

I read the book from an interesting perspective having myself written a novel (“Relay”) for young adults in 2009. But my story did not include cross country - only an indoor & outdoor track & field season.

This novel is an adult novel (albeit PG) that is entertaining and well paced. Of course, I am also partial to it since the story is in New Jersey circa early 2000s - not in my part of the state and after my time - but I know of which he writes.

Anyway to avoid any spoilers, I will just recommend it as a good read to anyone with a running background.

[DrJay]

Ten years ago I enjoyed Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett, so I just read the prequel, The Evening and the Morning. I found the narration and dialogue really dry and simplistic. I don't recall thinking that about Pillars, but that was ten years ago. I had thought to reread Pillars then read World Without End and A Column of Fire but now I'm not sure it's worth it.

[gm]

Ten years ago I enjoyed Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett, so I just read the prequel, The Evening and the Morning. I found the narration and dialogue really dry and simplistic. I don't recall thinking that about Pillars, but that was ten years ago. I had thought to reread Pillars then read World Without End and A Column of Fire but now I'm not sure it's worth it.

I enjoyed this series of novels, but I can see where it may not be everyone's cup of tea.

[Adam$]

I grabbed a bunch of new bio's for various reasons. The new Paul Newman, not good. Brief, odd, beer obsessed and I like Paul. Anthony Bourdain, highly stylized writing kind of hard on the dead multi-media guy and perhaps deserved. Never saw his show by the way. 'G-man", the long J.Edgar Hoover work by a Yale prof. I was looking for some things that weren't included but there were some new-to-me info on MLK which will be out there for years to come.

Charlie Watts, dead Stones drummer was proud of the group but didn't like their music. Everyone liked the guy.
Viola Davis: I knew someone mentioned in her book and I wanted to see what this relentlessly driven actress said about their association? She had a tough existence moving from rural SC to a Quebecois ghetto in RI. She survived but it was pretty gross.and wish I passed on this one.

[DET59]

Reading "The Night Watch" by British historical fiction writer Sarah Waters, after finishing two of her earlier books (Tipping the Velvet, Fingersmiths). Very well written WWII fiction.

[DrJay]

Finished Rick Atkinson's "An Army at Dawn" and starting book two in his Liberation Trilogy, "The Day of Battle." Needed some WWII reading. Well written, worth the read.

[lonewolf]

Empire of the Summer Moon, The Rise and Fall of the Comanches. Extensively researched and brutally descriptive. Somehow, my ancestors survived both sides of the Indian Wars.

My UK-born paternal great-grandfather, a severely wounded Union veteran, homesteaded in Missouri before the Civil War. In 1896, when the Cheyenne-Arapahoe reservation in western Indian Territory opened to homesteading, he homesteaded in Washita County. His Missouri-born son, my paternal grandfather, homesteaded in Comanche territory in Western Kansas in the closing years of the Indian Wars. In 1902, when the Kiowa-Comanche reservation in SW Oklahoma was opened to homesteading, he came to Oklahoma and homesteaded again in Kiowa County, six miles from his father's homestead. My father (1909) and I (1931), were born on this homestead.

After the Civil War, my maternal great-grandfather, a wounded Confederate veteran, migrated to Comanche territory in Texas and married a plains-born Comanche woman. One of their daughters married my maternal Mississippi-born Choctaw/Creek grandfather. That family migrated to Washita County, OK, and settled two miles north of my father. My Texas-born (1911) Choctaw mother and native Okie father (1909) attended the same rural HS that I did twenty years later.
Ya just never know how things are going to work out, do ya?

Any athletic ability I have I attribute to my mother who, by all accounts, was a star basketball player, the only sport open to women in 1928-30. When she attended my basketball games in the 1940s, as soon as she entered the gym the crown would set up a chant, "Annette, Annette" until she went onto the court in heels and hose and swished a few. In her 90s, she was still a worthy HORSE competitor, albeit the 3-pointers were a strain.

As far as I know, my father and grandfather never played any organized sport, average size men for their time, were both known locally for their exceptional strength. That probably helped.

I know, TMI, but I was on a roll.

[bad hammy]

I know, TMI, but I was on a roll.

After being active here for close to two decades this place is sort of an autobiographical research center for many of us - lots of raw contemporary thoughts & info.