When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops has a lot of rehashed stuff from Brain Droppings. It's not as good. My favorite parts are the short things some of the other stuff actually gets annoying.

Finished reading this about a week ago. My first time reading Vonnegut. He has a very funny sense of humor about serious stuff!

Anyone else a fan? Can you suggest the next book I should read by him?

Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness by J.Randy Taraborrelli


Brought this book today, should be an interesting read..

Vonnegut was great. Try "A Man Without A Country." It was his next to last collection of essays, published a few years before his passing. Also, if you know how to reach him, ask LLC. That kid's a HUGE Vonnegut fan.

William Bennett's Volume I: America, The Last Best Hope. It reveals some interesting info about the Founding Fathers which illustrates that the politics of the time were not unlike the politics of today.

I recently bought Mother Night, Cat's Cradle, and Breakfast of Champions for about a dollar combined at garage sales. I have Mother Night as my bathroom book and it's alright but not the best.

Just read THE BIG IF:THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JOHNNY OWEN by Rick Broadbent.

The sad story of Welsh boxer Owen who died of brain injuries recieved in the ring in LA in 1980 when he challenged the mighty Mexican, Lupe Pintor, for his world Bantamweight crown.

Telling the story of Owens life,he came from grinding poverty in the declining coal fields of Wales and boxing was a lifeline for him,it also tells Pintors side. He also came from poor origins and the death of Owen hit him hard!

Worth a read if you can get it in the US.

Peeps need to get into Le Carré, yo. The Constant Gardener's a wonderful access point. It's excellent.

Up next: D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love.

THE YANKEE YEARS

A great and very informative memoir by one of the greatest managers ever in the history of baseball. This book is rather lengthy but full of all kinds of information during Torre's 12 years in the Bronx. The book quotes current and former Yankees David Cone, Derek Jeter, Jason Giambi, Mike Mussina, Johnny Damon, Jorge Posada, and Mariano Rivera the most. Most surprising is the way Torre rips former teammates such as Kevin Brown, Carl Pavano, Randy Johnson, Kenny Lofton, and to an extent, Gary Sheffield. A wonderful look into the behind-the-scenes of the greatest franchise in American sports history. Read how Cashman and Torre's friendship quickly soured in only a couple of years when Cashman was granted more power over the teams day-to-day operations or how quickly due to health reasons George Steinbrenner was pushed out of the picture. If you're a fan of the Yankees or even the game of baseball, I would HIGHLY recommend this book.

My favorite quote from the book came from page 51 from Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane, "And the one thing about getting beat by the Yankees: they did it with class. It was as if they beat you in rented tuxedos."

I just picked up an anniversary edition of Anne Rice's "Interview With The Vampire." I haven't read it in years. I think it's the best vampire book ever written.

Just read DISPATCHES by Michael Herr,the acclaimed book on Vietnam. Very good. One of the best war books i have ever read.

THE ROCKET THAT FELL TO EARTH: ROGER CLEMENS AND THE RAGE FOR BASEBALL IMMORTALITY

A decent but short unauthorized biography about Roger Clemens. I wasn't too familiar with his past (just from what he did in Toronto, New York, and Houston), so to read his history as a young player and his early days in Boston was interesting. However, just like the A-ROD book, A LOT of the sources are not named so I took a lot of the quotes with a grain of salt. Since this book was about the "Roger that we don't know" (i.e. steroids), I would have liked to have seen more depth dealing with the subject matter, Andy Pettitte and Brian McNamee. The author only gives about a chapter or two into these two topics. Again, from beginning to end it's good chronicle of the life of Roger Clemens, but more depth would have been appreciated.

'Liberty and Tyranny'...by the Great One, Mark Levin.

Just read A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES by John Kennedy Toole.

I understand the author committed suicide because he could not get this book published but once it was it won the Pulitzer Award for Fiction?

Very clever stuff that sometimes made me laugh out loud!

Took me a while to get round to it but it was worth the wait!

Any other Pat Conroy fans out there? I love his books, and just found out that his first novel in 14 years is available today. It's called "South of Broad" and has gotten fairly good reviews. I can't wait to pick it up.

AMERICAN ICON: THE FALL OF ROGER CLEMENS AND THE RISE OF STEROIDS IN AMERICA'S PASTIME.

All I can say after reading this book is wow! This is one of the best books I've EVER read. Exhaustively investigated, with great evidence to support their claims. No unnamed sources here or questions posed to the reader. Also, no commentary by the author. Nothing but pure, unadulterated, hard-hitting facts. This book was conducted by a 4 person, investigative team for the New York Daily News. Apparently, the team is rather entrepreneurial in their efforts and have created a very enjoyable and addictive read. If you were ever interested in the Brain McNamee vs. Roger Clemens legal battle or, to a lesser extent, steroids in general, I highly endorse this book!

Anything newsworthy from it?

Nothing really new. Just more in-depth investigating showing when Clemens contradicted himself at least 6 or 7 times in front of Congress and again, more details into how they came to this point with the injections in Toronto and New York.

I haven't read anything about this lately. Is Clemens still denying that he ever used steroids?

Downtown Owl by Chuck Klosterman


Great book. The characters and story are really well done. I think this cracks into my top 5.

Yup. Congress is looking into perjury charges for him and the investigation is ongoing.

STRAW: FINDING MY WAY

This was a sentimental book for me since Darryl Strawberry was my first role model growing up. This book is his story of all the drug & alcohol addictions and womanizing he's done in his life. It's a honest, and real story (during the course of the book you can't help but feel bad for the poor guy because he continues to destroy himself and his family). Not a lot of in depth detail about his escapades or about his playing days. He also talks quite a bit about his relationship with God and what he's currently doing today: namely his charity work for autism awareness.

Brilliant; it's possibly the most 'difficult' novel I've read, more so than Heart of Darkness, due to the 'surface way' (though it isn't 'surface' in substance) in which it deals with the deep emotions of love/hate - or the seeming synonymousness with which it binds the two extremes. Its linguistic repetition seems almost amateurish, but is quite deliberate, and very effective in lending a linearity to events or passages, and also gives a sense of verbal stammering or swooning. It's very moving. Though predominantly and seemingly about the love bond sought between men and women, I cried at two passages involving the friendship between two men, the friendship as a thing of underrated and little-acknowledged rarity of beauty. Lawrence is right: friendship is underrated.

A gorgeous piece of work.

LUSH LIFE by the awesome Richard Price.

Pizza Boy gave this book a big thumbs up and as ever he was quite right. This is a fantastic piece of work. Mr. Price just gets better and better.

CASINO ROYALE

My first James Bond book. A little disappointing at first but it picked up rather quickly. Pretty straight forward and the movie did a great job at remaining true to the book (only about half of the movie does the book cover). I hope the series get better.

I am proud to report to SB that I finally read The Stand!!

I never thought I'd actually start it, but once I did, I was hooked. He develops such great characters, and I always find myself wishing I could continue reading about them. And what a great story it was.

Congrats, Gi!! Whether you're a King fan or not, you have to admire The Stand. The way he builds up from that first sneeze in Texas after the car crash, to that ultimate showdown in Vegas, and manages to keep all his character in line and in, well, character, just astonishes me.

Glad that you enjoyed it. My husband never managed to finish it.

I read The Lost Symbol....all the strengths and weaknesses of the Da Vinci Code.....basically the same plot. Still worth it when it comes out in paperback.

Also read "Speech-less" by that speechwriter who worked for G.W. Bush. It is no where nearly as harh as its critics claimed, and has good and bad things to say about 43. What ssurprised me is that about two thirds of the book is about his work in the Congress (he has nothing nice to say about Chuck Schumer, John McCain, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, and a host of others). Then he goes to work for Rumsfeld, who he claims was the nicest man who ever lived since Jesus, and was a "fall guy" for Iraq. Then on to the White House.

My friend, who worked under the Sec. of Defense had many nice things to say about Rumsfeld, both as a boss and a man. I was surprised to hear how nice he was.

Yeah, he does look all warm and fuzzy .