xtcian

Since I've been fighting a virus all week I went to bed shortly after 8pm last night. Looks like I made a good choice.
Lots of good books recently - A Thousand Splendid Suns is one favorite. Digging to America by Anne Tyler was good. I'm dragging my way through Emperor's Children at the moment hoping it improves, but of utmost interest to your xtcian readers - there is an excellent article on hooping in the life section of the N and O today with a beautiful photo of our famous poster. Check it out!

Many thousands of Patriots fans in my 'hood feel your pain, Ian.

BOOKS:
I discovered the author Stewart O'Nan this fall and have liked many of his novels, most recently "The Names of the Dead" which I highly recommend. His novel "Snow Angels" has been made into a movie starring Kate Beckinsale that opens in the next few months. Check him out.

Also, Susan Straight. Start with "I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and I Cleaned Out All the Pots." After that you will want to read all of her other novels.

Books:
No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy. Read the book before you see the movie. It's slightly more cheerful than the events in Chapel Hill last night.

I'll second A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Lately I have been reading a lot of Thomas McGuane's stuff (Gallatin Canyon, To Skin A Cat,etc). I recently read The Road by Cormac McCarthy and am getting ready to start his border trilogy (All the Pretty Horses, etc).

Schultz - Oh, I shudder at the mention of The Road as it still gives me nightmares. Not that it wasn't good, but so disturbing. If you enjoyed The Road, consider Blindness - everyone in the world starts going blind one after the other for some unknown reason and there is fear that it is contagious so the blind are put in containment areas and left to fend for themselves. Horrifying.

You gotta read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Now, I know that my track record in recommending memoirs is not the best (JAMES FREY!), but I think The Glass Castle is a winner.

The books I've read lately have sucked too...you're just going to have to write one. Or at least give us some good TV so I don't have to get stuck w/reality shows all the time.

Thank you in advance.

I second LFMD's endorsement of Walls's "The Glass Castle." Talk about freaky childhoods!

neva: the road gave me nightmares too. but it was so well written i had to read to its conclusion. (i think it won a pulitzer?)

that said, i think i will pass on blindness.

Finally read Good Omens the collaboration between Pratchett and Gaiman where the anti-christ is misplaced and brought up by a normal british suburban family. Quite Funny, somewhat like a Douglas Adams book but not.

The Devil in the White City, about the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair and the serial killer who was operating just outside the fair grounds. I can't believe I never heard of this story. The book was OK but the story behind it was really neat.

I can't speak of last night's game for a while, I might be able to compose a rational thought about it in a few weeks, right now it just hurts.

I'm on a dry spell for good books - I am so disappointed in eat, pray, love by Elizabeth Gilbert, I might not pick it back up. I'm supposed to be reading one of those Sweet Potata Queen books, but it is a little too froo froo for my taste. I might not pick that one back up either. The Glass Castle was pretty good, but no where near as good as A Thousand Splendid Suns. I haven't read Digging to America yet, but I have yet to find an Anne Tyler book that I did not love along with all of her characters' quirkiness. Maybe I'll check out the road next.

One quick basketball comment: I think we did pretty well to hang in the game without Ty Lawson at all. I had no expecatations to win without Lawson, but if we had made some free throws and a couple of more of our three point shots, we would have easily won. Just wait til next time!

Can't recommend enough Cormac McCArthy's eerie "The Road"--sort of like a very intelligent "The Day After", if anybody remembers that old, super-crappy TV miniseries about 'nucular' winter. Jeff Biggers' "The U.S. of Appalachia" is equally engrossing in a very non-fiction sorta way. You also can't go wrong with Ron Rash, a fantastic NC writer. Try "The World Made Straight", especially interesting for Civil War buffs.

We're all blue bout the boyz in baby blue. Have faith though. Lots of season (and seasoning) left.

Cullen - if you like Civil War era non-fiction, I enjoyed Manhunt about the hunt for John Wilkes Booth after Lincoln's shooting.
Agree on the fascinating true story behind Devil in the White City.
Anyone have insight into Run by Anne Patchett? I loved Bel Canto and am considering buying Run but wondered if it was worth the price of a hardback.

Neva - the new Patchett has gotten really good reviews, but I haven't checked it out personally. I can only recommend your local public library for a risk-free trial - they'll even put a hold on it for you!

I'm currently reading the bestselling Water for Elephants. Simple story, great Depression-era circus atmosphere, and a great boost for a local imprint (Algonquin).

Isn't Tessa related to Cormac McCarthy in some way?

I just recently finished the His Dark Materials trilogy (months after my 8 year old) and I thought it was good, although not fabulous.

Where the Wild Things Are.

Taught my son how to rumpus.

no good books, but saw an interesting article on my flight home from Chapel Hill....

http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/928925.html

To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever, by Will Blythe.

Take that, Dook.

Cullen, The Road is being made into a film with Viggo Mortensen as the lead. The book is haunting; I can't get it out of my head.

Ian, thanks for the pictures yesterday...

This is a great story about the JV squad if you can stand reading about basketball today:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?columnist=oneil_dana&id=3231442

gentlemen & players - joanne harris
holy fools - joanne harris
water for elephants - sara gruen
the road - cormac mccarthy

and my all time fun favorite - shogun by james clavell. if you haven't read that your life is incomplete.

I read The Glass Castle in one night and thought it was really good. But I have this suspicion that there is more to her story and she specifically avoided any notion at all of sexual abuse. Or am I just a deviant??????

For you civil war buffs, I just finished several books including Stonewall Jackson and AP Hill biographies by James R. (Bud) Robertson. An Honorable Defeat- The Last Days of the Confederate Government is also interesting.

I am plowing through Lee's Lieutenants right now. It is a bear even in the abridged version. My next task is Shelby Foote's 3 volume "The Civil War".

I highly recommend Fran De Waal if you have any interest in primatology and what it teaches us about ourselves. Hell, I'd recommend them even if you don't.

My personal favorite is called _The Ape and the Sushi Master: Cultural Reflections of a Primatologist_, which details ape culture (yes, they have culture) It gets into what defines culture and how it likely evolved, and draws many parallels to humans.

_Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals_, and _Our Inner Ape_ are also excellent books by de Waal.

My wife actually enjoyed _Our Inner Ape_ even more than the _The Ape and the Sushi Master_, as it focuses a lot more on how people are alike and different from apes.

PS Such a disappointing loss. For Ellington and Green to both go completely cold in a game without Lawson was incredibly unfortunate. And we couldn't even make our free throws.

Here's what I've read recently:

The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, by Anatole France
The Way of All Flesh, by Samuel Butler
Lady Audley’s Secret, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon Vathek, by William Beckford
Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath, by Carlo Guzman
Cold Service, by Robert B. Parker
Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, by Jon Lee Anderson
The Stronger Women Get, the More Men Love Football, by Mariah Burton Nelson
The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein

My critical comments are a bit long to reprint here, but you can find them and a few quotes on my blog:

http://admnaismith.livejournal.com/150524.html

I just finished the most fantastic book while we were on vacation last month: People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks. It was so great, I immediately read it again as soon as I was done. I really can't say enough good things about it.

Y'all have probably read it because it was an Oprah pick, but I still enjoyed it: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.

For a quick, yet compelling page turner which I enjoyed more for what it made me think of than the actual reading itself: The Girls by Lori Lansens.

"Nothing Special" by Charlotte Joko Beck.And then read her earlier book"Every Day Zen".Read in this reverse order(trust me it really helps) a word to the wise "it is bloody tuff stuff ,yet wonderful"

I also love "Ali Smith" and want "Anne tyler" to be my mother

I'm currently reading "The Executioner's Song" by Norman Mailer (his recent death spurred my interest in this 1000-plus page tome) and Dave Eggers' novel "You Shall Know Our Velocity!" (this is the second time I've tried to read it; it's going better this time). I'm also reading a book about screenplay development called "I Liked It, Didn't Love It." All of them are pretty good, for different reasons. "Song" is a page-turner of the first order.

Peter and Wendy (a.k.a. Peter Pan), by J.M. Barrie. Hook was closer to the book than the Disney movie. Peter was a thoughtless, selfish, daring, brave boy. Pretty darn good, and you can download it for free onto a mobile e-reader.

I was actually somewhat encouraged by last night's game. Tyler was the only player worth a tinker's ***(*), and yet we were in it until the end. Our second, third, and fourth scoring options were either injured or completely worthless, and that's unlikely to happen again. Our inability to play defense, however, has been a problem all season and continues to be so.

Wow, thanks guys! Having seen Ian & Tessa & caught up on Tuesday night, I laxed on my xtcian reading (plus having a bunch of hoop stuff going on...) Glad some of y'all caught the N&O article and enjoyed it! Neva & caveman, y'all ought to come out to a hoopjam sometime! I'll be sure to give you some pointers.

If any of you check the article out online there's a video interview with moi that turned out pretty well.

Wednesday was sad, no doubt, but I agree with T.J. that it was almost encouraging to see us play so hard and hang in there without Ty--I mean, we were within 5 points just about the entire second half! I felt so bad for Ty having to sit there and watch, knowing what he could have done.

I saw the best bumper sticker the other day-- on an old Toyota with Jersey plates. It was that delicate shade of blue we all know & love, and it read:

I live in New Jersey....
AND BACK THE TAR HEELS ALL THE WAY!

i am way late here because i cant read you blog at work.. every time i try it tells me my name and ip address have been logged for inappropriate content.. its so annoying..
but i had to recommend one or two.. i would love to know what you think of "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by junot diaz.. i think he is amazing...its amazing. SPeaking of books into movies, i also looooooooooooved "shantaram" by gregory david roberts.. brad pitts producing, johnny depp is playing the title role and mira nair is directing - how hot is that!?!? looooooooooved the book and hes a good writer. i actually met the author in mumbai last year.. sigh.
i was realllllllly not impressed by a thousand splendid suns.. i mean, the kite runner was just sooooooooo compelling partly because it touched this very human theme that transcended culture. while 1000 suns is great because it gives people more of an idea of afghan history, culture etc, the story itself was limp. though i dont think khaled housseini is a really good writer... its just that kite runner was such an ammaaazing stooory.. anyway, thats my 2 cents on my way to work where i cant access your blog. love, jif