What Are You Reading

[Sask.Rider]

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.

 

[Sask.Rider]

I'm reading On the Waterfront, the Pulitzer prize winning articles that inspired the film.

Hi, this sounds great - was not aware it was a book. Thanks.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Now in the end of Jorge Amado - The emigrants from the Sáo Francisco/Seara vermelha (1946), the plots are finally running together!

Red Field - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Fredoka]

I'm in the middle of Balzac "Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans" (or "a Harlot High and Low").
Not the one I would advise to get started in Balzac since it draws a lot from previously introduced characters / subplots. But an amazing read nonetheless, very precursor of thriller / spy novels.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Starting Gregg Hurwitz - Out of the dark (2019).

 

[Trenchfriend]

Gregg Hurwitz - Out of the dark (2019) is very comfortable to read! You can always grab it and read fifteen pages easily.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Gregg Hurwitz - Out of the dark (2019) is indeed really good!

This is def. worth to be called a "Thriller"!

 

[Fading Fast]

Rhubarb in the Catbird Seat by Red Barber and Robert W. Creamer, first published in 1968


The word "legend" is overused, but it does apply to Red Barber's career in sports broadcasting – a career that began in baseball's infancy on radio and peaked with TV and radio broadcasts in the largest media market in the country, followed by a "retirement gig" at NPR.

Rhubarb in the Catbird Seat isn't just a baseball book, however, as it's more a personal account of Barber's life as told by Barber himself. Like almost all autobiographies, he's the hero, yet you'll still see some flaws he admits to and some you can intuit despite his efforts.

What drives the story though is Barber's insight into baseball, baseball broadcasting – its history and challenges – and the major baseball personalities Barber met in his long career. Baseball is just one of many sports today, but Barber was doing all this when baseball was "the sport."

The book is at its best when Barber is talking about how radio broadcasts started – most team owners opposed it, thinking it would hurt stadium ticket sales – including the “wire” games, where the announcer “created color” around a scorecard-like telegraph account of the action.

Barber was also there for the early Brooklyn Dodgers broadcasts. He does an excellent job of capturing the "something special" the Dodgers held for Brooklyn. Later, as the usual career buffeting happens, he goes "across town" and broadcasts Yankee games for fifteen years.

Barber also saw the rise of televised baseball. Once again, the book soars as Barber describes the difference between radio broadcasting – where the broadcaster is in total control of what the listener hears – and TV broadcasting – where the broadcaster is a servant of the monitor.

Along the way, Barber sprinkles in anecdotes about his meetings and relationships with notables of the era, including team owners/managers like Larry MacPhail and Branch Rickey, network heads like William S. Paley, and of course, famous players like Jackie Robinson.

As to Robinson – the first black player in Major League Baseball – you can judge for yourself how honest Barber is being, but credit to him for acknowledging, as a man of the South, his initial resistance. It's a time, place, and norms nuance that our modern politics hates.

The book is less interesting when Barber is describing his life, other than a fascinating story about a medical illness he had as a young man that nearly wrecked his broadcasting career. The medical arrogance involved, much more of a thing then, is frightening.

His life, though, also reveals its era. His dad worked on the railroads – a secure job at the time; Barber left college to get married when marrying very young was the norm; people were regularly addressed by their surnames; and religion, not politics, was often personally defining.

Ushering his story along, Barber writes like he spoke – clear, no-nonsense, and just folksy enough to make even the behind-the-scenes business of baseball feel personal. His writing manages the difficult combination of being breezy, yet intelligent at the same time.

Rhubarb in the Catbird Seat is not the first book to pick up if you're new to baseball literature, but if you aren't and you're looking for a fun one from one of the giants of baseball's early broadcasting era, it's an enjoyable and quick read.


N.B. I owe a hat tip to @LizzieMaine for this enjoyable recommendation.

 

[Tiki Tom]

^^^^
Great review. Can’t wait for Lizzie’s comments on your review. I’m saddened by how far baseball has fallen in our national consciousness.

 

[Fading Fast]

^^^^
Great review. Can’t wait for Lizzie’s comments on your review. I’m saddened by how far baseball has fallen in our national consciousness.

Thank you. I, too, am saddened by its decline. And I fear MLB's insane greed will only speed its decline farther even if it provides a temporary revenue boost as all this moving of games to this or that streaming service has turned me off and I'm a long-time fan. I can't even imagine how a new fan would get started. Who's going to chase games/teams around services that they are not yet vested in?

 

[Tiki Tom]

Agree completely. I am not about to chase any game/team/show across multiple streaming services just to get my fix. It’s ridiculous.

 

[Edward]

Unusually (The Institution doesn't halt term for Easter, so many years I have just the long weekend during term, which inevitably means that in order to keep teaching I end up working the bank holidays as well) I was able, due to a late Easter, to take a full week off this year, and I managed for the first time in too long to get some proper reading for pleasure in. I tore through The Handmaid's Tale, which for my sins I'd always meant to read but hadn't previously managed. Seems wrong to say I "enjoyed" it, but a good read. The sequel I will hopefully pick up on long before the television version thereof begins next year.

I've now returned to another alternative history work - this time one of several novels in Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series. This particular one is set in 1899, and sees European vampire opponents of Dracula exiled from England, seeking sanctuary in Japan. A rich and wonderful universe, AD; really, it's such a shame that it has never been realised on-screen. It got left out during the last vampire boom maybe fifteen years ago, but really it deserves the lavishly-budgeted streaming treatment now.

For anyone with an interest in Victoriana and gothic horror fiction, especially vampirism, Newman's books are a must-read. For me they are right up there with Stoker.