Of all things Geek. I am…
Given my interest in politics and a college minor in journalism, it’s amazing it took me this long to read All the President’s Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. But it’s 50 years after its publication, and it is still a fast-paced, well-written masterpiece.
It is a balm in troubling times that despite some of the horrors of the world, great investigative journalism was alive and well, and it could be again.
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As I mentioned in my post about the Blind Date with a Bookstore, I selected to receive two books in my curated box and this is a review of those two books.
While I enjoyed both books, I did not think I could come up with enough to say about both individually to write separate reviews and honestly, since they arrived together and I read them back to back, it made sense to write about them together.
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John Feinstein’s The Last Amateurs: Playing for Glory and Honor in Division I College Basketball is a love letter to amateur athletics and the notion of the unironic “student” athlete.
In the book, he chronicles the 1999-2000 Patriot League Basketball season. The Patriot League is something I guess I took for granted, as it is in my backyard. But for those who don’t know, it’s academically right up there with the Ivy League.
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James A Michener’s Space is such a complete work of fiction that it doesn’t just underscore the patriotic heroism of the Space Race. It also displays the media bias of the time towards pristine American heroes and the sad triumph of going to the Moon, only to turn away from science after the accomplishment.
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I am familiar with Sandy Toksvig thanks to the popular British panel show QI (and its availability on this side of the pond thanks to YouTube). Sandy has been host of the long running show for many years, having taken over the position from actor and comedian Stephen Fry.
I knew Sandy to be an actor and comedian herself but had not been aware she was an accomplished author as well, of both fiction and nonfiction. I found this out after my husband and I watched a cooking show interview she did in which she promoted her (then) upcoming novel, Friends of Dorothy.
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