Of all things Geek. I am…
Years ago, and much closer to its 2014 publishing date, I told you about Console Wars and its masterful retelling of the marketing and gaming dominance match between Nintendo and Sega.
The book is absolutely amazing, but the documentary also stands on its own. Since it clocks in at only 90 minutes, it’s best referred to as the abridged story of the Console Wars as they occurred.
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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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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 don’t know if I should be amused, bemused, or depressed now that I’ve finished reading Friendly Fire by C.D.B. Byran. The death of any young person is a tragedy, in war or peace. But the story of Michael Mullen, his death and the plight and anguish of his parents, as well as that of a nation unsure of itself, is the broader stroke of the book. As the inside dust jacket reads: “Michael was to have been the fifth…
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