What I'm Reading

Moving my way through two books right now, with several others that have been started and abandoned at various points and a couple more waiting to be read.

I'm over half-way done with Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain, he of the Travel Channel's "No Reservations" fame. It's a follow-up memoir to the best-selling Kitchen Confidential, and I'm finding this book to be just as fascinating as its predecessor. I wouldn't consider myself a 'foodie' by any stretch, but his stories of his exploits around the globe in search of food, drugs, women or inner peace are giving me a desire to be a better cook.

Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby, is the first novel I've read of Hornby's since the classic High Fidelity, and he again touches on the familiar themes of music and love and how the two can become intricately intertwined. I'm only a few chapters in, but the book has already taken a few twists I didn't expect, and that's a good thing.

I recently finished two books by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales, Live From New York and Those Guys Have All the Fun. Both books are 'oral histories', and both had their merits, but I found "Live..." to be captivating, while "Those Guys..." could be a bit dry.  The former deals with that late-night institution, Saturday Night Live, the latter with ESPN.  I'm a huge SNL fan and while I've not consistently kept up with the show (I really lapsed in viewing from about 97-2004), the behind-the-scenes interviews and stories really grabbed me. Bill Murray is a favorite, and the good and bad stories about producer Lorne Michaels never failed to entertain. The authors follow-up, as I said, is a bit dry, and it frequently delves into the business side of the sports entertainment giant, to its detriment. I didn't really care about the intricacies of how some executive brokered a revolutionary cable agreement or milked money out of the NFL for a rights deal. Yawn. But the Keith Olbermann material is gold, gold I say! He really does come off as an insufferable perfectionist ass, which is one of the things that makes him great. Not a bad read, but it paled in comparison to the SNL tome.

Books I've started but haven't had the desire to finish yet: The Bookman by Lavie Tidhar, The Strange Affair of Springheel Jack by Mark Hodder, and couple others I can't be bothered to remember or seek out in the mess that is my book shelving system. Both of these seem like they'll be good books, but other things ended up supplanting them in my reading queue and I just haven't gotten back to them. Yet. But I will. I promise. Maybe.