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#21
08-06-2005, 02:54 PM
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Re: Books I\'ve read, bought, or might read
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] Ugly Americans (Ben Mezick) - By the guy who wrote Bringing Down the House about MIT blackjack team, which I thought was great. This book was pretty weak, about hedge fund guys in Japan. Trying to be another Liar's Poker, but fails. [/ QUOTE ] I loved Bringing Down the House too, but I always got the feeling that the story told itself... and that a writer would have needed to try very hard to make that book bad. [/ QUOTE ] It was a great story and I enjoyed reading the book. But I don't think it was all that well written. 
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#22
08-06-2005, 03:30 PM
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Re: Books I\'ve read, bought, or might read
I just read 'Stiff' by Mary Roach. An amazing (disturbing) look at what happens to bodies once they're no longer functioning. Not a religious book, and not just about decomposistion either. Mostly looks at corpses use in scientific research.
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#23
08-06-2005, 04:01 PM
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Re: Books I\'ve read, bought, or might read
[ QUOTE ]
Ugly Americans (Ben Mezick [/ QUOTE ] I liked this one alot, maybe because I know little about high finance and found those parts as facinating as the other storylines in the book. I ended up buying Rogue Trader after reading this to get the story on the market maker they always talk about in this book. [ QUOTE ] Hollywood Animal (Joe Eszterhas) [/ QUOTE ] I like reading about star-fing and movies, this guy was a real piece of work, good stuff. [ QUOTE ] Stranger than Fiction (Chuck Pahluniak) [/ QUOTE ] I didn't like it so much. Maybe I should read it again, but I found myself putting it down alot. Maybe a secound pass, the first time I read Fight Club I wasn't so thrilled about it either. [ QUOTE ] Ace on the River (Barry Greenstein) [/ QUOTE ] I thought the book was great, people ripped it to shreds in the Books forum though.
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#24
08-06-2005, 04:39 PM
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Re: Books I\'ve read, bought, or might read
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] The Last Opium Den (Nick Tosches) - About a guy's quest to find a genuine opium den, treks across Asia etc. OK, definitely not great. [/ QUOTE ] Wow I've never heard of this book before you mentioned it, but someone stole my dream! Care to post a review about it? + Did he find one? [/ QUOTE ] I read an excerpt from this in a magazine someplace. The thing that stuck with me was a statement about opium addiction. The author mentioned what horrible overkill heroin and morphine were, compared to the slow, tea ceremony pace of opium smoking. Opium smoked this way, he said, was no more addictive than cigarettes. Not that that's great, I suppose, but at least you wouldn't find yourself retching and wishing to die in some fleabag room.
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#25
08-06-2005, 05:13 PM
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Re: Books I\'ve read, bought, or might read
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The new Sedaris is very good. A couple of the essays might be the best he's written. [/ QUOTE ] I'll read everything that Sedaris writes.
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#26
08-06-2005, 06:35 PM
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Re: Books I\'ve read, bought, or might read
I love The Favorite Game too, I couldn't even get through
Beautiful losers. It's odd because most of the critics go the other way. Cohen doesn't even like his first book, but probably because it is too much based on his real life, I am guessing. There is a fantastic movie from the period when he wrote Favorite Game. Movie It must be hard to find though. D.
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#28
08-06-2005, 06:42 PM
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Re: Books I\'ve read, bought, or might read
The Greenstein book is OK. My only complaint is that you get nailed with a bad beat story on the second page of the book. Also some of the info is super beginner material for anyone who has played in a casino.
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#30
08-07-2005, 04:41 PM
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Re: Books I\'ve read, bought, or might read
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However, I'm still slogging through The Decline and Fall of the Rome Empire by Gibbon, a very good human comedy, replete with human foibles and imbecilities, and also spiced with marvelous insights by the author. For example: "The religious system of the Germans (if the wild opinions of savages can deserve that name) was dictated by their wants, their fears, and their ignorance. They adored the great visible objects of nature, the Sun and the Moon, the Fire and the Earth; together with those imaginary deities, who were supposed to preside over the most important occupations of human life. They were persuaded that, by some ridiculous arts of divination, they could discover the will of the superior beings, and that human sacrifices were the most precious and acceptable offering to their altars." [/ QUOTE ] Zeno, Have you read Frazer's classic, The Golden Bough? It's a book that you might enjoy dipping in to.
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