Sentence of Dave: Search results for beartown

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Dave Kills It At Book Club

This afternoon I attended my first English department book club and it was all that I imagined and more; I got to share my literary opinions with the many beautiful ladies of our department and at first it was like a dream: they were absolutely smitten with my analysis of Fredrik Backman's Swedish hockey novel Beartown . . . I was the only man in the room and I'm very manly: I know a lot about coaching sports and the secret ways of men-- the ladies were properly fascinated with my perspicacity:

then-- in honor of my first book club ever-- I performed some prop comedy-- when we were about to start our discussion in earnest, I said I had to go out to my car because I had forgotten my notes and when I returned, I was holding a manila folder thick with notes and Post-its, a palimpsest of papers that looked like they were written by a crazy person (think Carrie in Homeland) and Stacey said, "You have a folder of notes?" and I said, "Of course" and I started arranging all the notes and charts and post-its on the floor, while mumbling things like "Holy cow, I have so much to say about this book . . . what should I start with?" and after a minute of paper shuffling and manspreading of my notes, someone surmised that this was my version of a book-club-joke and we all laughed (I laughed the most) and I told them that I had my students create all the crazy notes and charts and post-its . . . I put the names of the people in the book on the board, told them a few themes, suggested that they emulate my handwriting, and let them go to town . . . it was a lot of preparation for a two minute bit, but it was well worth it;

then we actually got into the meat of the discussion and it was a lot of fun but also a bit heated-- I determined that the novel was a well-crafted story about factions, groups, and their effect on the community but I thought the hockey stuff was heavy-handed and not particularly enlightening (Art of Fielding is a much better literary sports novel . . . the tone of Beartown reminds me of Any Given Sunday, which is a good movie, but not a good football movie) but then we got into a loud and vociferous debate about the resolution, which Backman left ambiguous on purpose-- which makes me think he is sort of douchey and annoying . . . and I wondered if this was a meta-book, designed to get people riled up at book club, which sent me to the place I did not want to go-- loud and didactic and refractory . . . and the ladies reacted accordingly:

but

we worked it out in the end, and while I can't recommend this book wholeheartedly (I think it's a little contrived and manipulative, and it feels like it's written by someone who has researched a bit about hockey but has never played the sport-- which the end notes confirm) I will wholeheartedly recommend book club, it was fun and intellectually exhausting, and dialogue like this is the only way that we can avoid what Beartown is really about . . . the fact that it's easier to choose a side in a conflict and stick to that side no matter what . . . but book club makes you deal with the difficulty-- which is hard-- the difficulty of listening to other people's opinions and really considering them-- it would be easier to read the book in solitude "because that's easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time" and it would be easier to "seek out facts that conform to what we want to believe" but when you're at book club with a bunch of beautiful ladies, it's hard to "dehumanize our enemy" because they are so charming and lovely (and you work with them) and you have to really reconsider what your thoughts . . . so I can't wait for the next one (and I'm going to come up with another prop comedy bit to get a quick laugh . . . if anyone has an idea, send it to me in secret).

Dave's Book List: 2018

Another end of the year book list . . . yuck . . . so let me boil it down to something practical. First some boilerplate: I read a bunch of good books this year, and I'm proud of that (or fairly proud . . . Stacey delivered a healthy whack to my self-esteem) but I understand that you're probably not going to enjoy the same books as me. Certainly not forty-three of the same books.

It's really hard to recommend a good book. Reading-- real reading-- is deeply personal. In the end, it's what you think about the words that makes the book good for you or not. Not that I subscribe to relative aesthetic ethics . . . I think some sentences are written far better than others. But once a book reaches a certain level of competence, then it's really up to the reader to appreciate and make sense of it. And if it sounds like "hillbilly gibberish," as Darryl McDaniels categorized the lyrics to "Walk This Way"-- then even if you sing it like you mean it, it still might not mean much to you at all (even if everyone else loves it).

So skip the list if you want, but grant me one sincere, universal, sure-fire recommendation. A list of one. I would trade all the books on my list for #39. Boom. Literally.

I'm talking about Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World Class Metropolis by Sam Anderson. Anderson is so passionate about his subject matter that it doesn't matter if you're a Thunder/Flaming Lips fan, or a tornado junkie, or a history buff who wants to know more about the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889-- which Anderson says should either be called "Chaos Explosion Apocalypse Town" or "Reckoning of the Doom Settlers: Clusterfuck on the Prairie-- none of that matters, as the book races along at EF5 speed towards the inevitable explosion.

Read it.