It’s very good, but do you ever find yourself reading a sex scene and wondering why — like, that there’s some rule of fiction stating that any novel for grown-ups has to have some sex …

It’s a book about the endless rewriting of Up Close and Personal, which is one of the weakest and most pointless Hollywood-product movies I’ve seen from the last ten years, so it’s cool to hear …

Excellent read for fans of the contemporary game and/or of Bill James; the writing really purrs along (it could have stood better proofreading, though).

I actually finished this days ago, but I’ve been avoiding writing it up here, because…where to begin, really, with this whole <a href=”http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0104061jamesfrey1.html” target=”_blank”>flapdoodle</a>.   The story begins, for me, months ago, when I was …

It’s very funny, and skillfully avoids a pitfall common to travel writing, namely that the diction starts to repeat itself after a while.   Hilarious bits about tourists in Killarney and the non-bird that flew …

It’s a book about, basically, how shitty it is to try to make the Olympics as a gymnast or figure skater and what a giant psychopath Bela Karolyi is.   Good stuff — a little …

Eh.   Too much detail in spots, not enough in others.   It’s a reissue of a twenty-year-old edition, and a certain creakiness pervades the prose; the book isn’t interesting enough to make it worthwhile …

It’s really a very good book; I just had problems with putting it down and then for some reason not wanting to pick it back up again, but I’d recommend it for a well-chosen cross …

I liked Ken Smith’s book about social hygiene film, but this one is slight, and something about the tone isn’t fun; it’s hard to explain.   (2/16/04)

Didn’t love it.   Too many digressions, too much talking about Nyack, and in spots it felt forced, especially when the author was rising above some situation or another — some of the remembrances and …