I haven't been reading at all lately because I got a new phone and now I spend all my free time playing with it.
I know, I know, I'm ashamed of myself, too.
Jeff Benedict's "The System" was an interesting look at college football. He spent two years observing and interviewing everyone he could get his hands on in some of college football's most prominent systems, from coaches, to athletic directors, to boosters, big donors, and hostesses. He detailed all the faults as well as what works, and how it's so corrupt no one even knows how to really regulate it. Powerful stuff. I'm not a huge college football fan, but I do watch some, so it's amazing to me how it works from the inside.
"Born Round" by Frank Bruni hit home. He was overweight as a kid, always hungry, always eating. He has spent his whole adult life yo-yo dieting (not familiar *at all*). He's in his forties now, and is (at least when this book was written a few years ago) at a good, healthy place despite being a prominent food critic for the New York Times. It was a great read that gives me hope: if Frank can do it, I can too.
"Sourland" by Joyce Carol Oates was an good collection of short stories. I'm not normally a big short story fan, but these were good. The pain from losing her husband shines through in many of them.
And finally, "Last Night at the Viper Room" by Gavin Edwards looks at the all too short life and tragic loss of River Phoenix, dead twenty years ago of a drug overdose at the age of 23. In light of Philip Seymour Hoffman's untimely overdose, it really makes me sad how Hollywood seems to ruin so many bright and promising talents. Some people can survive and even thrive, but others just can't take it. Poor River. What a talent. It would have been amazing to see him mature.
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