SFist Reads
SFist is broke from the combined evils of holiday excess and rent. We're keeping ourselves entertained on the cheap by reserving books online from the SF Public Library. When we're back to feeling flush, we'll be buying books from our great local independent bookstores.
SFist Rita just finished The Punch, about the fight between NBA players Kermit Washington and Rudy Tomjanovich back in 1977 where Washington almost killed Tomjanovich on the court. She figured it'd be interesting reading after seeing the Pacers-Pistons fight (Ed note: Pacers rule!). It's good reading, even though she doesn't know very much about basketball (Ed note: We'll help you, Rita. All you need to know is that the Pacers rule.) Washington's had a pretty tough life since the fight (but seems kind of oddly unable to take responsibility for his actions), and sort of strangely too, Tomjanovich is now coaching Washington's old team, the Lakers, who he sued after the fight, and from whom he won $2 million.
SFist Jeremy is reading Positively Fifth Street, by James McManus -- the author's account of how he simultaneously entered the World Series of Poker and covered the murder trial of those accused of killing Ted Binion. Flawlessly switches between the two subjects; a good poker primer but even more so just a compelling tale.
SFist Jackson finished his father's Christmas copy of Bob Dylan's Chronicles, Volume 1 (whatever that means). In his opinion, Dylan hasn't written anything worth sneezing at since 1970, and this is no exception. Self-absorbed and indulgent, this book reveals no juicy details about anything except the lives of the most boring people on the West Village folk scene, and is structured in a pointlessly non-linear way. And then near the end he just pisses you off by praising Barry Goldwater.
SFist Krissy is reading The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant. An engrossing fictional novel set in Renaissance Italy, during the end of the Medicis' reign. It's about an art-obsessed young girl hemmed in by her marriage and the city's changing political and religious climate, and tormented by her curiosity about a young painter.
SFist's token student, SFist Emily is back to the grind with Getting a Job: a Study of Contacts and Careers by Mark Granovetter. Granovetter, a sociologist, was one of the first people to demonstrate the ways in which social activity influences labor markets.