SFist Reads
We don't know if we have a library guardian angel or if our late return repeat offender status has put us in a special class, but we've started getting "courtesy notes" in our inbox when the due dates approach on our checked-out items. Of course, when we get an email from the SFPL we get all excited and assume our online reserves are in, but a reminder to get our stuff in on time is pretty nice, too.
SFist Derrick, who is mourning the impending loss of his favorite bookstore, continues to be bogged down by article research. Having skimmed through the last chapter of Tender at the Bone, he's moved on toAt Berkeley in the 60s, Jo Freeman's part-memoir/part-treatise on the political movements that swept over campus in the early 1960s. The blurb suggests a surprise revelation, so he wishes that they didn't include a quote on the back from someone which gives away the ending (that the movements were in fact a squabble within the Cold War). Just a few pages in, he's already eager to hear about the events that made his alma mater famous.
SFist Jon finally sat himself down and read Game of Shadows. What does he think? It's both a great piece of investigative work and a hit piece. The whole steroid thing is pretty damning, they have more than enough evidence against Barry and everyone else to make you think it's all pretty much true. He also noticed that they never use words like "allegedly" in the book or "supposedly" and considering the amount of lawyers who had to have looked through the thing before being published, it makes Jon think they really had conclusive evidence. The personal stuff against Barry, though, was a bit too much and makes you think they really, really had it in for him. He doesn't doubt half of the juicy stuff in there, like Barry cheating on his wife and mistress with a Playboy model, but felt the authors maybe listened to Barry's many enemies too well and didn't with friends. Despite all that, all of the stuff about BALCO and steroids and their role in sports was some pretty bravo bits of investigative journalism.