Sports, sports and possibly, more sports

I am completely obsessed with the Olympics. I’m on this kind of overdrive where I can’t miss a minute of the swimming or the gymnastics. It’s crazy and I love it. But there is one (one?) unfortunate side effect of this obsession—I’ve been reading a lot less. Don’t get me wrong. I’m still slogging through at least 50 pages a day (accumulated over more than one book). But my torrid pace has slowed to a trickle. And this blog has become about my fascination with Michael Phelps. For that, I am sorry and I offer a brief respite from those who have a more literary persuasion.

One of the things I’m reading at the moment (nearly finished) is the manuscript of ones the books that will be published by the press I work for. The book is about sports injuries in minors and then lengths we go to make our kids the best athletes in the world. (well, not me, considering I have no kids, but you knew what I meant) It’s part cultural deconstruction and part memoir, infused with the kind of perspective you can only get by going through the things you want to write about.

When I first got into writing, I desperately wanted to be a sportswriter and so this book speaks to me in a lot of ways. I also was a three sport varsity athlete my senior year of high school (which totally weird because I’m not at all athletic but I went to a school that required us to play three sports a year and it kind of stuck). So I know a little bit about the drive and fire of wanting to be the best, wanting to succeed. I know what Michael Phelps’s couch is talking about when he describes practices but I went through a similar thing (though much scaled down) when I was on the swim team.

I hope this book gets a lot of attention when it comes out. It’s fabulously written, well reported and it hits a critical issue that is too much ignored in our search for guts and glory.

 

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

It took me longer than normal to get through this book, which I consider both a gift and an emotional roller coaster. This is my second time through this book, a year or so older than the first time, and I don’t know if it’s just a part of me but I think I loved this book even more than the first time.

I’m a rather large sucker for the f-ed up person memoirs. In the grand scheme of things I love hearing how people dealt with the stuff that came up in their lives while still managing to remain remarkably sane. Dave Eggers is a master storyteller and an expert in the art of stream of consciousness writing. Even with all his faults you forgive him. How could you not? I don’t know how I could possibly manage to raise my little brother or sister (if they existed that is) when I was barely an adult myself.

Eggers, who founded McSweeney’s, is the literary equivalent of a nervous breakdown in this book. It’s emotional, raw, powerful, and both profoundly sad and funny at the same time. His trip from semi-adult/parent/brother to adult/parent/brother/friend is an astonishing testament of how love can manage to fill the void when the world comes crashing, with speed and vigor, around your ears.

For some people, I could see how this book could drive you insane. It’s chronological, in a sense at least, but it sways back and forth between the present and the past and has no straight narrative style throughout. It’s a story in pieces and parts, written by someone with an urge to both lay their soul bare and conceal it from the outside world.

Fall into this book. It’s really all you can do. Like the scenes on beaches that are interspersed in the book, it will wash over you and make you whole. It will make you think. It will make you love.