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eternalemm

Emm's Book Trunk

I love books that take me to some place different and new and interesting. I love characters, they're the reason I keep reading. Intriguing people in interesting, sometimes, heart wrenching situations keep me addicted.

Currently reading

Relent: Sydney Storm MC
Nina Levine
Progress: 17 %

Review:

The Bling Ring: How a Gang of Fame-Obsessed Teens Ripped Off Hollywood and Shocked the World - Nancy Jo Sales

I've read that this reads like a long article and it does. It feels thorough, but it drags a bit. At times, it wants to throw in sociological and psychological reasons for the criminal teens' behavior.  Overall, not a bad read, just okay. Glad I got it on sale.

Review:

Babylon Confidential: A Memoir of Love, Sex, and Addiction - Morgan Grant Buchanan, Claudia Hall Christian

 An honest book about her life that includes the good with the bad. And the last section deals a candid account of her battle with alcoholism and her testimony for the Sinclair Method. There is last section with one of the doctors explaining and plugging the method.  It's a bit of evangelizing, but hey- it might save someone.

 

She's honest with her failures, faults and her positive attributes. She's honest about  her inability to stay in a relationship for longer than three years and you learn more about Angus Macfadyen- mostly bad- than I ever thought I would know. Cliff Robertson doesn't come out looking good in this either.  And there's an interesting tidbit about sharing blow and having a one night stand with George Clooney. 

 

Sometimes this feels more like a survey than an exhaustive memoir or autobiography. Some lovers just breeze through and you don't get a chance to complete understand their narrative.

— feeling horror
"I decided that I needed to lose more weight for the role and visited a place called the Lindora clinic where they put me on a 500-calorie-a-day diet and shot me full of a combination of vitamins and a substance that I would later discover to be pregnant horse urine"
Babylon Confidential: A Memoir of Love, Sex, and Addiction - Morgan Grant Buchanan, Claudia Hall Christian

Page 63 of Chapter 5: Cocaine Blues

Reading progress update: I've read 54%.

Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X - Johnny Smith, Randy Roberts

My heart goes out to Malcolm.  He was such a fervent believer and at the same time he wanted to get into politics to make things better for people but his church wouldn't allow it.  Then he learns about infidelities that Elijah Muhammad committed.  Things just suck for him right now.

 

And he's got to try and maneuver a way out of this feud with his head intact.  He pins his hopes on Ali to become a platform to make change and discuss politics, for Ali to be symbol of his making.  But, it is not going well....

Review: Blood Brothers The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X

— feeling cry
Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X - Johnny Smith, Randy Roberts

 I picked this up after seeing this in the bookstore and realizing that I didn't know as much as I would like about the two subjects and this would be an interesting way to learn about both of these men and as well as their relationship with each other.

 

There is a lot in here to digest, for me. it sort feels like a survey of a variety of subjects.  They touch on the history of boxing, Sonny Liston, Floyd Patterson, the relationship with  boxing and television along with black nationalism, the Nation of Islam and disagreements with the civil rights movement. A book on any of these subjects alone could be written.

 

A number of things stood out to me. One of them being how much Ali became a master of controlling how he was seen. In the professional world he crafted his brand, it seems one of the first modern athletes to do so.  He wore tee shirts with his name embroidered on them and purposefully became a "heel." I love his interaction with Gorgeous George.  But, because of all the factions that wanted him to be a specific thing to further there own aims, Ali had to be a face dancer: someone who wore many masks.  To the public he was one thing, around his NOI cohorts he was another and wore an entirely different one with Malcolm.  

 

Tension, lies and corruption within the Nation play a huge part in the story and machinations maneuver both men to make some tough choices. At the end all of the Nation's members have to choose between faith and Malcolm.

 

A felt the axe hanging over Malcolm's head for the three or four chapters preceding. Things for just weren't going well. I was gutted by the chapter that dealt with his death.

 

Really loved the epilogue.  It's amazing how much they impacted each other considering how short of time they knew each other.  

 

One of the interesting takeaways for me was that the authors say that Ali didn't wasn't really confrontational, which took a bit for me to wrap my head around because his public persona of the Louisville Lip, the trash talker, seems to inherently confrontational.  But, for him I suppose that more of a performance where he felt in control of the major factors, I suppose.