The Index of Self-Destructive Acts by Christopher Beha
Monday, January 19th at 5:15 pm via Zoom
PACG Book Club
We will meet via Zoom in January and February, and perhaps in March. Contact me for the Zoom link.
The January book is The Index of Self-Destructive Acts by Chrisopher Beha. I've started the book, and I am enjoying it, but am at somewhat of a loss to describe what it is about! Definitely baseball, especially baseball statistics. One theme is about science and data versus feelings. One of the main characters had a media presence but was exiled when he made a racist joke on T.V. It will be interesting to discuss.
Although our February book is very short, if you want to get a head start, it is A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Ilan Pappe. Read more about it at this PACG blog post.
Alta Price (she/her)
Read more about the book at Goodreads:
"The day Sam Waxworth arrives in New York to write for The Interviewer, a street-corner preacher declares that the world is coming to an end. A sports statistician, data journalist, and newly minted media celebrity who correctly forecasted every outcome of the 2008 election, Sam’s familiar with predicting the future. But when projection meets reality, things turn complicated. Sam’s editor sends him to profile disgraced political columnist Frank Doyle. To most readers, Doyle is a liberal lion turned neocon Iraq war apologist, but to Sam he is above all the author of the great works of baseball lore that sparked Sam’s childhood love of the game—books he now views as childish myth-making to be crushed with his empirical hammer. But Doyle proves something else in person: charming, intelligent, and more convincing than Sam could have expected. Then there is his daughter, Margo, to whom Sam becomes desperately attracted—just as his wife, Lucy, arrives from Wisconsin. The lives of these characters are entwined with those of the rest of the Doyle family—Frank’s wife, Kit, whose investment bank collapsed during the financial crisis; his son, Eddie, an Army veteran just returned from his second combat tour; and Eddie’s best childhood friend, hedge funder Justin Price. While the end of the world might not be arriving, Beha’s characters are each headed for apocalypses of their own making."
The January book is The Index of Self-Destructive Acts by Chrisopher Beha. I've started the book, and I am enjoying it, but am at somewhat of a loss to describe what it is about! Definitely baseball, especially baseball statistics. One theme is about science and data versus feelings. One of the main characters had a media presence but was exiled when he made a racist joke on T.V. It will be interesting to discuss.
Although our February book is very short, if you want to get a head start, it is A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Ilan Pappe. Read more about it at this PACG blog post.
Alta Price (she/her)
Read more about the book at Goodreads:
"The day Sam Waxworth arrives in New York to write for The Interviewer, a street-corner preacher declares that the world is coming to an end. A sports statistician, data journalist, and newly minted media celebrity who correctly forecasted every outcome of the 2008 election, Sam’s familiar with predicting the future. But when projection meets reality, things turn complicated. Sam’s editor sends him to profile disgraced political columnist Frank Doyle. To most readers, Doyle is a liberal lion turned neocon Iraq war apologist, but to Sam he is above all the author of the great works of baseball lore that sparked Sam’s childhood love of the game—books he now views as childish myth-making to be crushed with his empirical hammer. But Doyle proves something else in person: charming, intelligent, and more convincing than Sam could have expected. Then there is his daughter, Margo, to whom Sam becomes desperately attracted—just as his wife, Lucy, arrives from Wisconsin. The lives of these characters are entwined with those of the rest of the Doyle family—Frank’s wife, Kit, whose investment bank collapsed during the financial crisis; his son, Eddie, an Army veteran just returned from his second combat tour; and Eddie’s best childhood friend, hedge funder Justin Price. While the end of the world might not be arriving, Beha’s characters are each headed for apocalypses of their own making."
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