Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
Six or seven years ago, I wanted to impress an…
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2002 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
Six or seven years ago, I wanted to impress an interesting fella that I met at alt.fan.dave_barry, so I went to the local public library and I read up on golf. (He also played lacrosse.) I read John Feinstein's A Good Walk Spoiled, partly since I'd liked his appearances on NPR, and loved it. I read a few more of his books and liked them too. I'm no sports fan, yet I enjoyed Feinstein's narratives and his statistics-quoting didn't bother me. After I got to Cody's, I put up a tag in the sports section recommending any and all of his work.
I think I have to take that down tomorrow, because I just finished an advance copy of Feinstein's The Punch. It's about some basketball player who accidentally punched another out in the 1970s. Feinstein also tries to impress us with their backgrounds, and how the punch changed their lives and basketball, but he goes overboard repeating background and trite conclusions, and doesn't give us enough sketches of secondary characters. Don't read it.
