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  2. BOTNS Books Podcast #85: Gooooooaaaaaalllllll!

BOTNS Books Podcast #85: Gooooooaaaaaalllllll!

Jul 6, 2010

We discuss how to decide which book to choose to read next. Then we present a few books for the World Cup viewer to pick up once the tournament is over. And it's Two Books We REALLY Can't Wait For You to Read.

Eeny Meeny Miney Moe

Goodreads has recently introduced the ability to re-order you To Be Read shelf and I've begun experimenting with that as a way of keeping track of which books I'll read next, and I tend to sort by when the books will be released. Ann often chooses by mood, current buzz, what her book group has picked for that month, or what catches her eye on her bookshelves. What about you? Do you have a system to pick your next reading selection or is it all spur-of-the-moment?

  

Gooooooaaaaaalllllll! (4:48)

The vuvuzela has sounded and the World Cup is here (for a few more days at least). The ESPN World Cup Companion is a beautifully illustrated book that looks at the entire history of this event, and was fun to look through even for as unschooled in soccer/football as I am. Ann recommends two true stories of inspirational soccer teams.  The Miracle of Castel di Sangro by Joe McGinniss, an American-in-Italy story with soccer at its heart. Outcasts United by Warren St. John is the story of a soccer team in Clarkston, Georgia, home to scores of families who have fled war-torn regions around the world. A young Jordanian woman forms a soccer team made up of refugee children and this book follows that team over the course of a single season.

 

Two Books We Can't Wait For You to Read (13:30)

Ann departs from tradition by recommending an older book, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, which she just read for the first time, and which was chosen by her book group. This story of young Francie Nolan growing up in Brooklyn in the first decades of the 20th century quickly jumped onto Ann's Top 10 Books of all time list. A book that's sure to make my Top 10 (or 5, or 1) of 2010 is Kings of the Earth by Jon Clinch. I do my best to describe this novel about three elderly, illiterate brothers on a rundown farm in upstate New York, but I quickly lapse into "I can't coherently express how much I love this book" territory. Just take my word for it and read it!