WWW.WEDNESDAY

 

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WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly.

1. What are you currently reading? For Your Own Good by Samantha Downing. Belmont Academy is a private school filled with unique, if unlikable, characters. The kids are indulged and entitled. The parents are overbearing. At least one of the teachers is a sociopath. Even the janitor is creepy. So it should not be a surprise that there's a murder. Soon Belmont is known as #Homicide High.

 I'm not very deep in, but so far this book is wicked fun. It's by the author of My Lovely Wife, so I'm not surprised that it's dark, witty and twisty.

2. What did you just finish reading?  Try Not to Suck: The Exceptional Baseball Life of Joe Maddon by Bill Chastain and Jesse Rogers. The problem with reviewing biographies is that sometimes it's hard to separate my feelings about the subject from the book itself. This is one of those times.

Joe Maddon is one of my favorite people on Planet Earth. He not only guided the 2016 Cubs to their first World Series victory in 108 years, he kept fans like me riveted. Highly quotable, very original and ever optimistic, he was a joy to have here in Chicago. He also faced more adversity than I realized, and now (if it's possible) I admire him even more.

So I enjoyed this book because I enjoy Joe, even though at times it read like an exhaustive Google search. Joe didn't cooperate and, with the exception of Cubs World Series MVP Ben Zobrist, I didn't see any unique contributions. I wanted more than this rather simplistic look at a deceptively complicated man. Joe is releasing his autobiography this fall, and I consider this book an appetizer while I wait to devour his.

3. What will you read next? I don't know.