The Baron on Board-#64 finished

This is part of a series from back in the 1960s about an art jewelry antique dealer kind of guy that in this book at least investigates the theft of crown jewels from a small Asian country that were being brought to him for appraisal and sale.  Tracks down the thieves on a ship going from England, Gibraltar, Egypt and beyond.  Kind of fun the read back on the days of no cell phones, plane flights being big deals and all that.  Nice quick and easy read.

I have posted it on PBS & is only copy but with being such an older book who knows if when it will be moved.

Going in Circles--#63 finished

A just married lady's life starts falling apart.  A few months after they are married her husband moves out needing a break or something like that.  A month or two later he decides to move back in and then she decides she is not okay with that & moves out to an apartment.  Book starts right around here and she gets to know a quiet co-worker with her own relationship issues and also an interesting side lift as a roller derby girl and recruits Charlotte.  A pretty good read, the whole roller derby thing and other little things in the book are not at all typical storylines so good to read something a little different.

I have posted it on PBS, there is 1 copy ahead of it so might be a while before it moves.

Full Court--#62 finished

The rest of the title is The Untold Stories of the St Louis Hawks, the NBA team that was in St Louis from 1955 to 1968.  Good stories about some very good and interesting players.  An owner that loved the game but didn't have the money to really be a more modern owner.  He owned the team when it played in the Quad Cities and then moved to Milwaukee and St Louis.  St Louis was his best run & an NBA Championship and hall of fame players but the league was developing from a small town league to a more big time league.  St Louis gained football during this time and then an expansion hockey team and interesting it mentions how the new teams got concessions and stadium help while the existing team the Hawks didn't.  This seems to play out in St Louis with our sports teams.  Also big is the fact that no local owner stepped up to purchase the team.  With hockey on board and attendance down, maybe people were worried about the investment.  Also have to mention the racism factor, basketball teams were mostly black players & hockey white players and St Louis history in race is not a good story.  Not sure if worse than other major cities but white flight out of the city, later forced busing of schools, run down projects, lack or opportunities for minorities in many jobs, etc, etc, not a good history & St Louis still struggles with some of this.   Now the age old sports question in St Louis is would the city support an NBA team.  I am not sure but would lean on the side of yes.  When SLU basketball is running good, there is good support there.  An NBA team in a league where every visiting team would have star power coming into town, I think people would want to see that.  So long as the local team can be competitive and with good local talent coming out of area, I think it would work.  Too bad we don't seem to be on the radar for it though.  We do have the MLS coming to town though & I am excited.

There was 1 WL for the book on PBS & I have posted it & will be mailing it off later this morning along with the Mariano Rivera book.

The Awakening--#61 finished

A classic by a St Louis born author Kate Chopin.  Born in the 1851 and married around 20 and around 35 was widowed with 6 kids.  She had moved to Louisiana when married.  To support her family she started writing and was very successful at it, one of the first women to basically be a full time writer.  This copy also has a few short stories after the main story The Awakening.  I think a couple of her short stories will stay with me in memories, really powerful.  The Awakening, I can see why it is a classic now & why was basically shunned back then--how dare a young married woman flirt with other men and then at end of book take her own life rather than be stuck in her married life.

This is a keeper for me, St Louis author and classic book and with a couple daughters I hope to get one or both of them to read this at some point.

The Closer--#60 finished

This is Mariano Rivera's book about his life.  Interesting about how he got into baseball and pitching late into growing up and seems to be almost by accident that he was able to be scouted and signed.  Since was really a pitcher at a young age, wonder if not having that wear and tear on his arm, helped him have such a successful career.  The majority of book about his time with Yankees and I am not a Yankee fan so really didn't pay much attention to them so lot of stuff was kind of new to me but maybe not to the Yankee fan.  Not a bad read for a sports book.

I will probably post it tonight & see if I can get it out in the mail maybe tomorrow on early next week.  There are 4 WL for it.

Ten Days in the Hills--#59 finished

A long & not very exciting story about a group of people that come together just as the 2nd Iraq war was starting.  This is in Hollywood and it starts at an aging but still well known movie director's house with his wife, his ex-wife and her lover and the director and ex-wife's daughter, the ex-wife's mother and friend, the director's agent, the current wife's son, and another one or two in there.  Mostly just dialogue going on and then they move to a newly renovated mansion of a Russian billionaire that wants the director to do a movie for him.  More dialogue.  Some interesting parts but mostly just slow and lots of lecturing going on.  Not really what I liked or enjoyed.  Book was on my shelf for several years so a couple months back figured now was the time.  Barely made it through, almost quit a several points & was set aside for weeks at a time.  I finished it around 1st of Sept but just now logging it in.

I have already posted it on PBS, it is the only hardback copy in system.  Maybe it goes at some point.