Bloody Review
Nov. 3rd, 2008 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHi,
So based off an interview with the author on NPR I picked up Bloody Confused: A Clueless American Sportswriter Seeks Solace in English Soccer by Chuck Culpepper. The title is a bit windy, but accurately describes the situation. Basically the author gets fed up being a sports writer in America and flies over to England to become a straight up fan of one of the English Soccer clubs. He settles on Portsmouth (colloquially known as Pompey) and follows an absolutely astounding year of soccer from an otherwise low-end team. By "astounding" we mean, "finish in tenth place", which is an amazing feat for the team.
So the book has two really great things going for it:
1.) In the introduction, the author takes three pages and provides a concise rundown of professional soccer in England. This is something I'd been curious about for a while, but had never quite figured out and here it is in clear, simple terms.
2.) There were quite a few laugh-out-loud passages in the book. The writing is generally really good.
There are only two minor nits:
1.) The guy moved to England. He's a bit of a liberal. Which didn't bother me, but some people might find it grating.
2.) In his prose the phrase "birth canal" appears with a much higher degree of frequency than you would ever expect from a book on the subject of English soccer. Like, even once would be a bit odd, but it really shows up quite a few times.
Still, all in all the book was very charming and I enjoyed it a great deal.
later
Tom
So based off an interview with the author on NPR I picked up Bloody Confused: A Clueless American Sportswriter Seeks Solace in English Soccer by Chuck Culpepper. The title is a bit windy, but accurately describes the situation. Basically the author gets fed up being a sports writer in America and flies over to England to become a straight up fan of one of the English Soccer clubs. He settles on Portsmouth (colloquially known as Pompey) and follows an absolutely astounding year of soccer from an otherwise low-end team. By "astounding" we mean, "finish in tenth place", which is an amazing feat for the team.
So the book has two really great things going for it:
1.) In the introduction, the author takes three pages and provides a concise rundown of professional soccer in England. This is something I'd been curious about for a while, but had never quite figured out and here it is in clear, simple terms.
2.) There were quite a few laugh-out-loud passages in the book. The writing is generally really good.
There are only two minor nits:
1.) The guy moved to England. He's a bit of a liberal. Which didn't bother me, but some people might find it grating.
2.) In his prose the phrase "birth canal" appears with a much higher degree of frequency than you would ever expect from a book on the subject of English soccer. Like, even once would be a bit odd, but it really shows up quite a few times.
Still, all in all the book was very charming and I enjoyed it a great deal.
later
Tom
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Date: 2008-11-03 02:25 pm (UTC)http://www.mirrorsedge.com/ls/us/index.asp
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Date: 2008-11-03 02:36 pm (UTC)Hell yes. It's the one game (out of like 8) I'm absolutely convinced I'm buying this holiday season.
later
Tom