Saturday, June 07, 2008

El Guapo

After my unexpected success with "American Shaolin" I've hit a bit of a lean spell in the book club department with my peers failing to finish - never mind enjoy - both "Crime and Punishment" and "Bombay: Maximum City".

We've had the hardy perennial "The Great Gatsby" and Fowles' "Daniel Martin" nominated for the next meeting. Fair enough. Chris and I still have to step up to the plate, so I'm going back to the genre that's worked for me in the past with A Fighter's Heart: One Man's Journey Through the World of Fighting

I read it last year and by coincidence there's an extract from it in The Times this morning.

What about it guys, will you follow Sam Sheridan (and the shade of George Plimpton) as he trains for Muay thai in Bangkok, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Rio, boxing in Oakland and MMA in Iowa?

An Amazon reviewer of a previous edition said, "how can someone so obviously intelligent say such dumb things?"

Irresistible.

2 comments:

Matthew Polly said...

You'll have to tell me what the group thinks of Sam's book, since he is my main competition in the idiot-participatory-martial-arts memoir category. The chapter on dog fight is "special."

Nick Browne said...

I am sure the guys will feed back on the book. I'd been keeping the dog fighting chapter up my sleeve for them.

I've read your BJJ and Muay thai adventures in Slate and look forward to the book in two-three years.