New Book: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

A couple weeks ago, I finally finished reading Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales.  It was a bear of a book, at around 800 pages, but it was definitely an interesting read.  For the most part, it was a first-person, written oral history of ESPN, as told by the people who started ESPN and have worked there throughout the years, with the occasional third-person paragraph or page here and there to add context.  The book covers from when ESPN was started by a father and son who had a crazy idea for a 24-hour sports network in the late '70s to the present day (or at least until the book was written in 2010).  Just about everything you could imagine was covered, from contracts with leagues to the many on-air and web personalities to the many shows to the side networks (the Deuce, the Plus, the News, etc.) to radio to the magazine to the website.  I was happy to see that the book tackled some of the more controversial dust-ups that ESPN has had to deal with (sexual harassment issues, Rush Limbaugh, inflammatory on-air comments, the Erin Andrews peeping tom scandal, etc.).  It got slow in some parts, and there was more on some of the executives and contract negotiations than I really cared about, but overall, I would definitely recommend it for anyone who watches sports.

I have since started reading Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind, at the behest (or should I say behesst) of Hess, who recommended it to me a couple years ago, knowing my fascination with serial killers and hatred of perfume.  It's a novel about an 18th Century French serial killer who makes perfume out of his victims, or so I've been led to believe.  I haven't gotten that far yet.  By the way, I just now realized there are boobs on the front cover of the book.  This might explain why I have felt like people have been looking at the book longer than usual while I'm reading on the train.

Books read in 2012:

No Regrets by Ace Frehley

A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
God, If You're Not Up There, I'm F*cked by Darrell Hammond
The Visible Man by Chuck Klosterman
The Last Testament:  A Memoir by God by David Javerbaum
Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales