Those Guys Have All the Fun has made quite the impact in the sports blogosphere. ESPN stands as the singular giant in the sports industry, so far-reaching that it has become virtually synonymous with sport itself. It has blurred the line between athlete, journalist, and fan. It has become the establishment, a massive multi-billion dollar company that is worth more than the NBA, MLB, and NHL combined. It has also at times been accused of taking itself a little too seriously.
It is for this last reason that Jim Miller and Tom Shales’ book was garnering press in the weeks prior to its release. The excerpts made available in advance revealed that the book wasn’t simply an outsider’s perspective on ESPN – it was an account pieced together from interviews with ESPN employees. This is a guess, but I’d say that something like 95% of the book’s text is actually direct quotes from employees, simply arranged and ordered into a narrative, with only occasional text from the authors to give context or summary.
I was concerned that the format would make the book a bit tedious – and since the book is over 700 pages long, tedium is no small worry. The trick, however, is in the editing. The authors have done a wonderful job placing and ordering the quotes to form a coherent and engaging story. It works well, and it makes for oddly funny moments – five or six quotes in a row from various ESPN employees, all complaining about the same person, followed immediately by a quote from the person in question, saying, “I think my time there was great. I think I was well-liked.” If the authors just described the scenario, it’d be a little painful, and not particularly funny, but to read the words of the people, to gauge for oneself how candid or honest each person is being, adds a fascinating element.
ESPN employees sniping at each other and complaining about the company played a large role in the advance publicity of the book. Little, Brown kept the contents of the book secret for weeks, finally lifting the embargo just days before the release date. Readers were not disappointed – the number and size of the egos meant for plenty of TMZ-ish celebrity gossip. Chris Berman, Keith Olbermann, Dan Patrick, Mike Tirico, Rick Reilly, Bill Simmons, and virtually every big name in the ESPN universe is targeted at one time or another. Some of it is merely petty, and some of it is legitimately disturbing.
Fortunately, the gossip column is just a part of the book, and not its entirety. There’s plenty of material on the early days of ESPN, the expansion into the largest cable network, and the forays into radio, magazines, and the array of secondary channels. If anything, there’s so much information that it’s a little daunting, but the format makes it easy to read in chunks – I’ve had it sitting on my bedside table for a couple of weeks, and it’s perfect whether you want to pick it up and read 5 pages or 50 pages at a time. A must read for the sports fan, especially for those interested in the role of media and the evolution of journalism.
Theodore’s best friend April has gone missing in the night. There was no forced entry, no sign of a struggle, and no leads. Theo was the last person to talk to her that night, but even he has no idea where she could be. To make matters worse, Jack Leeper, April’s distant cousin, has escaped from his California jail cell and was spotted in Strattenburg the same night April disappeared. The police are doing all they can, but Theo can’t help but do something. He is worried sick about his friend and he won’t stop looking for April until she is found. This is another great mystery from Mr. Grisham that even his adult readers will enjoy.
While in New York we bumped into Charles Frazier and feel almost certain that he’ll be coming to Lemuria this fall for his new book. Why? Because Frazier, and the industry as a whole, attribute the initial success of Cold Mountain to the work, excitement, and ability of the indies to find the needle in the haystack of this industry. We did it before and we’ll do it again. There will always be needles in this haystack.
My personal conclusion is how can the reader give up the magical quality time spent reading a physical book. It’s simply just too plain good. An afternoon off, reading on your porch, couch, by the beach, in a park or anywhere can’t be replaced. The young gal next to me on the plane home was reading something on a tablet. I was reading an advanced readers copy of Karl Marlantes’ What It Feels Like to Go to War, his new nonfiction book coming out in October. I thought for no amount of money would I swap places in this present situation. She looked bored and buying time and I felt hypnotized by the magic of reading a great book with a scotch, being transported into my own frame of mind.
I did see the same person reading on her i-pad on the plane and she eventually got tired of the i-pad reading experience and switched to playing crossword puzzles. Meanwhile the two ladies I sat between were reading paperback books – on my left an Elizabeth Spencer short story and on the right The Help. As our plane descended we talked about our books and the “Jackson, MS” connections with Kathryn Stockett’s book and family – Stockett Stables, the Jitney, Belhaven, etc. That kind of thing never would have happened if we had all been reading on our e-readers. I’m glad we weren’t.
Many booksellers, bookstore owners, publisher reps, editors and agents landed back at their desks this week a little disheveled, excited, confused, optimistic and pessimistic all at the same time. We were so glad to have John and Joe back at the store this week. As they decompress everything they observed last week, they’re gradually sharing some of their thoughts on the book industry based on their New York impressions.
JOHN: Amazon hires Larry Kirshbaum to establish and direct the “Big A” to be a major publishing competitor, to compete with Random House, Simon & Schuster, etc.
My question is whether or not Lemuria will be buying books from Amazon as a publisher. And I guess we’ll wait and see if they offer wholesale terms to bookstores. If they do, I don’t think we’ll be able to avoid stocking their books. I imagine they’ll want us to do that, but if they don’t, it will be a pretty big message about what they think about the future of the indies– i.e., do they or don’t they think the indies have a future?
I do know they’ve already signed their first author–Barry Eisler–an author whose books sell moderately at Lemuria. There have been some funny lines floating around the publishing world like “He’ll be running through the industry trade show begging traditional publishers to publish his books in just a few years time.” Again, we’ll see.
