Pat Jordan

Strange experience. Up until the last few pages, I was thinking 4 stars but there was no sort of resolution to the issues that would have provided that lift. Well written overall and I'm predisposed to appreciate memoirs and I thought the author took risks (laudable ones) in his willingness to expose his behavior in an honest, unadorned way. But at the end of the work, I simply did not like this person and while I do think it is possible to like book and not the main character, I just had no sympathy for the absence of a mortal center. He did not treat others well and that is a deal breaker for me. Also, a minor point but just in the last 12 pages, it felt self-published in that I found three typos. Seemed weird that there had been none before then, and then three in rapid order.

I got this recommendation from "1000 Books to Read Before You Die," which I'm starting to think is less effective than the preference-based stuff I get from Goodreads.… (mais)

I cannot remember where this book came from. I was cleaning off my bookshelf when I found it and decided to give it a look over before I sold it. It just refused to be 'looked over'. It demanded to be read so I did. It's a really readable memoir. Jordan, a freelance writer and once minor baseball player, candidly and interestingly writes about his life. And, it makes a very compelling story. He's not extra ordinary and neither are the other people in his life. (As it happens, he is married to Meg Ryan's mother but since they (Meg and her mother) are estranged, she is barely mentioned.) It was just a good book.… (mais)