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Loading... Positively Fifth Streetav James McManus
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kommer älska Anmäl dig till LibraryThing för att få reda på om du skulle tycka om den här boken.  TerryMcCarthy | Sep 30, 2009 |  Non-fiction account of the author's trip into the World Series of Poker and subsequent Cinderella story into the final stages. Also covers (semi non-fiction) the murder / trial of Ted Binion, the guy credited with starting the World Series of Poker and the owner of Binion's Horseshoe Casino. (  ) ArcticLlama | Apr 14, 2009 | I couldn't care less about the Ted Binion murder trial. I hate McManus's stupid mix of chattiness and "cleverness". I despise all his flawed analogies and mixed metaphors. I detest his sport writer prose (and the rest of it, too, come to think of it). I got tired of his continual comparing of Sandy Murphy to every woman he met. Give it a rest! It's not Clever! It's not Insightful! But I loved the chapters that discussed actual poker, actual hands. More, please. I admit, there were a few moments where I laughed out loud and it added a book to my Amazon wish list ("The biggest game in town", A. Alvarez) (  ) lipi | Nov 7, 2007 | A decent read if McManus does seem awful full of himself. Heck, making the final table though, I guess I'd think I was heaps smarter and cooler then I am too. Not that McManus doesn't have a way with words, but when you feel the need to namecheck Joyce more than once in a book about poker and a Las Vegas murder trial, you're trying too hard. Overall, I'd rate this just a pip below Alson and Dalla's biography of Stu Ungar. (  )1  cdogzilla | Jul 8, 2007 | literary poker murder mystery; hardboiled documentary; fictionish 1.04 aletheia21 | Jun 2, 2007 |  inga recensioner | lägg till en recension
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McManus details his battles not only against his opponents but also against "Bad Jim," the portion of his own personality that needs to get in on a poker game in spite of both common and fiscal sense. Besides telling his own story, he relates the considerably more unpleasant tale of Ted Binion, whose grisly death was blamed on Binion's former stripper-girlfriend and her ex-linebacker beau. In the hands of a lesser author, the pursuit of these separate through lines of poker and the seedy personal lives of wealthy casino heirs may have lead readers to wish the author had picked just one subject. But under McManus's careful watch, they're really pretty similar: steeped in adrenaline, mystery, deception, and skating on thrillingly thin ice. Each story underscores the other, a neat little "narrative as metaphor" device, while also painting a vivid picture of Vegas casino life. Poker, as anyone who has lost at it will tell you, is an intricate game and it's nice to see a top-notch author and player relate its finer points in an entertaining style that will appeal even to non-players. The author's hilariously self-aware and at times self-loathing style make Positively Fifth Street a fun read. But beyond that, his account of nearly winning the biggest poker tournament in the world and subsequently watching as the verdicts are announced for Binion's accused murderers makes for a great story. Even if it wasn't the one he was sent there to write. --John Moe
(hämtat från Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:19 -0400)
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Did I mention the full-bore masculinity of the book?
I recommend this book to all guys who "don't read much."
For good or ill, I loved it.
:) (