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My enjoyment of poker was not enhanced by this book. However, I did enjoy reading about Whitehead‘s experience of poker 😊

Whitehead makes me laugh out loud. “Lying on your couch in a neurotic stupor” as a sport 😂

I am not a poker player or observer, so I‘m sure I‘ve missed much of the nuance of the game in this story, but still enjoyable. So witty and clever.

#authoramonth2020
@Soubhiville

While I enjoyed the humorous observations and self-depreciation at times, I don‘t really care about competitive poker, so I guess I‘m not the intended audience anyway. And while I usually enjoy nonfiction audiobooks read by the author, he read it so slowly that I had to change to 1.5 to keep my attention.
#AuthoraMonth

I started this for #authoramonth. Sigh. The #audiobook narration is terrible, so I switched to the ebook.

Parts of it were interesting. I love that his self-described anhedonia gives him a great poker face. His coach is Helen Ellis and to think of her as a poker shark is hilarious. (She really is one!)

Despite this, I never could find a rhythm with the book. I started dreading picking it up. Sure sign of a bail. Finished 50%.

Whitehead‘s book about the World Series of Poker is funny and snarky. I like that. And I know a few of the types who think they are poker champ material. He catches the scene accurately. He writes about himself as much as he writes about the game and that‘s what held my interest. But I listened to him narrate the book and his delivery is akin to a poetry slam performance...for six hours. Eh. Read only if you‘re a poker fan or fellow anhedionian.

Are you wondering which of Colson Whitehead‘s books you should read for February‘s #AuthorAMonth? Here‘s a guide I found with helpful blurbs of them. He has more books than I knew!

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/07/colson-whitehead-reading-guide-ni...

Colson Whitehead, denizen of the great land of Anhedonia, has a great poker face because he is "half dead inside." I'm pretty sure all my Litsy friends got sick of me posting quotes from this memoir. My fave: “We Anhedonians have adapted to long periods between good news. Our national animal is the hope camel. We have no national bird. All the birds are dead.” I don't know crap about poker, and I don't care about it in any way. Still loved this.

Okay, last one, I promise. This book...I just cannot! 🤣🤣🤣

This book is killing me. So funny! 😂

“At the final WSOP table in 2010, the chip leader had $65 million in chips. What is that in Time? Empires rise and fall in that interval. That‘s glacier time, Ice Age time, knuckle-dragger into Neanderthal time.“

When you kill it with the first line...

And now for something completely different.

"I wanted to rejoin society. Do whatever it is that normal people do when they get together. Drink hormone-free, humanely slaughtered beer, eat micro chickens, compare sadnesses, things of that sort."

"I'd barely gone out in months, devoting myself to meeting a moronic deadline I'd imposed in a spasm of optimism. Dating was a distraction. Even the frequent buyer card in my local coffee place - too much of a commitment."

I felt transfixed by the witty, conversational--nearly stream-of-consciousness--narration of this true tale about Whitehead's immersion into the world of high stakes poker. The audiobook, read by the author, reminded me somehow of Kerouac's On the Road.

It's the third book I've read by Whitehead. I'm really looking forward to seeing him at the Vancouver Writers Fest next week.

Social media wasn't usually my thing, as it had the word 'social' in it, but I'd taken to the platform after a personal tragedy. I had a cat. The cat died. And now what I used to say to my cat all day, I tweeted.

She reintroduced me to my neglected spine, which I had long treated as a kind of hatrack for my sundry shabby articles of self.

Ever said "cute baby!" about some newborn who'd found a portal between their hell dimension and our world? You may have a career in poker.

Just had to revisit this gem from last week's reading! From Colson Whitehead: "Pick your fights like you pick your nose: with complete awareness of where you are."

Luck is merely the temporary state of outrunning your impending disasters.