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I guess I was gone during the Get Shorty discussion, but I didn't realize it was based on an Elmore Leonard book.  I rented the movie back in high school and really liked it back then.  I found the decade-later follow-up Be Cool to be okay, but not as good as GS.  

@CatsbyAZ , this belongs more in the TV thread, but you might like the 6-season series Justified, which was based on Elmore Leonard novels.  The dialog between the protagonist, Raylen Givens, and the antagonist, Boyd Crowder, was legendary on that show.  One of my all-time favorites.  

Some authors I really enjoy:

John Sanford (wrote the Minnesota detective series et al.)

Bernard Cornwell (wrote the Last Kingdom series et al.)

Stephen Hunter (the Bob Lee Swagger series)

Michael Connelly (Bosch and the Lincoln lawyer)

This is interesting. Hunter and Connolly have been on my list for a while to start some of their books. When I lived overseas I was probably reading 3-4 books a week and then coming home, starting a business, then kids in the mix and reading dwindled.. Then brain surgery and I actually couldn't keep my eyes focused on a book without getting dizzy for a long while.. Over the last couple months I've been making it a habit to ready 15-20 mins before falling a asleep every night again.

My easiest read has been my starting point with Ben Mezrich and have read a second time now recently bringing down the house, ugly americans, rigged (underrated) and now on Accidental Billoinaires. Was going to revisit some Steve Berry Books, then a few john grishams and then expand out to testing a Connelly or Hunter. Between the two, who would you go to first? 

My i s c & a aggie wife has been listening to her podcasts for a couple of years now, and has that book.  I haven't read it but maybe I will.

I like Connelly over Hunter.  Sanford is equal to the former imho.  

The following contract negotiation would be unthinkable for today’s professional athletes:

“…the personnel director of the Packers, phoned today and asked me if I wanted to discuss my contract. I told him I wanted $27,500, up from $23,000 last year, and I said it isn’t as much as I deserve, of course, but I’ll be happy with it and I won’t cause any problems, any struggle. I mean it. I know I’m worth more than $27,5000, but I don’t want a contract fight over a few thousand dollars.”

Though $27k in 1967 approaches $250k today, the salaries still register as strikingly low, even with inflation factored in; today’s NFL’s rookie minimum exceeds $800k. Notice there is also no agent mediating with a salary cap minded general manager; just a player tossing salary figures back and forth with the front office between practices. Such is the NFL in 1967 when Green Bay Packers All-Pro offensive lineman Jerry Kramer set out to write his daily account of the Packer’s march to Super Bowl II.

Kramer details the rigorous physical demands of training camp, the weekly practice leadup to Sunday’s games, and the nights out on the town with teammates during trips for road games. We catch glimpses of Coach Vince Lombardi’s gusto during the team’s many hours spent “watching movies”—their term for reviewing game tape together. The game-to-game rhythm of an NFL season is written with enough variation to avoid cycling into repetition.

The collaborative methods between Kramer and sportswriter Dick Schaap should be noted: Several nights a week, Kramer “spoke into a tape recorder, preserving his daily actions and reactions.” Each week he mailed his recordings to Schaap for composing and editing. Written as the season unfolds, Kramer’s account carries a refreshing immediacy, underscored by the absence of reflective distance to recognize the later significance of certain details:

“We went into the dressing room and, as usual, I grabbed a few cups of Gatorade, which has got to be one of the greatest things ever invented for athletes. It’s a drink developed in Florida. It’s got everything you need in it – a solution of water, salt, and glucose – and it tastes good. We serve it between the halves and on the sidelines during a game.”

Another timestamped passage:

“I had a busy, profitable morning. I got up around a quarter to ten after a good night’s sleep, ate breakfast, then visited the local RCA-Victor distributor, who gave me a color-TV set because I’d made a commercial for him.”

If I get some free time today I'm gonna go dig up your review on Tolstoy's War and Peace.  I lolz'd pretty heartily both times I read it.  

Frankly, your review is the far superior work when contrasted with the novel itself.  

I should offer a little more about the Goldfinch. The story begins with a 13-year old boy whose mother is killed in a terrorist bombing at the Met Museum in NYC. He is there, too, survives, and, through a twist of fate that he isn't really to blame for, leaves the museum with the famous still life painting of a goldfinch (by Fabritius). The story follows him through his grieving process, his changing living arrangements (as his guardianship arrangements develop over time), and later his adult work and connection to the antique and art communities. The painting connects him with his mother (it was her favorite painting in the exhibit they were there to see), but also generates hijinks as he struggles with what to do with a famous painting that has gone missing. It is an exploration of the gray areas of morality and why life is worth living even when circumstances break against you. In the end the author (Donna Tartt) takes some time to philosophize, not unlike Tolstoy in War and Peace, but speaking through the protagonist's voice, and much more succinctly that Tolstoy did.

The protagonist is a smart kid, wracked with guilt, and, after his mother dies, struggles to find adults whom he knows are in his corner. Hijinks ensue. Without getting too much into the details, I started empathizing with a kid in a tough spot, but almost immediately his decisions began to annoy me. The results of many of his own decisions, and many things beyond his control, put him in consecutively worse situations. Finally, he appears to have found an equilibrium, but the author uses time jumps to cover things up, then uses flashbacks to fill in some key information about what's been happening to our hero. He is clever and resourceful, but not especially interested in the morality of his decisions, but nevertheless remains hamstrung by his guilt. That leads to the philosophical exposition at the end. 

Following the art world and antiques through New York, the story largely focuses on privileged areas of society and problems within them. The protagonist never really belongs in that world, except through his interest in art. Some of the discussions on the value of art/antiques and the marketplaces for them are pretty interesting. There are some interesting supporting characters, including his best high school friend who is a mad Russian (or Ukrainian?), and a woodworker who restores antiques. The story has a few surprising twists baked in.

As I'm writing this, I realize that I enjoyed the book, but I didn't love it. Critics did; it won the Pulitzer prize for fiction.