Month 32: Nonfiction, but then fiction

Month 32 of 260 (12.31 percent)

Size of list: 86,832 pages (11.64 percent above start)

Pages read: 16,442 (18.94 percent)

H-list: 4,464/23,114 (19.31 percent)

N-list: 6,383/36,694 (17.40 percent)

O-list: 5,595/27,024 (20.70 percent)

Added: Girl in Translation

Finished: Girl in Translation, Masters of Modern Soccer
Reading: The Fires of Heaven

Ahead of the World Cup, I read Masters of Modern Soccer by Grant Wahl, a soccer reporter at Sports Illustrated. It was initially a bit jarring to go from novels to nonfiction — Wahl just isn't as florid a writer as a novelist is, which is appropriate for his job. Once I settled into his voice, I was glad I spent the time on it. I've been watching soccer for 24 years, but I learned a lot from this book, and it has made watching the World Cup more enjoyable and informative. (Although I finished this book more than a month ago, I'm writing this entry on the night between semifinals; Belgium, who Wahl writes about in this book, went out today.) My favorite part was when he talks to Mexican forward Javier Hernandez and coach Juan Carlos Osorio, and Hernandez, the forward, explains Osorio's system. This is where Wahl's writing suddenly shines — no, he's no novelist, but Osorio's pride radiates off the page. 

Girl in Translation is an immigrant story, picked for the book club as a followup to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. It was a page-turner, but I forgot that it was a novel, and when I got to the end I felt cheated. The depiction of sweatshop work in New York City, in particular, was so vivid and felt so real that I was angry, while reading it, that such a thing still exists in America; but when I realized this was fiction, I felt I could no longer point to this book as illustrating a real problem. The main character, the narrator, is super smart, and this feels like a deus ex machina to pull her story forward and her family out of poverty.