Book cover of Bad to the Bone

Book description

'Waddington employs a cheerful surrealism to convey the superhuman status of his cyclists and the designer violence of his killer. The encounters with death are funny rather than frightening and the narrator is omnipotent, stylish and amused. Waddington's descriptions of racing, and they are many and enthralling, have the rhythm…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Bad to the Bone as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I wasn’t following professional cycling in the bad old days of systematic doping, but this book made me feel like I was there—not just at the roadside, but in the peloton.

The characters—the good, the bad, and the downright repulsive, are all caught in a system that grinds down the best and brings out the worst, and I couldn’t look away. I wanted integrity to prevail, I wanted justice done, but most of all, I wanted to know what happened next.

Then there’s the prose, which is so bright and vivid that I found a new…

If you love Bad to the Bone...

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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