Book description
BLOW is the unlikely story of George Jung's roller coaster ride from middle-class high school football hero to the heart of Pable Escobar's Medellin cartel-- the largest importer of the United States cocaine supply in the 1980s. Jung's early business of flying marijuana into the United States from the mountainsā¦
Why read it?
2 authors picked Blow as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Do you like to root for the bad guy? Then George Jung, the central figure in this true crime classic about the Columbia-to-America cocaine snowstorm of the 1980s, might just be your man.
Author Porter weaves a brisk, vivid narrative about his anti-hero Jung, a likable goofball stoner who stumbles into the big-time international coke biz and isnāt smart enough to get out (and he had his chances, lord knows).
Johnny Depp did a memorable job of portraying Jung in the film version of Blow (released in 2001), but the Porterās book takes the reader three or four levels deeperā¦
From David's list on The best books to get inside the minds of true-crime killers and convicts.
My favorite true crime booksāand most of my favorite non-fiction booksātend to be character-driven, read like novels, and tell a larger story through the protagonistās lens. I found myself getting lost in George Jungās journey as a drug smuggler and loving that sometimes it felt almost incidental that he was at the criminal nexus of a massive cultural phenomenon taking place.
I also love it when books and protagonists create conflicting emotional reactions. Jungās likeability, coupled with the destructiveness of the business he helped pioneer, rings true to life; I found myself rooting for him at times, then despising him,ā¦
From Jason's list on The best crime books that explode into larger worlds.
If you love Blow...
December on 5C4
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa storiesāall 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 argueā¦
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