Either of these books would also make good Christmas gifts for those of us
fascinated by the gambling life.
Katy Lederer (sibling of Howard Lederer and Annie Duke, poker royalty, and
daughter of Richard Lederer the much-published wordsmith extraordinaire) has
just published "POKER FACE, a girlhood among gamblers". This is an interesting
look at the family from the early years of game playing, before they
individually moved from New England to Las Vegas with most of the family involved in
professional gambling. She only dabbled so the book is written from the
viewpoint of an involved outsider. Very well written and interesting.
James McManus, author of POSITIVELY FIFTH STREET wrote an incredible jacket
blurb for the book. His recently published book is a combination of his
covering the Binion murder trial in LV while simultaneously playing in the World
Series of Poker a few blocks away from the courthouse in the casino Binion's
father built. He spent the advance for the article on satelite tournaments and
made it to the final table. What a ride! He is amazingly self-aware and very
good at describing what he is mentally going through.
Side note: Richard Lederer is an active Mensa member and I understand Annie
and Howard will both be lecturing at the annual Mensa convention this July in
Las Vegas. I can only hope that the Las Vegas TV show will not do an episode
that makes us look as ridiculous as the Swizzle Stick convention they featured
this week!
Becky
http://journals.aol.com/becksam/Writergamblerandscrapbookmaker/
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