Top 10 Books

1. Will They Ever Trust Us Again? by Michael Moore · Buy no w > 2. The Last Season - A Team in Search of its Soul, by Phil Jackson · Buy no w > 3. Out of Bounds: Inside the NBA's Culture of Rape, Assault, and Drug Use, by Jeffrey Benedict · Buy no w > 4. Loose Balls, by Jayson Williams · Buy no w > 5. Sacred Hoops, by Phil Jackson · Buy no w > 6. The Price of Loyalty, by Ron Suskind · Buy no w > 7. Lies: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, by Al Franken · Buy no w > 8. Dude, Where's My Country?, by Michael Moore 9. Against all Enemies, by Richard Clark 10. Plan of Attack, by Bob Woodward

Join My Book Club!

Last year I started a book club with a few of my friends in the San Francisco Bay Area, it was a great success, and we tried to read a new book every month (see below). This year I would like to invite all of my online fans over the age of 14 to “virtually” participate in my club!

Here's how it works:
At the beginning of each month, I will post the month's book choice and the date by which club members should have finished reading the book (usually the third week of the month). By that date, I would like all of my online club members to have e-mailed me their questions and thoughts on the book. Then my original book club will meet and discuss your questions and comments, and I will post yours and our responses on the website.

Book Club review: Native Son by Richard Wright [Buy now].

For the past 10 years, the team media guide has always listed my favorite book as Native Son, by Richard Wright. Yet, I don't know if I have ever explained why.

The first time I read this book was in high school. I fell in love with it and I was angry at it. I was mad at it, yet I couldn't put it down. Since then, I've read it at least six other times. Sometimes, I just pick it up and skim through it. And it's probably something I will do for the rest of my life.

It's funny because though I consider this my favorite book, I'm not sure if I agree with the book's premise. Richard Wright is an amazing writer. I've been reading a lot of his work (I also recently finished Rite of Passage, Eight Men and other work). So I have been able to embrace myself in his philosophy and his way of thinking.

What Richard Wright does is put his characters in unbelievable situations and has them play out an evolution of those circumstances. Bigger, the main character in Native Son, was put in the circumstance where he ended up killing somebody. And Wright wants you to believe that the circumstances are the reason why he did it. Had Bigger not been in certain circumstances, maybe he wouldn't be such a violent person. So Wright is actually asking the reader to sympathize with Bigger in a way to liberate him from the negative environment that he finds himself in, so he could be his true self.

In my mind, it's a very controversial book. It takes you to places where you don't want to go. It makes you feel extremely uncomfortable. And the more uncomfortable you get, the more effective this book is. It's unrelenting with unflinching rawness of its characters. It's there and in your face. I find Richard Wright's writing amazing. I find his work riveting, I find myself disagreeing with him most of the time, yet I find myself being drawn into the circumstances of feeling the plight of his character and being saddened with the circumstances these characters find themselves in. He is an amazing writer. He doesn't create characters that you fall in love with - he creates characters that you feel ambivalent about. And when you have someone who is provocative, it makes for great writing.

If you would like to join my online book club, please send me an e-mail to reading@adonalfoyle.com with your name and contact information.

Monday, April 10, 2006 (SF Chronicle)
BOOK PASSAGES/Foyle and friends relate reading to life
Scott Ostler

It's Sunday afternoon at Adonal Foyle's house in the Orinda hills, and the fellas are gathered around, getting worked up.

They're snacking and drinking (water or apple juice), and yelling, a lot of emotion bouncing around the room. Not an unusual scene, but something is missing. There's no ballgame on television. No television. No poker table.

Just guys talking, a heated discussion on spirituality and religion, or spirituality versus religion, and what the Dalai Lama might possibly have in common with Hitler, besides that they both wrote popular books.

It's the monthly meeting of Foyle's book club, and the Warriors' center is loosely presiding from the low block, the big chair in the corner of the living room.

Cliches are dying hard. Jocks don't read? Foyle devours books, reads as many as 10 more-or-less simultaneously, and uses them to fuel his head.

Guys don't talk about feelings? Try sitting in this informal circle and even thinking about dodging the first order of business, which is letting the other guys know how you're doing in your own space this month.

In this club, you can't talk about a book unless you also somehow weave it into your life experience.

This month's book is "An Open Heart -- Practicing Compassion in Everyday Life," by the Dalai Lama and Nicholas Vreeland. One of the club members, Graham, tells about an emotionally wrenching street-rage incident he was involved in, and how it ties in with the book. Fred and Tim have just returned from separate trips to foreign countries, and the book had relevance to their experiences.

Where's Foyle at this month? He tells the group that every year he makes advance plans for the offseason. But not this year, his ninth as a Warrior. For the first time ever, he allowed himself to dream the Warriors' playoff dream, leaving his May-June calendar open for playoff ball. Alas, the Warriors are eliminated so his schedule has a bleak, unfamiliar hole. Maybe the Dalai Lama can help.

For Foyle, books spill over into life, and vice versa.

He grew up on a tiny island in the Grenadines, raised by his grandmother, who didn't dislike books per se, but frowned on wasting precious kerosene or candles to light up words on paper.

So Adonal didn't discover books until he came to America for high school, and his new foster parents got him playing some serious literary catch-up. As Foyle shows me his office, lined with books arranged under neat category labels, he hugs an imaginary book to his chest.

"I could never bear to get rid of a book," he says. "This is me, this is part of me."

Foyle's book-jones rose to a whole new level when he read Richard Wright's "Native Son."

"It forced me to reassess what I believe in," Foyle says. "It challenged me in a lot of ways I didn't want to be challenged. It forced me to confront my beliefs."

He wanted to share his love for books with friends so he formed the club, inviting people from various areas of his life. One guy Foyle knows from the gym, another from mutual political work (Foyle founded Democracy Matters, a nonprofit dedicated to campaign finance reform). The club has about 10 members, including two women who recently joined but aren't here this day. Foyle is the only Warrior in the club, although he says some of his teammates do read books. Jason Richardson, Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy. Foyle noticed Derek Fisher reading a history volume.

Most book clubs discuss books, and that's what Foyle's club did at first, but that frustrated him.

"It's pointless just to sit and talk about the merits of a book and not apply it to life," Foyle says.

To him, a book isn't for superficial enjoyment, it's a tool you use to rearrange your head. In the meeting, the guys use the book as a springboard.

Foyle opens the meeting by semi-apologizing for making the members read this book, which some of them found boring, obvious or repetitive. But after one trip around the room, each member talking about his life and the book, Foyle throws open the discussion and now we've got some action.

After about an hour, Foyle, like Jerry Garcia bringing the Grateful Dead back from an extended jam to the original melody, steers the discussion back to the book. He proposes that while it wasn't the peppiest read the club has tackled, maybe somewhere in there is a nugget or two that each member might find useable.

Foyle has a large and eclectic art collection, and on a living room wall is a 9-foot-high painting of his beloved grandmother, who passed away a few years ago. She's standing tall and proud, looking down upon her grandson's book club, and because no candles or kerosene are being squandered, Grandma seems to approve.

Return to top ^