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Title: Warmed over gruel
Review: Bill Barich's slim volume, The Sporting Life, was a monumental disappointment. A review in the San Diego Union compared this book to A River Runs Through It. I disagree...lustily. I'd like to toss this book into a river. A book about horse racing, boxing and fly-fishing...three of my favorite vices inside one set of covers. But each of these essays is merely warmed over gruel. The boxers are long retired, the horses don't run, and the fly fishing stories are merely tedious. You have the feeling that Barich collected a handful of articles that were so poor no one else would print them and then foisted them on us. It's a truly dreadful book. Don't buy it.
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