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I really liked it. It's the third fictional work on the Russian Revolution I have read in the last year or so. In some ways it is what I had wished The Time Traveler's Wife would have been.

A 1980s historian's ex-girlfriend walks in on his Russian history class. Afterward she strikes up the old romance. He keeps having very lucid dreams about being in the Russian Revolution himself. Later the dreams get more real, with mud on his shoes, dirty hair, etc.

Just as the gf is getting back with him, he shifts into the past for long term. Along the way he meets historical figures, his own father, goes through psychological torture, etc.

I like how Appel tells a story in several different time periods in a still linear pattern.

Like Blood Red Snow White this one was in the children's section of the library. It is even less appropriate for kids than that was. Quite possibly the most sex in a book I have ever read.

Needless to say this guy didn't give them the money they hoped. I'm still not convinced the Mad Man wasn't Donald Trump.

I liked it. I really appreciate Lacrosse and it really was Major Leauge Lacrosse that got me most interested and I have found the most enjoyable version of the sport I've seen. This book is a short tale about how the Body-by-Jake-Guy started the league after reading a magazine article about Dave Marrow's lacrosse company Warrior in Spin magazine and finding his number and calling him, something Jake calls "dialing for dollars" to ask if there was a pro lacrosse league and when told know he responded WELL THERE IS NOW and took off on this new venture. Jake then goes on to tell us how it all happened and all of the characters he met along the way. Jake seems to be a true entrepreneur to the point that he named names of everyone who helped along the way and uses nicknames describe all the people who were hindrances so as to preserve the anonymity and avoid burning bridges. One example being "The Mad Man" a fat real estate investor from New York with kankles and felt everyone owed him everything and in a really weird way. I have hunch that might have been Donald Trump, if it was I'm somewhat surprised he already thought he was part of the police force in 2000.

Last year I finished up A life in Sports a biography of Lamar Hunt focuses primarily on his part in forming the American Football League, while also touching on forming MLS and professionalizing tennis. I was hoping to have more of that here. While I was somewhat surprised that Mr. Hunt makes an appearance here and has a small role in helping Major League Lacrosse start out the authorship leaves some lacking.

Clearly Mr. Steinfeld has written business books before and this frequently turns into one with the "no matter how many times you hear know you just have to keep asking people until someone says yes" kind of boring derivative nonsense. He also thinks awfully lot of himself, example of him saying that he always thinks about his family first, when three quarters of the way through the book he didn't even mention he had a family.

At times I felt like Jake had some sort of minimum page limit to reach with his publishers. In particular usually when two authors write one book sometimes, I'll see one author with one chapter and another with the other, or more often you can't easily tell which part each author wrote as it comes across as a single prose. However, in Take a Shot! every part that Dave Morrow wrote is included as a long quote, often pages at a time with paragraphs intended on both sides and everything.

While Take a Shot! was written in 2012, after the 10th anniversary of the league with smiles on everyone's face that MLL would be around for years to come, in hind site we know better. Since the authorship of this book MLL was downgraded from a professional to a semi-professional league and later merged with the Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) that has a business model more similar to what Jake and Dave ran as the MLL's "Summer Showcase" than the regular league that followed. Also interesting the last team they got to join the first season, the Boston Canons, because Jake didn't have high faith in them, is the only team that still exists in the PLL.

If you are interested in professional lacrosse its worth the read, as for the ins and outs of starting a professional sprots league A life in Sport is better, and there are tons of better business books.

The first book I purchased from the fabulous AK Press (akpress.org) when I couldn't find a copy at any library in the state. This is the fictional tale of the wobbly way of life in the 1910s on their way to creating a new world inside the shell of the old.

@Iamgmm@bookwyrm.social what made you think you'd get Sci-Fi?