Last night I finished JR Moehringer’s The Tender Bar. I started it on my trip to New Orleans and plowed through the ending over the last week.
Moehringer was the guy who wrote Andre Agassi’s autobiography Open. I really enjoyed that and had heard good things about The Tender Bar. I vowed I would read it when I had the time. That was two years ago.
Well, I finally finished it last night. In a word – brilliant. There’s more to it than this, but the book is a memoir of Moehringer’s life growing up in Manhasset and his love for a bar just 142 steps from his house (or sometimes more when he zig-zagged home).
I think what made the book great is that the writing is truthful. And funny when it needs to be. Moehringer doesn’t take himself too seriously.
After I finished it I did something that I could only do in 2012: I went onto Facebook, sent the author a quick message, and then went onto Google Maps and checked out the street view of the bar (which has since been re-named but is still around).
In other news, I leave for Sydney in two weeks. Stay tuned.
