Positively Fifth Street, James McManus
Positively Fifth Street, James McManus
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Positively Fifth Street
Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker

Author: James McManus

Narrator: James McManus

Abridged: 3 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/01/2003


Synopsis

Rough sex, black magic, and the science--and eros--of gambling.

Meet in the ultimate book about Las Vegas.

James McManus was sent to Las Vegas by Harper's to cover the World Series of Poker in 2000, especially the mushrooming progress of women in the $23-million event, and the murder of Ted Binion, the tournament's prodigal host, purportedly done in by a stripper and her boyfriend with a technique so outré it took a Manhattan pathologist to identify it. Whether a jury would convict the attractive young couple was another story altogether.

McManus risks his entire Harper's advance in a long-shot attempt to play in the tournament himself. Only with actual table experience, he tells his skeptical wife, can he capture the hair-raising brand of poker that determines the world champion. The heart of the book is his deliciously suspenseful account of the tournament itself--the players, the hand-to-hand, and his own unlikely progress in it.

Written in the tradition of The Gambler and The Biggest Game in Town, Positively Fifth Street is a high-stakes adventure, a penetrating study of America's card game, and a terrifying but often hilarious account of one man's effort to understand what Edward O. Wilson has called "Pleistocene exigencies"--the eros and logistics of our primary competitive instincts.

About James McManus

James McManus is a novelist and poet, most recently winner of the Peter Lisagor Award for sports journalism. He teaches writing and comparative literature at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, including a course on the literature and science of poker. He is the author of Positively Fifth Street.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kathrina on June 23, 2014

Librarians from all over the nation descend on Las Vegas in 3 days. Like a good librarian, efficient and thrifty, the American Library Association likes to choose favorite vacation destinations, but always in the off season. I imagine that, while most of the thousands of descending librarians will b......more

Goodreads review by Tom on March 04, 2018

Positively Fifth Street is one of those rare nonfiction books that read like a great first person novel. It doesn't hurt that McManus follows in the gonzo tradition of Hunter Thompson on his journey. The book begins with McManus a professor and freelance writer who is hired to write a story on how w......more

Goodreads review by Clare on June 01, 2016

On my managing editor's advice, I decided that the next step in my poker education would be losing a chunk of money to Ricky and Alexis on Friday reading James McManus's Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker, a journalist's account of playing—and final ta......more

Goodreads review by Greg on January 15, 2009

I enjoyed the book quite a bit. It's a great thriller where the suspense is more about the poker than the murder trial. Ostensibly about both the World Series of Poker and a dirty murder trial related to it, the book is really more about what it's like to be IN the WSoP. And in that, it excelled. I a......more

Goodreads review by Melody on October 09, 2008

First of all, I have to say that I don't know how to play poker, so large swathes of this book went sailing over my head. It opens with a gory murder reenactment, also not something I fancy. Those two things notwithstanding, this was a solid and entertaining listen. I didn't like McManus' habit of r......more


Quotes

“James McManus narrates the story of his dream assignment, which must have seemed like a royal flush...the results are highly rewarding, and entertaining, informative and dramatic yearn, full of twists and turns and sweaty palms, read all the more convincingly by an author who's not just acting the part.” —The Dallas Morning News


Awards

  • Society of Midland Authors Book Awards - Winner