What I've Read: Stay Close

If there is one negative to being in school for a year, it means I have a ton of reading to do each week that isn't exactly what one would call fun. Sure, it's fun because I'm utilizing those brain cells and growing my skillset, but it's such technical reading that there isn't a way to explain how exciting and interesting this stuff is without coming across as a total nerd.

It also means that when I do pick up a book for personal, relaxing reading, it takes about eight weeks longer to read it because I just can't make the time for it. My usual daily train reading gets overrun by class reading. Just not a lot of time for escape reading, even if my version of escapism tends to be nonfiction or documentary films. Damn, I am a dork.

While it took me much longer than it ever should have, I was able to read Harlan Coben's latest. And while the cover looks innocent enough, the subtle break in the fence should warn you that things in suburban New Jersey are once again in a state of "oh, shit." In this edition, a soccer mom gets her world rocked when she (rather stupidly) decides to tread back into her former life that she once abandoned for greener pastures. She can't quite let it go, and it comes back to bite her in the ass when people start dying around her (or being tortured) and she can't quite understand why and by whom. Throw in the ex-lover that always has to reappear and some creepy killer types, and it's a fun read. I was surprised by the limited number of characters in this novel because normally Coben throws a lot of characters at you and does some festive crossover of other novels he has written. But in Stay Close he keeps it simple and that allows him to dive a bit deeper into some of the characters and when things get super-personal later on, it gives it a bit more weight when normally you gloss over some certain events.

After he took some time to develop a more teen-centered novel (clearly trying to being the Twilight type crowd into his brand of novels), I'm glad he's returned to his more adult-themed stuff because I don't know that I was ever going to follow him down the road of Myron Bolitar's nephew. Of course, if this means Bolitar himself isn't returning anytime soon, I'll be definitely disappointed.

What I've Read: To The Last Breath

Gotta give quick props to the new job on this latest book that I read. It was featured in a book review in the first issue of the magazine that I worked on. And when the reviewer gave it back to the office and it was available to anyone for free, I quickly snatched it up. It's a book right up my alley.

You all know by now that I love me some nonfiction, and combine that with an interesting tale of life, death and the search for meaning in it all, and I all on board. Slakey is a Georgetown professor who lived a very solitary life (for reasons perfectly understood when you read about it) until he decided to accomplish a seemingly simple task: summit the peak on each continent, and surf a wave on every ocean on the planet.

Of course, no plan every goes off without a hitch. It takes him about a dozen years to complete the task, but not before he is nearly killed on a couple occasions and he experiences more than a few deep and introspective moments. His trips to Indonesia, Antarctica and more are filled with interesting insights into the human mind when it's left in isolation (be it on top of a mountain at 18,000 feet or looking down the barrel of a gun in a foreign jungle). This was far from the deepest experience I ever had reading a book, but it was certainly a worthwhile read and also a quick one at just over 200 pages. And anyone who has read Into Thin Air or similar reads will feel right at home here.

I can say for sure, though, that this book reaffirms my desire to summit Mount Kilimanjaro with my buddy Luke, who has has talked about it with me several times over the years. It's probably a silly fool's dream, but it is something to dream of, and that ain't bad.

What I've Read: The Food of a Younger Land

To me the biggest takeaway from this book was something I obviously/kinda sorta/already knew but never thought about in a way like this until reading this book and also having a conversation with my grandmother about its details.

And the big detail is the creation of the interstate highway system. That it was really only created about 60 years ago is extremely fascinating to me. When Dan, Luke and I went to Ireland last year, we laughed that Ireland was just completing its first major sections of its own interstate system, but when I read this book I was surprised at how young our own highways are. Eisenhower was sick of military supplies not reaching the coasts fast enough, so something had to be done.

How the hell does this relate to a book about food? Well, the crux of Kurlansky's book is that before we had interstates (and thus fast food restaurants and on and on) there was a stronger reliance on local recipes, supplies and food customs. Regional cooking was not a craze but a necessity because there was not way of putting a French restaurant on Main Street unless your town happened to have a large French population and access to French products.

Kurlansky doesn't actually write much in this book at all, just little snippets to introduce the recipes, traditions and that were written by writers during the Depression. Back in the ‘30s, the government gave writers, poets and others jobs to write things so they could contribute to the nation and earn a small bit of a living. One of the main projects of the Federal Writers Project was to write a national cookbook, composed of pieces from each state in the country. This way, people in Nevada could get a better understanding of how those in Alabama or Maine ate. It also served as a national record of the times. Many of the pieces are amazing because of their regional perspective and accompanying voice. Several of the writers from the South write with deep, often barely unrecognizable accents, but theirs were some of the richest experiences and food histories based on poverty and slavery.

The FWP ended before the book was completed, so Kurlansky had to piece everything back together and give it some background and setting. And not everyone was schmuck writers, either. Zora Neale Hurston and many other well-respected authors and playwrights were part of the project which was interesting to see. Some of the other highlights, and there were many, was reading about Penn Station in NYC was the birthplace of eating raw oysters; how much the menu at the Brown Hotel in Louisville has changed very little over the decades; how much the people in Oregon and Washington don't just love salmon but loooooove salmon.

It's little regional quirks and differences that you learn about that are truly fascinating considering it's happened within a few generations of my birth and gave me the opportunity to speak with my grandmother about Depression-era times and the kind of eating that took place in her younger years living in Frederick and later New Jersey. Though not food-related, just listening to hear talk about how a drive from her house to Manhattan (which now takes about 30-45 minutes depending on traffic) took almost 3 hours because only two two-lane roads went from northern Jersey to the city. Crazy stuff, and fun to talk about with her. Always glad when a good book allows you to connect with a family member, and that is why this book gets a big thumbs up from me.

What I've Read: The Last Stand

My journey down the corridors of history (how's that for some schmaltz?) takes me out West, as I explored the Battle of the Little Bighorn, which was one of the major turning points in American/Indian relations after the Civil War.

Part of my work at CFED over the years was designing reports for Tribal areas and I've been quietly fascinated by the history of Native peoples in this nation. My learnings got a little deeper when I read Mayflower last Fall, but like many of my generation I've been enamored by war and the effects it has had on peoples. Some of my favorite bands have sung songs about Wounded Knee and HBO has shown documentaries about other conflicts between those who choose to live on reservations and those who have tried to stick it out and survive off the land. It's really fascinating stuff, and The Last Stand is another example of how decisions by men on both sides of a conflict can have long-lasting effects on people generations after they have left this place.

Primarily, The Last Stand is about Gen. Custer and his infamous last stand, and Sitting Bull, the Lakota warrior who led his people. On the surface, Custer was a moron, tactically deciding to split his army into several squads that were never coordinated and thusly were routed in a bloody battle they had no chance of winning when outnumbered nearly 8-to-1. Sitting Bull, conversely, never wanted a fight with the white man, but knew it was inevitable and so he did what was necessary when the government forced his hand. He would not go without making some poor choices of his own (some which eventually cost him his life), but to read into the detail of both these men (and those advisors around to them) is to see how culture, armaments, strategy and history all played pivotal roles in the setup and result of this battle.

It's a long, dense read (what can I say, it's the Philbrick way) but the amount of information and the buildup to the eventual battle is great stuff and I highly recommend it for history buffs or anyone as fascinated by the plight of Native people as I have become.

What I've Read (sorta): Dead Zero

This was a leftover from the holiday drive from Kentucky. I was going through the iPod and realized I left about 7 hours left on the audiobook. So after closing out the unfortunate Guinness book, I strapped on the chesticles (hey, it's Kelly's term not mine) and got through the rest of Stephen Hunter's continuation of the Bob Lee Swagger saga.

Gotta say, though, I wish I had stopped where I had originally left off. Look, I'm never going to hate on a Bob Lee Swagger novel. That character has been with me longer than most friends I have. But this was one of the weaker outings in the franchise, and I have a sneaking suspicion and I can see where this thread is heading that Hunter started in the final third of the book. These stories have generally lacked crazy plot twists and instead relied on good page-turning action and witty writing. This was not that book.

Instead it was a bunch of rather ridiculous gotcha moments and bizarro set pieces that make no narrative sense of warp the sense of space and time that is rather akin to the stuff you saw in Enemy of the State where Will Smith somehow ran from Georgetown to Dupont Circle in about 11 seconds. Anyway, the point is that leaps of logic were taken and missed terribly.

Hunter has another new novel out, and it's all focused on the secondary character from this novel, so I'm a little worried about what this means for my hero Bob Lee. I'm sure I'll check it out eventually but I'm not sure how excited I am about getting familiar with this new guy who may be a badass but isn't Bob Lee.

What I've Read: The Search for God and Guinness

My sister, bless her heart, keeps trying to get me books that she thinks I'll like. Now, to her credit, she got this one half-right. Looking at the title, the Guinness part is right up my alley. In the beer world, no pint gets me close to sheer happiness than Sir Arthur Guinness' finest. It's the God part ... notsomuch.

She's tried getting me books before, and we saw how unfortunate that turned out. And with this one, I'm worried there is a creepy trend. Both her attempts at literary gold struck out because they both ventured into some heavy religious territory that I want no part of.

There are red flags all over the place warning her that this may not be the best choice. For one, it say God above Guinness in the title, which should be a pretty clear indicator of the focus. Second, the author is a well-known evangelist, so that also was a sign. And third, it said God before Guinness in the title.

I'll take a moment away from my sister's selection capabilities and turn to the book itself. It's split between the history of the famous beer brand and the history of the family that created it and their religious bent. The beer parts were cool, I suppose. I learned a bit more than I did on the brewery tour in Dublin. The family history part was nice, in the sense that this was a rich family who spent a considerable fortune on the poor and needy around Ireland and Britain, so their faith helped turn their riches into good works for those in need.

What sucks most is that Mansfield does less research on this book than I did on my high school book reports (and half those books I never even read). Too many of his statements are questionable at best, starting with, "We can assume ..." or "He probably thought …" and he makes making massive presumptions of a person's thought process or actions without a lick of fact to back it up. When that's not happening, he takes a lot of liberties with quoting constantly from all sorts of letters and crap that don't exactly add much depth but sure do pad out the page count. Further, if there are 30 photos in the book, 27 of them are pictures taken within the last three years on the brewery tour, and maybe 3 of historical note. Dan, Luke and I took better pics of Guinness on our iPhones. It just all comes across as rather lazy. All of this is to say that there this would be fine if this were a book of fiction, not a piece of historical nonfiction that it actually is.

Hey, it's fine, not every book you read is going to be a winner. I'm just not sure I can trust something from my sister unless she starts being more clear about her intentions, or at the very least taking the time to read the dust jacket and deciphering what the hell she's getting me. But I love her for trying. I think that'll save this post from her scorn. Yeah, that'll do it.

What I've Read: In the Garden of Beasts

Erik Larson has not disappointed me as a writer yet, so digesting every word of his newest book was an easy assignment for me. He's written fantastic books like Thunderstruck and Devil in the White City, so if you haven't read those yet you just haven't experienced compelling writing that is all nonfiction but reads like the best page-turners you can find.

There's a whole cable channel dedicated to Nazi Germany; at least, it seems the History Channel is only concerned with that time in history. Fair enough, I suppose, considering there's a ton to talk about and plenty of footage to show. Oddly enough, Larson's book details a period of time just before World War II began that I had no idea would be this cool. This is about the man (and his family) who was made ambassador to Germany during and the one year he spent in the position and how it affected him, his daughter and what they experienced just before, during and after Hitler consolidated his power in Germany.

It seems like most of the books and movies and whatnot all deal with everything after Hitler began his march across Europe and invading nations. This book is about a college professor who becomes ambassador because no one else wants the job, and then he spends a year getting backstabbed, railroaded and (honestly) dicked around with by Nazi officials at every turn. It's clear early on that the pressure is on Dodd to wrangler debt payments from Germany, something Germany has no intention of doing, and that U.S. officials could care less about the problem Nazis are causing the Jews (and some of this is because at the time the U.S. was not exactly treating Jews perfectly, either).

While Dodd is having his troubles, the book spends the rest of the time following his daughter and her social life. She is, well, quite the hussy it seems. She dates a ton of guys, marries a few and cheats on every one of them at some point. And it's not just with random guys. She parties with journalists, dates a Russian intelligence officer (a precursor to the KGB) and even has lunch with Hitler. Pretty crazy, and that doesn't include the recruitment by the KGB that would eventually take place and other details that I'll let you discover when you read it yourself.

It's another stellar effort from Larson, and it's a shame he is such a stickler for detailed research because the bummer for it is that it takes a long time for another of his books to be released.

What I've Read: 99 Drams of Whiskey

I picked up this book for two reasons. 1) It was part of a "buy 2, get 1 free" when the Borders down the street was having a closeout sale; 2) It is about whiskey.

I'm becoming ever-more enamored with whiskey, and more specifically, bourbon. Sure, I loved drinking the stuff when I was in college, and I have fond memories of standing next to my father every Saturday night at the drug store buying my grandmother another 750 of Heaven Hill. But I'm now trying to gain an even greater appreciation for the aqua vitae.

Written by some girl who has a blog that's apparently rather popular (I've still never read a word on it), this book is also really two tales in one: 1) A travel book about the author and her friend as they travel through Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Tennessee tasting numerous whiskies from those areas (some you know, others I had never even heard of); and 2) An uber-brief history of whiskey, a kind of Whiskey for Dummies.

It's an enjoyable read if you breeze through the travel section parts and ignore that the author is somehow a popular blogger but has no idea of how to work various other forms of technology, or seems to not possess much in what we'd call streets smarts. The beginning of the book starts off well in the travel department, but by the middle I found myself rolling my eyes every time she talked about the troubles she had driving.

The whiskey history part is decent, but after reading 700 pages about Prohibition, her 12-page chapter about Prohibition seemed a bit lacking in the detail department. Clearly she's writing for the In Style magazine crowd. But once she stepped foot onto distilleries and started breaking down the whiskey tours and the multitude of whiskies she drank, I was left with my mouth drooling in need of a glass of the amber goodness. I wished she had written up more distilleries and sampled more, but she was under a tight deadline to get as much accomplished as possible. There were just times when she sampled one whiskey but mentioned the greatness of five or six others that she gave no detail about, leaving me wanting more information.

But, really, the greatest knowledge derived from this book was the reinforcement from numerous whiskey "experts" that repeated a familiar theme: That finding the best whiskey or bourbon is not about participating in hundreds of blind tastings or controlled drinking experiments in a vacuum (all good to do these, mind you, if you have the money and time). No, the real key is finding what tastes best to you, brand or price or setting be damned. It's about creating memories through which, in my case, this beautiful glass of liquor hailing from my home state is but a player in the great game of life. A drink that is along for the ride, and through which the mere mention of Woodford Reserve, Knob Creek, Old Pappy, Rowan's Creek, Blanton's, Old Willet or a thousand other great ones on the market conjures up a wonderful memory to savor for a lifetime. And this is just one reason why I am swimming in the deep end of my obsession with bourbon, and loving every minute of it.

What I've Read (sorta): The Affair

I didn't get a chance to read Lee Child's new Jack Reacher novel before the annual trek back to Kentucky, so I figured it'd make a great book on tape to bide the time through the mountains as we made our way home for the holidays. Typically we've ended up listening to books we don't know much about or just things to pass the time, but now we had the opportunity to catch up on one of our favorite fiction authors and kill the time of the long drive all at once.

How could this possibly go wrong?

Well, it yes ruined when you end up with the worst book narrator I've ever heard. This dude, Dick Hill, reads a book like a crusty old man who puts periods after every word he says, which makes comprehending the action nearly impossible. I. Mean. How. Could. You. Understand. What. Is. Happening. If. Every. Word. Such. As. I. Walked. Through. The. Door. And. Turned. And. Closed. It. Silently. In. Order. To. Go. Undetected. Be. A. Way. To. Listen. To. A. Novel. I thought this was something wrong with the audiobook quality or something, but apparently tons of other listeners had the same reaction, all bashing Dick for being a horrible reader. He then took it up a notch when the book got to the sex scenes, which he read in a way that had me convinced he drives a white panel van on weekends. It was creepy and I just had to fast-forward past them. Creepy, dude, creepy.

The book itself isn't bad, since it's a prequel or sorts to the Jack Reacher legend, but having it read by Creepy McCreeperston means I need another Reacher novel out soon so I can burn the sound of Dick Hill from my mind.

What I've Read: Inside of a Dog

As a big fan of dogs, my two in particular of course, it was about time that I read a book about dogs. Yes, I did read " The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" but I thought it completely sucked, so I'm acting like that book never happened.

Instead, being the dork that I am, I decided to read this nonfiction book about dogs and how we perceive them and (perhaps, more importantly) how they may be perceiving us. The woman who wrote it is a cognitive scientist, and she approaches the subject of dogs more knowing that they rely on the five senses in a completely different way then humans do. She's a dog owner herself, which also benefits the reader because she doesn't come off as a lab coat-wearing stick-in-the-mud with no feelings whatsoever.

Inside of a Dog traces the lineage of dogs back to their days as wolves, but makes the big distinction that nothing about dogs in the 21st century should be compared to wolves, because the domestication of dogs has completely sapped most wolf-like tendencies from man's best friend. Once she breaks that down sufficiently enough, it's off to the senses, and why dogs act so differently than we think they should.

The main reason is because, obviously, we anthropomorphize dogs way, waaay too much. We expect human responses from dogs when we are nuts to think such things. On average they see the world from two feet in height (think about walking around on all fours not just in your house but in grocery stores, etc.), so their perspective is vastly different. While we humans place a priority on the sense of sight, for dogs smell is the most important. It is a myth that dogs are colorblind; they actually see with yellow-tinted view (imagine life as the drug dealer scenes from Steven Soderbergh's "Traffic", you know, without the violence). There are a ton of other great dog insights she gives, but revealing them all would be stupid when you should just read the book.

I'm not saying I know my dogs specifically better because of reading it, but Inside of a Dog did help explain a lot about why they are who they are, and how dogs interact and communicate with the world that we take for granted. Definitely a great book for anyone who wants to get to know a little bit more about our four-legged friends.

What I've Read: Last Call

It tooks weeks longer than I had hoped, but I finally conquered this mammoth, deep dive into the rise and fall of Prohibition. Being an avid drinker, this book is right up my alley and the 14 years of Prohibition (and the years before and after it) are filled with more interesting stories than I had thought, and almost none of it had to do with gangsters.

I admit that my interest in this book was mainly because I thought it would be about Capone, bootlegging, moonshining and all sorts of fun, nefariousness. But instead, this book surprised me by being filled with names, dates, legislation and lots more names, dates and legislation.

The thrust of Last Call is more about the political, business, religious and social aspects of Prohibition. It's about the sexism and racism (there was A LOT of both, believe me, and it was overt and unapologetic) that were used to make particular arguments and sell a nation on outlawing drinking. It's about the political machinery that was sweeping that took a Democratic idea like national Prohibition and in many ways forever shaped the Republican and Democratic parties when their values and political positions were almost contrary to what they are now. It's about the Canadian and foreign businessmen (and those few surviving megabrewers like Miller, Busch and Pabst) that made a fortune off illegal liquor and beer.

There is a lot to digest in Last Call. It's crazy that less than 100 years ago this nation, in an overwhelming way, voted to tell people what they couldn't do in their own homes, and then watched as everyone – rich, poor, black, white, whatever – flouted those laws in every conceivable way. It's perhaps the greatest failure in American legislative history. Anyone with a passing interest in drinking should read this just to see where we've come as a nation of alcohol consumers. Just know this: For all the hubbub about drinking today, we don't even come close to consuming as much alcohol as we did before Prohibition. Back before 1920, Americans were (on average) drinking 2.6 gallons of alcohol per person. That equates to roughly 520 bottles of beer per year, per person. Damn. The current statistics are about 2.2 gallons per year, so there's some progress. Check out this book, you'll be surprised how much you learn, even if it takes you seemingly eight months to read it.

What I've Read: Born Standing Up

This was the third book that I read on my Hawaiian vacation, and it was a pleasant and quick read. I've always enjoyed Martin's early work and think he's been unfortunately forgotten in the discussion of great American comics. It's certainly because the roles he's taken in the last decade or so have not resulted in anything of grand notoriety, but it's wrong to just instantly dismiss him.

The autobiography traces his early life more than his post-70s success. A lot of time is spent on his childhood (not surprising, it wasn't always the best especially concerning his father), and then on his strides in making magic and comedy his obsession. I've been curious to see what his early magic/comedy/music shows must have been like, but there are not a lot of video or audio of it out there.

He's also got a recurring theme of failed relationships with females, both of his own doing (hey, it was the '60s and '70s) and also a matter of his travel schedule being absurd by modern standards. I'm still amazed at how performers can ride on a bus for 300+ days out of the year and do shows night after night at varying cities and audiences where you never know what you're going to get from the crowd. There is definitely an amount of bravery it takes to put yourself out there for an hour or 90 minutes, and Martin does a wonderful job giving describing that sense of utter fear and excitement.

He doesn't discuss his wild success with much detail at all, and it's a decision I wish he hadn't made. As someone who only got to see King Tut and The Jerk and other Martin classics long after they were released, I wanted to hear more about that time period and how that all happened, but you can tell from reading that he's too humble or embarrassed or whatever to discuss his fame. I've even appreciated his short stories that have been turned into movies, like Shop Girl which is surprisingly rewatchable. So there's a lot of material from the past 20+ years that he never touches upon and that is disappointing, but the overall book is great and it's a super-fast read that I think appreciators of comedy will enjoy.

What I've Read: Mayflower

The subhead for this book is: A Story of Courage, Community and War. This could not be more true when it comes to the story of those first 100 pilgrims who took a three-month boat ride from England to Plymouth.

Philbrick uses the courage, community and war as a way to divide this book into three distinct parts, but it's not a gimmick. Instead, it's literally the three phases the original Plymouth colony went through in the first 50 years of its existence. The courage it took for them to make the voyage in the first place (when things like no water, they had to subsist primarily on beer and wine alone), and then those first few months when the genius captain thought arriving just before the start of winter was a good idea (it wasn't; nearly half the population of the boat died in the first year they were on land).

The community part sums up the following 30-plus years. Meeting, interacting, trading and building relationships with the local Native Americans was not rose-colored paintings of everyone around the Thanksgiving table by any means. There were fights, peace accords and eventually a mutual understanding that two completely different races of people were going to live in close proximity to each other without knowing a damn thing about the future. They decided they were all in this together and for almost a quarter of a century the pilgrims and puritans slowly expanded but made deals with the tribes to make sure no one was overly offended.

The third act of the book is really about how this all went to shit with the passing of the original pilgrim voyagers and how it was, for all simplicity, the kids' damn fault. All the original settlers' kids grew up and decided they wanted everything to themselves, and started expanding at a freakish pace and taking whatever the hell they wanted, peace accords be damned. Eventually small decisions by tribal leaders turned out to have horrible consequences that they probably didn't realize at the time (because it was 1640 and we're talking about a time when furs and herbs were still a big deal on the trading market). What resulted was several ugly wars and the near complete decimation of native tribes in the area. Some stunning numbers are thrown at you, such as how (as a percentage of population), King Philip's War was more costly in lives for Native Americans than all of World War I and II combined for the U.S. population.

This is a really good read if you want to learn some real truths about what taking a risk and landing in a completely unknown place with unknown people must have been like 400 years ago when you were lucky to have one change of clothes. It's dense and takes a bit to get through everything, but there is never anything wrong about seeing where the roots of our current nation began. Philbrick's a great writer so I highly recommend his stuff.

What I've Read: Isaac's Storm

Prepare yourselves for some book review overload. One of the pleasures of vacations is disconnecting from the computer and reading a book. In my case, three of them.

First up, Isaac's Storm. This could not have come at a more opportune moment for me to read. About halfway through the reading this book, Washington was hit by an earthquake and a hurricane in the span of four days. It was a pretty crazy week, and when they called it HurriQuake 2011, I was quite pleased.

But reading this book about the Galveston hurricane of 1900 took the pleasure right out of that, though, since this was a massively devastating storm that killed 6,000 men, women and children. It's primarily two stories woven together: the story of how, at the turn of the century, man thought it had conquered weather and could predict/avoid/defeat anything that came its way; and the story of one man's hubris and whose decisions may have saved or lost countless number of lives depending on your viewpoint.


The look into weather predicting and bravado that the world (not just the U.S.) had toward predicting severe weather and being wholly proven wrong is a recurring theme around the turn of the century (see here (sorry, I can't find my review) and here). The Galveston storm was no different, and it's stunning to see how little has changed in predictions and how a lot comes down to luck and good fortune. I loved the way Larson closed the book, telling how today people line up at the local Walmart to buy provisions to ride out an upcoming hurricane. And on the spot where this Walmart exists, in the book the physical location once house a children's hospital where 90 kids huddled together with nuns to ride out the storm because they were located on the highest point of ground in Galveston. Yep, they all died.

It's a great book and Larson is a writer whose work I have devoured. He has a new book out about the first U.S. Ambassador to Nazi Germany, and you can be guaranteed that I will be reading that one.

What I've Read: Sew Your Own

This book is all about my sister. She likes to pick on me for reading bizarre books about singular topics like Milk, Salt or obscure historical moments (like a whaling boat that sunk or how the radio was invented. Look, I'm a weird guy. But I love these books and I know I get more life enjoyment from them than, say, some Twilight crap.

Point of the story is that my sister decided to fuel the fire by buying this book at a discount bookstore, or maybe she found it next to a dead guy, there's really no telling. I make that joke because this book was not the bill of goods she probably thought it was when she bought it (I'm really hoping someone once used this book to support an off-kilter table, because it's got about that much usefulness to it).

Actually, I shouldn't be so cruel, it's certainly not the worst book I've read. It's mainly about a British guy who decides that his way to fight global warming is to learn to make his own clothes. Sadly, about half the book has little to do with his quest to make his own clothes and fight global warming. Instead, it's his journey to find a religion or faith that works for him. It was a little bit of a wolf in sheep's clothing kind of tale. No surprise, he doesn't have much luck in the religion department, though he comes awfully damn close taking solace in the open arms of buddhism.

In the end the book made me doubt my abilities to sew and survive if acquiring proper clothing became and issue. I might have to rely on the old loin cloth/caveman look. Or when the zombie apocalypse comes, I'll just be going for the 9-layer Cormac McCarthy ensemble.

This doesn't doubt my sister's abilities to choose a good book for me, since I have to credit her for trying in the first place and over time I'm betting she can hit a home run. At least she didn't try to convince me to read some fiction-romance crap. The biggest benefit this book gave me was the belief that I could actually write a book of my own. I've had three books in my head for a couple years but the lack of confidence/time/skill/whatnot to follow through. But damn if this guy can make it happen, there's nothing to say I couldn't. Let's just call that the Backhanded Compliment of the Month to Flintoff for his book.

What I've Read (sorta): The Devil's Light

Once the Summer of Klosterman ended, I had a chance to catch up on one of the few fiction writers I read regularly. I've written about Richard North Patterson books before (trust me, you can find the reviews on the blog). I had gotten it originally as an audiobook to listen to on the drive to a from New Jersey for my aunt's wedding, but it was way longer than I thought it would be so I held off. Was going to listen to it when I took my long flight to Hawaii next month, but figured why not just get it over with now.

This book didn't do it for me at all. It's premise is pretty simple: Osama bin Laden devises a plan to steal a nuclear weapon and detonate it above Tel Aviv. Spies from the CIA and Mossad try to thwart said plan. Sounds interesting, but it just wasn't, and for a number of reasons. Part is bad luck for Patterson; bin Laden is dead, and that reality just sucks the wind from the book. The plot is still fascinating and eerily plausible it seems (the bomb is stolen from Pakistan, which has the stability and security of a wet paper towel).

Besides the whole bin Laden thing, the book also reads almost exactly like a book I listened to when we drove back to Kentucky for the holidays last year. So reading the same kind of stuff twice in 8 months is a little bland for me. Further, this is a far departure from the novels Patterson got me hooked on in the first place. I got sucked in by all his in-depth courtroom thrillers centered on political topics. Now his recent books have been more military-themed novels that I feel are already done ad nauseum. Everyone seems to had written the "bin Laden nuclear bomb" plot so I just feel bummed that he's treading into well-worn territory and not taking a unique viewpoint.

So I hope he goes back to what I liked about his first 10 or so novels because I'd hate to dismiss him from my reading list. One book doesn't ruin it for me, but I'm actually going to pay more attention this time to the plot instead of just buying it without even needing to read previews.

What I've Read: Fargo Rock City

About two weeks ago my Summer of Klosterman came to an end. It was a great ride, but it had to end since I ran out of books. And there was no better way to end the journey than starting at the beginning with Chuck's first book.

Fargo Rock City is mainly his autobiography of growing up in the '80s in North Dakota. More specifically, it's about his unabashed love for metal music that sustained him while growing up in the '80s in North Dakota. This is book is definitely geared toward a certain crowd. You have to have grown up and loved Motley Crue, Poison, Ratt, Warrant, Skid Row and various other
one-hit wonder bands. Also means you have to appreciate the godfather of them all, Guns n Roses. All of these bands, and many more, bring back memories of my childhood.

• Listening to Mr. Brownstone for the first time in Ben's basement and having no idea what Axl was so excited about (apparently it was 8,000 pounds of cocaine).


• Hanging out at Scott's listening to the Misfits and Danzig and the first time I was coerced into holding a snake on my arm and promptly wanting to piss my pants and vomit.


• Watching Headbanger's Ball on MTV on weekends at Aaron's place, then watching late-night ECW wrestling and nearly breaking everyone's backs with poorly executed wrestling moves.


• Smoking our first cigarettes at the ridiculously stupid age of 11 down at The Creek and listening to AC/DC.
  
  
• Being in the 8th grade and having the my graduating class vote for Skid Row's "I'll Remember You" to be our graduation song. This was an annual tradition at St. Raphael and ours was the first year in memory that the school overrode our vote. The principal chose for us and picked some shitty Kenny Rogers song. It sure as hell wasn't The Gambler, which would have rocked. We pseudo-protested by everyone not singing the song at the end of graduation per tradition, and when we had the party afterward we rocked Skid Row and GnR and everything else all night, and also cheered when our pregnant classmate arrived (oh yeah, she was 14 and pregnant and barred from being in the graduation ceremony in the church). Classy times.

This was just a skimming of the times I had growing up listening to metal. It was the mid-80s that first introduced me to Aerosmith, my favorite band of all time, and that Klosterman lavishes praise on for influencing every metal band that arrived in the 80s. Nice to see my choice in music validated.

It's a great book, and any guy (or girl) who was born in the '70s should read it because there will definitely be a chapter (or five) that resonate strongly with you. It's great stuff, and it definitely made me start re-listening to some of these bands again, for better or worse.

What I've Read: Eating the Dinosaur

My summer of Klosterman is coming to an end. I have only one of his books remaining, and Eating the Dinosaur was his most recent so the topics are a little fresher and his opinions and theories more refined.

There are 13 essays in total in this book, and as is the case with all his previous essay collections they cut a wide swath across the pop culture landscape. There were three that really meant the most to me since I either wildly agreed with them long before I even read them (which was a weird feeling to have to read passages and themes that I've talked about with friends and others long before I ever heard the name Chuck Klosterman). I'm not claiming I had anything as complete and lucid as his notions, but we did have conversations about these things during long days and nights in the Kernel newsroom and also at 278 Rose Street Apt A during our college years.

ABBA 1, World 0 is a deep look into the Swedish disco band. For those who happened to be in Macon, Ga., back in 2001 may have been in the bar that Ellen Lord took me to where we all drank way too much and I may have been coerced by the promise of more free drinks if I participated in the karaoke session by singing ABBA's "Dancing Queen." I got those free drinks, and a loud ovation.

Through a Glass Blindly is an essay about the work of Alfred Hitchcock, but primarily his movie Rear Window, which is far and away my favorite of his films and I've watched it about 45 times at least. He takes a position about voyeurism and the concept of identity and truly being/feeling alone.

"Ha ha," he said. "Ha ha" is total dissection and beat-down of the use of laugh tracks in TV sitcoms. I found myself not so much laughing at his criticism as I was noticeably nodding my head when he was tearing apart the modern network sitcom for its inability to be creative and creating a modern society where we are trained to laugh at even the most inane and meaningless writing possible. I nodded along as I recalled all the sitcoms that I like ("30 Rock", "Parks and Rec", "The Office", "Community" and others that I love which, not coincidentally, are void of laugh tracks).

The rest of the book is filled with awesome essays about Kurt Cobain, the NFL, the Unabomber, Garth Brooks' career and others. I definitely suggest picking this one up. It's a good one.

What I've Read: IV

Ahh, the summer of Klosterman continues. I recently finished IV, which was another collection of essays. Some were original, but a great deal of the book was a collection of essays that he wrote while working for publications like Spin and Esquire.

Many of the topics once again verge all over the place. One section will talk about interviews and opinions of U2 and Brittany Spears, while later he delves into eating chicken mcnuggets for an entire week or watching VH1 for 24 hours straight. On the surface one could say it's a rehash of similar topics he wrote about in Killing Yourself to Live. But that would be too simplistic and dismissive of how he can infuse his personality traits into interviews and yet take a seemingly different topic like female tribute bands and relate them to larger discussions of society and longevity.

The highlight of most all his books has been the posing of questions. These are questions not connected to any essay or topic; instead just random questions he thinks up and often asks strangers in order to see if he'd consider being friends with them. They are always interesting head-scratchers; sometimes the answer I arrived at was black-and-white but rarely. Most of the time they provoked interesting debates within my own head, and I would love to have friends around just talking these out and debating them, but the odds of that happening are slim since we prefer drinking and just making fun of each other.

For instance, here are a couple that he poses. I didn't pick the best ones because I want others to read the books, but these are just a smattering of what you can expect. I think they're just damn intriguing to consider and discuss:

Scenario 1: You meet a wizard in downtown Chicago. The wizard tells you he can make you more attractive if you pay him money. When you ask how this process works, the wizard points to a random person on the street. You look at this random stranger. The wizard says, “I will now make them a dollar more attractive.” He waves his magic wand. Ostensibly, this person does not change at all; as far as you can tell, nothing is different. But–somehow–this person is suddenly a little more appealing. The tangible difference is invisible to the naked eye, but you can’t deny that this person is vaguely sexier. This wizard has a weird rule, though–you can only pay him once. You can’t keep giving him money until you’re satisfied. You can only pay him one lump sum up front.

How much cash do you give the wizard?

Scenario 2: Let us assume a fully grown, completely healthy Clydesdale horse has his hooves shackled to the ground while his head is held in place with thick rope. He is conscious and standing upright, but completely immobile. And let us assume that–for some reason–every political prisoner on earth (as cited by Amnesty International) will be released from captivity if you can kick this horse to death in less than twenty minutes. You are allowed to wear steel-toed boots.

Would you attempt to do this?

Scenario 3: 4. Genetic engineers at Johns Hopkins University announce that they have developed a so-called “super gorilla.” Though the animal cannot speak, it has a sign language lexicon of over twelve thousand words, an I.Q. of almost 85, and–most notably–a vague sense of self-awareness. Oddly, the creature (who weighs seven hundred pounds) becomes fascinated by football. The gorilla aspires to play the game at its highest level and quickly develops the rudimentary skills of a defensive end. ESPN analyst Tom Jackson speculates that this gorilla would be “borderline unblockable” and would likely average six sacks a game (although Jackson concedes the beast might be susceptible to counters and misdirection plays). Meanwhile, the gorilla has made it clear he would never intentionally injure any opponent.

You are commissioner of the NFL: Would you allow this gorilla to sign with the Oakland Raiders?

Scenario 4: You meet your soul mate. However, there is a catch: Every three years, someone will break both of your soul mate’s collarbones with a Crescent wrench, and there is only one way you can stop this from happening: You must swallow a pill that will make every song you hear–for the rest of your life–sound as if it’s being performed by the band Alice in Chains. When you hear Creedence Clearwater Revival on the radio, it will sound (to your ears) like it’s being played by Alice in Chains. If you see Radiohead live, every one of their tunes will sound like it’s being covered by Alice in Chains. When you hear a commercial jingle on TV, it will sound like Alice in Chains; if you sing to yourself in the shower, your voice will sound like deceased Alice vocalist Layne Staley performing a capella (but it will only sound this way to you).

Would you swallow the pill?

What I've Read (sorta): Bossypants

Last weekend was my Aunt Honora's wedding. It was a fine affair. Splendid weather, good food, the chance to see my grandmother and other New Jersey family folks, and even the miscall stylings of a belligerent DJ who decided to cater to the 8% of attendees under the age of 30 and treat a noon wedding like an all-night rave. OK, so the DJ was kind of a pain in the ass. But I digress, it was overall a most wonderful time.

The drive to NJ was punctuated by a car ride tradition, the audio book. This time out, we listened to Tina Fey read her autobiography/memoir/life lessons/career guide/all-around funnybook, Bossypants.

We're big Tine Fey supporters here in my household. Her time on SNL doing Weekend Update and a few random skits were the only things I bothered paying attention to during her SNL time. I have always been a huge 30 Rock fan, as evidenced by it's appearance several times in the Friday Funnies. And the wife naturally became a huge fan three years ago during the whole Sarah Palin impersonation bits during the '08 election.

The appeal of Bossypants can be best summed up by the wife. She loves that it's a book about a star female comedian (a small club) and successful women who runs a Hollywood show (another small club). She loves that Fey doesn't want to explain her scar and doesn't feel she has to in order to be accepted and understood. She loves that Fey openly mocks the lookism and sexism of the workplace and Hollywood, and challenges the still-too-often held belief that women can't be funny without men guiding them. There's a lot to Fey, and we enjoyed it all. So much that the wife read the book, then sat cheerfully for 5 hours and listened the book all over again just so she could hear Fey read it herself. I think that makes her a fan. A good read for men and (especially) women, so I recommend checking it out.