What I've Been Reading

TheIowa Baseball Confederacy by W.P. Kinsella

TheIowa Baseball Confederacy
by W.P. Kinsella (1986)

read: 7 April 2011
rating: [+]

A 2000 inning long baseball game.....check. Time travel......check. Native American mythology.....check. A slightly odd church that lives life 12 hours offset from the rest of the world....check. Finding the love of your life. Again. Or previously....check Learning that getting what you’ve always wanted doesn’t necessarily solve your problems....priceless? This is just a fantastic book. I finished it last night and I’m ready to re-read it starting today. Kinsella, who wrote “Shoeless Joe,” which was the basis for the movie Field of Dreams, gives us another fantastical story of magic, love, and life wrapped around the mythology of baseball, and once again set in a Midwestern corn field.

ThePlot to Kill Jackie Robinson by Donald Honig

ThePlot to Kill Jackie Robinson
by Donald Honig (1993)

read: 29 March 2011
rating: [+]

I picked this up at a used bookstore and it’s the best 3 dollars I’ve spent in a long time. It’s film noir, on paper, as the author really captures the feel of the times in this hardboiled crime fiction set in NYC in the months leading up to opening day, 1947, with Jackie Robinson playing first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers. It’s a good story that moves along quickly, and would make one hell of a good movie. ESPN, are you listening?

At The Abyss: An Insider\'s History of the Cold War by Douglas Adams

At The Abyss: An Insider’s History of the Cold War
by Douglas Adams (2005)

read: 22 March 2011
rating: [+]

This book can be neatly divided into two halves. The first half, encompassing the author’s career from his start in the USAF in the late 50s, through Reagan’s election in 1980, is a fascinating account of cold war history that reads like a Tom Clancy novel. Once Reagan is elected, and the author becomes Secretary of USAF, it becomes too autobiographical and loses objectivity. He spends 4 chapters cheer leading Reagan’s accomplishments, and devotes about two sentences to Iran Contra, which he seemed to blame on Nancy. There is a lot of fascinating history in this book, and the I do share the author’s admiration for the men and women on the ground who never screwed up and pushed us over the brink into WWIII. One thing you will get from this book is a sense of just how lucky we are to have made it through the cold war without a civilization ending accident.

Brainiac by Ken Jennings

Brainiac
by Ken Jennings (2007)

read: 17 March 2011
rating: [+]

Ken Jennings is much, much funnier than you would expect. The book is 50% stories from Jeopardy, and 50% tour of trivia culture in the US. But it is 100% funny.

Under the Dome by Stephen King

Under the Dome
by Stephen King (2009)

read: 12 March 2011
rating: [+]

1070 pages, yet it felt like a quick read. In fact, I read it in about a week. The basic plot - an invisible force field cuts a small New England town off from the world. Imagine living in a snow globe. How would you react? How would other react? At one point about half-way through the book I almost quit. It was so dark, and so depressing, the evil in men’s hearts so domineering, that I really didn’t want to read anymore about it. Luckily, that is the point where good starts to make its presence known. This is not scary in the Salem’s Lot or Pet Cemetery sense. It’s scary because King has nailed human nature in this book, and it isn’t pretty.

Film Club: A Memoir by David Gilmour

The Film Club: A Memoir
by David Gilmour (2009)

read: 1 March 2011
rating: [+]

The word unschooling is never used in this book, but trust me, this is a book about unschooling. The author’s 16 year old son is flunking out of high school. School just doesn’t work for him. So he makes a deal with the kid. He can drop out, but he has to watch 3 movies a week with dad. How much can you learn watching 3 movies a week? How much can you learn about somebody else by watching 3 movies a week with them? I think we all instinctively know the answer to those questions is “a lot.” The author is a professional movie critic. His insights into the movies, the movie selections themselves, and his conversations with his son, are all fascinating. This book is a fun, quick read. But that doesn’t mean that is doesn’t have a much bigger message. Content warning: The 16 year old in the book smokes, drinks, and fornicates with his girlfriends.. His father is aware of all of this. If that bothers you, don’t read the book.

Now I Can Die In Peace by Bill Simmons

Now I Can Die In Peace
by Bill Simmons (2005)

read: 27 February 2011
rating: [+]

Originally written in the Spring 2005, Simmon’s collection of his Red Sox related columns though that fateful October night in St Louis in 2004 is a must read for any Red Sox fan. On re-read as Spring Training ramps up in 2010, some of the pop culture references are really dated, but because I’m old enough to remember them all, also still really funny.

Hardcore Zen by Brad Warner

Hardcore Zen
by Brad Warner (2003)

read: 21 February 2011
rating: [+]

Punk rock, monster movies, and Zen. It’s hard to see how those go together, but they do, in Brad’s life anyway. Hardcore Zen is part auto-biography, part intro to Buddhism, and whole lot of fun. This was actually a re-read. I originally read Hardcore Zen a couple of years ago.

With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by E.B. Sledge

With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
by E.B. Sledge (2007)

read: 17 February 2011
rating: [+]

Possibly the single best account in life in the infantry during the Pacific Campaign of WWII. This book is the basic for the HBO show, The Pacific, which I have not seen yet. Sledge’s descriptions of the horrific conditions suffered by the Marines on Peleliu and Okinawa defy simple explanation. That anybody came out of that campaign with their sanity intact is a miracle. That Sledge came out of alive, without even a Purple Heart, is either a miracle, or random luck. Take your pick. That so many young men willingly did this is something that I can’t even wrap my head around.

Return to Eden by Harry Harrison

Return to Eden
by Harry Harrison (1989)

read: 11 February 2011
rating: [+]

The 3rd book in the Eden trilogy, and the rare case of the third book being just as good, if not better than the other two. This series is highly recommended for any fan if sci-fi or alternative history.

Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas by John Hennessy

Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas
by John Hennessy (1999)

read: 2 February 2011
rating: [+]

2nd Manassas is a somewhat overlooked battle in the American Civil War. That is a shame, because it provides a compelling drama in the brilliance of General Lee’s leadership, contrasted sharply with the utter incompetence of General Pope on the Union Side. This richly detailed account gets deep into the weeds of regimental level troop movements, but does so in a way that maintains a focus on the fact that these are real live people fighting and dying on the battlefield.

I never really understood 2nd Manassas prior to the book. It doesn’t have that one majestic battle that is associated with the more famous Civil War events. Instead, it is comprised of clashes set over several days. Lee just misses the chance to destroy the Union Army here. It is amazing how often the survival of either the Union or CSA armies in this war came down to a matter of just a few minutes. Both sides missed numerous chances to end this war years before the final surrender at Appomattox. A delay by Jackson of maybe an hour on the final day could have cost Lee his chance to pin the Union army in, and destroy it. Who knows what the US and even the world would look like today if that had happened.

Even though this campaign is a resounding victory for Lee, it is a victory at a steep cost. The losses and attrition resulting from the battle and the march through Manassas to Maryland would severely impact Lee’s ability to achieve victory at Antietam later in the fall.

Forever War by Joe Hadleman

The Forever War
by Joe Hadleman (1974)

read: 23 January 2011
rating: [+]

A 1974 book about an inter-stellar war that goes on forever, with an enemy we don’t understand, fought by soldiers that were drafted, and led by officers that are idiots. Vietnam anybody? Anybody? This parable of the follies of war is as relevant today as it was in 1974. By taking the never ending war to a ridiculous extreme and by applying the paradox of near light speed travel to the protagonist, we get a hero who lives through the entire 1000 year war, while only aging a few years himself. The difficulties of integrating back into a culture that has gone through several generations while you aged two years also lets Hadleman say something about shell-shocked Vets that volunteered to go back to 'Nam 2 or 3 times. Tea Party sympathizers, if they can even get through an anti-war novel, will recoil in horror and how humanity solves its war problem. Everybody should read this book though, especially those that won’t get it.

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

Boneshaker
by Cherie Priest (2009)

read: 16 January 2011
rating: [+]

It’s got zombies, in a steampunk world, in which the US Civil War is still raging after about 18 years. And it has pirates that fly blimps. It could be a really bad attempt to throw together a bunch of buzzwords, but in this case it’s one heck of a fun story.

Virtual Light by William Gibson

Virtual Light
by William Gibson (1994)

read: 6 January 2011
rating: [0]

Entertaining enough read, but the ending seemed to come out of nowhere. Gibson’s vision of a 2005 dystopian San Francisco, complete with huge homeless community squatting on the Golden Gate Bridge, is well developed. In fact, the big ideas in this book (SF and LA after the big one, a fractured USA, South American data havens, TV Christian cults,) are all really well developed. It’s the plot of the book that was a little thin.

Difference Engine by William and Bruce Gibson and Sterling

The Difference Engine
by William and Bruce Gibson and Sterling (1992)

read: 23 December 2010
rating: [-]

Apparently, I don’t dig Steampunk. I couldn’t get past page 100.