Category: Early Review

The Most Memorable Games

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Baker, Jim and Bernard M. Corbett. The Most Memorable Games in Patriots History: the Oral History of a Legendary Team. Bloomsbury, USA, 2012.

I think I was rubbed the wrong way by this book immediately. In the introduction there is an assumption about the reader (and ultimately of the New England Patriot fan); that their involvement with football is “from the comfort of your couch” (p vii). How do you know your reader hasn’t shelled out thousands of dollars to be season ticket holders? How do you know your reader isn’t some lowly ball boy or towel warmer who, for the love of the game, is on the sidelines come snow, sleet or hail every Sunday, a random Monday and sometimes Thursday? Maybe the owner of the New England Patriots is reading your words?

The Most Memorable Games in Patriots History starts at the very beginning, September 9th, 1960 with the Boston Patriots. There is an astonishing overabundance of far reaching detail not necessarily related to the New England Patriots; so much information it would take a lifetime to confirm it all if you had to. I found that the appendices in the middle of each chapter were, more often than not, irrelevant to the title of the book. In fact, a bulk of The Most Memorable Games in Patriots History had nothing to do with the most memorable games in Patriots history. A chapter could be called “Pittsburgh Steelers at New England Patriots Divisional Playoffs January 5, 1997” but contain a section called “the 1996 Giants.” Approximately two thirds of the narrative is dedicated to setting the stage with approximately 150 pages dedicated to each game. Throughout the book you will find information on the most years without a home playoff victory (any team), the history of the tiebreaker game (any team), a history of other Boston-area sports inaugurals (Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, even the Boston Marathon), a bio on Jim Nance, single score games since 1943 (any team)…I could go on. All of this information is interesting. I just wish it had been organized in the book better.
My favorite parts of the book were the detailed play by plays of what happened on the field during each of the most memorable games…when they finally got around to talking about them. It was especially exciting if it happened to be a game I attended. I could relive the game through the players own words. However, Baker and Corbett take a long time to set the stage. This is not for the casual football fan.

Sex So Great

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Keesling, Barbara. Sex So Great She Can’t Get Enough. Lanham: M Evans, 2012.

Before you start scratching your head and thinking I’ve lost my mind let me say but one thing: yes, I am reviewing a sex book for men. Call me a raging feminist but as a woman I had something to prove by requesting this book from the Early Review program. LibraryThing called my bluff and here I am. I want to believe I can review any book and that I’m not restricted by my gender or narrow mind. When asking for books to review I don’t want to be limited by genre or preference. I think I am capable of taking any subject matter and giving it a fair shake – MY fair shake. I also requested Sex So Great to play devil’s advocate. What if a man is too shy to buy such a book? What if a guy is just the opposite, too egotistical to believe he needs such a book? Either spectrum of a man’s ego could deter him from furthering a sexual education with Dr. Keesling. What if I dated a man and knew he needed the good doctor’s help? Could I buy the book, translate her knowledge into my own words and garner a better sex life for myself in the process? Not exactly. This is a book primarily written TO men with one curious section for women discussing vaginal shaving. (As a side note, what’s a man supposed to do? Hand the book over and say, “here honey, this part is for you”? So, having said all that let’s turn to Sex So Great She Can’t Get Enough.

I want to commend Barbara Keesling for her calm, gentle, and understanding (and sometimes humorous) manner with which she writes. You can tell immediately by the language she uses and the tone she conveys that she is has expertise when talking to people about sensitive subjects, not just men about sex. She is super careful not to offend. Let’s face it, men are sensitive about their private parts. As a woman, you can never call him “little” or “wimpy.” Leave that up to him. Self degradation is completely acceptable. Based on Keesling’s writing style I would say she is a good therapist and her other books (at the least the ones related to sex) are equally approachable. Sex So Great is mostly common sense advice that would sound just silly coming from my mouth. Keesling exaggerates the vulnerability and timidness of a woman to prove a point. Every moment a man makes must be slow and thoughtful. He could easily frighten his woman away. That’s not entirely true, but I get it.
Don’t get me know. Sex So Great had it’s educational moments for me, too. For instance, I never knew men should exercise their pubococcygeus muscle or practice a series of breathing routines for improved sex.
So. In the end, could I read the book and pass along the information to my lover? Some of it, sure. But like trying to give myself a foot massage it won’t be as effective and it certainly won’t feel as good.

August ’12 is…

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NEW! Heads up! I have decided to add one audio book per month. I am tired of driving to work hearing the same songs day in and day out. I think I will get further in this whole book challenge if I allow myself at least one audio book. I only spend 3 1/3 hours in the car per week so all audio books would have to be kept to a duration under 12-13 hours long in order to hear it within the month. I can’t listen to an abridged version so I think finding the right book each month will be an additional pita (pain in the azz). I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.

So. August. Before books August is about a few trips. I’m all over the place, aren’t I? Maine sometime at the beginning of the month and Denver near the end. I *should* have plenty of time to read/listen to books along the way, though. So here is the list (some of them I’ve actually started reading, as I have admitted earlier AND since I’ve cheated I can add a few more than normal):

  • After You’ve Gone by Alice Adams ~ a collection of short stories in honor of Adam’s birth month. I feel really good about adding this one because I didn’t tackle any short stories in June (and June is Short Story month),
  • Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin ~ a short(er) story in honor of Baldwin’s birth month,
  • Kristin Lavransdatter: the cross by Sigrid Undset ~ finally, finally finishing the series started in June! This has been good but really long and detailed!
  • Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum and Wicked by Gregory Maguire to be read together in honor of August being fairytale month.
  • The Bridge of San Luis Rey

    • by Thornton Wilder in honor of the month Peru was recognized as independent from Spain (and because it’s super short!).

For Audio:

  • Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury ~ in honor of Bradbury’s birth month. I think I will have to think of something else to add to the audio list since I have a flight to Denver to deal with. I’m choosing Ten Hours Until Dawn: the True Story of Heroism and Tragedy by Michael Tougis ~ in honor of being on the water.

For LibraryThing:

Finishing Sex So Great She Can’t Get Enough by Barbara Keesling AND (I have to laugh at this) The Most Memorable Games in Patriots History by Bernard Corbett. Yup. The very book I was expecting exactly one year ago. I’ll still read it! I just got word of a third Early Review book but since I haven’t received it I won’t mention it here…

For Fun:

Finishing up Tattoo Adventures of Robbie Big Balls by the hilarious Robert Westphal…and mysterious someone dropped Cats Miscellany by Lesley O’Mara in my mailbox. Maybe I’ll get to that. Maybe I won’t.

July ’12 was…

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I am a dumbass to think I would be reading while on vacation. That may be true of a Maine vacation but certainly not of this last vacation…in Hawaii no less. We were so busy and always on the go that I barely picked up a book. Ever. The only time a book was raised before my eyes while on the island (either Oahu or Maui) was when I was searching a tour book to learn something. So, reading this month was severely limited due to my time away. But, I did manage a little:

  • Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wife by Sigrid Undset ~ a continuation of a book honoring Norway in June
  • Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes ~ in honor of July being kids month (a book read on a break at work)
  • The Headless Cupid by Nora Zeale ~ in honor of July being kids month (a book read while waiting for a waxing)

For audio:

  • The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland.

For LibraryThing:

  • Waterlogged by Tim Noakes, MD (confessional – this was started in June & finished in July)
  • Sex So Great She Can’t Get Enough by Barbara Keeling (confessional – this was started in July but I will finish it in August.

For the fun of it:

  • Tattoo Adventures of Robbie Big Balls by Robert Westphal.

There you have it. Nothing too impressive. Okay, I’ll be honest. I started a lot of August books in the last week of July. Sue me.

Waterlogged

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Noakes, Tim. Waterlogged: The Serious Problem of Overhydration in Endurance Sports. Campaign: Human Kinetics, 2012.

I have to start off by saying I had an acute interest in the subject of hydration in sports because I have a difficulty drinking enough fluids all the time and not just when I’m exercising. I am not an endurance athlete. I have never even run a marathon, but the question of just how much water should I be drinking has haunted me for years. You always hear the same old sermon, “drink more water.” Whatever your intake, double it. Triple it. That’s what I constantly heard. It was shocking to hear otherwise. Less is more in the world of sports. Who knew? But what Dr. Noakes has to say makes sense.

To carry around Waterlogged was a mini strength training routine in its own right. This is not a small manual on hydration rules for the ultra-marathoner. This is a extensively thought out, scrupulously researched, carefully documented and well written textbook on why over-hydration is not only a problem it is potentially deadly. Noakes outlines cases of athletes collapsing and dying from hyponatremia or water intoxication. He provides charts and graphs and scientific research to illustrate many different things including how water forces the balance of electrolytes and sodium out of balance and how this is potentially a bad thing; how is can be nearly impossible for the body to recover from. Noakes delves in to the murky world of marketing to illustrate how products like Gatorade are brainwashing our society to believe we cannot be athletes without them. While all the scientific data looks daunting readers shouldn’t be intimidated by it. Noakes uses a language that is straightforward and concise.

postscript: it took me a few weeks (and one very long flight) to read the July issue of Runners World so it wasn’t until after I wrote this review that I discovered a quote from Dr. Noakes and a mention of his book Waterlogged.

How Should a Person Be?

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Heti, Sheila. How Should a Person Be? a Novel From Life.New York: Henry Holt & Co, 2012

This is a clever book. Because it is fictional nonfiction nothing has to make sense or be tied to the truth. When other reviewers use words like “candid” and “honest” I don’t know what they are talking about. What’s truth and what’s fantasy is not up to us. Maybe there is a Margeaux and maybe there isn’t. As readers we are just along for the ride and in the end, while I tried to keep that in mind, I found myself asking who the hell cares? If read as a fictionalized memoir it is murky and smudged like a dirty aquarium full of beautiful and exotic fish or a greasy fingerprinted champagne flute filled with the finest bubbly. In other words, gorgeous writing wrapped up in some psychobabble musings. When trying to read this as an existential “who am I?” it was cumbersome and meandering. However, read with an “I Could Care Less” attitude it was sexy and raw and funny and smart. All the things I am looking for in a good book, truthful or not. I wouldn’t want to classify this as self-help, self-indulgent, or self anything.
To play out the main plot is a struggle. When it was all said and done I’m not exactly sure what Heti was going for. A struggling playwright who can’t decide what kind of life she wants? A chance to wax poetic and wane philosophic?

June ’12 is…

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June 2012 is…not late! For once! I have to rejoice in simply being on time for the first time in oh, I don’t know how long and I’m too lazy to look. June. What about June? June is a retirement luncheon with some people I barely know. June is a graduation party for someone I love more than a sister (and only she will really get that statement and not misinterpret it as some lesbo love declaration). June is another charity walk – a no-pressure walk of sorts. No fund raising, no training (3.1 miles, a walk in the park – or around a business park as the case may be). June is a few birthdays, but no parties. June is the opening of the pool and June is the beginning of our Hawaiian vacation (lest I forget). We’ve already nixed horseback riding due to age and weight (over 65, under 10 and under 235lbs). That wipes out all but two of us. Anyway, more on that later.
June is also National River Cleanup month, the best time to visit Norway and the month to celebrate fathers. And that is the perfect segue to books:

  • Kristin Lavansdatter by Sigrid Undset ~ in honor of Norway. This is actually in three parts (totaling over 1,000 pages) so I’m going to parse it out: The Wreath in June, The Mistress of Husaby (The Wife) in July and The Cross in August.
  • A River Runs Through It and Other Stories by Norman Maclean ~in honor of river cleanup month.

For Hawaii, two books I can read and leave behind**:

  • Damage by Josephine Hart ~ in honor of Father’s Day
  • Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (a reread) ~ in honor of Father’s Day as well

I have been notified that I have “won” two Early Review books from LibraryThing (such an honor). I have been having some problems with delivery but if they arrive they are:

  • How Should a Person Be: a Novel From Life by Sheila Heti ~ this has been described as “seriously strange” by a respected author on Heti’s website. I’m intrigued!
  • Waterlogged by Tim Noakes ~ this is something I cannot wait to read. I have been told I need to drink more water and while I don’t consider myself an athlete (this book focuses on them) I am curious about “the facts of hydration.”

** I should add that I plan to load the iPad with ebooks in case I finish the Father’s Day books sooner than expected. I really want to read on the beach one or two days and of course I’ll need to read on all those flights!!

May ’12 was…

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Is it okay for me to say I am glad May is over? May was the search for a new boss (we found one), a 60 mile walk for breast cancer awareness ($180,000 raised) a funeral/memorial/burial – whatever, and just a little time for books. Here they are, in no particular order:

  • Carry on, Mr Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham ~ kind of reminded me of other historical biographies for kids. Read in one week.
  • Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan ~ in honor of Asian American heritage month.
  • Of Men and Mountains by William O. Douglas ~ in honor of deadly Mount Everest. I read this in one weekend (up to Maine and back)
  • Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl ~ (probably my favorite book of the bunch. I now want to see the documentary).
  • Death of Ivan Ilich by Leo Tolstoy ~ in honor of May being a good time to go to Russia (I’ll take their word for it).

Here are two I didn’t finish:

  • Little Women by Louisa May Alcott ~ this was a reread so I don’t feel bad I didn’t get through it again this time, and
  • China To Me by Emily Hahn ~ I got the point after 120 pages. Since Pearl mentioned this in three different Lust books I feel as though I have to give it another chance…maybe another time.

For LibraryThing and the Early Review Program:

  • Letters to Kurt by Eric Erlandson ~ read in one weekend, and
  • The United States Coast Guard and National Defense: a History from World War I to the Present by Thomas P. Ostrom ~ I didn’t get through this one either which is really sad since I wanted to enjoy it.

So, there it is in a nutshell. Not a ton of good reading. More unfinished stuff than I’m used to. Oh well.

United States Coast Guard

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Ostrom, Thomas P. The United States Coast Guard and National Guard: a History from World War I to the Present.Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2012.

My father was in the Coast Guard. I have a lot of respect for the men and women who serve in this branch of the military. They are more than glorified harbor masters, as I’ve heard them called. They are some of the bravest individuals I have ever met. So, I was waiting to love The United States Coast Guard and National Defense. I was looking forward to enjoying every page of it, maybe for my father’s sake. When that didn’t happen I was disappointed. From the very beginning The United States Coast Guard was bogged down with details. With no clear plot or chronology it was confusing and more than a little didactic and chaotic. The history jumped around a lot. Tidbits of information proved to be very interesting but they were buried under mountains of statistics and dry prose. I was also distracted by all the unnecessary parenthetical information. I don’t want to give up on The United States Coast Guard and National Defense so I’ll keep picking it up. I’ll let you know when I finally finish it.

Scared by the Numbers

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Since adding all of the books from Book Lust To Go to my challenge list (all 1,600+ of them) I have been wondering how much time this has added to the challenge. I was curious. How many years will it take me to finish reading 5,500+ books? Exactly how old will I be when it is all said and done?
First I needed to know how many books I have left to read. The grand total is 5026. This includes books of varying lengths – anything from graphic novels, children’s picture books to 1,000 page biographies. Yikes. Yikes. Yikes.

Then I needed to find out my average reading “speed.” What did I accomplish in a year’s time? On average, I read 109 books a year – give or take a poem, short story or article or two. This average of 109 books included books for fun, books for LibraryThing, and the books on the challenge list. However, here is what I found out from doing the math: if I only read challenge books from here on out it would take me 45 years to finish every book indexed in Book Lust, More Book Lust and now, Book Lust To Go. Scary. I honestly don’t think I will live that long. Frightening. Seriously.
What to do? I refuse to give up reading the books from LibraryThing’s Early Review program. And, and. And! I will not ignore the gift books I receive from family or friends. So. What happens now? I either have to face facts that I will never finish reading 5026 books in my lifetime OR be a little more selective about what takes up my time. I like option #2 better.

Here are my ideas for amendments:

  • Instead of reading 50 pages before giving up on a boring book I only read one chapter or 25 pages – whichever comes first. I’m a pretty good judge of what books will bore me to death and which ones I will “book” through (pun totally intended).
  • Of the books I have read before instead of rereading them I will install the “Odd page rule.” The odd page rule is to only read the odd pages and skip the evens. (the rule right now is if I don’t remember the plot, key characters or how it ended I have to reread the entire thing. Not happening).
  • Third and final change: the movie rights rule. If a book has been made into a movie AND the book author has had a hand in writing the screenplay AND the movie has won an Academy Award I give myself permission to watch the movie instead. I am not a movie person so I doubt this last rule will really come into play that often.

I will be in my 90s when I finally finish the challenge. People have asked me why it matters. They like to point out that Nancy Pearl didn’t read every book she recommends. She had help. People made suggestions. I get it. I don’t care what Pearl has or hasn’t read. Her reading list is not my concern. The pages MY eyes fall upon are what matter and I want to read them all. If I’m lucky.

Letters to Kurt

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Erlandson, Eric. Letters to Kurt. New York: Akashic, 2012.

I was wrong about this book. I previously said I thought I could read it in a weekend. What I was really thinking was that I could read it in an hour. I was oh so wrong. Very wrong. On both accounts. Here’s how it really went: I could read it for 15-20 minutes and then had to walk away. Words blended and sentences started to sound the same. I lost my place among the pages often. Letters became redundant if I read too much. How do I describe this book accurately? Here are the words I jotted down while reading this on a Sunday morning, coffee balanced on knee, propped up in bed: Clever. Cliche. Rambling. Private. Joking. Culture. Pop. Jealousy. Sexy. Rude. And finally, a sentence. “I’m feeling left out.” Even if you were parked in front of every media outlet in the 1990s you will still miss some of the reference Erlandson makes. I wavered between thinking this was a glorified writing assignment, “write for ten minutes straight” and feeling it was an outpouring of grief and rage in the form of stream of consciousness prose. It babbles and barks. There is bite. It’s sad and strangely beautiful. But, as I said earlier it is not something to devour in one sitting. You will get indigestion, for sure. Bite small. Chew slowly. Push the book away often and everything will taste better in the end.

May ’12 is…

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Hawaii. Hawaii. Hawaii. This is going to sound sick but I am trying to get psyched for an upcoming trip to the islands. Not The Island that I know and love. The Sandwich Islands. Hawaii. Or, more specifically Oahu and Maui. My first time to either. Here are the books that are helping me learn about Hawaiian culture and history:

  1. Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen , Lilioukalani
  2. West of Then by Tara Bray Smith
  3. Six Months in the Sandwich Islands by Isabella Bird
  4. Volcano by Garrett Hongo
  5. Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl (don’t you just love his name?)

In addition to that (completely unplanned) list I am trying to stick to the reading schedule. That would include

  1. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott in honor of May being Eeyore’s birth month (in other words, something sad)
  2. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan in honor of May being Asian American Heritage month,
  3. and last but not least, Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks in honor of May being sex month.

It’s a bit of reading but I think West of Then and Kon-Tiki are going to be really quick reads. Volcano might also be quick…not sure yet.
Oh! Two last books! For the Early Review Program (LibraryThing) – I almost forgot! I have the United States Coast Guard and National Guard by Thomas Ostrom and Letters to Kurt by Eric Erlandson. Both arrived this month. The Coast Guard book is a January book and I think Letters is a February book. So, a little late, but I’ll get to them! Letters to Kurt I’m sure I’ll read in a weekend or less. Hello coffee in bed!
What else to tell you? In less than two weeks I will be walking 60 miles for Just ‘Cause. In less than four weeks I will be saying goodbye to my cousin. What can I say? I can’t wait for June.

Small Fortune

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Dastgir, Rosie. A Small Fortune. New York: Riverhead Books, 2012.

On the surface A Small Fortune is about a lonely man who obtains an inheritance from a recent divorce. The dilemma is not what Harris should do with the money; there are plenty of family members who all feel entitled to at least a portion of it. First, there is the family back home in Harris’s native Pakistan. Then there is his struggling nephew who can’t find happiness with any employment venture. While she hasn’t asked there is also his fiercely independent and completely Westernized eighteen year old daughter four hours away in London. The real struggle arises when Harris impulsively hands over a majority of the inheritance to the least deserving yet most conniving cousin. When Harris realizes his mistake and then wants the money back he cannot summon the authority to demand its return. Amidst all this turmoil Harris wrangles with starting over as a single parent to a secretive daughter while trying to juggle a new relationship with a woman equally as independent as his daughter. Harris’s entire personality has to undergo a transformation in order for him to cope.

The majority of the time I was reading A Small Fortune I had this nagging thought that wouldn’t shake loose. The main character, Harris, reminded me of someone else in fiction. Someone epic. It bothered me that I couldn’t put my finger on who that other character could be; I couldn’t pin her/him down. So, I started a list of characteristics for Harris: fatherly, over-protective, slightly unlikeable, scheming, paranoid, eager to please, impetuous…And then it dawned on me. Garp. T.S. Garp from The World According to Garp. Dastir’s Harris could be related to Garp, a half-brother of sorts. Throughout A Small Fortune Harris is so wishy-washy I wanted to slap him several times over. The fact that Dastgir was able to create a character that evoked such emotion in me is a testament to her writing ability. Harris really did annoy me that much.

My favorite character was Harris’s daughter, Alia. She hovers between obligatory concern for her father and resentment because he hinders her freedom to be modern. Her independence as a western girl is compromised by his old world culture.

April ’12 is…

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April is and will always be my WhatTheFukc month. It’s the last full month of Just ‘Cause training. It’s the month when I think I’m never walking enough despite hours on the treadmill. It’s the last full month of the semester at school. It’s the month when the animals students are doing stupid sh!t like hanging from water pipes and causing a major flood in their dorm. I kid you not. It’s the last truly cold month of the year. At least one can hope. It’s the last month I feel comfortable wearing knee high boots. For reading it’s an even more discombobulated month. April is National Poetry month so between the novels I’ll be reading poetry. It’s like a car stalling. I can’t explain it.

Anyway…here’s what I PLAN to read for the month of April. You know as well as I do I probably will stick to only 75% of this…
April is Alcohol Awareness month so I’m reading John Barleycorn by Jack London. April is also food month so I’ll be depressing myself with Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of an All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser. April happens to be National Humor month so I’m buzzing through The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald. The Civil War started in April so I threw Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier on the list. I need to wrap up a couple of series I started in Janurary so The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien and These Happy Golden Yearsby Laura Ingalls Wilder are on the list. Last but not least I finally, finally got an Early Review book from LibraryThing: A Small Fortune by Rosie Dastgir. Oh. And there’s the random poem in between all that…

What else is April all about? Easter with the in-laws to talk about our upcoming trip to Hawaii. My sister’s birthday. It’s a big one. A jaunt to the theater with a good friend. A Red Sox game. Maybe a little cowbell in Vermont? Not sure.

March ’12 is…

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What is March 2012 all about? Hard to say . Or as they say on Monhegan, hard tellin’ not knowin’. Fitting I suppose for a reading project still in limbo. I’m still reading books off my own shelves and borrowing books from my own library. To those not in the know that sounds strange, but there you have it.

Here are the books I *think* I’ll be reading in March:

  • A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o (baptized James Ngugi) ~ in honor of March being African Writers Month
  • Little Town in the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder ~ in honor of the Dakotas (series was started in January)
  • Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101 Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest by Stephen Ambrose ~ in honor of March 4th being “Hug a GI Day.” Since I don’t have a GI to hug, I’ll hug a book about World War II.
  • Lord of the Rings: Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien ~ in honor of New Years (series was started in January)
  • Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte ~ in honor of March being National Literature month.

For the Early Review program for LibraryThing – I never got the February book so we’ll see if it comes in March…Incidentally, I just checked the LibraryThing website and I was awarded a March book as well. Now the race is on to see which book makes it here first.