They like me…they really like me!!!
July 23rd, 2008
Well…at least ONE other person likes me! I have been nominated for a blog award by Readerville! Good times! The blog is a lot of fun and I am excited to know it is appreciated by one person.
I can now only assume that the awards and accolades will soon come pouring in. My head is getting bigger and I am already feeling power hungry. Soon I will only feed on awards. And some accolades. And string cheese. But mostly awards. Then I will take over the world.
But until then, here are the rules I now have to follow:
1. Put the award logo on the post (see above)
2. Link back to the person who nominated you (see blogroll)
3. Nominate 7 other blogs (why seven? see below)
4. Add links to your nominees (see blogroll)
5. Leave a message on their blogs (see their blogs)
My nominees are:
1. J. Kaye’s Book Blog
2. Bold Blue Adventure
3. A Peek At My Bookshelf
4. So Many Books
5. One More Chapter
6. Literate Housewife
7. The Novel World
Go check those blogs out!
The Last Real Season by Mike Shropshire
July 22nd, 2008Title: The Last Real Season
Author: Mike Shropshire
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (2008)
I love baseball and I am from Cincinnati…therefore when I saw there was a new book out about the 1975 season, well I had to read it! For those who don’t know what I am talking about, 1975 was the year of the famous Reds vs. Red Sox World Series (which the Reds won). I figured this book would at least talk a little bit about The Big Red Machine. I was right…there was a little talk about them. But that’s not what this book was about. In The Last Real Season: A Hilarious Look Back at 1975 When Major Leaguers Made Peanuts, the Umpires Wore Red, and Billy Martin Terrorized Everyone, Shropshire tells his story of being a beat writer for the Texas Rangers. He also gets the award for longest secondary title of a book that I have read.
I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t expect this book to be the way it was. It’s basically 240 pages of stories about how baseball was better back in the old days. Before free agency and when players drank and smoked cigarettes in the dugout. Back when all the players were out of shape and got drunk after each game. If this book is historically accurate, which I assume it is, it sounds like baseball is FAR better off now than it was in “the glory years”. The only thing we have to worry about now is steroids and A-Rod cheating on his wife with Madonna. Yes…much better than before.
This book tells story after story of these types of things. The main character of the book is Billy Martin, who was the manager of the Rangers at the time. He was loud, obnoxious, and an OK manager (in my opinion). Eventually he acted like such a jerk that the Rangers owner was forced to fire him. Martin did this because he wanted the New York Yankees job, which coincidentally opened up right after he was fired. Classy!
The part I liked about this book was reading Shropshire’s writings from back in 1975. I’ve not read any of his other writings, but the stuff he wrote as beat writer is awesome. He had no fear and basically just wrote what he observed. I appreciate that in a writer. His writing style is also fun to read, and eventually, the story got around to the 1975 World Series…which was exciting! Yea Reds!
All in all this was an OK book. I guess I was just disappointed in the general creepiness that was going on back then.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Booking Through Thursday
July 20th, 2008
There is a website called Booking Through Thursday. Every Thursday they post a book/reading related question for other people to answer. I’ve answered below…then you read my post and answer it in the comments. It’s fun to read everyone’s responses. So here is my first participatory post. (note: I will do more of these…but I probably won’t post them on Thursdays!
Do you buy books while on vacation/holiday? Do you have favorite bookstores that you only get to visit while away on a trip?What/Where are they?
Well…I’ve never really thought about visiting bookstores while on vacation. I did visit Iliad Bookshop in Los Angeles once (Next door to Odyssey Video!). But I’ve never gone back since. I usually get my books at the library before I go on my trips. Maybe I’ll go in a local bookstore the next time I am on vacation.
How about you?
Simplexity by Jeffrey Kluger
July 19th, 2008Title: Simplexity
Author: Jeffrey Kluger
Publisher: Hyperion (2008)
When I saw this book, I knew right away that I would like it. Apart from the cover being awesome (a sweet looking Swiss watch), I am a sucker for explanation books and TV shows. This is why I love to watch How It’s Made, Dirty Jobs & The Works. This book, written by the author of Apollo 13, promised to explain why things are the way they are. Specifically, it looks at the complexity of actions and devices.
Simplexity: Why Simple Things Become Complex (and How Complex Things Can Be Made Simple) was very interesting to read. Kluger, a Time Magazine contributor, wanted to find the answers to questions such as: “Why is the stock market so hard to predict? and “Why do bad teams win so many games and good teams lose so many?”
Kluger describes a complexity scale that all of these questions can be associated with. At one end of an arc is pure chaos and at the other is pure robustness…both very simple things. An empty room filled with gas that allows the molecules to bounce around the room at will is chaotic but simple. A lump of carbon chilled to the point where molecules can’t move is robust, but simple. Total disorder at one end and frozen at the other. It’s the arc in the middle where complexity comes in.
Kluger uses this definition of Complexity to look at the questions he asked. The problem I had with some of his answers is that he didn’t necessarily answer the question. For example, he never really says why bad teams win so many games. He talks about the complexity of the sport, but never answers the questions. I would think the answer isn’t as complex as he wants it to be. Bad teams win games because at a professional level…everyone is still pretty good. So if a bad team happens to play well that day, they will win. This is why sports seasons are long, to figure out who is the best. Now, I suppose figuring out why a group of players happened to play well one game would be tougher to answer.
One thing I thought was funny in the sports chapter was his discussion of the complexity of the rule books. For example, the first amendment of the US Constitution is 45 words…the portion of the NFL rule book establishing permissible size and color of jersey numbers is 77 words. 1.5 pages are dedicated to defining the shape and weight of the ball! The Major League Baseball rule book is 10 chapters long, which are divided into 123 sub-chapters!
My favorite chapter was on health care. Partly because he told the story of Muhammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank, which I also wrote about in my review of Banker to the Poor. This chapter discusses the health care “90-10″ rule: for every dollar spent worldwide to battle disease, about 90 cents goes to fight illnesses that affect only 10% of the population. This is obviously explained by the fact that people tend to finance disease research that affects those close to them. So diseases in wealthy nations tend to get to most funding, no matter what percentage of the population it affects. An excellent example is the money that is put into researching Alzheimer’s disease, which occurs in 5% of people between 65-74 vs. measles which kills up to 400,000 people per year, most of them under 5. By the way, Kluger is in no way saying that Alzheimer’s disease should not be researched. The problem isn’t just researching funds, because a lot of diseases that kill millions worldwide already have cures established. The measles and polio vaccination costs 16 cents each. Treatment for parasitic river blindness costs $1. The list goes on.
The other reason I liked this chapter the best is because Kluger goes on to describe how a group of doctors figured out a way to keep diarrheal victims hydrated while they wait for medicine to take affect. It is a fantastically simple idea used to help people retain water…but no one had thought of it yet. It reminded me of yet another book I reviewed called Better by Atul Gawande.
This was a pretty good book. I enjoyed the topics he chose to write about and I feel I learned some potentially valuable things. Which, I suppose, is the point of reading books like this!
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Author Interview: Jay Rayner
July 16th, 2008A little while ago I reviewed The Man Who Ate The World by Jay Rayner. He is a fantastic writer and agreed to answer some of my awesome questions. His answers are excellent and quite thoughtful. As an added bonus, he wrote these responses in a different language known as “British”!
Thanks Jay!!
After all the success with your novels, why write this book? What drew you to go on this search?
Why come up with a book idea which required me to travel the world eating in the very best restaurants on the face of the planet? You’re right. Stupid idea.
(editors note: Touché Mr. Rayner…Touché)
The real answer? I hate being pigeon holed as a writer and, while I love writing the novels, I wanted to experiment with another form. I had never written a piece of narrative non-fiction like this before. As soon as I realised there was something genuinely new happening at the top end of the restaurant world, I saw that it presented a perfect opportunity. This would be both a journey into food and a journey into myself. I started out as an inky thumbed reporter covering the evil that men do and somehow had ended up making a living sitting on my sizable arse. How did that happen? But I was also certain that the book had to have substance. So each city is chosen not simply because there are a bunch of interesting places to eat there but because the restaurants in each one are the way into another story: Las Vegas is actually about the creation of an adult theme park; Moscow is about the end of communism and the rise of the mafia; Dubai is about the building of a city from nothing and so on.
All in all it felt like the kind of book I would want to buy and read. So I decided to write it.
What was your favourite complete meal on the trip? Favourite moment? (I’ve used the British spelling to make you feel more comfortable.)
Thank you for using the British spelling in the question. It really does put me at ease. Without a doubt my favourite city for food was Tokyo and my favourite moment in that city was the 32 course sushi meal I had in a restaurant with just one diner: me. I fell like I left a part of myself in that restaurant, there with Mr Suzuki. It was very special, very concentrated, very intense and - most important of all - delicious. It cost me the equivalent of $500. It was worth it.
The final meal you wrote about cost about $700 a head. I had a Chipotle burrito the other day that cost $6. It was very good. Are the meals that are served at these upper level restaurants really over 100 times better than my burrito? Or is that only due to my complete lack of taste discernment?
An interesting question. I’m sure your burrito was great. And don’t misunderstand me. I am basically a greedy man, which means I can enjoy good examples of food at whatever level. Yes, I love a great restaurant of ambition but I also adore cheap street food.
So to answer the question, was my lunch 100 times better than your burrito? Probably not. But it did take a lot more effort to create it.
How do you respond when you talk about food with people who aren’t as into it as you are?
My job, as a writer, is to make whatever I’m talking about readable and relevant to as big a readership as possible. If this book of mine was targeted solely at people who either visit or have an interest in luxury restaurants its potential readership would be tiny. I have tried to make it readable for as broad a readership as possible, and if I haven’t done that then I’ve failed.
But on a more basic level there are some people who have no interest in food whatsoever, much as I have no interest in team sports like soccer. They are the sort of people who would happily subsist on food pills. How do I respond to them? With a big shrug of the shoulders. We will never be friends.
What is up next for Jay Rayner?
I continue to write my restaurant column and other features for the Observer. I’m also doing a bit more television. Book wise I think there is a principle at the heart of the Man Who Ate the World - Rayner out on the road seeing the world through the prism of food on a journey in which he is personally invested - which can be further exploited. There are other places to explore, though not necessarily through luxury restaurants. I wouldn’t mind combining that search with a TV series. Who knows. Discussions are ongoing.
The Amazon Kindle
July 13th, 2008I don’t have one…but I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about the Kindle from Amazon.com. The Kindle is a digital reader…basically an iPod for reading. You can buy books ($9.99 each) and download them to the Kindle to read wherever you are. The device can hold about 200 books and has wireless ability for access to the Kindle store from anywhere. You can also get newspaper and magazine subscriptions automatically sent to your Kindle when the new issue comes out.
Physically, the Kindle is 10 oz and 7.5″ x 5.3″ and it is surprisingly thin at 0.7″.
My main concern (apart from the $359 price tag) is that I think it would be weird to read a book on a computer screen. I certainly don’t like reading e-books on the computer. It’s difficult to do. But all the reports I have read about the Kindle says the screen is amazingly comfortable to read on. They say it doesn’t feel like you are looking at a screen.
My other concern is not being able to physically own the book. I like my mini-library that I have. I like sitting in my chair and turning the paper pages. I like seeing my progress towards the end of the book.
Again…I have never used a Kindle. I don’t think I have plans to buy one (although if someone wants to send one to me to test…I would certainly appreciate it!).
I am interested, however, in what you think about the Kindle. Do you have one? Do you like it? Hate it?
Heavier Than Heaven by Charles R. Cross
July 12th, 2008Title: Heavier Than Heaven
Author: Charles R. Cross
Publisher: Hyperion (2001)
ughhh…
That’s the best way I can think to describe the life of Kurt Cobain. Tragically sad. Almost everything about Kurt Cobain’s life (and death) is tragically sad. An awesome songwriter…and awesome musician…and unfortunately, an awesome heroin addict.
Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain is very well written and very in depth. It is obvious Cross took a lot of time to research everything before he put it on paper. I assume, like I do with most biographies, there are a few literary freedoms taken when describing things that happened when no one was there…but that’s OK with me.
Cobain, the singer/songwriter for the band Nirvana grew up in a loveless, unsympathetic home and surprisingly turned into a heroin addict. Yes, I am sure there are plenty of situations where people have grown up in that environment and haven’t become totally screwed up…but it seems to be that way. Cobain’s main goal in life was to become a famous musician. His second goal in life was to kill himself after he became a famous musician. So I guess he was successful.
While this book goes into great detail about Kurt Cobain’s life, I found it odd that Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl (now of Foo Fighters fame) was almost totally glossed over. There were no quotes from him, or anything of that sort. I know that Grohl has a HUGE problem with Courtney Love (Cobain’s wife), and maybe her involvement with the book kept him away. But it was disappointing not to hear what he had to say. Considering he was right in the line of fire through those years, it could have added a lot to the book.
The book was good and if you have an interest in Nirvana or Kurt Cobain or Seattle grunge music, you should probably give this book a try. Just be prepared to get a little depressed.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
