The Book Shelf: Part 4 of 4

A brief look at some of the books I have read over the last while:

Raylan – Raylan, of course, is Raylan Givens, the U.S. Marshal who is the focus of the TV series Justified. Raylan, the book, was written by Elmore Leonard, and it is a treat to read any of his work. His dialogue and his characters always make his work worth reading, and this one is no different. Even if the first half deals with the stealing of kidneys. (William Morrow, hard cover, 263 pages, US$26.99 -- found at Chapters for $7.99)

Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap Stories – If you are a fan of Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap, the popular CBC radio program, you'll enjoy reading this book. And if you haven't heard even one Vinyl Tap show, you'll enjoy it, too. Lots of music-related stories here, and lots of anecdotes involving Guess Who, BTO, Bravebelt, Chad Allen and the Expressions, and on and on. The last few pages feature a whole bunch of interesting lists, too. (Penguin, soft cover, 224 pages, Cdn$20.00)

Red Mittens & Red Ink: The Vancouver Olympics – Vancouver-based journalist Bob Mackin takes an intriguing look at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games that were held in Vancouver and Whistler. Mackin tackles the years before the Games, the leadup to the Games, the two weeks of the Games and the post-Games period. If you have any interest at all in what went on behind the scenes, in the impact the recession had on these Games, the city of Vancouver and the province of B.C., you absolutely must read this book. If you want to know whose backs got scratched, you absolutely must read this book. If you are a sports fan and a taxpayer, and wonder how our dollars get spent, well, have a towel ready because you will cry your eyes out. . . . This book is available in many forms; I found a Kindle version at www.shamswords.com.

Selling The Dream: How Hockey Parents and Their Kids are Paying the Price for our National Obsession – The subtitle pretty much says it all. You may have heard stories about the lengths some parents go to in order to facilitate their child’s minor hockey career. Well, Ken Campbell, a veteran writer with The Hockey News, and Jim Parcels, a veteran minor hockey observer, have taken some of them and put them between the covers of one book. But there is more to this book than that. There a whole lot of numbers, statistics and facts, explaining just what the odds are of your child making it to the NHL. This should be required reading for anyone with anything whatsoever to do with minor hockey. If you are a parent about to enter the world of minor hockey, well, be prepared to have nightmares. And, yes, the authors agree that spring/summer hockey sucks. (Viking, hard cover, 360 pages, $32.00)

The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez – Written by famed New York newspaperman Jimmy Breslin, this is one of those books that will stay with you long after you have finished reading it. The teenaged Eduardo Gutierrez leaves Mexico, taking the overland route across the border, and goes to New York City looking for a job and money to send home. He ends up dead after drowning in concrete following the collapse of the apartment building on which he was working. In between life and death, Breslin, as only he can, takes apart the bureaucracy that allowed all of this to happen. This was published in 2002 but still has its bite today. (Crown, hard cover, 214 pages, Cdn$33.00, US$22.00)

The 34-Ton Bat: The Story of Baseball as Told Through Bobbleheads, Cracker Jacks, Jockstraps, Eye Black, and 375 Other Strange and Unforgettable Objects – Like your grandfather or favourite uncle who loves to tell you stories, author Steve Rushin presents for our reading enjoyment about a million wonderful baseball-related stories, as he lets us in on a whole bunch of the game’s secrets. It isn’t just that he tells us about the evolution of the catcher’s mitt; he tells us through anecdotes and is able to put faces on the players. This is one of those books that will have you saying “I didn’t know that! That’s interesting!” a few thousand times. (Kindle)

A Wanted Man – This is the latest (No. 17) in the Jack Reacher novels, all of them written by Lee Child. Following the 6-foot-4, 240-pound Reacher’s wanderings throughout the U.S., as the former military policeman encounters situations, conspiracies and crooks and thieves, is great escapism. (Dell, soft cover, 533 pages, Cdn$10.99, US$10.99)

What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures – Author Malcolm Gladwell, as only he can do, explores various subjects in this work that was published in 2009. Gladwell writes some interesting stuff and this is no different. The highlight, perhaps, is a chapter that deals with Ron Popeil, the king of television marketing. Or maybe it's the one on Enron. Or maybe . . . Each of the 19 essays contained in this book have appeared in The New Yorker. (Little, Brown and Company, 432 pages, Kindle)

Whitey Bulger: America's Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt that Brought Him to Justice – There were a couple of Boston-based gangsters who believed they had immunity granted to them by the FBI, so they acted accordingly. Yes, they killed, they extorted, they did it all. You're thinking it's a work of fiction. Uhh, no. Authors Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy, a pair of Boston Globe reporters, detail the story of James (Whitey) Bulger, from his childhood in South Boston through his arrest in Santa Monica, Calif., at the age of 82. This is a great, if terrifying, read. (W.W. Norton & Co., 496 pages, Kindle)

The Whore of Akron: One Man's Search for the Soul of LeBron James – Scott Raab, who has written for Esquire since 1997, was born and raised in Cleveland. He is a Cleveland fan. Cleveland Browns. Cleveland Indians. Cleveland Cavaliers. No, he is not a fan of LeBron James. This is Raab's story of that relationship and all that went wrong. It is profane. It is hilarious. (Harper Perennial, soft cover, 302 pages, US$14.99, Cdn$16.99)

Winter of the World – Author Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy follows five familes through the 20th century. This is the second book, following Fall of Giants and preceding Edge of Eternity, which is scheduled for publication in the fall of 2014. Winter of the World’s focus is on the Second World War – the buildup, the fighting and the aftermath. If you are looking for a lengthy easy-to-read work of historical fiction, this is for you. It is escapism, for sure, and there also is a hint of American propaganda, but, hey, it’s enjoyable prose. (Kindle)

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The Book Shelf: Part 2 of 4

A brief look at some of the books I have read over the last while, perhaps to help you with some Christmas shopping (for yourself):

Detroit: An American Autopsy – Wow! If you have ever wondered how it is that a city like Detroit ended up filing for bankruptcy, Charlie LeDuff has written a real eye-opener. This isn't a book full of numbers; it is a book loaded with anecdotes that will leave you shaking your head. Time after time, you will stare at the heavens in bewilderment. A good portion of the book is centred on Detroit's firefighters and the incredible conditions under which they were expected to work. Sheesh, they had to bring their own toilet paper to work. LeDuff is a former Los Angeles Times and New York Times reporter who returned home to Detroit to write for the News. I highly recommend this book. (The Penguin Press, 286 pages, Kindle)

Dream Team: The book’s subtitle almost says it all – How Michael, Magic, Larry Charles, and the greatest team of all time conquered the world and changed the game of basketball forever. . . . Yup, that about sums it up. Except that it doesn’t, because it doesn’t say enough. This is a terrific book, full of colourful anecdotes involving some of the greatest basketballers of our time. But it is so much more than that. Author Jack McCallum, he of Sports Illustrated fame, does a wonderful job of explaining how all of these huge egos came together to form a team in the truest sense of the word. (Ballantine Books, hard cover, 351 pages, Cdn$34.00, US$28.00)

A Drinking Life: A Memoir – Pete Hamill, a New York newspaperman with Irish in his blood, opens his book with this: “This is a book about my time in the drinking life. It tells the story of the way one human being became aware of alcohol, embraced it, struggled with it, was hurt by it, and finally left it behind. There is no hero.” There may not be a hero, but this is a wonderful read that paints a terrific picture of growing up in a hard-scrabbled area of New York when booze was the milk of the working man. It really is a book about coming of age and starting to grow old. (Kindle, $10.03)

Drunk on Sports – Tim Cowlishaw is a recognizable face on the sporting scene; after all, he is a sports columnist with the Dallas Morning News and also holds down a spot on ESPN’s popular show Around The Horn. This is his story, and it’s an interesting read. This is a man who had the world by the tail, with a dream job and all that goes with it, including booze, booze and more booze. He wrote about and talked about the Dallas Cowboys and drank with then-head coach Jimmy Johnson. He covered Super Bowls and drank. He covered NASCAR and drank. A lot. He covered the Dallas Stars and drank. Yes, he drank a lot. But he didn’t see that as a problem, until he ended up in hospital a couple of times, once with a fracture to his skull. It’s worth noting that Cowlishaw says the aforementioned A Drinking Life: A Memoir, by Pete Hamill, had quite an influence on his desire to be a sports writer. (Kindle, $9.73)

End Zones & Border Wars: The Era of American Expansion in the CFL – Written by Vancouver Province sports columnist Ed Willes, the title pretty much says it all. This is a decent overview of what had to have been the darkest and most hilarious days in the CFL's history. In all honesty, though, this book could have used more Pepper Rodgers. (Harbour Publishing, soft cover, 208 pages, $19.95)

Fall of Giants – This is the first of Welsh author Ken Follett’s expansive historical trilogy that follows five families through the 20th century. Fall of Giants takes the families, and the reader, through the First World War and the Russian Revolution. If you like good, long reads that are loaded with great characters, international intrigue, historical figures and some just plain folks who are trying to make their way in the world, you won’t want to miss this. Just be prepared to get hooked on the series. (Kindle, $12.82) (See Winter of the World further down here.)

419 – Anyone with a computer and an email account has received one of those Nigerian notes. And, surely, you have wondered what might happen were you to respond. This is the riveting story about all that and more. There is deceit and death and death and deceit and, in the end, the circle is unbroken. An award-winning work from author Will Ferguson, this is one of those MUST reads. I found it to be thoroughly engaging. (Penguin, Kindle, $15.99)

Gordon Lightfoot: The Man, The Music and the World in 1972 – Author/musician/man-about-Canada Dave Bidini, who is really good, set out to write a book about Canadian icon Gordon Lightfoot but the subject chose not to co-operate. Bidini forged ahead anyway, and has produced another gem. Like Stompin’ Tom Connors, Bidini writes about things Canadian, mostly hockey and music. In this book, he examines Lightfoot’s legacy in detail. In one aside to Lightfoot, Bidini writes: “Your music tapped into the very essence of the Canadian soul at a time when Canadians were just trying to figure out who they were and what they were about. You gave your people a voice. You gave them a musical hero.” Bidini wraps it all around the 1972 Mariposa Folk Festival. Ahh, 1972. Yes, Harry Sinden makes the odd appearance, and so do Bidini’s beloved Toronto Maple Leafs. At one point, he writes that Lightfoot records “most of your song ideas on a cassette recorder, often while you’re sitting around watching the Leafs play (you’ve done a lot of estimable things, Gord, but finding inspiration in the god-awful Leafs might be your greatest achievement.” If you haven’t met Bidini on the printed page, you should. (McClelland & Stewart, soft cover, 256 pages, US$18.99, Cdn$21.00)

The Innocent – I hadn't read anything written by David Baldacci prior to picking up this book. The central character is Will Robie, a hitman/assassin who is in essence a U.S. government employee. In this story, he gets tangled up in a web that involves a 14-year-old girl who has witnessed the murder of her parents. All in all, it was a good read over a couple of hotel days. (Vision, paperback, 543 pages, US$9.99, Cdn$10.99)

The Instigator: How Gary Bettman Remade the League and Change the Game Forever – Author Jonathon Gatehouse, who obviously knows his way around the National Hockey League, goes into great detail in explaining how the NHL has gotten from where it was when Gary Bettman moved into the commissioner's office to where it is today. You won't be surprised to read that this is Bettman's league and he wants/has total control. There really aren't any surprises here, but it is an interesting and valuable read, just the same. (Penguin, soft cover, 379 pages, Cdn$20.00)

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