Mount TBR 2014 Challenge discussion

Hi. I'm joining late, but I'm taking credit for the several books I've already finished this year. Last year my wife and I were cleaning the storage area under the stairs/ We agreed (mostly) that there are too many boxes of books there and because we don't really have space for them, and we don't have a separate library in our suburban mansion, I had to move some along. I made three piles. Ones I was never going to read and sold or traded right away. Ones I didn't want to get rid of at all for some reason. And the biggest pile, ones I was willing to pass along, but only after I've read them. I knocked out about 50 last year, and I think I do better this time around.

Here's what I've read so far, and I'll be adding mini-reviews of each over the next few days. I don't have blog or other outlet for this so here it goes. I take the train and bus to work most days so I have time to sit back and read. I like to have one fiction and one non-fiction going at the same time. I try not to bail on anything unless it's truly not grabbing me. Unfortunately, one of the ones I have open now is looking like it might qualify.

1) Tough Cookies Simon Wright
2) Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art Christopher Moore
3) Moneyball Michael Lewis
4) A Play of Heresy Margaret Frazer
5) I Am Jennie Jennie Ketcham
6) The Fixer Bernard Malamud
7) Anno Dracula: Johnny Alucard Kim Newman

So, seven in six weeks isn't fast enough. I'm a little concerned because one of the ones coming up is "The Confusion," part of the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson. It's about 900 pages.

Anyway, thanks for listening!

Here's my first review, for Moneyball:

This has been sitting on my TBR pile for a few years. I never saw the movie and while I like Michael Lewis, for some reason this just never jumped out at me. I have a friend, though, who is a huge Oakland A's fan and keeps harping about what a genius Billy Beane is, so I finally decided to read Moneyball.

It was excellent. It's a bit dated at this point, more than 10 years after the draft it follows, but that is sort of beside the point. For me the most interesting section of the book was the historical background and the development of statistical analysis over old-school scouting as a tool for evaluating players. I read Bill James in the 1980's but I was fascinated by the interplay and serendipity between multiple events and actors that led to Beane's reassessment of player development.

Given its age, it's possible now to go back and review the success the A's had in the drafts of 2002 and beyond. They do pretty well. And other teams, notably the Red Sox, have begun to use the principles Beane and his team developed. That said, as a fan, it still doesn't negate the advantage of having a huge payroll. A team with money to burn can afford to make mistakes, a team like the A's can't They have to get it right every time, or be content with making the LCS every few years.

A baseball fan will love this book. A reader interested in just gaining some insight into what has become a highly technical and relatively closed world, which is Lewis's specialty, will also enjoy Moneyball.

Here's another review, for Tough Cookies. I also finished #8 today and will be updating accordingly.

As a 2013 Christmas gift, this only recently hit the TBR pile. But I promised family members who gave me books that I'd try to read them right away, and this one was first.

For some reason, I have a fascination with the recent crop of celebrity chefs. Maybe it's because my father used to watch Julia Child many years ago, and i'd sit with him and help in the kitchen. I read Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly a few years ago, and then A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines and Roasting in Hell's Kitchen: Temper Tantrums, F Words, and the Pursuit of Perfection soon after. Tough Cookies seemed like a good way to learn about other chefs-Heston Blumenthal, Shaun Hill, and Marcus Wareing, all of whom I'd heard of but knew little about.

Having read Ramsay's own book, the first mini-bio (of Ramsay) didn't really hold anything new. There were allusions to incidents I already knew more about. I pushed through that section to get to the others, but maybe that initial experience colored my reading of the other three bios. Although each chef had a different sequence of events leading to his culinary aspirations, there seemed a lot of sameness to it all. I suppose that's really the case. As different as each chef's demeanor, food style, and kitchen management are, underlying it all is the process of getting good food out in a timely manner.

I think I would appreciate more in-depth bios about each individual. that said, this book was an excellent quick introduction to the rejuvenation of British cuisine in the 1990's and to some of the key figures of the time. It just didn't hold my interest as strongly as I thought it would.

Two more added to the "completed" list:

8) Myth & Mystery: An Introduction to the Pagan Religions of the Biblical World Jack Finegan
9) The Quantity Theory of Insanity: Together with Five Supporting Propositions Will Self

Here are my summary reviews of both.

Myth and Mystery is a survey of religious thought before, during, and after the Biblical period in the Middle East. The chapters run chronologically, starting with Mesopotamian religions through Egyptian, Zoroastrian, Canaanite, Greek, and Roman systems, concluding with the Gnostic traditions concurrent with the rise of Christian beliefs.

It is fascinating to learn about the variety of mythologies humans have constructed to make order out of their chaos. As an atheist, I don't subscribe to any supernatural explanations, and I find it curious that many people are able to reject all but one.

One drawback of the book is the notational system employed. Unlike footnotes that refer to other books by title, author, publisher, date, etc, ancient sources, such as the Nag Hammadi codices or Zoroastrian epics each have their own unique documentation method. I found it difficult to keep with the flow of the text when it was constantly interrupted with notes. I understand the author wanted to provide sources, but one of the reasons I read an author like this is to accept his scholarship and not have go to Leipzig or Cairo to look things up. It was a necessary but intrusive feature.

4/5 3 for readability, 5 for depth of content.

The Quantity Theory of Insanity was frustrating. It is a collection of six semi-related stories, five shorter ones hovering around the namesake central piece on the quantity theory. Self is a good writer in that he can construct good sentences with powerful allusions and evocative descriptions of characters and settings. Unfortunately, I found the whole thing just not very interesting. There are some criticisms of pop psychology embedded in the tales, and some of them are OK: "The North London Book of the Dead" was fairly lightweight but ultimately didn't go anywhere. "Ward 9" had an interesting premise concerning the potential for the therapist to become a patient. "Understanding the Ur-Bororo" was amusing, though lacking, I felt, something to give it a kick (which is ironic if you've read the story). The central story about the quantity theory-that there is a finite amount of sanity in any system and that an increase in sanity at one spot in the system necessarily leads to an increase in insanity elsewhere-is intriguing. "Mono-Cellular" was utterly pointless. "Waiting" was probably the best, although, again, insubstantial.

2/5

A worthy topic for open minds. I was raised Christian and kept its best teachings in my life; siphening out those that don't resonate. One Christian trait that bothered me was that other faiths, like Pagans and Wiccans, "must be terrible". What I hear of friends belonging to them; they're peaceful, accepting and not evil at all. Let me know if your book mentioned that "witch" at one time, merely meant a practitioner of pre-Christian religions.

Same with the value of life. There's been a silent agreement that "excepting humans" (we ARE mammals) other mammals & animals are allegedly inferior; permitted to be eaten or killed at will. How dominant the Christian religion must be in today's thinking. It's one of FEW religions that DON'T recognize equal value of animal life; having a soul and entering the same Heaven.

If only folks left everyone to a colourful variety of faiths. Less shaking a finger at our definiation of "a sin". Just lend a hand, make everyone welcome, and happy.

C. wrote: "A worthy topic for open minds. I was raised Christian and kept its best teachings in my life; siphening out those that don't resonate. One Christian trait that bothered me was that other faiths,..."

Hi C.!

No, the book doesn't mention witches. But it did do a very good job of conveying a balanced approach to the Gnostic religions as evidenced by the Nag Hammadi manuscripts. The author explained how each variant (he goes through about a dozen different ones) both paralleled and differed from what we now know as orthodox Christian belief. What a madhouse the 1st century must have been! And I thought it was tough here in Minnesota where people only have to decide what kind of Lutheran to be.

That's the faith in which I was raised. I feel fortunate it was an open, Protestant one. I'm a big picture person who I hope would reach past the sky of possibilities anyway. Something that SHOULD be light-hearted, encouraging, ought not be strict. It was easy for my family to weed out the least important stuff (like belonging to a religion at all) and look towards the main morals.

So demanding or judgemental, many of the others are. One relative at one time frowned on Hallowe'en (which was meant to scare AWAY evil). When we think of how Christianity got so wide-spread, literally killing people who didn't APPEAR to follow it; it certainly seems hypocritical to judge the various things opposed today. As harmful as preventing certain humans to vote, then marry.... as silly as wanting schools to ban "Harry Potter".

Added a review of The Fixer:

The only other Malamud I had read was The Natural. This was on the "Free-Take One" pile of donated books at my local library, so I decided to give it a shot. I'm glad I did.

The Fixer is not a page-turner, not even in the way The Natural is. The Fixer is a depressing and difficult book, based on real-world circumstances, both general in terms of how Jews were treated in Czarist Russia, and particular, as it's based on the case of Menahem Mendel Beilis, a Jew who was imprisoned in Russia for a crime he didn't commit.

That's exactly what happens to Yakov Bok. After travelling to Kiev hopes of getting work as a fixer (like a handyman), Bok is arrested and imprisoned for the murder of a boy whose body is found in a cave with injuries that seem to indicate a ritual killing. The bulk of the novel describes Bok's experience incarcerated and awaiting trial.

There were several points at which I asked myself whether I wanted to keep reading about the abuse and maltreatment Bok suffers. He is subjected to all sorts of punishment, both physical and mental. He sees the possibility of action, only to have his hopes dashed and often his condition worsened. Ultimately, (view spoiler)[he is charged and taken away to begin his trial. (hide spoiler)] The ending deliberately forces the reader to (view spoiler)[conjecture what might have happened. (hide spoiler)]

As I read about Bok's individual experience, I was horrified, as any reasonable person would be, at how poorly Jews were treated at that time. Jews were hated for various reasons, in part because of lies and misinformation promulgated to help the majority justify its abuse of a minority population. A population that was different, and made the majority feel threatened.

But from about the midpoint on I couldn't help wondering if, some decades from now, some as yet unknown author will win a Pulitzer Prize with a fictionalized account of prison experiences at Guantanamo. Those who don't learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

5/5

Rolling along. I've added three more to the completed list:

10) de Bono's Thinking Course Edward de Bono 3/5, review pending
11) The Templar Legacy Steve Berry 1/5, full review pending, 2 stars for a somewhat interesting story, -3 stars for some of the laziest, hacky, and just plain terrible writing I've read by a published author in quite some time. I started taking notes of all the nonsense in this book and once I transcribe it all I'll make that my review.
12) The Archer's Tale Bernard Cornwell 5/5 full review posted.

Two more in progress now, a Sherlock Holmes pastiche and some American history.