Ok, time to make my way over to the non-fiction side of the aisle for the second part of my review of everything that I read last year. I have a few pieces of odds and ends that I will write about over the weekend but I run a pretty even split between fiction and non-fiction. Used to be almost all fiction so it is a rather interesting change. Anyway, here we go…
“The Childless Revolution” by Madelyn Cain: A very interesting analysis of the fact that women are having less and less children and are often choosing careers and education over motherhood. This is going to be a growing theory in the future especially as you see the conflict between career success and family size leading to the world predicted in Idiocracy. The other interesting bit about this analysis is that it is entirely focused on women. No one ever questions if a guy chooses his career over fatherhood but for women there is a cultural stigma attached to it.
“Gunn’s Golden Rules” by Tim Gunn: If you need to have a life coach you could do a lot worse than choosing Tim Gunn. At a minimum you could guarantee that you will be dressed immaculately. Sadly I can’t get excited for the new season of Project Runway: All Stars because Tim and Heidi are not going to be a part of it, which makes me wonder if I want to watch the show at all. It just isn’t the same without Tim saying “Make it work” and saying hello to Swatch the dog.
“Bait and Switch” by Barbara Ehrenreich: Back when I took the separation package from Sprint I was given access to a career development service, essentially a place that would help me build a resume, work on my interview skills and help in searching for a new job. Outside of having someone to proofread my resume and give a little bit of a refresher on my interview technique I don’t know if I received any benefit from it. Talking about networking with people who are also unemployed is not precisely the easiest way to find a job. This book covers the same subject as Barbara spends a year in the world of the job searchers: attending networking events and sending out resumes on Monster and CareerBuilder in an attempt to see if it is at all possible to find a job using those tools. For those of you who have ever been pissed at the job search process this book will let you know that you are not alone.
“Scorecasting” by Tobias Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim: This book was basically taking a look at sports from a Freakonomics perspective. I am sure that it interested me at the time but right now I am completely blanking on it. I read it before I got married so maybe I can use that as an excuse.
“Undisputed” by Chris Jericho and “The Road Warriors” by Joe Laurinaitis: I broke one of my internal rules this year. I typically limit myself to one biography by a pro wrestler in any given year but this time I had to read two from some of my favorites. Chris Jericho, who made his triumphant return on Monday night as the most loved person on the show and was then the most hated six minutes later, is probably my favorite wrestler around and one of the few guys who I respect in the business. This book is as much about his music career as anything else and isn’t as good as his first but it is interesting. The second book focuses on my favorite tag team of all time, The Road Warriors, and while not the best written book it definitely holds your interest. Plus, the story of Hawk wrestling on a scaffold with a broken leg is always a good one to read. Sadly, the number of people in both books who have died before the age of fifty is too much for me to comprehend.
“The War for Late Night” by Bill Carter: A study of the whole Jay Leno / Conan O’Brien controversy, which was the biggest story in the world for a few months and has since become a total afterthought. Leno is back hosting the Tonight Show and will be until the sun collapses into itself, Conan has a fringe audience on TBS and I still wish that I could stay up late enough to watch Craig Ferguson. If you are interested in the ins and outs of how the late night shows works and just how many political games take place in the background this is an incredible read.
“Unfamiliar Fishes” by Sarah Vowell: I am a big fan of Sarah Vowell’s writing and this book about how Hawaii became a state is at least a little bit of a return to form from her last book, which was about the Puritans and was one of the most boring things that I have read. This has a lot more of her trademark dry wit and is an interesting study as to just how did we end up deciding that a) the United States should possess a couple of random islands in the Pacific Ocean and b) that they should be considered just as much a part of the United States as say, Delaware. Ok, that is not a good example. I’m not sure anyone can think of a reason why Delaware should be considered a state other than it gives all the other states someone to look down upon. Delaware is the Barry Horrowitz of states.
“Spook” and “Bonk” by Mary Roach: One book is about ghosts and the other is about sex. Sadly, sex with ghosts does not come up at any time as a subject though it obviously should. I’ve now read everything that Mary Roach has written and she is a writer whose style I like. She takes a scientific look at subject but does it from a very personal perspective. It’s basically investigative journalism from someone who is just genuinely interested in a subject. You couldn’t use one of her books as the basis for a doctoral thesis but they make for wonderful reads on airplanes.
“Those Guys Have All the Fun” by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales: An oral history of ESPN. After reading this you might not have a positive image of any single person who was ever associated with the networks with the exception of Robin Roberts. I knew of a lot of the ESPN sex scandals ahead of time (the wonders of reading Deadspin everyday) but there was stuff in here that was just stunning. Apparently Bristol is the Sodom of Connecticut. The book does make it clear just how the network became an unbelievable success and also why it will never be as cool as it was in the early 90’s when I watched it for every moment. Essentially, once you are owned by Disney and are the mainstream source of news you can no longer be inventive and reckless. Sad but true.
“The To-Do List” by Mike Gayle: The story of one man who sits down late one night, starts writing a to do list for his life, ends up with over 500 items and then goes ahead and completes every single one of them. I am pretty sure that Kim slapped me when I told her what I was reading because she knew that I would immediately try to do the same thing since I love To Do lists. Especially given that the first item on every To Do list that I write is, and I’m not kidding here, “Write To Do List.”
“Moneyball” and “Boomerang” by Michael Lewis: Written by the lucky bastard who married Tabitha Soren you have the story of the Oakland A’s and Billy Beane, made into a movie about a team that never makes it to the World Series (which was already made and called Major League) and another on how various economies have collapsed in the credit crisis. Given that one of those failed economies was Iceland I was interested to see if I could at all understand how in the world a country like that could suddenly decide that it was a financial center. I still don’t think anyone understands. Apparently it involves fish and elves. Basically everything in Iceland involves fish and elves and smells slightly like rotten eggs.
“I’m a Stranger Here Myself” by Bill Bryson: More travelogues by Bill Bryson. For those who know my story I have spent most of the past year on planes, in airports and basically never spending more than four days in any one location. As a result my Kindle has become a steady companion and there are times when you just search for something to read that you know that you will enjoy but don’t want to put too much thought into it. Bill Bryson works really well for those moments.
“Popular Crime” by Bill James: I’ve never been a massive baseball stat guy, though I certainly have done more than my share of scorekeeping over the year, but I have always been impressed with how Bill James investigated the game and developed better methods to analyze player performance. Apparently as a sideline Bill has also been interested in true crime stories and this book is basically his examining of various cases over the centuries. It basically reads like a bar conversation with a friend who is brilliant, extremely dedicated and completely ignoring the fact that at many points he is either wrong or bringing up a point that is really irrelevant. Still, I go back to this book to read select chapters occasionally and it did bring up cases that even I was unaware of.
“I Want My MTV” by Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum: An oral history of MTV, which is basically the same as the one about ESPN but replace Robin Roberts with Martha Quinn. Also, Adam Curry’s hair is essentially its own character in this book. Seriously, I think it gives an interview at some point. Oh, and no one liked Downtown Julie Brown. Absolutely no one.
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