The Year in Books: 2013 (Part Three of Three)

It’s time to finish off the recap of all of the books that I read in 2013 with the remainder of the non-fiction list. As always opinions and recommendations are mine alone and keep in mind that I am someone who has paid to see Weird Al in concert.

“The Great Fire of London” Neil Hanson: When Kim and I started dating we spent much of our time hanging out in the library in her house. Kim had a legitimate library to the point that we really should institute the Dewey Decimal System at some point just for convenience. This book was one that I saw on her shelves and wanted to read immediately. Ok, it took a few years for me to actually read it but if you are interested in the inner workings of 17^th century London and want to get a sense of the calamitous fire that destroyed the entire city this is the book to read. Well, technically Samuel Pepys’ diary would be the book to read but this one doesn’t require you to read numerous diary entries detailing the purchase of cheese.

“Afterliff” John Lloyd: A literary / comedy game in which you take a city’s name and use it to define something that doesn’t have a word for it yet. So it is essentially a Sniglet. Yes, I consider a book that is a collection of Sniglets to be just as worthwhile to read as a Shakespeare play. Don’t bother trying to understand me. I don’t understand me and I’ve been me for a very long time.

“Monkey Mind” Daniel Smith: A memoir on anxiety and how it shapes one’s life. I’m a bit more honest now about my struggles with anxiety issues and how it has affected me. For the most part I now have them under control and in the process have learned a lot about how the mind works and the wonderful moments when you realize “I am being completely irrational here and even though I know that I have no idea how to stop.” This book kind of gets into it but wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be.

“102 Minutes” Jim Dwyer: I have a tendency at times to step back and try to look at the world as an outside observer. At times this results in my being cold and critical but I like to think that it also adds insights that are missed in the accepted narrative. Even though 9/11 is the biggest historical event of my lifetime and that it occurred only a dozen years ago the details of the event have seemingly been erased from the popular retellings. You do not see the unedited footage and you do not read the stories about what it was like during those horrible hours. I feel that it is wrong to forget that horror, no matter how challenging and depressing it can be to face it. This book recounts what happened in the Towers that day and these stories should be remembered as facts and not as political talking points.

“Every Love Story is a Ghost Story” D.T. Max: Ok, keeping with the uplifting tone here is the biography of the late David Foster Wallace. As I mentioned when I reviewed his last essay collection I am an unabashed fan of DFW and this provided the clearest look into his life and his troubled mind. It’s a story of someone who was too bright for their own good and who struggled with addiction and depression his entire life. Wallace isn’t for everyone (it really helps if you understand central Illinois, tennis and high level mathematics) but he will always be the author I turn to in order to be inspired about what writing can be.

“Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die” Willie Nelson: This is a little better. To be clear I am going through these books in chronological order so you can get a sense of when I am in my dark moods and when things are a little brighter. A nice little collection of road stories from Willie Nelson who apparently spends a lot of time in Hawaii playing poker with Woody Harrelson. Not a bad life if you can get it.

“Playing the Moldovans at Tennis” Tony Hawks: Years ago I read Tony Hawks’ first book “Round Ireland with a Fridge” in which he took a bet that he could hitchhike around the whole of Ireland while bringing with him a dorm sized refrigerator. In this follow up, Tony takes on another silly bet in which he proclaims that he could beat the entire starting lineup of the Moldovan national soccer team in tennis. I like anyone who does challenges like this. There is such a big thrill about living life just for the hell of it. I’ve always said that I want to one day try for a world record but for it to be in the silliest manner possible.

“The Fix is In” Brian Touhy: A book that focuses on conspiracy theories in sports. Some of these I agree with: the first NBA lottery sure seemed fixed so that the Knicks got Patrick Ewing, I’m pretty sure that Michael Jordan’s first retirement was really a suspension for gambling and NASCAR has a very interesting history of certain results occurring when it would fit the overall narrative. However, he ends the book by going through the past ten Super Bowl’s and explaining how they were fixed. While Peyton Manning leading the Colts over the Bears did fulfill the storyline of Peyton finally winning the Super Bowl I don’t think the NFL needed to do anything to accomplish this other than making sure that the Bears started Rex Grossman at quarterback.

“The Squared Circle” David Shoemaker: Probably the best book on pro wrestling that I have read from the sense of analyzing the sport and what it means from a cultural standpoint. It is close to what I have always though I would write a master’s thesis on in some vague liberal arts subject though I would focus more on how pro wrestling mirrors the wants and desires of the public. If you are a wrestling fan you need to read this book immediately. Very well written, only minimal mistakes on the history of the sport (and with something like pro wrestling the history is nebulous to begin with) and a lot of fun.

“Geek Wisdom” Stephen Segal: A world view taken from science fiction, fantasy and pop culture. Hits a little closer to home than I would like. Not by that Stephen Segal, which takes away a lot of the promise of the book.

Best of 120 Minutes: Blur’s “She’s So High” from their shoegazing period. I want Damon Albarn’s t-shirt from this video so much that I should just put it on my birthday wish list. I was clearly on the Blur side of the Blur vs. Oasis war that tore apart Alternative Nation. In the end I still hold that I was on the right side of history.