Book Log 2007 #62: The Real All Americans by Sally Jenkins

Few people remember the Carlisle Indian Industrial School as anything beyond the place where Jim Thorpe played football. In this book, Jenkins takes a longer look at the school, its football team, and the prevailing attitudes that shaped the school's formation and eventual dissolution.

This is a fair amount to bite off at once, and the resulting work reflects this to some extent. The Publisher's Weekly review said the book has a term paper feel, and that's a pretty good way to describe it. It's more breadth than depth, which is unfortunate in some areas, most notably the football game versus Army that frames the opening chapter. We don't get back to it for a good 200+ pages, and when we do the treatment of the game seems skimpy for all the build-up as to the importance of the contest to the Carlisle players. There's also a lot of side information preceding the formation of the school which is important to some extent, but could have been reduced in order to tell more about the students and life at the school.

Still, it's a decent introduction to the subject, shining some light on to a neglected corner of American (and sporting) history. It just could have used more of that light.

Book Log 2007 #61: Opening Atlantis by Harry Turtledove

The turning point in this alternative history takes place much earlier than in most books of the genre, as at some point in the indeterminate geologic past, a chunk of what we know as the US comes loose and becomes an island several hundred miles southeast of its real-life position. This island is discovered by fishermen, and is eventually settled by the Spaniards, French, and English, who seem most responsible for the island becoming known as Atlantis.

The book starts in the 15th century, with the three stories presented taking place following multi-generational gaps in one family (it's a bit like Steven Saylor's Roma in that respect). Each story focuses on an Atlantis-centered conflict, including tyranny from an outcast English noble, piracy, and the spillover of a European war (the Atlantean outpost of the French and Indian Wars, I think).

This is the first book of a trilogy, and I'm hoping the other two books will venture a little deeper into internal Atlantean politics and life, as in the first book it's not really discussed too deeply. I'm also hoping to get more interplay with Atlantis and neighboring Terranova (our North America), which in the first book is limited to learning of its existence and the mention of native Terranovans brought to Atlantis as slaves. Finally, there is regular mention of how different Atlantean flora and fauna are to both Europe and Terranova, so I'm hoping that one of the stories in the second book has some sort of Darwinian influence.

All that being said, I enjoyed the book and look forward to the next one.

Book Log 2007 #60: The Rock from Mars by Kathy Sawyer

Rather than delve into any of that more detailed early history of the space race that I talked about, I opted to go for this book about the Mars rock that, about 10 years ago, was reported to show evidence of past life on the red planet. The explanation of how the rock was discovered and how the team of scientists determined that it contained evidence of life is pretty interesting.

What's not so interesting is the coverage of the ensuing scientific infighting and the bureaucratic wrangling involving NASA. Both are important parts of the story, but both are hard to make interesting. The book is notably drier as it goes along.

On a personal note, it was interesting to read about Dan Goldin, the NASA administrator at the time who would later be BU's president for about a month. He sounds like a very capable person to run an organization, but maybe not in education.

In any case, as this appears to be the only book about the rock out there, if you're interested in the topic you're pretty much going to have to read this. Which is OK, but don't expect too much.

Book Log 2007 #59: A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey: 1957 - The Space Race Begins by Michael D'Antonio

One of the books that came out in the wake of the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik launch, this mainly focuses on the US reaction to the launch and the year or so afterwards where the US was playing catch-up. And while it does a nice job of balancing the story between the people and the hardware, it's a bit too general, I think. I'd have liked more detail on some of the major themes, such as the interservice battle to provide the US with its main launch vehicle or the social changes to the Cape Canaveral area outside of killer traffic. I'd also have liked more information on the Soviet side of things.

The book did pique my interest in the period, and there are some more specific books out there, so this may be best viewed as an introduction to the early space race.

Book Log 2007 #58: Millenium by Ben Bova

The year is 1999. Tensions on Earth have the US and USSR at the brink of war, fueled by each country's near completion of a spaced-based ABM system that would make the other side's nuclear arsenal useless. This situation is starting to spill over to the moon base whose international population belies its nominal separation into American and Soviet sectors. The leader of the base's US sector sees how war would ruin the moon community, and comes up with a plan to avoid war.

Written in the mid 1970s, it's about as inaccurate as to what 1999 would be like as you'd expect. That's not necessarily a problem, as I don't think anyone would reasonably expect Bova's vision of 1999 to conform to reality. But I didn't find the story particularly interesting, either, which is obviously a problem. The characters are all either war hawks or moon-based flower children, and the solution to the problem is pretty obvious. I also thought the ending was telegraphed a bit too much, but I may have just guessed right.

I'd not really recommend this, though I'd like to hear the opinion of someone more conversant with traditional sci-fi.

Book Log 2007 #57: Can I Keep My Jersey? by Paul Shirley

There's a lot to like about this book, in which ESPN.com blogger and basketball pro Shirley recounts the ups and downs of three years in his career. He covers the ups and downs with a good dose of ironic humor, and gives an interesting view of life on basketball's margins.

The main drawback is that the book reads like a blog, in that the focus is always squarely on Shirley. I found this to be a little distracting when he was talking about playing in Europe, as he'd spend more time talking about what it was like for him to play in Europe and less time talking about basketball in Europe in general. He also has a tendency to be repetitively sarcastic about his skills as an athlete and as a writer, which gets old quickly.

So I liked the book, but would have appreciated a little more... extrospection? Is that a word?

Happy Boxing Day! We've been at the in-laws' the last fews days, and had a really odd Christmas. My mother in law was scheduled to work on both the 24th and 25th, so we actually did our celebrating on Sunday. She then didn't have to work on Christmas Day. So we spent Christmas pretty much sitting around doing nothing. But we did have fun seeing family and eating way too much.

Not too much else to add to that, really.

OK, there's an ad on during the game now that has Curt Schilling endorsing John McCain. Not particularly surprising given Schilling's politics, and I suppose it may help out here given the way the Sox are venerated here, but given Schilling's general reputation as a jackass I don't know if it'll help all that much. It also doesn't help that Schilling's delivery is solid oak levels of wooden.

It says something about the proliferation of college football bowl games that tonight's first game of the bowl season - the Pointsettia Bowl, featuring Navy and Utah, a pair of 8-4 teams - is being pre-empted on ESPN so they can show the end of a regular season college basketball game. It should be noted that the basketball game features two top ten teams - Pitt and Duke - while the bowl game does not (neither Navy nor Utah are ranked).

There are 120 teams in whatever the NCAA is calling Division I now, and over half of them are going to bowl games. Now if only their fans would follow - plenty of good seats still available at Qualcomm Stadium.

I'm also not sure if having Reece Davis, Mark May and Lou Holtz call the game is a good or a bad thing. Davis is OK doing play by play, but I don't care for Mark May - too full of himself - and Lou should stick to the pep talks.

Sorry for the disappearing act, but between the surgery and Monday I was down to one hand, and I quickly decided not to type more than necessary. On Monday they took off the bandages and took out most of the stitches, but the two fingers that were bent needed a couple of days to get used to being on the outside. Thankfully, they didn't go all Brooks Hatlen on me and have taken to life back on the outside as well as can be expected. I'm now pretty much at the same place I was the day before the surgery, but with the promise of increased sensation and function in the index finger as time moves along.

It would figure that we'd have our first two big storms the week I couldn't shovel. The wife did a great job in my stead, and our neighbor's son helped out by taking a pass with his snowblower on Sunday morning. The best I could do was help clear off the car, as that's a bit easier to do one-handed.

On the whole, I wouldn't recommend the experience. But it does give one a newfound respect for the importance of having both hands.

Book Log 2007 #56: The Reach of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman

Having looked at what goes into making a chef and seeing what drives a chef towards perfection, Ruhlman uses this book to examine the growing role of the chef outside of the kitchen and into places like the boardroom and the TV studio. Along the way he also tries to sort out how it is that chefs have gone from tradesmen to near-rock star status.

Highly recommended.

A quick one-handed update: had surgery on Friday, seems to have gone well. I got into the hospital at 6:30 and was home by 11, and likely would have been out earlier if my doctor hadn't been late (a rarity for him, from what the other docs were saying). I remember very little thanks to the sedation. I do recall not feeling my left arm at one point, which would have been pretty disconcerting under normal circumstances.

For the next week to 10 days I'll have my left index and middle finger at rougly a 90 degree angle to my palm, so as to not put tension on the nerve. It's not particularly comfortable, but it could be worse. I do have a sling I'm supposed to wear, but around the house I've mosly just been keeping it elevated.

Otherwise, it's pretty similar to the first few days I had the brace with the original stitches. I'll try not to kill myself buttoning my pants.

Book Log 2007 #55: House Thinking by Winifred Gallagher

I made it through the first chapter of this room-by-room examination of the modern home, but couldn't go on. I am clearly not someone who finds value in the psychology of design and architecture. Which in way is too bad, as some of the later chapters appear to help explain McMansions, a trend that I've never quite been able to understand outside of bigger equaling better. I've also read in a review that at one point she refers to MTV's Cribs as a children's show, so perhaps looking to her for guidance isn't such as good idea (of course she may have meant this ironically, or in reference to the maturity level of the average Cribs subject).

Anyway, not for me.

Book Log 2007 #54: When Television Was Young by Ed McMahon with David Fisher

We all know Ed McMahon from his sidekick duties with Johnny Carson and his blooper and giant novelty check work, but in this book he tells us about how he and many others broke into TV and helped to define the medium. It's not groundbreaking, but it's a pleasant enough read. McMahon does include bits of conversations with folks like Mike Wallace, Eli Wallach and Sid Caesar, which is nice, but it's hard to read this and not think that a more comprehensive oral history would be better.

But for what it is, it's OK, probably better suited for readers who don't know a great deal about the early days of TV.

Book Log 2007 #53: For Want of a Nail by Robert Sobel

Well before Harry Turtledove and Richard Dreyfuss tackled the question in The Two Georges, Sobel put forward the question of what would have happened if the rebels lost the American Revolution. In this case, the Revolution is put down pretty quickly thanks to a Burgoyne win in Saratoga. While most of the current US and eastern Canada become a British-centered country, some of the surviving rebels move west and eventually form a country that merges the remaining area of the current US and Canada with Mexico. A third power on the continent is Kramer Associates, which comes to dominate the United States of Mexico economically.

The book is written like a history, which is pretty impressive given the number of fake sources created and cited. Unfortunately it reads like the stereotype of a history, with a dryness that takes away from even the most interesting parts of the narrative. From what I've read this was to some degree intentional; I'm sure there were dozens of historians that appreciated the satire. I found myself drifting quite a bit when reading.

I wasn't also so sure that many of the technical milestones made sense, which seems like a common critique. I also wasn't always convinced as to some of the broad social movements and their political consequences, as they were often introduced and dispensed with in one chapter, making it harder to understand and accept how they developed.

Worth a look for fans of the genre.

Three things I learned this weekend about the airport in Chattanooga, Tennessee:

1. They seem to be reducing their carbon footprint by turning off lights - even when people are still in the terminal. I was waiting for a couple of people, and while sitting near the gate where my plane came in the lights in that part of the terminal were shut off. I got the hint and moved to the gate where I expected one, if not both of the flights I was waiting for to come in. Both flights were late, and when the second one came in and both were boarding they shut off the lights in that part of the terminal. While people were still there waiting to board.

Maybe they needed the extra juice to run the baggage return? I mean, there were probably a dozen people with checked baggage on those flights.

2. Before flying in I checked to see if there was a bus or something to get from the airport to downtown. The bus system doesn't have a stop at the airport. I found this odd, given that in most places a public transit link at the airport is the norm.

I now know why there isn't one: the local transit authority is getting a cut of the extortionate rates that cabs charge for runs from the airport. For two people, they charged $33. Renting a car for the day would have been cheaper. Now, we didn't ask the rate before getting in, which is a total failing on our part. Thinking about it, I wonder if this is some sort of off the books thing, as the meter wasn't even on during our trip.

Can you tell I don't take cabs too often?

3. Skybus flies to Chattanooga, which you think would be handy as they also fly to Boston. Except in this case "Boston" actually means Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Which would be great if I were leaving a car, as the free parking (referred to several times, always in all caps, on the Pease website) would compensate for the longer drive.

The other problem is that the Skybus flights aren't necessarily coordinated. So while I could go Portsmouth-Columbus-Chattanooga, it wouldn't work in reverse as they only have one flight from Chattanooga a day.

I also ran across something called Allegiant Air, which offers flights from Bangor, Maine to Orlando, apparently. Something to keep in mind for the in-laws.