Book Log 2011 #46: The Twelfth Enchantment by David Liss
The set-up is straight out of Jane Austen. A young woman, tainted by the scandal of a failed elopement and lacking resources after her father dies nearly penniless, is sent to live with an uncle who doesn't want her there. The lack of connection with the uncle and his housekeeper is compounded when she is betrothed to a mill owner she does not like, never mind love.
The change comes when the woman has a chance to turn her life around - through magic. Yes, it turns out that the woman has a gift with the magic arts, and her task to "gather the leaves" is connected to the greater fight between progress and industrial revolution and the artisans led by Ned Ludd. The woman has to develop her gift while balancing the attentions of a young Lord Byron and the man she eloped with, returned with his own agenda.
What I like best about this book is that the magic isn't treated any different than anything else. Some books would focus only on the magic, while others would get into innumerable details about spells, etc. In this case, we get a solid story about a woman trying to make her way, just with the additional help of magic to get there.
While I'm waiting patiently for the next installment in Liss' series featuring boxer turned investigator Benjamin Weaver, this was a very entertaining diversion. Liss is very comfortable writing about this period, and his ability to balance the magical with the historical with the romantic is very much appreciated. I really enjoyed this book, and am glad that it's the one I'm ending 2011 on.
31 December 2011
Book Log 2011 #45: The Third Rail by Michael Harvey
Two women are shot and killed on the El, with the only apparent tie being Chicago PI Michael Kelly, who is on the platform for the first shooting and is contacted by the killer after the second. Kelly winds up on the task force investigating the shootings, but is also approached by the mayor to make sure that the killer, once found, doesn't get to trial. From the start Kelly feels like the case is being handled incorrectly, and as that plays out he finds that he has another, more personal connection to the shootings.
This is the third book involving Kelly, and it lives up to the standard set by the other two books. I wasn't fully satisfied by the ending, but it worked well enough that I was able to put my misgivings aside. It's not necessarily as noirish as the other two, but there's plenty of Chicago flavor to make up for it. I also like how Kelly continues to be developed as a fully-realized person, and not just someone who spends his time either on cases or drinking (though he spends plenty of time on both). What isn't sitting well is the introduction of FBI and Homeland Security types, as I worry that future books will be less Chicago-centric. But for now, another good book in the series.
Book Log 2011 #44: Reamde by Neal Stephenson
This book marks a return to the technology-based thriller, as a man who has developed an internationally-popular online game sees his favorite niece go missing at the same time a group of Chinese hackers introduce a virus into the game that holds players' hard drives ransom until a payment is made in-game. From there the book widens out to include Russian mobsters, government intelligence agents, international terrorists, and Idahoan survivalists.
This sort of wide-ranging story has proven quite entertaining before - Cryptonomicon tells an entertaining story across multiple continents and times - but this book doesn't reach those heights. This story is almost too broad, with characters disappearing for 100 pages or more and new characters coming in mid-book to take up even more space. There's also a couple of related subplots involving the online game and two writers who created its backstory that go on much longer than necessary.
Speaking of going on too long, the closing 200 pages or so of the book take place in the wilds of British Columbia and Idaho, and it seems like at least half of that is dedicated to descriptions of mountains, backwoods trails and other landforms. It got to the point where I dreaded the start of a new section, as I knew it would involve at least a page or two of this sort of thing.
What this winds up being is a 700 page novel hiding in a 1000 page novel. I won't say I was disappointed, as I did like the book overall, but I did feel like it didn't meet my expectations. Better luck next time.
This book marks a return to the technology-based thriller, as a man who has developed an internationally-popular online game sees his favorite niece go missing at the same time a group of Chinese hackers introduce a virus into the game that holds players' hard drives ransom until a payment is made in-game. From there the book widens out to include Russian mobsters, government intelligence agents, international terrorists, and Idahoan survivalists.
This sort of wide-ranging story has proven quite entertaining before - Cryptonomicon tells an entertaining story across multiple continents and times - but this book doesn't reach those heights. This story is almost too broad, with characters disappearing for 100 pages or more and new characters coming in mid-book to take up even more space. There's also a couple of related subplots involving the online game and two writers who created its backstory that go on much longer than necessary.
Speaking of going on too long, the closing 200 pages or so of the book take place in the wilds of British Columbia and Idaho, and it seems like at least half of that is dedicated to descriptions of mountains, backwoods trails and other landforms. It got to the point where I dreaded the start of a new section, as I knew it would involve at least a page or two of this sort of thing.
What this winds up being is a 700 page novel hiding in a 1000 page novel. I won't say I was disappointed, as I did like the book overall, but I did feel like it didn't meet my expectations. Better luck next time.
Book Log 2011 #43: Then Everything Changed by Jeff Greenfield
Political commentator Greenfield takes a stab at three alternative political histories in this book. The first story sees the planned assassination of JFK by Richard Pavlick succeed, leading to an early LBJ presidency. The second has RFK assassination failing, and looks at what would have come after. The final story has Ford winning the 1976 election.
The upshot of all three stories, really, is that JFK and RFK were great. In the first story LBJ faces pretty much the same issues as JFK did, but with less success. In the second story, RFK's presidency has its bobbles, but allows us to avoid Watergate and other problems. Neither really influences the third story, though it does emphasize that Teddy was not cut from the same cloth as his brothers.
The stories are written well enough, though I found myself getting annoyed at some of the cameos and cutesy coincidences. I know they're done in an attempt to make the stories more real, but when Hillary Rodham Clinton shows up as a White House lawyer who catches a sitting President getting orally pleased by an intern, I find that we're crossed the line to gratuitous.
I don't think these are the best stories compared to those written by dedicated alt-history authors, but they're not bad for someone riffing on his day job.
Political commentator Greenfield takes a stab at three alternative political histories in this book. The first story sees the planned assassination of JFK by Richard Pavlick succeed, leading to an early LBJ presidency. The second has RFK assassination failing, and looks at what would have come after. The final story has Ford winning the 1976 election.
The upshot of all three stories, really, is that JFK and RFK were great. In the first story LBJ faces pretty much the same issues as JFK did, but with less success. In the second story, RFK's presidency has its bobbles, but allows us to avoid Watergate and other problems. Neither really influences the third story, though it does emphasize that Teddy was not cut from the same cloth as his brothers.
The stories are written well enough, though I found myself getting annoyed at some of the cameos and cutesy coincidences. I know they're done in an attempt to make the stories more real, but when Hillary Rodham Clinton shows up as a White House lawyer who catches a sitting President getting orally pleased by an intern, I find that we're crossed the line to gratuitous.
I don't think these are the best stories compared to those written by dedicated alt-history authors, but they're not bad for someone riffing on his day job.
Book Log 2011 #42: World Without End by Ken Follett
This sequel to Pillars of the Earth jumps 200 years after the events of the first book, returning to Kingsbridge to follow four characters who, as kids in 1327, witness an altercation whose implications will not become known for decades. Still, it shapes their lives in various ways, as they grow into their roles as builder, healer, peasant and lord.
Many of the themes from the first book continue in the second - secular versus clerical rule, life as a serf versus free man versus lord, etc. - though they're obviously distinct given the 200 years that have passed. The plague plays a major role in the book - as you might expect given the year the book starts in.
This book is every bit as enjoyable as the first, though it took me a while to get going with this one, mostly as I was trying to sort out how the people in this book were related to the folks in the first one. A family tree would be helpful for those characters who are descended from people in the first book. A map would have been nice as well, though the website linked above has one.
You will need to dedicate a fair bit of time to this book - like the first, it clocks in at over 1000 pages - but it reads much quicker than you might expect for something so big.
This sequel to Pillars of the Earth jumps 200 years after the events of the first book, returning to Kingsbridge to follow four characters who, as kids in 1327, witness an altercation whose implications will not become known for decades. Still, it shapes their lives in various ways, as they grow into their roles as builder, healer, peasant and lord.
Many of the themes from the first book continue in the second - secular versus clerical rule, life as a serf versus free man versus lord, etc. - though they're obviously distinct given the 200 years that have passed. The plague plays a major role in the book - as you might expect given the year the book starts in.
This book is every bit as enjoyable as the first, though it took me a while to get going with this one, mostly as I was trying to sort out how the people in this book were related to the folks in the first one. A family tree would be helpful for those characters who are descended from people in the first book. A map would have been nice as well, though the website linked above has one.
You will need to dedicate a fair bit of time to this book - like the first, it clocks in at over 1000 pages - but it reads much quicker than you might expect for something so big.
Book Log 2011 #41: Maphead by Ken Jennings
Ken Jennings and I have at least two things in common. The first is that we're both trivia nerds who have parlayed such nerditry into money (though his total is much, much higher than my one). The second is that we're both into geography, though that's probably not so surprising given the first point of commonality. Jennings dives into this subculture in this book, examining people who create fictional countries, geocaching (which is actually a third thing we have in common, although I've taken a hiatus with the kids being so small), and a variety of other geographic interests.
This book is in the same conversational, self-deprecating style of Brainiac, and it's as comfortable and enjoyable here as it was there. I did find myself comparing the chapter about the National Geographic Bee to the one about the National Spelling Bee in Neil Steinberg's Failure, appreciating the similarities in the participants. I was also very interested in the section talking about the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, a map-based road rally that was advertised in pretty much every issue of Games magazine I've ever read. Thankfully I never sent the money in to participate, as based on Jennings' experience the hair-splitting directions and definitions would have driven me crazy and I would likely have never finished it (or come close).
So if you've ever pondered the map of the world in a high school classroom or wondered who exactly tries to visit all the countries of the world, this book is for you. Even if you've not done this, it's worth a read so you can understand why some of us like this stuff.
Ken Jennings and I have at least two things in common. The first is that we're both trivia nerds who have parlayed such nerditry into money (though his total is much, much higher than my one). The second is that we're both into geography, though that's probably not so surprising given the first point of commonality. Jennings dives into this subculture in this book, examining people who create fictional countries, geocaching (which is actually a third thing we have in common, although I've taken a hiatus with the kids being so small), and a variety of other geographic interests.
This book is in the same conversational, self-deprecating style of Brainiac, and it's as comfortable and enjoyable here as it was there. I did find myself comparing the chapter about the National Geographic Bee to the one about the National Spelling Bee in Neil Steinberg's Failure, appreciating the similarities in the participants. I was also very interested in the section talking about the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, a map-based road rally that was advertised in pretty much every issue of Games magazine I've ever read. Thankfully I never sent the money in to participate, as based on Jennings' experience the hair-splitting directions and definitions would have driven me crazy and I would likely have never finished it (or come close).
So if you've ever pondered the map of the world in a high school classroom or wondered who exactly tries to visit all the countries of the world, this book is for you. Even if you've not done this, it's worth a read so you can understand why some of us like this stuff.
Book Log 2011 #40: The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum
We take forensic chemistry for granted nowadays, expecting that any substance used to kill someone will be detected. That was not the case at the start of the 20th century, when coroners were often appointed for political reasons and actual science didn't come into play when the police tried to solve crimes. It took a crusading doctor and a like-minded colleague to change this in New York City, as they modernized methods, testing and procedures in an attempt to catch those people who, previously, could poison with impunity.
There is something for just about everyone here, from true crime to public health to medicine to US urban history. The book is organized by chapters involving one particular poison, showing how each came into vogue, cases where it was used, and ways in which the coroner came up with or improved tests to uncovers killers who would have succeeded under the old regime.
The book is well-written and the subject matter greatly interesting, at least to me. Definitely recommended if you're into this sort of thing.
We take forensic chemistry for granted nowadays, expecting that any substance used to kill someone will be detected. That was not the case at the start of the 20th century, when coroners were often appointed for political reasons and actual science didn't come into play when the police tried to solve crimes. It took a crusading doctor and a like-minded colleague to change this in New York City, as they modernized methods, testing and procedures in an attempt to catch those people who, previously, could poison with impunity.
There is something for just about everyone here, from true crime to public health to medicine to US urban history. The book is organized by chapters involving one particular poison, showing how each came into vogue, cases where it was used, and ways in which the coroner came up with or improved tests to uncovers killers who would have succeeded under the old regime.
The book is well-written and the subject matter greatly interesting, at least to me. Definitely recommended if you're into this sort of thing.
Book Log 2011 #39: Moneymakers by Ben Tarnoff
Three American counterfieters are profiled here, detailing their work profiting (and in at least one case, displaying patriotism) in making funny money. While the stories are well told, there's at least as much about the history of American paper money here, with the counterfieters serving as a backdrop for the move from Continental bank notes to the federally-backed notes that became what we use today.
The actual stories about the counterfieters improve as the book moves along - in no small part due to the increase in documentation about their lives and crimes - while the writing about currency in general is even throughout. Worth a read if you're interested in US money, history, or the history of US money.
Three American counterfieters are profiled here, detailing their work profiting (and in at least one case, displaying patriotism) in making funny money. While the stories are well told, there's at least as much about the history of American paper money here, with the counterfieters serving as a backdrop for the move from Continental bank notes to the federally-backed notes that became what we use today.
The actual stories about the counterfieters improve as the book moves along - in no small part due to the increase in documentation about their lives and crimes - while the writing about currency in general is even throughout. Worth a read if you're interested in US money, history, or the history of US money.
28 December 2011
Book Log 2011 #38: Atlantic by Simon Winchester
In this book, Winchester attempts a biography of the Atlantic Ocean, starting at its formation in the earliest stages of the planet to its future destruction by the same forces that gave it life. In between, he talks about the "Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories" promised by the subtitle.
He frames the discussion using Shakespeare's seven ages of man from As You Like It, which allows him to follow chronology where appropriate but discuss other facets - such as sea battles and Atlantic-inspired art - as specific subjects.
This works, for the most part, but the problem with such a broad topic is that choices have to be made for what gets mentioned and what doesn't, and those choices aren't always the ones I'd make. For example, the art chapter spends a great deal of time talking about coastal architecture without mentioning Manueline architecture, a style influenced greatly by Portugal's exploration of the Atlantic and the oceans beyond. Similar examples can be found in each chapter.
I'm also not a fan of Winchester's pessimism towards the survival of mankind. He seems to think we'll exit the stage well before the Atlantic is crushed between land masses, and while I do think we'll have moved on by then, I tend to think we'll last longer on Earth and have found somewhere else to go by this time. Winchester seems to think we'll go the way of the dodo, or at least that was my read.
But in the main, it's usually engaging and worth a read, though some sections could be bypassed if not of interest, as the seven ages of man set-up allows for some compartmentalization.
In this book, Winchester attempts a biography of the Atlantic Ocean, starting at its formation in the earliest stages of the planet to its future destruction by the same forces that gave it life. In between, he talks about the "Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories" promised by the subtitle.
He frames the discussion using Shakespeare's seven ages of man from As You Like It, which allows him to follow chronology where appropriate but discuss other facets - such as sea battles and Atlantic-inspired art - as specific subjects.
This works, for the most part, but the problem with such a broad topic is that choices have to be made for what gets mentioned and what doesn't, and those choices aren't always the ones I'd make. For example, the art chapter spends a great deal of time talking about coastal architecture without mentioning Manueline architecture, a style influenced greatly by Portugal's exploration of the Atlantic and the oceans beyond. Similar examples can be found in each chapter.
I'm also not a fan of Winchester's pessimism towards the survival of mankind. He seems to think we'll exit the stage well before the Atlantic is crushed between land masses, and while I do think we'll have moved on by then, I tend to think we'll last longer on Earth and have found somewhere else to go by this time. Winchester seems to think we'll go the way of the dodo, or at least that was my read.
But in the main, it's usually engaging and worth a read, though some sections could be bypassed if not of interest, as the seven ages of man set-up allows for some compartmentalization.
Book Log 2011 #37: Popular Crime by Bill James
Besides being one of baseball's leading quantitative minds, Bill James has a serious interest in popular crime stories. This book allows him to explore this passion, covering over two millennia of headline crimes, though he mostly focuses on events from 1800 onward.
The results of this examination are somewhat uneven. Some cases get great coverage, while other times get a laundry list of crimes that tend to drag. He creates a taxonomy for cases based on their elements, a digression that may help him but is dry reading at best.
The best parts of the book are where James is actually making an argument for or against something rather than just relating cases to fill the timeline. Towards the end of the book he starts to put together a plan for creating a more effective prison system (basically creating small neighborhood facilities, a neat idea that will never happen) and discusses the justice system generally, which goes on a bit too long.
James also makes a basic argument in the book for the importance of following and understanding these cases, both for their insights into criminal behavior and their reflection of the wider culture. I tend to agree with him here, and think that marginalizing such cases costs us an opportunity to reflect. Worse still is that we allow the cases to become public theater (think Casey Anthony), which only makes the general public more liable to marginalize these cases.
I do think the book is interesting, and worth a read if you're interested in true crime. I also think it could have been sharper in places, so don't expect this to stack up to James's best baseball work.
Besides being one of baseball's leading quantitative minds, Bill James has a serious interest in popular crime stories. This book allows him to explore this passion, covering over two millennia of headline crimes, though he mostly focuses on events from 1800 onward.
The results of this examination are somewhat uneven. Some cases get great coverage, while other times get a laundry list of crimes that tend to drag. He creates a taxonomy for cases based on their elements, a digression that may help him but is dry reading at best.
The best parts of the book are where James is actually making an argument for or against something rather than just relating cases to fill the timeline. Towards the end of the book he starts to put together a plan for creating a more effective prison system (basically creating small neighborhood facilities, a neat idea that will never happen) and discusses the justice system generally, which goes on a bit too long.
James also makes a basic argument in the book for the importance of following and understanding these cases, both for their insights into criminal behavior and their reflection of the wider culture. I tend to agree with him here, and think that marginalizing such cases costs us an opportunity to reflect. Worse still is that we allow the cases to become public theater (think Casey Anthony), which only makes the general public more liable to marginalize these cases.
I do think the book is interesting, and worth a read if you're interested in true crime. I also think it could have been sharper in places, so don't expect this to stack up to James's best baseball work.
I can't imagine there are many people who read this who aren't friends on Facebook, but in case you're not, I can announce that the family unit has increased by one with the birth of our second son. And while there is still plenty of novelty stemming from the new baby's personality, I can see now why kids born later get the short shrift. We've taken many fewer pictures of the baby number two than of the first one, and we spent a significantly smaller amount of time planning and prepping for the new baby. A couple of brief refreshers, put the crib back together, get clothes back from the people we lent to when they had babies, and that's it. I swear we will not half-ass his rearing the same way we've loafed through the previous nine months.
(Note: the one area we did not skimp on at all was pre-natal care. Doesn't matter how many kids you have, see your doctor regularly, take your vitamins, etc.)
The re-introduction to things like feedings every two hours or so and the joy that is meconium (look it up if you don't know what that is - just avoid sites with pictures) has gone pretty smoothly (the actual birthing and post-birthing could have gone better, but the wife has rebounded nicely). Hopefully we'll be out of here on Thursday so we can finally see how the older child reacts to having a baby in the house full time. He's been marginally interested up to now - hospital visits are mostly spent trying to flip any switch left unmanned - but has at least acknowledged the baby's presence. He's also regularly spent time with his 11 month-old cousin since that child was born, even having a couple of long weekends where they stayed together. So hopefully the idea of having a baby around all the time isn't a problem.
What might be a problem, though, is that the older son enjoys to get into the crib and tub that we used on him and have brought out/reassembled for the new baby. Need to make sure that stops when child number two is actually using them.
So far so good, though. Keep your fingers crossed.
(Note: the one area we did not skimp on at all was pre-natal care. Doesn't matter how many kids you have, see your doctor regularly, take your vitamins, etc.)
The re-introduction to things like feedings every two hours or so and the joy that is meconium (look it up if you don't know what that is - just avoid sites with pictures) has gone pretty smoothly (the actual birthing and post-birthing could have gone better, but the wife has rebounded nicely). Hopefully we'll be out of here on Thursday so we can finally see how the older child reacts to having a baby in the house full time. He's been marginally interested up to now - hospital visits are mostly spent trying to flip any switch left unmanned - but has at least acknowledged the baby's presence. He's also regularly spent time with his 11 month-old cousin since that child was born, even having a couple of long weekends where they stayed together. So hopefully the idea of having a baby around all the time isn't a problem.
What might be a problem, though, is that the older son enjoys to get into the crib and tub that we used on him and have brought out/reassembled for the new baby. Need to make sure that stops when child number two is actually using them.
So far so good, though. Keep your fingers crossed.
19 December 2011
Dear U.S. Treasury Department:
With word that the Presidential dollar coin program has been shuttered, I'd like to think that the third time is the charm when it comes to realizing that a dollar coin, given the current state of our currency, is not going to work. I assume at some point you'll try this again (or be compelled to try it again), so with that in mind here is my plan for Making it Better: the Dollar Coin.
1. Get rid of the $1 bill. It should be obvious that this has to happen before anything else. People are conditioned to use bills, and given a choice between a bill and a coin they'll revert to the bill. Cash registers are set up to take $1 bills, as are most vending machines (though many can take dollar coins as well). Both Canada and the UK stopped printing one dollar/pound notes to phase in the coin replacement, which took root as the bills left circulation. You don't do this, the $1 coin will never work.
2. Make it thick. The one pound coin in the UK is easy to pick out of a pocketful of change, as it's noticeably thicker than other coins. With all the focus on trying to find a unique diameter for the $1 coin, you've rejected the obvious dimension for differentiating it from other coins.
3. Throw in another obvious tactile difference. Just in case thickness doesn't seem like enough of a difference, you could make the coin non-round (check out the UK's 50p coin for an example) or go with a bi-metallic design such as the UK 2 pound or Canadian $2 coins. You could also do something with the edge of the coin, such as leave the edges smooth or use something other than the traditional milled edges. If you can get Braille on the Alabama state quarter, you can get some sort of raised design on a dollar coin.
4. Keep Washington on the dollar. I'm not particularly wedded to this - he is on the quarter, after all - but I figure this would be a sop to the traditionalists. You could also transfer future versions of the 50 State Quarters program to the dollar coin, which I figure would boost circulation, even if artificially.
5. Move the lettered Federal Reserve Seal to the $5. There is a subset of people who like knowing where their $1 bills came from - be they Where's George? enthusiasts or not - and moving the seal that uses the Federal Reserve Bank letter to the $5 will soften the blow of losing the one dollar bill.
I hope this helps, and look forward to seeing these suggestions implemented when you try dollar coins again sometime around 2023.
With word that the Presidential dollar coin program has been shuttered, I'd like to think that the third time is the charm when it comes to realizing that a dollar coin, given the current state of our currency, is not going to work. I assume at some point you'll try this again (or be compelled to try it again), so with that in mind here is my plan for Making it Better: the Dollar Coin.
1. Get rid of the $1 bill. It should be obvious that this has to happen before anything else. People are conditioned to use bills, and given a choice between a bill and a coin they'll revert to the bill. Cash registers are set up to take $1 bills, as are most vending machines (though many can take dollar coins as well). Both Canada and the UK stopped printing one dollar/pound notes to phase in the coin replacement, which took root as the bills left circulation. You don't do this, the $1 coin will never work.
2. Make it thick. The one pound coin in the UK is easy to pick out of a pocketful of change, as it's noticeably thicker than other coins. With all the focus on trying to find a unique diameter for the $1 coin, you've rejected the obvious dimension for differentiating it from other coins.
3. Throw in another obvious tactile difference. Just in case thickness doesn't seem like enough of a difference, you could make the coin non-round (check out the UK's 50p coin for an example) or go with a bi-metallic design such as the UK 2 pound or Canadian $2 coins. You could also do something with the edge of the coin, such as leave the edges smooth or use something other than the traditional milled edges. If you can get Braille on the Alabama state quarter, you can get some sort of raised design on a dollar coin.
4. Keep Washington on the dollar. I'm not particularly wedded to this - he is on the quarter, after all - but I figure this would be a sop to the traditionalists. You could also transfer future versions of the 50 State Quarters program to the dollar coin, which I figure would boost circulation, even if artificially.
5. Move the lettered Federal Reserve Seal to the $5. There is a subset of people who like knowing where their $1 bills came from - be they Where's George? enthusiasts or not - and moving the seal that uses the Federal Reserve Bank letter to the $5 will soften the blow of losing the one dollar bill.
I hope this helps, and look forward to seeing these suggestions implemented when you try dollar coins again sometime around 2023.
18 December 2011
Book Log 2011 #36: The Jefferson Key by Steve Berry
This latest installment in the Cotton Malone series brings the action to America, where he has to stop a group of modern-day pirates who claim to operate under the auspices of the Constitution's provision for privateers. The pirates have had their status challenged by a small number of Presidents - Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy - and they've responded in the same way each time. An attempt on the life of the current President sparks the hunt for the documents that would prove the pirate's legal status, a hunt that brings the usual mayhem that seems to follow Malone.
I was curious to see how this would play out, as US-based thrillers of this ilk tend to focus on Freemasons or the Illuminati or such groups. It's refreshing to see a new twist, even though it's not quite believable that the person who originally took the documents in question - Andrew Jackson - wouldn't just burn them. I suppose he wanted to keep the pirates in limbo in case he needed them, but there's still a weakness to the premise. It's not The Paris Vendetta weak, but it's not great.
Even so, if you've read the series it's a decent continuation. I see that Berry's next book is a stand-alone work, which will hopefully give him some time to get this series back to the more solid footing of its earlier entries.
This latest installment in the Cotton Malone series brings the action to America, where he has to stop a group of modern-day pirates who claim to operate under the auspices of the Constitution's provision for privateers. The pirates have had their status challenged by a small number of Presidents - Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy - and they've responded in the same way each time. An attempt on the life of the current President sparks the hunt for the documents that would prove the pirate's legal status, a hunt that brings the usual mayhem that seems to follow Malone.
I was curious to see how this would play out, as US-based thrillers of this ilk tend to focus on Freemasons or the Illuminati or such groups. It's refreshing to see a new twist, even though it's not quite believable that the person who originally took the documents in question - Andrew Jackson - wouldn't just burn them. I suppose he wanted to keep the pirates in limbo in case he needed them, but there's still a weakness to the premise. It's not The Paris Vendetta weak, but it's not great.
Even so, if you've read the series it's a decent continuation. I see that Berry's next book is a stand-alone work, which will hopefully give him some time to get this series back to the more solid footing of its earlier entries.
Book Log 2011 #35: Procession of the Dead by Darren Shan
A young man named Capac Raimi arrives in the City - that's all we're told of it, no idea of where or when this city is located - to start work with his uncle's minor criminal enterprise. He finds the City disagreeable, between the noise, the occasional green fog, and the micro-rainfalls that attract blind people. But he goes on his first job for his uncle, only to have everyone killed but him, so he can be taken to the Cardinal, the crime lord who essentially runs the city. The Cardinal wants to talk to him because Raimi is slated to take the Cardinal's place - someday. From this point, Raimi enjoys a meteoric rise in the City's hierarchy, but questions linger. Who is the Cardinal? Why did he pick Raimi to be his successor? What's the deal with the green fog, the rain, and the blind guys?
All of this is answered, to varying degrees of satisfaction. There's an intent to make this some sort of fantasy noir, and I can't say that it fully succeeds in either case. The fantasy aspects of the book is more solid than the noir aspect - not surprisingly, as Shan made his name in young adult fantasy. The fantasy aspects of the book also feel a little rough, which I suppose is also not surprising, as Shan wrote the book early in his career and saw it re-released when he became better established.
It's not a bad book, but there's an ambiguity in the story line that can make things confusing and, at times, a little ponderous. It's the first book of a trilogy, which makes me wonder if there was a focus on establishing things that took away from the book. Anyway, read with caution.
A young man named Capac Raimi arrives in the City - that's all we're told of it, no idea of where or when this city is located - to start work with his uncle's minor criminal enterprise. He finds the City disagreeable, between the noise, the occasional green fog, and the micro-rainfalls that attract blind people. But he goes on his first job for his uncle, only to have everyone killed but him, so he can be taken to the Cardinal, the crime lord who essentially runs the city. The Cardinal wants to talk to him because Raimi is slated to take the Cardinal's place - someday. From this point, Raimi enjoys a meteoric rise in the City's hierarchy, but questions linger. Who is the Cardinal? Why did he pick Raimi to be his successor? What's the deal with the green fog, the rain, and the blind guys?
All of this is answered, to varying degrees of satisfaction. There's an intent to make this some sort of fantasy noir, and I can't say that it fully succeeds in either case. The fantasy aspects of the book is more solid than the noir aspect - not surprisingly, as Shan made his name in young adult fantasy. The fantasy aspects of the book also feel a little rough, which I suppose is also not surprising, as Shan wrote the book early in his career and saw it re-released when he became better established.
It's not a bad book, but there's an ambiguity in the story line that can make things confusing and, at times, a little ponderous. It's the first book of a trilogy, which makes me wonder if there was a focus on establishing things that took away from the book. Anyway, read with caution.
14 December 2011
Book Log 2011 #34: The Complaints by Ian Rankin
With Inspector Rebus now retired after 17 novels, Rankin has moved on to Malcolm Fox, an officer in the Complaints and Conduct department - "the Complaints" - a Scottish version of what we'd know as Internal Affairs. After finishing a case involving a cop with a history of breaking rules, Fox is put on an investigation of a young officer suspected of involvement with child pornography. As this investigation unfolds, Fox also becomes involved in the murder of his sister's boyfriend and the suicide of a local property developer. When it becomes clear that all of these cases are related, Fox has to walk a tightrope to solve them without getting himself killed - or get caught by his own department for his own lapses during the investigation.
I've only read one of the Rebus novels, so it's hard for me to compare the two men. Publisher's Weekly did and found Fox- and this book - wanting, but like many reviewers I disagree. I found Fox an interesting character, someone who willingly takes on a job that leads most of his colleagues to hate him but who also crosses the lines he typically defends. I did think the plot was a bit too convoluted, though I did appreciate the way it allowed Rankin to show off various bits of Scotland, which is one of his strengths.
Perhaps it will take a couple of novels to fully flesh Fox out - the second one came out this year - and I'd say it's worth the effort to find out.
Book Log 2011 #33: The Holy Thief by William Ryan
A Stalin-era cop gets a case where a woman is found murdered on an altar in a church that's now a youth center. As he gets into the case, it becomes obvious that the case involves high-ranking members of various military and intelligence services. Warned off the case, he continues anyway, getting help from the local crime syndicate and writer Isaac Babel.
This isn't the most surprising premise for a historical mystery - it sometimes seems like there wasn't a killing before World War II that didn't involve a far-reaching conspiracy - but it's a pretty decent example of the type. Not the greatest, and apparently involving some glaring errors where this era of Soviet history is involved (this from a review written by a Russian expert in the New York Times), but it's not bad. I'd certainly keep up with things if it becomes a series.
A Stalin-era cop gets a case where a woman is found murdered on an altar in a church that's now a youth center. As he gets into the case, it becomes obvious that the case involves high-ranking members of various military and intelligence services. Warned off the case, he continues anyway, getting help from the local crime syndicate and writer Isaac Babel.
This isn't the most surprising premise for a historical mystery - it sometimes seems like there wasn't a killing before World War II that didn't involve a far-reaching conspiracy - but it's a pretty decent example of the type. Not the greatest, and apparently involving some glaring errors where this era of Soviet history is involved (this from a review written by a Russian expert in the New York Times), but it's not bad. I'd certainly keep up with things if it becomes a series.
13 December 2011
Book Log 2011 #32: Eat My Globe by Simon Majumdar
When Majumdar hit 40, he rediscovered a list of life goals that included going everywhere and eating everything. Bored with his job, he set out on a year-long trip around the globe to do just that, hitting over 30 countries to eat what the locals eat. Consider it a male version of Eat, Pray, Love, just without the praying or the loving.
There's great fun in seeing Majumdar wade right into the cultures and foods of all his stops, though the entries for some stops were too short for my taste (although necessary, as the book would be about 800 pages if all of the stops got a full treatment). He also reflects on his family, most notably his brother and mother, and how food was a central focus for them. While he ascribes this to the Indian side of the family, I wonder if there's an English aspect to this, as my English relatives have a similar focus on food (for examples, recollections of past vacations tend to be defined by meals or visits to markets).
Anyway, liked this one quite a bit, even if it did make me jealous.
When Majumdar hit 40, he rediscovered a list of life goals that included going everywhere and eating everything. Bored with his job, he set out on a year-long trip around the globe to do just that, hitting over 30 countries to eat what the locals eat. Consider it a male version of Eat, Pray, Love, just without the praying or the loving.
There's great fun in seeing Majumdar wade right into the cultures and foods of all his stops, though the entries for some stops were too short for my taste (although necessary, as the book would be about 800 pages if all of the stops got a full treatment). He also reflects on his family, most notably his brother and mother, and how food was a central focus for them. While he ascribes this to the Indian side of the family, I wonder if there's an English aspect to this, as my English relatives have a similar focus on food (for examples, recollections of past vacations tend to be defined by meals or visits to markets).
Anyway, liked this one quite a bit, even if it did make me jealous.
12 December 2011
Book Log 2011 #31: The Third Miracle by Bill Briggs
In 2001, the caretaker of an Indiana convent stopped into a chapel and asked God to help heal his eye, which was responding poorly to a previous surgery. He wasn't a Catholic - not even really religious - but he figured it couldn't hurt to ask. The next morning he woke up and found his eye had improved greatly, without any medical intervention. While you or I might call that a miracle, the nuns at the convent used that term much more seriously, as they thought that this would be the thing that would finally get their founder's case for sainthood approved.
This book tells the story of the founder, Mother Theodore, and the process by which the Catholic church names saints. Both are interesting tales in their own right; Mother Theodore established her convent in Indiana at a time where people in general were thin on the ground, never mind Catholics, while the process of naming a saint is replete with the political and legal hurdles one might expect and the personal struggles - within the mind of the handyman, the nuns of the convent, and so on up the line - one might not expect.
As much as the average person tends to think that the church and science are always at odds, this book does suggest that the role of science, at least in the case of investigating potential saints, is pretty large. Much of the investigation into the miracle involves talking with doctors and reviewing the case files to see just how likely it is that the healing resulted from medicine.
If this sort of thing interests you, this is a book you'll want to read. The story is engaging, well-written and balanced. Briggs doesn't normally write about religion, and I think that helps him avoid forcing the story into a pro- or anti-sainthood slant. He just reports the story, gives us the facts and the feelings of those involved, and allows us to make a decision on sainthood in the modern age.
Book Log 2011 #30: The Spies of Warsaw by Alan Furst
Liking The Spies of the Balkans, I picked up this previous book set in Poland in 1937. The French military attache finds himself stuck in the middle of events, paying lip service to his country's commitment to Poland while acknowledging that in the case of a German invasion, Poland will need to stand on its own. The attache does work to help the Poles (and the French) understand German capabilities and Polish defenses, all in the face of the onslaught that everyone knows is coming.
As with the other book, the man in the middle also gets into a personal entanglement, as he develops a relationship with a Polish attorney who is herself mixed up with a Soviet reporter who may or may not be in trouble with the folks at home.
And, as with the other book, Furst creates a great story that balances the plot lines skillfully and uses period detail to great effect. While I am concerned that all of his books use the same template and thus will become less interesting the more of them I read, it's a chance worth taking.
Liking The Spies of the Balkans, I picked up this previous book set in Poland in 1937. The French military attache finds himself stuck in the middle of events, paying lip service to his country's commitment to Poland while acknowledging that in the case of a German invasion, Poland will need to stand on its own. The attache does work to help the Poles (and the French) understand German capabilities and Polish defenses, all in the face of the onslaught that everyone knows is coming.
As with the other book, the man in the middle also gets into a personal entanglement, as he develops a relationship with a Polish attorney who is herself mixed up with a Soviet reporter who may or may not be in trouble with the folks at home.
And, as with the other book, Furst creates a great story that balances the plot lines skillfully and uses period detail to great effect. While I am concerned that all of his books use the same template and thus will become less interesting the more of them I read, it's a chance worth taking.
11 December 2011
Book Log 2011 #29: Endgame by Frank Brady
Most people know two things about chess prodigy Bobby Fischer: he was world chess champion at some point and, in his later years, he was an American Jew who very publicly hated America and Jews. His genius - and his madness - were fodder for all types, and in this biography Frank Brady does his best - as both a writer about chess and as someone who knew Fischer for most of his life - to untangle the threads of Fischer's life as best he can.
That's kind of a thankless task. While there are clear markers for some changes - such as when Fischer stopped being the young, carefree wunderkind and started to wear suits and speak more critically of pretty much everything - there are other changes, from Fischer's reclusive period in the 1980s and '90s to his turn as an international pariah - that are harder to explain. And to Brady's credit, he doesn't try to pull the pop psychology nonsense that other writers would. Instead, he relies on his own life in chess and his personal contact with Fischer and others who were close to Fischer to fashion best guesses where he can.
The book is written so that someone with almost no chess knowledge can follow, and is engaging enough that the lack of technical information is not missed. Brady's portrait of Fischer illustrates the complexities of the man without being too sentimental or critical, and his refusal to play what-if keeps the book on a solid factual footing. A great read for anyone who is interested in Fischer or who want to get some insight as to what can turn a genius into a madman.
Most people know two things about chess prodigy Bobby Fischer: he was world chess champion at some point and, in his later years, he was an American Jew who very publicly hated America and Jews. His genius - and his madness - were fodder for all types, and in this biography Frank Brady does his best - as both a writer about chess and as someone who knew Fischer for most of his life - to untangle the threads of Fischer's life as best he can.
That's kind of a thankless task. While there are clear markers for some changes - such as when Fischer stopped being the young, carefree wunderkind and started to wear suits and speak more critically of pretty much everything - there are other changes, from Fischer's reclusive period in the 1980s and '90s to his turn as an international pariah - that are harder to explain. And to Brady's credit, he doesn't try to pull the pop psychology nonsense that other writers would. Instead, he relies on his own life in chess and his personal contact with Fischer and others who were close to Fischer to fashion best guesses where he can.
The book is written so that someone with almost no chess knowledge can follow, and is engaging enough that the lack of technical information is not missed. Brady's portrait of Fischer illustrates the complexities of the man without being too sentimental or critical, and his refusal to play what-if keeps the book on a solid factual footing. A great read for anyone who is interested in Fischer or who want to get some insight as to what can turn a genius into a madman.
Book Log 2011 #28: Spies of the Balkans by Alan Furst
In the early days of World War II, Greece remains stubbornly independent, waiting for the inevitable German invasion. A police detective in Salonika finds himself made the department's fixer, answering the call for the difficult cases that require more tact than procedure. He's good at it, and it helps keep the war at bay.
His skills are noted by his British girlfriend, nominally a ballet teacher whose return to the UK is followed by the appearance of a man who is nominally a travel writer, who approaches the detective to help set up a way to get persons threatened by the Nazi policy towards Jews to a safer residence in Turkey. This requires all of the detective's skill and nerve, as it becomes increasingly more difficult to move between countries and make the arrangements to keep this underground railroad going.
On top of this, the detective has to keep an eye on him family so he can get them out of the city before the Germans arrive. And for good measure he enters into a relationship with the wife of the city's largest shipping magnate, a man of some power. The marriage is loveless, and the detective vows to save her - from both the Germans and her husband.
Few novels about World War II take place in the Balkans, so it's refreshing to have one set there. The espionage plot line is the better of the two, both in the way the refugee pipeline is run and in how Greeks were preparing for war. The romantic subplot is not as interesting, and from what I've read it's more awkward here than in other novels by Furst, who typically weaves a romantic subplot into his books.
I don't know how this one compares to those other books. but it's worth a read. It's on the short side, flows well, and has a well-drawn main character, so even when it's not at its best it's pretty good.
In the early days of World War II, Greece remains stubbornly independent, waiting for the inevitable German invasion. A police detective in Salonika finds himself made the department's fixer, answering the call for the difficult cases that require more tact than procedure. He's good at it, and it helps keep the war at bay.
His skills are noted by his British girlfriend, nominally a ballet teacher whose return to the UK is followed by the appearance of a man who is nominally a travel writer, who approaches the detective to help set up a way to get persons threatened by the Nazi policy towards Jews to a safer residence in Turkey. This requires all of the detective's skill and nerve, as it becomes increasingly more difficult to move between countries and make the arrangements to keep this underground railroad going.
On top of this, the detective has to keep an eye on him family so he can get them out of the city before the Germans arrive. And for good measure he enters into a relationship with the wife of the city's largest shipping magnate, a man of some power. The marriage is loveless, and the detective vows to save her - from both the Germans and her husband.
Few novels about World War II take place in the Balkans, so it's refreshing to have one set there. The espionage plot line is the better of the two, both in the way the refugee pipeline is run and in how Greeks were preparing for war. The romantic subplot is not as interesting, and from what I've read it's more awkward here than in other novels by Furst, who typically weaves a romantic subplot into his books.
I don't know how this one compares to those other books. but it's worth a read. It's on the short side, flows well, and has a well-drawn main character, so even when it's not at its best it's pretty good.
Book Log 2011 #27: Limitations by Scott Turow
A criminal defense attorney turned judge, George Mason is already juggling his wife's cancer battle and the appearance of threatening emails when a notable rape case lands on his docket. This leads him to reconsider his life, most specifically his role as a judge and lawyer, as current events and past experiences come too close for comfort.
Originally a story written for the New York Times Magazine, this is an expanded version of the story, albeit one that is more of a long novella than a full-fledged novel. This is only a problem in that we get less of Turow's great writing and less time with George Mason, an ancillary character in previous novels whose personal life (and turmoil) is barely hinted at, if even that, before now.
I would say that this is Turow's most introspective novel, as while there is an external thrillerish plot line with the emails, it's really about Mason's inner struggle to find his place in his profession (with wider considerations about the law and lawyering in general). It's easily as good as Turow's other legal writings, and well worth reading.
A criminal defense attorney turned judge, George Mason is already juggling his wife's cancer battle and the appearance of threatening emails when a notable rape case lands on his docket. This leads him to reconsider his life, most specifically his role as a judge and lawyer, as current events and past experiences come too close for comfort.
Originally a story written for the New York Times Magazine, this is an expanded version of the story, albeit one that is more of a long novella than a full-fledged novel. This is only a problem in that we get less of Turow's great writing and less time with George Mason, an ancillary character in previous novels whose personal life (and turmoil) is barely hinted at, if even that, before now.
I would say that this is Turow's most introspective novel, as while there is an external thrillerish plot line with the emails, it's really about Mason's inner struggle to find his place in his profession (with wider considerations about the law and lawyering in general). It's easily as good as Turow's other legal writings, and well worth reading.
01 December 2011
Book Log 2011 #26: Resistance by Owen Sheers
A successful German invasion of Britain during World War II leads the men of a remove Welsh valley to leave their homes under the cover of night to become guerilla fighters. This leaves the women of the valley, not told of their menfolk's plans, to do the best they can to keep their farms and herds going. On top of that, a unit of Germans has taken up residence in the valley to keep an eye on things. They're led by an officer with his own agenda, searching for an ancient map.
While the set-up suggests alt-history, the story is really about the people in the valley and the various levels of resistance they try to put up. There are the women, who resist telling the Germans the truth about their men. Then there are the Germans, who are trying to resist re-entering the war by keeping a low profile. The main characters, a young wife and the leader of the Germans, also work to resist each other. As they grow closer they share their resistance, trying to find a way out of their predicaments.
I was expecting more of an alt-history, but once I shifted focus I enjoyed this book quite a bit.
A successful German invasion of Britain during World War II leads the men of a remove Welsh valley to leave their homes under the cover of night to become guerilla fighters. This leaves the women of the valley, not told of their menfolk's plans, to do the best they can to keep their farms and herds going. On top of that, a unit of Germans has taken up residence in the valley to keep an eye on things. They're led by an officer with his own agenda, searching for an ancient map.
While the set-up suggests alt-history, the story is really about the people in the valley and the various levels of resistance they try to put up. There are the women, who resist telling the Germans the truth about their men. Then there are the Germans, who are trying to resist re-entering the war by keeping a low profile. The main characters, a young wife and the leader of the Germans, also work to resist each other. As they grow closer they share their resistance, trying to find a way out of their predicaments.
I was expecting more of an alt-history, but once I shifted focus I enjoyed this book quite a bit.
30 November 2011
Back when it looked like we may not get NFL action this year, I wrote a post about replacing the pro teams with the "best" college team that shared their nickname (or coming up with something fitting if no one shared the nickname).
I didn't do this for the NBA because (a) I don't follow basketball as closely as I do football, and (b) I forgot that I'd done that for the NFL. But, for completeness' sake, here's what I'd come up with for the NBA. Just without most of the exposition, because that NFL post is long.
Atlantic Division
Carlow University for the Boston Celtics - Carlow, located in Pittsburgh, is a graduate school that gets to play in the NAIA. Their basketball team plays at a local high school.
Farleigh-Dickinson University for the New Jersey Nets - no colleges use Nets or Americans, the team's first name. So as they originally played in Teaneck, I went with the one school located in Teaneck.
Union College for the New York Knicks - no Knicks or Knickerbockers, so as that was a name for the area's Dutch settlers, I went for the Dutchmen.
UNC-Charlotte for the Philadelphia '76ers - no '76ers in the college ranks, so I went with the closest number I could find - the '49ers.
Bard College for the Toronto Raptors - hey, someone else really liked Jurassic Park!
Central Division
University of Buffalo for the Chicago Bulls - South Florida plays in a better conference but is almost always under .500, so we go with the MAC.
University of Virginia for the Cleveland Cavaliers - with the added benefit of going back to the orange and blue unis.
Murray State University for the Detroit Pistons - no Pistons, nothing really car-related out there for nicknames, so thinking about what people do with cars I went with the Racers.
University of South Carolina - Aiken for the Indiana Pacers - the younger Pacers have been making the D2 playoffs of late, which is more than you can say for the NBA version.
Fairfield University for the Milwaukee Bucks - no Bucks in the college game, and Ohio State seemed like cheating as buckeyes have nothing to do with deer. So I went with the Stags.
Southeast Division
St. Joseph's University for the Atlanta Hawks - plenty of schools to choose from, but not at the same level.
Montana State University for the Carolina Bobcats - I have no idea if they're the best team with the nickname (I suppose Quinnipiac may be better?), but they seem like they're the best of the bunch. Plus Craig Kilborne used to play for them. Remember him?
Liberty University for the Miami Heat - no school is dumb enough to use Heat as a nickname, so as there are flames on their unis I went with the schools with that as a nickname. I suppose UIC might be better, but I tend to remember seeing Liberty in my NCAA bracket more recently. I could be making that up.
LeMoyne-Owens College for the Orlando Magic - no school is dumb enough to use Magic as a nickname, but there is one that uses Magicians.
Gettysburg College for the Washington Wizards - no Wizards on the college level, but one Bullets.
Northwest Divison
University of Texas-El Paso for the Denver Nuggets - no Nuggets, go with the guys who find them.
Northwood University for the Minnesota Timberwolves - which is unfortunate, as I really wanted to use the Colorado State-Pueblo Thunderwolves. Apparently, adding "Thunder" to your nickname is the 2000s equivalent of the 1980s/90s practice of sneaking black into your uniform.
Wheaton College for the Oklahoma City Thunder - that's the Wheaton in Illinois, just in case Anne Curry is reading.
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts for the Portland Trail Blazers - and easy call, as the nicknames match and both are in the woods.
Oklahoma City University for the Utah Jazz - no Jazz, so I went with the Stars based on Utah's ABA franchise. Not related, but easier than coming up with something else.
Pacific Division
University of Hawaii for the Golden State Warriors - I expect the team to revolt when told they have to move from a tropical paradise to Oakland.
Concordia University for the Los Angeles Clippers - I was going to go with the University of Maine-Machias, but the NBA Clippers have had enough pain.
Grand Valley State University for the Los Angeles Lakers - too lazy to see if they're actually better at basketball than Lake Superior State or Mercyhurst.
Florida Christian College for the Phoenix Suns - if what I'm reading is correct, basketball is the only men's sport at FCC.
Old Dominion University for the Sacramento Kings - I suppose Kings as a college nickname got the boot once women's teams became common. So Monarchs seems like the next best option.
Southwest Conference
University of Texas-Arlington for the Dallas Mavericks - that'll be an easy move.
University of Toledo for the Houston Rockets - we have liftoff.
University of Montana for the Memphis Grizzlies - what are the odds that two teams from Montana would figure in this?
Alabama State University for the New Orleans Hornets - more Hornets out there than I expected.
Lubbock Christian University for the San Antonio Spurs - no Spurs at the college level, but as they started their ABA life as the Dallas Chaparrals I went with that.
OK, let's have labor peace, professional sports leagues. I don't think I have the strength to do this again.
I didn't do this for the NBA because (a) I don't follow basketball as closely as I do football, and (b) I forgot that I'd done that for the NFL. But, for completeness' sake, here's what I'd come up with for the NBA. Just without most of the exposition, because that NFL post is long.
Atlantic Division
Carlow University for the Boston Celtics - Carlow, located in Pittsburgh, is a graduate school that gets to play in the NAIA. Their basketball team plays at a local high school.
Farleigh-Dickinson University for the New Jersey Nets - no colleges use Nets or Americans, the team's first name. So as they originally played in Teaneck, I went with the one school located in Teaneck.
Union College for the New York Knicks - no Knicks or Knickerbockers, so as that was a name for the area's Dutch settlers, I went for the Dutchmen.
UNC-Charlotte for the Philadelphia '76ers - no '76ers in the college ranks, so I went with the closest number I could find - the '49ers.
Bard College for the Toronto Raptors - hey, someone else really liked Jurassic Park!
Central Division
University of Buffalo for the Chicago Bulls - South Florida plays in a better conference but is almost always under .500, so we go with the MAC.
University of Virginia for the Cleveland Cavaliers - with the added benefit of going back to the orange and blue unis.
Murray State University for the Detroit Pistons - no Pistons, nothing really car-related out there for nicknames, so thinking about what people do with cars I went with the Racers.
University of South Carolina - Aiken for the Indiana Pacers - the younger Pacers have been making the D2 playoffs of late, which is more than you can say for the NBA version.
Fairfield University for the Milwaukee Bucks - no Bucks in the college game, and Ohio State seemed like cheating as buckeyes have nothing to do with deer. So I went with the Stags.
Southeast Division
St. Joseph's University for the Atlanta Hawks - plenty of schools to choose from, but not at the same level.
Montana State University for the Carolina Bobcats - I have no idea if they're the best team with the nickname (I suppose Quinnipiac may be better?), but they seem like they're the best of the bunch. Plus Craig Kilborne used to play for them. Remember him?
Liberty University for the Miami Heat - no school is dumb enough to use Heat as a nickname, so as there are flames on their unis I went with the schools with that as a nickname. I suppose UIC might be better, but I tend to remember seeing Liberty in my NCAA bracket more recently. I could be making that up.
LeMoyne-Owens College for the Orlando Magic - no school is dumb enough to use Magic as a nickname, but there is one that uses Magicians.
Gettysburg College for the Washington Wizards - no Wizards on the college level, but one Bullets.
Northwest Divison
University of Texas-El Paso for the Denver Nuggets - no Nuggets, go with the guys who find them.
Northwood University for the Minnesota Timberwolves - which is unfortunate, as I really wanted to use the Colorado State-Pueblo Thunderwolves. Apparently, adding "Thunder" to your nickname is the 2000s equivalent of the 1980s/90s practice of sneaking black into your uniform.
Wheaton College for the Oklahoma City Thunder - that's the Wheaton in Illinois, just in case Anne Curry is reading.
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts for the Portland Trail Blazers - and easy call, as the nicknames match and both are in the woods.
Oklahoma City University for the Utah Jazz - no Jazz, so I went with the Stars based on Utah's ABA franchise. Not related, but easier than coming up with something else.
Pacific Division
University of Hawaii for the Golden State Warriors - I expect the team to revolt when told they have to move from a tropical paradise to Oakland.
Concordia University for the Los Angeles Clippers - I was going to go with the University of Maine-Machias, but the NBA Clippers have had enough pain.
Grand Valley State University for the Los Angeles Lakers - too lazy to see if they're actually better at basketball than Lake Superior State or Mercyhurst.
Florida Christian College for the Phoenix Suns - if what I'm reading is correct, basketball is the only men's sport at FCC.
Old Dominion University for the Sacramento Kings - I suppose Kings as a college nickname got the boot once women's teams became common. So Monarchs seems like the next best option.
Southwest Conference
University of Texas-Arlington for the Dallas Mavericks - that'll be an easy move.
University of Toledo for the Houston Rockets - we have liftoff.
University of Montana for the Memphis Grizzlies - what are the odds that two teams from Montana would figure in this?
Alabama State University for the New Orleans Hornets - more Hornets out there than I expected.
Lubbock Christian University for the San Antonio Spurs - no Spurs at the college level, but as they started their ABA life as the Dallas Chaparrals I went with that.
OK, let's have labor peace, professional sports leagues. I don't think I have the strength to do this again.
28 November 2011
Welcome to Making it Better: the Boston.com top 100 New England books list edition.
Usually this feature covers five items, but today you get a bonus replacement. Aren't you lucky?
Remove: Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
Add: The Lobster Coast by Colin Woodward
Danticat's only connection to New England is that she earned her MFA at Brown. She was born in Haiti, grew up in New York, and now seems to split time between New York and Miami. Her listed book doesn't appear to have anything to do with New England at all.
If we want a book that deals with identity but also has a New England connection, The Lobster Coast fits the bill. It discusses the history and current social crises of Maine's Down East population, and how their traditional ways are threatened by fishery problems and the increased number of non-Mainers who now live in the area. I don't doubt that Breath, Eyes, Memory tells a more dramatic story, but it is not, in a basic sense, a New England story (outside of the number of Hatian immigrants who live in New England).
Remove: Sophie's Choice by William Styron
Add: Zodiac by Neal Stephenson
Both authors have a connection to the region - Styron lived his later years on Martha's Vineyard and is buried there, Stephenson is a BU grad. But between Sophie's Choice and Zodiac, the latter is much more steeped in New England, as it's set in and around Boston and involves a group of harbor fishermen, late night escapades among the Harbor Islands, our (then) nascent biotech industry and a thinly-disguised version of Teddy Kennedy.
I'm not saying Zodiac is the better book - I've never read Sophie's Choice - or even that it's Stephenson's best book (either Snow Crash or Cryptonomicon). But if we're talking about books by authors who were temporary New Englanders, might as well list a book that's actually set in New England.
Remove: Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Add: New England White by Stephen Carter
I'll admit that I've not fully read Tuesdays with Morrie, but I have a kind of visceral reaction to Albom and his books based on excerpts and reviews that I've read. I see treacly overly-sentimental hogwash where others get inspiration. That may be a problem with me rather than him, but as I'm making the changes, off this goes.
New England White isn't sentimental or inspirational at all. It's about a murder in a small town near an unnamed Ivy League school, and the involvement of that school's president and dean of the divinity school - who are married to each other. The book expertly probes race, class, and education from inside the world of upper-class African-Americans. You'd do as well to read The Emperor of Ocean Park and Palace Council, all of which make up an interesting trilogy.
Remove: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Add: Harvard Yard by William Martin
While there's at least some connection between New England and The DaVinci Code - Robert Langdon teaches at Harvard, and Dan Brown is a life-long New Englander - the vast majority of the book takes place in Europe.
If you want an historical thriller written by a native New Englander, go with Harvard Yard, one of a series of novels that Martin has written featuring antiquarian Peter Fallon that is actually set in New England. You could just as easily go with Back Bay or Cape Cod, which is not part of the Fallon series but is equal to those books.
Remove: The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
Add: Let Me Tell You a Story by John Feinstein
Like Breath, Eyes, Memory, this book gets on the list due to the author's New England ties (though in this case, she is a native New Englander). It does not get on for any New England content, as there is none.
My replacement is kind of the opposite. Red Auerbach had no real New England ties - he was born in Brooklyn and spent a lot of his adult years in Washington D.C. - but became one of the most iconic figures in Boston sports. I also incuded this book because all of the sports books included on the list seem to have as much to do with the Yankees as the Red Sox.
Remove: The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Add: The Siege of Salt Cove by Anthony Weller
Here I'm taking out a book with which I feel absolutely no connection to one that absolutely connects. The Siege of Salt Cove starts with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts deciding that they are going to replace the town of Salt Cove's wooden bridge with a concrete span. Turns out the locals hate the plan, and the rest of the book unfolds with the locals fighting the state, real estate developers, and each other. Weller has a good eye for capturing the local spirit, and his inspiration for the book - the Annisquam Bridge, located in Gloucester - is something I saw every time we went to my grandmother's house in Rockport.
23 November 2011
The folks at Boston.com came up with their list of 100 essential New England books, and for the first 20 or so it's a pretty solid list. The books either have a significant New England setting or are by authors with strong New England ties. But as the list goes into the other 80 books, we start to get more books that take place outside of New England written by people whose only tie to the region is a college of university where they were a student or are faculty. I'm thinking this is why I've read so few books on the list, even if in reality it's because I prefer books where time travelers give the Aztecs tanks so they can beat Cortez.
Anyway, here's what I've read on this list, with ranking in parentheses:
Make Way for Ducklings (3) - a fitting place for Robert McCloskey's best known work, but his books set in Maine are equally worth exploring.
A Prayer for Owen Meany (5) - this might be my favorite book on the list. It is infinitely better than that crap movie based on it, so don't let the film hold you back from reading this.
Make Way for Ducklings (3) - a fitting place for Robert McCloskey's best known work, but his books set in Maine are equally worth exploring.
A Prayer for Owen Meany (5) - this might be my favorite book on the list. It is infinitely better than that crap movie based on it, so don't let the film hold you back from reading this.
Mountains Beyond Mountains (6) - Tracy Kidder could easily have four or five books on this list, from his '80s tech classic The Soul of a New Machine to the exploration of Northampton in Home Town. This book, which introduces us to Paul Farmer, a doctor whose dedication to improving health care in places as disparate as Haiti and Siberia is richly detailed and inspirational, even when countered with the pages on the red tape and personal intransigence that frustrate Farmer on a regular basis.
Empire Falls (9) - Richard Russo has a gift for writing about broken down people in broken down towns finding some sort of redemption, and this is his best of the bunch.
The Scarlet Letter (19) - Nathaniel Hawthorne's best known work. Read it in high school. Do not feel particularly motivated to read it again, though comparing it to the novelization from the movie version starring Demi Moore could be an entertaining exercise.
The Rascal King (25) - really interesting bio of James Curley. Should be higher.
Cod (29) - one of Mark Kurlansky's books that enumerates the impact of a single thing on society. Salt is better known, but I think this book does a better job thanks to the focus brought on by its comparative brevity.
Mystic River (38) - liked the book and the movie, surprising as reading the book first so often leads to being disappointed in the movie. I do often find the Southie/Dorchester stereotypes grating, but thought the treatment here wasn't too bad.
The Crucible (43) - read it in high school, and was lucky enough to have it taught by someone who worked in relevant local history (living as close to Salem as we did) and didn't soft-pedal the Communist witch hunt subtext.
The Catcher in the Rye (61) - read it in high school, never quite got the fascination.
A Civil Action (64) - Jonathan Harr's recounting of a David versus Goliath legal battle in Woburn, where a cancer cluster was blamed on a local industrial site. Exactly the sort of book an impressionable law student with an interest in environmental and health issues would love. And even when that student wound up in a completely different career, it's still a gripping story that shows truth is oftentimes better than Grisham.
Memoirs of a Geisha (68) - this is not a book that I would normally gravitate towards, but between the buzz and its constant appearance on the library shelf, I took a flier on it. I'm glad I did.
A Walk in the Woods (73) - Bill Bryson's hikes on the Appalachian Trail form the basis of this book, which shows of both his attention to fact and detail and his trademark sense of humor.
The Da Vinci Code (76) - the only way this book should be on here is if there were only 100 books with a New England connection. And even then I don't think it'd be higher than 98. I get that it was a publishing phenomenon, but if that's the metric that matters we might as well have Michelin give McDonald's three stars.
The Secret History (81) - to paraphrase Roger Ebert, I hated hated hated hated hated this book. As a New Englander, higher ed professional, and classics major, there was not one thing I could identify with in this book about a small group of students and a classics professor at a New England college. I read this for a book group that never actually met, which made it doubly infuriating that I slogged through this for no good reason.
The Handmaid's Tale (87) - I read this somewhat early in my interest in alternative history, and thus read it with that more in mind than the feminist or religious themes. Not that you can avoid them, but I think I spent a decent part of the book not quite seeing the forest for the trees.
Bringing Down the House (88) - the blurb for this list should use "true" rather than true when discussing the story. I can't accept the way Mezrich beats the facts into a shape that best fits his narrative. I think if you can't make a non-fiction story exciting using the facts as they stand, either the story's not that good or the writer's not that good.
The Old Patagonian Express (93) - I like Paul Theroux's travel work, and think this is probably the best choice for this list, as it does actually start in Massachusetts, with Theroux leaving his family home in Medford as the first step of a journey to the edge of the Americas.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar (100) - what can I say, I have a kid.
Not surprisingly, there are other books I've not read whose presence on this list I can't quite accept. I'll tackle some of those next.
The Secret History (81) - to paraphrase Roger Ebert, I hated hated hated hated hated this book. As a New Englander, higher ed professional, and classics major, there was not one thing I could identify with in this book about a small group of students and a classics professor at a New England college. I read this for a book group that never actually met, which made it doubly infuriating that I slogged through this for no good reason.
The Handmaid's Tale (87) - I read this somewhat early in my interest in alternative history, and thus read it with that more in mind than the feminist or religious themes. Not that you can avoid them, but I think I spent a decent part of the book not quite seeing the forest for the trees.
Bringing Down the House (88) - the blurb for this list should use "true" rather than true when discussing the story. I can't accept the way Mezrich beats the facts into a shape that best fits his narrative. I think if you can't make a non-fiction story exciting using the facts as they stand, either the story's not that good or the writer's not that good.
The Old Patagonian Express (93) - I like Paul Theroux's travel work, and think this is probably the best choice for this list, as it does actually start in Massachusetts, with Theroux leaving his family home in Medford as the first step of a journey to the edge of the Americas.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar (100) - what can I say, I have a kid.
Not surprisingly, there are other books I've not read whose presence on this list I can't quite accept. I'll tackle some of those next.
26 October 2011
Book Log 2011 #25: The Gun by C. J. Chivers
So here's the thing: while this book claims to tell the history of the AK-47 and its impact on the world, it's actually a much broader work than that. It's really the history of automatic rifles, and for the first third of the book you're going to see the names Gatling and Maxim much more often than Kalashnikov. And while we do get to spend quality time with the credited designer of the world's most popular weapon, we also spend a fair amount of time at the end going over the creation of the M-16, whose troubled development is a good counterpoint to the pride of Soviet engineering.
You should not let this expansive nature get in the way of reading the book, if this is the sort of thing that interests you. I did wish for more detail on the AK itself, but understood the limitations presented by trying to write something authoritative when there are multiple - and conflicting - "official" histories. This part of the AK's history - the inside baseball of Soviet engineering and politics - is probably its most interesting aspect, but it's hard to get a full grasp on it through the propaganda.
So if you were really looking for a focused book about the AK-47 and Kalashnikov, this isn't it. As a broader work about automatic weapons and their impact on warfare, it's worth a read.
So here's the thing: while this book claims to tell the history of the AK-47 and its impact on the world, it's actually a much broader work than that. It's really the history of automatic rifles, and for the first third of the book you're going to see the names Gatling and Maxim much more often than Kalashnikov. And while we do get to spend quality time with the credited designer of the world's most popular weapon, we also spend a fair amount of time at the end going over the creation of the M-16, whose troubled development is a good counterpoint to the pride of Soviet engineering.
You should not let this expansive nature get in the way of reading the book, if this is the sort of thing that interests you. I did wish for more detail on the AK itself, but understood the limitations presented by trying to write something authoritative when there are multiple - and conflicting - "official" histories. This part of the AK's history - the inside baseball of Soviet engineering and politics - is probably its most interesting aspect, but it's hard to get a full grasp on it through the propaganda.
So if you were really looking for a focused book about the AK-47 and Kalashnikov, this isn't it. As a broader work about automatic weapons and their impact on warfare, it's worth a read.
Book Log 2011 #24: The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl
When Charles Dickens suddenly dies, the pressure on his American publisher to print his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, increases greatly, especially when there are other publishers doing what they can to obtain the manuscript once it arrives from London. James Osgood represents the publisher, and as events unfold he not only has to fight off the publishing competition but solve a series of murders which claimed an employee and are seemingly related to the ending. Throw in a subplot set in India and flashbacks to Dickens' American tours and you have the setting for Pearl's most recent novel.
Thankfully, the book is less confusing than my attempt to summarize it so long after actually reading it, though it does take some time to see how the pieces fit together (especially the parts taking place in India), though it's certainly worth the work to get to where everything fits together. The Publishers Weekly review suggested the ending could be considered a cop-out, and while I don't recall feeling that way it's worth a warning, I suppose. The level of detail is good as always, and as a local I did appreciate the amount of action that took place in greater Boston.
All in all, I think I liked The Dante Club better, but did enjoy this one quite a bit.
When Charles Dickens suddenly dies, the pressure on his American publisher to print his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, increases greatly, especially when there are other publishers doing what they can to obtain the manuscript once it arrives from London. James Osgood represents the publisher, and as events unfold he not only has to fight off the publishing competition but solve a series of murders which claimed an employee and are seemingly related to the ending. Throw in a subplot set in India and flashbacks to Dickens' American tours and you have the setting for Pearl's most recent novel.
Thankfully, the book is less confusing than my attempt to summarize it so long after actually reading it, though it does take some time to see how the pieces fit together (especially the parts taking place in India), though it's certainly worth the work to get to where everything fits together. The Publishers Weekly review suggested the ending could be considered a cop-out, and while I don't recall feeling that way it's worth a warning, I suppose. The level of detail is good as always, and as a local I did appreciate the amount of action that took place in greater Boston.
All in all, I think I liked The Dante Club better, but did enjoy this one quite a bit.
20 October 2011
Book Log 2011 #23: Heat by Bill Buford
There's a lot going on in this book: the author quits his day job at The New Yorker so he can work for Mario Batali in the Babbo kitchen, works his way up the ladder a bit, and then decamps to Italy to meet and work with/for the people Batali worked for and found his inspiration for traditional, hand-made Italian cuisine. Then there's the autobiographical part about Batali, whose full-tilt personality and colorful work history make him define the idea of being larger than life. And on top of that is the author's own developing obsession for making this food, which underscores why people will put up with lousy hours and often hostile working conditions to make great dishes.
On top of this we get a mountain of engrossing detail. The minutae about working at Babbo is similar to what's come up in other books about working in high-end restaurants, but is well recounted and not repetitive of other works. Buford goes out of his way to look at the history of the food he prepares, from the elevation of the short rib to the development of the traditional recipie for hand-made pasta.
If you have any interest in Batali, Italy or the culinary field, this is a must-read, and I'd think readers with a casual interest would get sucked in as well. Definitely recommended.
There's a lot going on in this book: the author quits his day job at The New Yorker so he can work for Mario Batali in the Babbo kitchen, works his way up the ladder a bit, and then decamps to Italy to meet and work with/for the people Batali worked for and found his inspiration for traditional, hand-made Italian cuisine. Then there's the autobiographical part about Batali, whose full-tilt personality and colorful work history make him define the idea of being larger than life. And on top of that is the author's own developing obsession for making this food, which underscores why people will put up with lousy hours and often hostile working conditions to make great dishes.
On top of this we get a mountain of engrossing detail. The minutae about working at Babbo is similar to what's come up in other books about working in high-end restaurants, but is well recounted and not repetitive of other works. Buford goes out of his way to look at the history of the food he prepares, from the elevation of the short rib to the development of the traditional recipie for hand-made pasta.
If you have any interest in Batali, Italy or the culinary field, this is a must-read, and I'd think readers with a casual interest would get sucked in as well. Definitely recommended.
16 September 2011
Book Log 2011 #22: 1942 by James Conroy
When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, there was a plan for a third wave of attacks against stores of fuel and torpedoes, as well as on facilities like dry docks. The leadership passed on making the attack, but in this book Conroy surmises what would have happened if they had made the attack.
The success of the third wave strike leads to the occupation of Hawaii (which is required if you're writing an alternative history of Pearl Harbor), but in the chaos of invasion not all of the American military are accounted for, and in this case the group of fighters who withdraw into the mountains and smaller, poorly patrolled smaller islands do what they can while waiting to help the inevitable counterstrike.
I had some conflicting feelings about the book, and when this happens I'll look at other reviews to see if they can provide some clarity. And they did, in one respect: I did not hate this book as much as some people did. I do agree that the characters were not particularly well developed, and I also found the ending stretched credulity. This wouldn't be the first alternative history to have these problems, so I may be less attentive to them than others.
All that being said, I did find this book more enjoyable in some aspects than Harry Turtledove's two book treatment of a Hawaiian invasion, if only because I found Turtledove's approach too broad (too many characters) and repetitive (if there was a drinking game for the books, the phrase "sketching a salute" would lead to widespread alcohol poisoning). Overall, 1942 is flawed but worth a look if you're into alt history.
When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, there was a plan for a third wave of attacks against stores of fuel and torpedoes, as well as on facilities like dry docks. The leadership passed on making the attack, but in this book Conroy surmises what would have happened if they had made the attack.
The success of the third wave strike leads to the occupation of Hawaii (which is required if you're writing an alternative history of Pearl Harbor), but in the chaos of invasion not all of the American military are accounted for, and in this case the group of fighters who withdraw into the mountains and smaller, poorly patrolled smaller islands do what they can while waiting to help the inevitable counterstrike.
I had some conflicting feelings about the book, and when this happens I'll look at other reviews to see if they can provide some clarity. And they did, in one respect: I did not hate this book as much as some people did. I do agree that the characters were not particularly well developed, and I also found the ending stretched credulity. This wouldn't be the first alternative history to have these problems, so I may be less attentive to them than others.
All that being said, I did find this book more enjoyable in some aspects than Harry Turtledove's two book treatment of a Hawaiian invasion, if only because I found Turtledove's approach too broad (too many characters) and repetitive (if there was a drinking game for the books, the phrase "sketching a salute" would lead to widespread alcohol poisoning). Overall, 1942 is flawed but worth a look if you're into alt history.
14 September 2011
Book Log 2011 #20: In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
The follow-up to The Omnivore's Dilemma, this book looks back to see how we got to the point where most of what we eat isn't so much food as is it processed or engineered nutritional inputs, vitamin and mineral delivery systems that are increasingly unrelated to what you or I, based on common sense, would consider food. The early part of the book gives a good overview at how nutritional science has been used to facilitate this change.
From this, Pollan devises his seven word rule for eating: eat food, not too much, mostly plants, and spends most of the rest of the book talking about what this means and how to do it (which he also does in a more practical manner in his most recent book, Food Rules).
Throughout the book the writing is crisp, clear and engaging. It's very much worth reading.
The follow-up to The Omnivore's Dilemma, this book looks back to see how we got to the point where most of what we eat isn't so much food as is it processed or engineered nutritional inputs, vitamin and mineral delivery systems that are increasingly unrelated to what you or I, based on common sense, would consider food. The early part of the book gives a good overview at how nutritional science has been used to facilitate this change.
From this, Pollan devises his seven word rule for eating: eat food, not too much, mostly plants, and spends most of the rest of the book talking about what this means and how to do it (which he also does in a more practical manner in his most recent book, Food Rules).
Throughout the book the writing is crisp, clear and engaging. It's very much worth reading.
11 September 2011
I can't say I watched much of today's commemorative coverage, and really I've felt disconnected to the whole 10th anniversary thing. It's not an emotional thing - I made my peace with what happened a long time ago - and it's not necessarily a reaction to the amount or tone of coverage, as I expected the coverage to be (a) voluminous and (b) occasionally to often over the top. I will say that what I did see was tastefully done, so thanks to all who were responsible for that.
So how to explain my disconnect? I think it comes from a place where I just want us to move on. I know it's ridiculous to feel this way on what is one of those hallmark anniversary dates, but I can't quite get past the idea that, 10 years on, we should take what happened, draw whatever conclusions we can from it, and look to creating a future which will, hopefully, allow us to avoid a repeat of the past.
It's entirely appropriate for people to be emotional and want to look back, but I have no interest in sharing a "do you remember where you were when you heard" sort of story. I want us to realize we have something great here, and that we need to do what we can - in a sensible and forward-thinking way - to preserve it. This isn't something we've always done over the last ten years, but I can hope that we'll do better over the next ten.
I suppose this gives short shrift to the people who died that day and their families, friends, and co-workers, and I don't intend that. I just like to think that we can take their examples and live with them every day, drawing strength from them even when the tendency is there to wallow in the negative. But I know that days like today are going to be reflective and often involve tears, and I hope that helps people get through the day. But I also hope that we can get through all of the days by remembering who we are and the examples of the people who died in the hopes of letting us keep being who we are.
So how to explain my disconnect? I think it comes from a place where I just want us to move on. I know it's ridiculous to feel this way on what is one of those hallmark anniversary dates, but I can't quite get past the idea that, 10 years on, we should take what happened, draw whatever conclusions we can from it, and look to creating a future which will, hopefully, allow us to avoid a repeat of the past.
It's entirely appropriate for people to be emotional and want to look back, but I have no interest in sharing a "do you remember where you were when you heard" sort of story. I want us to realize we have something great here, and that we need to do what we can - in a sensible and forward-thinking way - to preserve it. This isn't something we've always done over the last ten years, but I can hope that we'll do better over the next ten.
I suppose this gives short shrift to the people who died that day and their families, friends, and co-workers, and I don't intend that. I just like to think that we can take their examples and live with them every day, drawing strength from them even when the tendency is there to wallow in the negative. But I know that days like today are going to be reflective and often involve tears, and I hope that helps people get through the day. But I also hope that we can get through all of the days by remembering who we are and the examples of the people who died in the hopes of letting us keep being who we are.
09 September 2011
So here's why I'm not voting for Rick Perry. As has been widely noted, Perry issued a proclamation asking Texans to pray for rain, and I figure he did his fair share of praying as well. The result? An ongoing drought, a massive rainmaker taunting the state from just beyond its borders, and wildfires.The way I look at it, if God is going to foresake Perry, I may as well, too.
08 September 2011
Book Log 2011 #20: Our Kind of Traitor by John Le Carre
This latest outing finds a British couple recruited by some arm of the intelligence community to help in the defection of a top money launderer for the Russian mob. The couple, a university professor and barrister, are rank novices but are game to help, and thanks to the shared love of tennis between the couple and the Russian, we're off and running.
The New York Times review of the book noted that the story, while set in the present, trades in many of the spy novel tropes of the Cold War, and while there's a truth to it I think the review doesn't fully attribute the reason for it. The review suggests that Le Carre, while as strong a writer as ever, is stuck in presenting his story in this sort of worldview. I think there's some truth in that, but also ascribe it to the nature of the characters. Several of the agents are longer-term employees, and as such were reared in the Cold War-era spy game. Their actions and thinking would, to some extent, be stuck in that period. It would be as much of a mistake to have all of the agents be postmodern 24-style homeland security types as if they were all James Bond.
All that being said, I enjoyed this as much as any of Le Carre's post-Cold War novels.
This latest outing finds a British couple recruited by some arm of the intelligence community to help in the defection of a top money launderer for the Russian mob. The couple, a university professor and barrister, are rank novices but are game to help, and thanks to the shared love of tennis between the couple and the Russian, we're off and running.
The New York Times review of the book noted that the story, while set in the present, trades in many of the spy novel tropes of the Cold War, and while there's a truth to it I think the review doesn't fully attribute the reason for it. The review suggests that Le Carre, while as strong a writer as ever, is stuck in presenting his story in this sort of worldview. I think there's some truth in that, but also ascribe it to the nature of the characters. Several of the agents are longer-term employees, and as such were reared in the Cold War-era spy game. Their actions and thinking would, to some extent, be stuck in that period. It would be as much of a mistake to have all of the agents be postmodern 24-style homeland security types as if they were all James Bond.
All that being said, I enjoyed this as much as any of Le Carre's post-Cold War novels.
07 September 2011
Book Log 2011 #19: The World is a Ball by John Doyle
John Doyle has what might be my dream job. He gets to travel to major soccer competitions and report on them, sometimes as a sporting event but more often on the other aspects of the games and/or event (personal, social, political, etc.). I should also note his full-time job is as a newspaper TV critic. I think he really does have my dream job.
Not that it's all a dream. The travel is punishing, the accommodations marginals, and the isolation often maddening. Even so, what comes through clearly is that the payoff for these irritations - between seeing games, meeting fans, and going to places that might otherwise have gone unvisited - is well worth it.
And for all that Doyle isn't a sports reporter, he does a nice job of talking about the players and games in layman's terms, making it easy for a casual but long-time fan of the game to follow along. He also manages to sell his main point about these contests - how the joy of the experience transcends the day to day problems people face - effectively, better than I expected and better than your usual book about the transcendental nature of sports.
A worthy read for the novice and intermediate soccer fan.
John Doyle has what might be my dream job. He gets to travel to major soccer competitions and report on them, sometimes as a sporting event but more often on the other aspects of the games and/or event (personal, social, political, etc.). I should also note his full-time job is as a newspaper TV critic. I think he really does have my dream job.
Not that it's all a dream. The travel is punishing, the accommodations marginals, and the isolation often maddening. Even so, what comes through clearly is that the payoff for these irritations - between seeing games, meeting fans, and going to places that might otherwise have gone unvisited - is well worth it.
And for all that Doyle isn't a sports reporter, he does a nice job of talking about the players and games in layman's terms, making it easy for a casual but long-time fan of the game to follow along. He also manages to sell his main point about these contests - how the joy of the experience transcends the day to day problems people face - effectively, better than I expected and better than your usual book about the transcendental nature of sports.
A worthy read for the novice and intermediate soccer fan.
19 August 2011
Book Log 2011 #18: Scorecasting by Tobias Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim
I'm not sure if it's the writing or if the novelty of the Freakonomics approach has worn off, but I could not get into this book. I dutifully plowed through the first few chapters, but with an increasing reluctance to continue that saw me bail after about 100 pages. I have no specific complaints about the book, so I'm assuming I'm just sick of the approach. Maybe I'll give it a year and try again. Or maybe not.
I'm not sure if it's the writing or if the novelty of the Freakonomics approach has worn off, but I could not get into this book. I dutifully plowed through the first few chapters, but with an increasing reluctance to continue that saw me bail after about 100 pages. I have no specific complaints about the book, so I'm assuming I'm just sick of the approach. Maybe I'll give it a year and try again. Or maybe not.
Book Log 2011 #17: At Home by Bill Bryson
Bryson was inspired to write this history of domestic living by his house in England, a Victorian style former parsonage located in a part of the country where not much happens. While the actual history of the house does crop up, the bulk of the book is a history of each room, and what goes on there.
Of course, each of those little histories winds up leading well outside the walls, looking at everything from Victorian class structure to the spice trade to the Crystal Palace.
It's not as overtly humorous as his other works, and has more in common with A Short History of Nearly Everything than his travel-related titles. I mostly enjoyed it, but felt bogged down towards the end and didn't actually finish. I think I'd have liked to see it ten percent shorter and ten percent funnier.
Bryson was inspired to write this history of domestic living by his house in England, a Victorian style former parsonage located in a part of the country where not much happens. While the actual history of the house does crop up, the bulk of the book is a history of each room, and what goes on there.
Of course, each of those little histories winds up leading well outside the walls, looking at everything from Victorian class structure to the spice trade to the Crystal Palace.
It's not as overtly humorous as his other works, and has more in common with A Short History of Nearly Everything than his travel-related titles. I mostly enjoyed it, but felt bogged down towards the end and didn't actually finish. I think I'd have liked to see it ten percent shorter and ten percent funnier.
Book Log 2011 #16: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
Fitting conclusion to the Millenium series, as things wrap up cleanly enough to make this feel like a trilogy rather than the ten book series that was planned. Which is a good thing, as the likelihood of a completed fourth book ever seeing the light of day is pretty slim (Larsson's partner has his material, while the rights to the book are held by his father and brother, and none of the parties seem interested in working something out).
Fitting conclusion to the Millenium series, as things wrap up cleanly enough to make this feel like a trilogy rather than the ten book series that was planned. Which is a good thing, as the likelihood of a completed fourth book ever seeing the light of day is pretty slim (Larsson's partner has his material, while the rights to the book are held by his father and brother, and none of the parties seem interested in working something out).
26 July 2011
13 June 2011
Book Log 2011 #15: It Must Have Been Something I Ate by Jeffrey Steingarten
More witty and informative essays by the food critic from Vogue, with topics ranging from the merits of fancy salts to where to get the best baguettes in Paris. Many of the essays are over 10 years old, leading to some dating, but all told it's a solid collection. My only problem was that reading it cover to cover did lead to some author fatigue, as I can only take so much drollery at a time. Better to read in chunks, I think.
More witty and informative essays by the food critic from Vogue, with topics ranging from the merits of fancy salts to where to get the best baguettes in Paris. Many of the essays are over 10 years old, leading to some dating, but all told it's a solid collection. My only problem was that reading it cover to cover did lead to some author fatigue, as I can only take so much drollery at a time. Better to read in chunks, I think.
Book Log 2011 #14: Palace of Justice by Suzanne Alleyn
Depending on how you count it, this is either the second or most recent book featuring Parisian writer-turned-investigator Aristide Ravel. This time, Ravel is faced with what appears to be a serial killer who decapitates his victims, a grim parallel to the people, from Louis XVI on down, who are being guillotined by the Tribunal. Political turmoil and Ravel's own past come into play as well, giving added depth to the story.
While I did read the books out of their narrative order, it was kind of cool to see how the events here fit into the overall story (and would have been more entertaining if I'd read the books closer together). Enjoyed it quite a bit.
Depending on how you count it, this is either the second or most recent book featuring Parisian writer-turned-investigator Aristide Ravel. This time, Ravel is faced with what appears to be a serial killer who decapitates his victims, a grim parallel to the people, from Louis XVI on down, who are being guillotined by the Tribunal. Political turmoil and Ravel's own past come into play as well, giving added depth to the story.
While I did read the books out of their narrative order, it was kind of cool to see how the events here fit into the overall story (and would have been more entertaining if I'd read the books closer together). Enjoyed it quite a bit.
03 June 2011
Book Log 2011 #13: West and East by Harry Turtledove
The second book in The War That Came Early, a series based on the idea that World War II would have started earlier had Neville Chamberlain not appeased Hitler. I've read that the series will be at least six books, and it kind of feels that was from this one, as there are things that happen, a couple things even notable, but nothing momentous. It did keep my interest enough to want to continue with the series, which is a good thing.
The second book in The War That Came Early, a series based on the idea that World War II would have started earlier had Neville Chamberlain not appeased Hitler. I've read that the series will be at least six books, and it kind of feels that was from this one, as there are things that happen, a couple things even notable, but nothing momentous. It did keep my interest enough to want to continue with the series, which is a good thing.
02 June 2011
Book Log 2011 #12: Hubert's Freaks by Gregory Gibson
A rare book dealer and collector of ephemera named Bob Langmuir, after buying a storage locker full of items from a Manhattan freak show, discovers that the lot may include several Diane Arbus prints. Battling a troubled personal life (including at least one hospitalization), Langmuir finds himself caught in a very deliberate - and sometimes unusual - authentication process.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
There's some similarities in the stories of Langmuir and Arbus - both were troubled, attracted to sideshow types, and had some resistance with getting photos accepted by the wider art world - and it's interesting to see how Langmuir persevered while Arbus, eventually, did not.
This did remind me of The Man Who Loved Books Too Much a bit, and I have the same general feeling about this book as that one, though I think the ending here is stronger. Worth a look, if just to see the pictures.
A rare book dealer and collector of ephemera named Bob Langmuir, after buying a storage locker full of items from a Manhattan freak show, discovers that the lot may include several Diane Arbus prints. Battling a troubled personal life (including at least one hospitalization), Langmuir finds himself caught in a very deliberate - and sometimes unusual - authentication process.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
There's some similarities in the stories of Langmuir and Arbus - both were troubled, attracted to sideshow types, and had some resistance with getting photos accepted by the wider art world - and it's interesting to see how Langmuir persevered while Arbus, eventually, did not.
This did remind me of The Man Who Loved Books Too Much a bit, and I have the same general feeling about this book as that one, though I think the ending here is stronger. Worth a look, if just to see the pictures.
05 May 2011
Book Log 2011 #11: Blood is Dirt by Robert Wilson
The third book in the Bruce Medway series, this time the Benin-based fixer hooks up with a man trying to recover money from local swindlers but winds up squaring off against the Mob, toxic dumpers, local strongmen, and the revenge-bent daughter of his client.
I was happy to see this installment return to familiar ground in Benin, and to see more of Medway's two partners, Bagado (business) and Heike (romantic). This one also seems to have more involvement with the expat community, which makes a nice comparison (not always favorable) to the locals.
Part of me thinks thinks that things got needlessly complicated towards the end, but I have to admit that it's probably due to my lack of reading comprehension. Another solid book for the series, sad that there's only one book left.
The third book in the Bruce Medway series, this time the Benin-based fixer hooks up with a man trying to recover money from local swindlers but winds up squaring off against the Mob, toxic dumpers, local strongmen, and the revenge-bent daughter of his client.
I was happy to see this installment return to familiar ground in Benin, and to see more of Medway's two partners, Bagado (business) and Heike (romantic). This one also seems to have more involvement with the expat community, which makes a nice comparison (not always favorable) to the locals.
Part of me thinks thinks that things got needlessly complicated towards the end, but I have to admit that it's probably due to my lack of reading comprehension. Another solid book for the series, sad that there's only one book left.
03 May 2011
Book Log 2011 #10: Empire by Steven Saylor
The continuation of Saylor's series featuring the Pinarius family, following five generations as they deal with the empire - and often with the emperor - starting with Augustus. We see the family in its highs and lows, from being the right hand men of the emperor to being killed in a spectacle for being Christian. The scope of the work allows for hitting all of the major themes of Rome during this period, and is rounded out by the level of detail Saylor always provides.
This is more focused than its predecessor - not surprising given the greater span of history and the need to establish the story and characters - which helps as well. I still prefer Gordianus the Finder, but this is certainly an acceptable substitute.
The continuation of Saylor's series featuring the Pinarius family, following five generations as they deal with the empire - and often with the emperor - starting with Augustus. We see the family in its highs and lows, from being the right hand men of the emperor to being killed in a spectacle for being Christian. The scope of the work allows for hitting all of the major themes of Rome during this period, and is rounded out by the level of detail Saylor always provides.
This is more focused than its predecessor - not surprising given the greater span of history and the need to establish the story and characters - which helps as well. I still prefer Gordianus the Finder, but this is certainly an acceptable substitute.
28 April 2011
Book Log 2011 #9: Innocent by Scott Turow
Fifteen years is a long wait for a sequel, and typically sequels that come out long after the first book pale in comparison (consider Joseph Heller's Closing Time or Ray Bradbury's Farewell Summer). Thankfully, this is a case where the wait results in a fitting companion to the original.
Just as with Presumed Innocent, Tommy Molto is trying Rusty Sabich for the murder of a woman, in this case his wife, Barbara. She apparently died of natural causes, but a day-long delay in reporting the death raises suspicions, which quickly develops into a case based on a variety of evidence (much of it circumstantial).
As much fun as it is to see these two square off again, the book is really driven by the younger characters, such as Rusty's son Nat, Nat's girlfriend Anna (who is more involved in the case than he knows), and a young assistant DA whose rock solid belief in Rusty's guilt leads down some ethically problematic paths. This not only helps inject new points of view into the book, but helps underscore that these books have taken place more or less in real time, adding weight to the histories of all the characters.
And, of course, Turow is the best writer of legal fiction (I can't really use the word "thriller") going. I often lament the wait between books, but would rather have that than the "books by the ton" approach so often taken.
You should read this book, unless you've not read Presumed Innocent. In which case you should read that first and then read this book.
Fifteen years is a long wait for a sequel, and typically sequels that come out long after the first book pale in comparison (consider Joseph Heller's Closing Time or Ray Bradbury's Farewell Summer). Thankfully, this is a case where the wait results in a fitting companion to the original.
Just as with Presumed Innocent, Tommy Molto is trying Rusty Sabich for the murder of a woman, in this case his wife, Barbara. She apparently died of natural causes, but a day-long delay in reporting the death raises suspicions, which quickly develops into a case based on a variety of evidence (much of it circumstantial).
As much fun as it is to see these two square off again, the book is really driven by the younger characters, such as Rusty's son Nat, Nat's girlfriend Anna (who is more involved in the case than he knows), and a young assistant DA whose rock solid belief in Rusty's guilt leads down some ethically problematic paths. This not only helps inject new points of view into the book, but helps underscore that these books have taken place more or less in real time, adding weight to the histories of all the characters.
And, of course, Turow is the best writer of legal fiction (I can't really use the word "thriller") going. I often lament the wait between books, but would rather have that than the "books by the ton" approach so often taken.
You should read this book, unless you've not read Presumed Innocent. In which case you should read that first and then read this book.
Three things I was thinking about this whole President Obama birth certificate nonsense:
1. I feel fairly certain that the timing of the release was meant to give Donald Trump a boost. Because if you're the president, and you see a chance to have Donald Trump as your opponent in November, you'd do something to help along, wouldn't you? Even if he's just a free-spending loose cannon in the primaries, that's got to help.
2. Also smart timing in releasing the birth certificate while the rank and file are distracted by the royal wedding. The story was out of the news cycle by the time your late local news was giving you tips on appropriate pet attire for the nuptuals.
3. I was amused to hear Trump say he was pleased with himself over the release, as I think he's the sort of guy who is pleased with himself whenever he does something. I'm sure there are mornings when he gets out of the bathroom full of pride at the size and uniformity of color of his, uh, leavings.
1. I feel fairly certain that the timing of the release was meant to give Donald Trump a boost. Because if you're the president, and you see a chance to have Donald Trump as your opponent in November, you'd do something to help along, wouldn't you? Even if he's just a free-spending loose cannon in the primaries, that's got to help.
2. Also smart timing in releasing the birth certificate while the rank and file are distracted by the royal wedding. The story was out of the news cycle by the time your late local news was giving you tips on appropriate pet attire for the nuptuals.
3. I was amused to hear Trump say he was pleased with himself over the release, as I think he's the sort of guy who is pleased with himself whenever he does something. I'm sure there are mornings when he gets out of the bathroom full of pride at the size and uniformity of color of his, uh, leavings.
25 April 2011
Lentorama 2011: Better Late than Never?
Days 1-40: The 40 Most Common Words in the Bible
OK, so I skipped the Lentorama this year, but after having a couple of people comment on its absence (at least one of whom I think is sincere about missing it), I figured I'd come up with something, even as half-assed as this is.
I should note that this list is based on the King James version, which is the one version where I could find a word frequency list. I know, fans of the New Revised Standard version will be disappointed.
Anyway, your list:
AND - 28364
THE - 28269
OF - 21257
THAT - 12044
TO - 11683
IN - 11285
HE - 9022
FOR - 8684
UNTO - 8326
A - 7582
LORD - 7365
HIS - 7127
SHALL - 6796
I - 6664
THEY - 6638
NOT - 6579
BE - 6568
IS - 6442
THEM - 6073
WITH - 5973
HIM - 5900
ALL - 5606
IT - 5431
THOU - 4563
BUT - 4487
WHICH - 4432
WAS - 4369
GOD - 4293
SAID - 3981
FROM - 3679
HAVE - 3608
AS - 3603
THY - 3581
THEIR - 3478
MY - 3441
ME - 3410
WILL - 3307
WHEN - 3237
THEE - 3162
YE - 3058
ARE- 2952
And as a little extra, I've even put these together into a fake Bible verse:
And the of that to in he, for unto a lord his shall I they not be. Is them with him all? It thou but which was God said “from have as thy, their my me will when thee ye are.” - Second Book of Ezenekiel, 3:17
Feel free to come up with your own in the comments.
Days 1-40: The 40 Most Common Words in the Bible
OK, so I skipped the Lentorama this year, but after having a couple of people comment on its absence (at least one of whom I think is sincere about missing it), I figured I'd come up with something, even as half-assed as this is.
I should note that this list is based on the King James version, which is the one version where I could find a word frequency list. I know, fans of the New Revised Standard version will be disappointed.
Anyway, your list:
AND - 28364
THE - 28269
OF - 21257
THAT - 12044
TO - 11683
IN - 11285
HE - 9022
FOR - 8684
UNTO - 8326
A - 7582
LORD - 7365
HIS - 7127
SHALL - 6796
I - 6664
THEY - 6638
NOT - 6579
BE - 6568
IS - 6442
THEM - 6073
WITH - 5973
HIM - 5900
ALL - 5606
IT - 5431
THOU - 4563
BUT - 4487
WHICH - 4432
WAS - 4369
GOD - 4293
SAID - 3981
FROM - 3679
HAVE - 3608
AS - 3603
THY - 3581
THEIR - 3478
MY - 3441
ME - 3410
WILL - 3307
WHEN - 3237
THEE - 3162
YE - 3058
ARE- 2952
And as a little extra, I've even put these together into a fake Bible verse:
And the of that to in he, for unto a lord his shall I they not be. Is them with him all? It thou but which was God said “from have as thy, their my me will when thee ye are.” - Second Book of Ezenekiel, 3:17
Feel free to come up with your own in the comments.
22 April 2011
Book Log 2011 #8: A City So Grand by Stephen Puelo
Taking a wider look at Boston than Puelo's very entertaining Great Molasses Flood history Dark Tide, this book chronicles how Boston grew into national prominence over the latter half of the 19th century. From abolitionism to filling in Back Bay to creating the first subway in America, Puelo chronicles this fertile period in Boston history using both broad strokes and intriguing details that help develop those broad strokes (such as the story of Barney McGinniskin, Boston's first Irish cop).
If you're interested in the time period or the history of Boston, this should get on your list to read.
Taking a wider look at Boston than Puelo's very entertaining Great Molasses Flood history Dark Tide, this book chronicles how Boston grew into national prominence over the latter half of the 19th century. From abolitionism to filling in Back Bay to creating the first subway in America, Puelo chronicles this fertile period in Boston history using both broad strokes and intriguing details that help develop those broad strokes (such as the story of Barney McGinniskin, Boston's first Irish cop).
If you're interested in the time period or the history of Boston, this should get on your list to read.
08 April 2011
Book Log 2011 #7: The Fort by Bernard Cornwell
I think I like the idea for this book - a retelling of the doomed Penobscot Expedition of 1779 - more than the execution. It's not a bad book, but it never quite clicked for me. Enjoyable, nicely written, but not especially memorable. But I do give him props for writing a story located in the wife's former neck of the woods, as I got to transpose the old names and locations into current ones http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif(though admittedly Cornwell does give a healthy dose of this at the start of the book).
My other observation is that there was a pretty big gap between The Given Day and this book, caused in no small part to an attempt to read The Count of Monte Cristo on Stanza. It is way too long a book to read on a phone. I don't expect that reading a physical copy of the book would have helped, as it was taking an awful long time for Dantes to get around to his revenge. I eventually bailed, leaving my main impression of the book to come from the Mr. Magoo adaptation.
I think I like the idea for this book - a retelling of the doomed Penobscot Expedition of 1779 - more than the execution. It's not a bad book, but it never quite clicked for me. Enjoyable, nicely written, but not especially memorable. But I do give him props for writing a story located in the wife's former neck of the woods, as I got to transpose the old names and locations into current ones http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif(though admittedly Cornwell does give a healthy dose of this at the start of the book).
My other observation is that there was a pretty big gap between The Given Day and this book, caused in no small part to an attempt to read The Count of Monte Cristo on Stanza. It is way too long a book to read on a phone. I don't expect that reading a physical copy of the book would have helped, as it was taking an awful long time for Dantes to get around to his revenge. I eventually bailed, leaving my main impression of the book to come from the Mr. Magoo adaptation.
Book Log 2011 #6: The Given Day by Dennis Lehane
Outside of reading Mystic River I don't have much experience with Dennis Lehane's books, and passed on this one a number of times due to fears that it would be a predictable rehash of the sort of prejudices you'd expect in a book set in 1919 Boston. But when I finally relented and picked this up, I was happy to learn that while the prejudices are there - and really, they have to be in order for the book to be realistic - this is no rehash.
Instead, we get a sweeping tale where these prejudices run headlong into change, marked by the end of World War I, social and political changes caused by immigration, and the recurring tension of younger generations wanting to live out from under the strictures of their parents. That this results in violence - both personal and city-wide - is hardly surprising.
The story also benefits from using the occasional cameo, most notably the recurring appearance of Babe Ruth. It's interesting watching him cruise through the turbulent times, often unaware of the greater issues. In some ways it's refreshingly familiar - it fits with our notion of disinterested celebrities - but I also thought it gave a good general counterpoint to the intensely personal stories that make up the bulk of the book.
Worth the read, but it's approaching tome territory, so plan to spend some quality time working through it.
Outside of reading Mystic River I don't have much experience with Dennis Lehane's books, and passed on this one a number of times due to fears that it would be a predictable rehash of the sort of prejudices you'd expect in a book set in 1919 Boston. But when I finally relented and picked this up, I was happy to learn that while the prejudices are there - and really, they have to be in order for the book to be realistic - this is no rehash.
Instead, we get a sweeping tale where these prejudices run headlong into change, marked by the end of World War I, social and political changes caused by immigration, and the recurring tension of younger generations wanting to live out from under the strictures of their parents. That this results in violence - both personal and city-wide - is hardly surprising.
The story also benefits from using the occasional cameo, most notably the recurring appearance of Babe Ruth. It's interesting watching him cruise through the turbulent times, often unaware of the greater issues. In some ways it's refreshingly familiar - it fits with our notion of disinterested celebrities - but I also thought it gave a good general counterpoint to the intensely personal stories that make up the bulk of the book.
Worth the read, but it's approaching tome territory, so plan to spend some quality time working through it.
13 March 2011
I'd not written about this year's BU men's ice hockey team yet as i never quite got my finger on them. They started the year 6-0-4, grabbed the top spot in the polls, and then proceeded to tank, with a loss and tie Brown and a blowout loss to RPI. They lost all four games they played against BC, and became the first BU team in 31 years to finish last at the Beanpot. They turned things around a bit towards the end of the season, going on a run against the weaker teams in Hockey East, before playing Northeastern in both the final weekend of the regular season and the first round of the playoffs.
I write about them in the past tense as tonight they lost the deciding game in their playoff series against NU, and they are almost certainly not going to make the NCAA tournament (though I'll have to fiddle around with USCHO's Pairwise Predictor a bit to prove it). And while I'm never happy when a season ends, I think this probably the right ending for this team (as bad as it makes me feel for the two seniors on the team, who deserved better).
In some ways this year's team reminded me of the 2007-08 squad, another talented group that underachieved and missed the NCAAs. Both squads had skilled players, solid goaltending, and an apparent disinterest in playing a full game. Jack Parker called both teams out for a lack of effort and passion. Both teams had a sure-fire pro in his freshman year (Colin Wilson and Charlie Coyle) who put up good numbers but didn't seem present. There are differences between the teams as well - the '08 team had distinct captain issues, while this year's did not, for example - but in the end I think the similarities outweigh the differences.
Now, that '08 team came back the following year and put together what is probably the best season in BU history, winning every trophy they could en route to the national title. I don't know if this year's team has the same potential, but with almost everyone coming back, and hopefully coming back with a bad taste in their mouths for how badly they squandered this season, I am keeping my fingers crossed. The puck drops again in seven months.
I write about them in the past tense as tonight they lost the deciding game in their playoff series against NU, and they are almost certainly not going to make the NCAA tournament (though I'll have to fiddle around with USCHO's Pairwise Predictor a bit to prove it). And while I'm never happy when a season ends, I think this probably the right ending for this team (as bad as it makes me feel for the two seniors on the team, who deserved better).
In some ways this year's team reminded me of the 2007-08 squad, another talented group that underachieved and missed the NCAAs. Both squads had skilled players, solid goaltending, and an apparent disinterest in playing a full game. Jack Parker called both teams out for a lack of effort and passion. Both teams had a sure-fire pro in his freshman year (Colin Wilson and Charlie Coyle) who put up good numbers but didn't seem present. There are differences between the teams as well - the '08 team had distinct captain issues, while this year's did not, for example - but in the end I think the similarities outweigh the differences.
Now, that '08 team came back the following year and put together what is probably the best season in BU history, winning every trophy they could en route to the national title. I don't know if this year's team has the same potential, but with almost everyone coming back, and hopefully coming back with a bad taste in their mouths for how badly they squandered this season, I am keeping my fingers crossed. The puck drops again in seven months.
Book Log 2011 #5: The Trial by Franz Kafka
A classic tale of a man, Joseph K., arrested for a crime never revealed and judged by a government that is equal parts cruel, aloof and bureaucratic. Or at least that's what I understand happens, as I didn't get past Joseph's meeting with the wife of the courtroom attendant, which happens fairly early on. As much as I identified with his plight at the hands of forces he could not control, there were too many other times where I'd really question Joseph's actions, to the point where I'd figure he did something illegal and was too stupid to realize it.
This was another e-reader selection, and maybe that had something to do with my disdain, all of the page turning compounding my frustration with Joseph. Anyway, it didn't work for me.
A classic tale of a man, Joseph K., arrested for a crime never revealed and judged by a government that is equal parts cruel, aloof and bureaucratic. Or at least that's what I understand happens, as I didn't get past Joseph's meeting with the wife of the courtroom attendant, which happens fairly early on. As much as I identified with his plight at the hands of forces he could not control, there were too many other times where I'd really question Joseph's actions, to the point where I'd figure he did something illegal and was too stupid to realize it.
This was another e-reader selection, and maybe that had something to do with my disdain, all of the page turning compounding my frustration with Joseph. Anyway, it didn't work for me.
02 March 2011
Book Log 2011 #4: The Great Typo Hunt by Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson
This was, in theory, a book right up my alley. Two guys road trip to correct typographical errors in public signage, and along the way help everyone improve their grammar and learn something about America. It reminded me of One Red Paperclip, albeit with less of a financial reward at the end.
The only problem was that I couldn't get past the writing, which never found an adjective it didn't want to cram into a sentence to make it more descriptive. In some cases the excess verbiage was probably not the right word to use. This quickly went from annoying to unbearable, and I bailed. I didn't even make it to the start of the road trip.
This was, in theory, a book right up my alley. Two guys road trip to correct typographical errors in public signage, and along the way help everyone improve their grammar and learn something about America. It reminded me of One Red Paperclip, albeit with less of a financial reward at the end.
The only problem was that I couldn't get past the writing, which never found an adjective it didn't want to cram into a sentence to make it more descriptive. In some cases the excess verbiage was probably not the right word to use. This quickly went from annoying to unbearable, and I bailed. I didn't even make it to the start of the road trip.
16 February 2011
Book Log 2011 #3: The First Emperor by Steve Berry
Cotton Malone moves his landmark-destroying antics eastward in this latest novel in the series. The conflict this time comes with a secret society of eunuchs, who are trying to influence the selection of China's next leader by manipulating the two most likely candidates. Part of this involves proving that petroleum is created abiogenically, as ensuring China's energy resources would give a leg up to whatever person could claim it.
Unlike the other books in the series, this one starts off well into the adventure and then tells the story (mostly) in flashback, which is a nice change. I did think the story was better here than in the last book, and we've thankfully lost the two younger characters from that book who looked poised to become regulars. I still think the overall quality of the series has dipped from the beginning, but there's hope in this entry that things are rebounding.
(I also discovered on Berry's website that there's an original ebook that follows Cassiopeia Vitt as she tries to find the tomb of a Thracian king but stumbles across some sort of shadowy Russian mining interest. It's supposed to be a prequel to The First Emperor, and I'm just enough of a sucker to seek it out - though not enough of one to buy it.)
Cotton Malone moves his landmark-destroying antics eastward in this latest novel in the series. The conflict this time comes with a secret society of eunuchs, who are trying to influence the selection of China's next leader by manipulating the two most likely candidates. Part of this involves proving that petroleum is created abiogenically, as ensuring China's energy resources would give a leg up to whatever person could claim it.
Unlike the other books in the series, this one starts off well into the adventure and then tells the story (mostly) in flashback, which is a nice change. I did think the story was better here than in the last book, and we've thankfully lost the two younger characters from that book who looked poised to become regulars. I still think the overall quality of the series has dipped from the beginning, but there's hope in this entry that things are rebounding.
(I also discovered on Berry's website that there's an original ebook that follows Cassiopeia Vitt as she tries to find the tomb of a Thracian king but stumbles across some sort of shadowy Russian mining interest. It's supposed to be a prequel to The First Emperor, and I'm just enough of a sucker to seek it out - though not enough of one to buy it.)
A post on Baseball-Reference.com's website about Hall of Famers and All Stars sharing birthdays, and gave some expected averages for how many you'd find for a given day (for me, no Hall of Famers and six All Stars appearing in 17 games, which is above average). But the question that framed the post - the formation of a team of players all born on Valentine's Day - got me to thinking who would be on the team of players born on my birthday?
The lineup:
Catcher - Ron Karkovice
First Base - Jocko Milligan
Second Base - Cupid Childs
Third Base - Mike Ivie
Shortstop - Cecil Travis
Outfield - Al Woods, Jose Cruz, Frank Howard
Starting Pitcher - Toad Ramsey
Relief Pitcher - Ken Raffensberger
Ivie at third is a bit of a cheat - he played fewer than 100 games at third over an 11 year career - but my next best option was a guy named Vern Morgan, who put together 17 games at third over two seasons with the Cubs in the 1950s (the highlight of a career that saw him play in the minors for 15 seasons, mostly at the A and AA level).
I wound up employing a similar cheat for relief pitcher. Raffensberger is actually the winningest pitcher on my list, six ahead of Ramsey. But he also has the third-most saves with 16 (the leader has a whopping 29), and his ERA and WHIP are much better than the two guys with more saves. So I'm going with him.
The lineup:
Catcher - Ron Karkovice
First Base - Jocko Milligan
Second Base - Cupid Childs
Third Base - Mike Ivie
Shortstop - Cecil Travis
Outfield - Al Woods, Jose Cruz, Frank Howard
Starting Pitcher - Toad Ramsey
Relief Pitcher - Ken Raffensberger
Ivie at third is a bit of a cheat - he played fewer than 100 games at third over an 11 year career - but my next best option was a guy named Vern Morgan, who put together 17 games at third over two seasons with the Cubs in the 1950s (the highlight of a career that saw him play in the minors for 15 seasons, mostly at the A and AA level).
I wound up employing a similar cheat for relief pitcher. Raffensberger is actually the winningest pitcher on my list, six ahead of Ramsey. But he also has the third-most saves with 16 (the leader has a whopping 29), and his ERA and WHIP are much better than the two guys with more saves. So I'm going with him.
14 February 2011
Book Log 2011 #2: The Murder of King Tut by James Patterson and Martin Dugard
This is billed as a "non-fiction thriller," though you'd not know if from the content, which is blissfully free of citations, source material, or pretty much anything suggestive of the research Patterson says was put into writing this thing.
The book is told in three story lines: one set in Egypt before, during and after Tut's reign, one that follows Howard Carter as he looks for an undisturbed burial site in the Valley of the Kings, and one that follows Patterson himself as he works on solving the murder of Tut.
I suppose Patterson's story line is truly non-fiction, although it pretty much winds up being him playing golf, thinking in his study, and calling Dugard to work on details. The Tut story is pretty much all fiction, as there is blessed little historical account of his reign, and the Carter story line, verifiable as it may be by contemporary accounts, adds nothing to solving the "mystery."
Patterson also gets overtaken by events a bit, as there's recent evidence from CT imaging that the hole in Tut's skull was created during mummifcation rather than during Tut's life (Patterson imagines an accidental head injury that is the original - but unused - method plotters used to kill Tut). Recent DNA studies also undermine the narrative details around Tut's wife, whose mummy was found in another tomb. Patterson has her body fed to crocodiles.
The vibe I get from reading this is that Patterson noticed that Tut's successors were court figures rather than family, and determined that they killed Tut to seize power. How this speculation leads to a "non-fiction thriller" is beyond me.
I can't say I'm a fan of Patterson's style, as it appears he never met three paragraphs he couldn't make into a chapter. I know there's a convention in thrillers to use short paragraphs to build tension and keep people reading, but the way its used here is almost a parody.
Give this one a miss.
This is billed as a "non-fiction thriller," though you'd not know if from the content, which is blissfully free of citations, source material, or pretty much anything suggestive of the research Patterson says was put into writing this thing.
The book is told in three story lines: one set in Egypt before, during and after Tut's reign, one that follows Howard Carter as he looks for an undisturbed burial site in the Valley of the Kings, and one that follows Patterson himself as he works on solving the murder of Tut.
I suppose Patterson's story line is truly non-fiction, although it pretty much winds up being him playing golf, thinking in his study, and calling Dugard to work on details. The Tut story is pretty much all fiction, as there is blessed little historical account of his reign, and the Carter story line, verifiable as it may be by contemporary accounts, adds nothing to solving the "mystery."
Patterson also gets overtaken by events a bit, as there's recent evidence from CT imaging that the hole in Tut's skull was created during mummifcation rather than during Tut's life (Patterson imagines an accidental head injury that is the original - but unused - method plotters used to kill Tut). Recent DNA studies also undermine the narrative details around Tut's wife, whose mummy was found in another tomb. Patterson has her body fed to crocodiles.
The vibe I get from reading this is that Patterson noticed that Tut's successors were court figures rather than family, and determined that they killed Tut to seize power. How this speculation leads to a "non-fiction thriller" is beyond me.
I can't say I'm a fan of Patterson's style, as it appears he never met three paragraphs he couldn't make into a chapter. I know there's a convention in thrillers to use short paragraphs to build tension and keep people reading, but the way its used here is almost a parody.
Give this one a miss.
11 February 2011
With the looming NFL work stoppage, there's been a prevailing attitude that there will be no football next fall. As I was reminded on Facebook (h/t Yostal), as long as Roger Goodell doesn't control the NCAA there will be some football, just not at the (officially) professional level.
Which got me to thinking - what if the NFL replaced each of its teams with the "best" college team that shares its nickname? Here's how I think it'd go:
AFC EAST
University of Colorado Buffaloes for the Buffalo Bills - there are no teams in the NCAA with Bills as a nickname, but as they have a buffalo on their helmet I opted to go with Colorado. Which, really, is trading on sub-.500 team for another.
Jacksonville University for the Miami Dolphins - JU, a FCS team, was nationally-ranked at the end of the season but did not make the playoffs. Which is better than the NFL team, which was out of playoff contention well before the season ended.
University of the Cumberlands for the New England Patriots - OK, I'm kind of breaking the rules here, as the U of C Patriots play in the NAIA. But most of the schools that use Patriots as a nickname don't play football, which seems un-American. George Mason plays club football, otherwise they'd be a shoo-in.
SUNY-Cortland for the New York Jets - only one school uses Jets as a nickname - Newman University - but they don't play football. We could then use its original nickname, Titans, but Tennessee gets to claim that (for what it's worth). The original owners wanted to buy the Chicago Cardinals, but obviously Arizona gets first crack. And as I'm getting sick of this, I went with SUNY-Cortland, which is where the Jets have summer camp. It's actually kind of fitting, as they are also a team with New York in their name that plays in New Jersey (well, in New Jersey Athletic Conference, which is good enough).
AFC NORTH
Benedictine College for the Baltimore Ravens - again, not a common nickname, and the best I could do is this NAIA school from Kansas. There is a NCAA school I could use - Anderson University - but Benedictine seems to have a better team based on their history of conference titles and playoff appearances.
Idaho State University for the Cincinnati Bengals - I was sorely tempted to use the University of Maine at Fort Kent here, but they don't have football (their men's sports: basketball, soccer and nordic skiing). They still may be better than Idaho State, who went 1-10 last season and haven't had a winning season since 2003.
Brown University for the Cleveland Browns - The closest thing to a school using Browns as a nickname is Lehigh University having an alternate nickname of the Brown and White. It's still used to refer to historic teams, but it's not really in current use, so I'm going with the next best option. Which, based on on-field performance, is probably the next worst option when compare to Lehigh. Cleveland gets screwed again.
East Carolina University for the Pittsburgh Steelers - Shockingly, there are no colleges using the Steelers nickname, so as the NFL team originally played as the Pirates, we'll go back to that. And really, that's not such a bad deal compared to the rest of the division.
AFC SOUTH
Tarleton State University for the Houston Texans - one school uses the Texans nickname, and while the school is much closer to Dallas than Houston I'm sure they'll make do. They had a down year this year, but until the NFL's Texans the TSU version has made the playoffs. They even won a game, too.
University of Dayton for the Indianapolis Colts - OK, the Colts pose a problem. There are no schools using Colts as a nickname (which surprised me), and moving to their previous nickname we get... Texans. And it doesn't as we go deeper. The best I can do is Tigers, which a long-ago precursor to the Colts used for one season before merging with the Boston Yanks. So my solution is that as the team can trace itself back to the Dayton Triangles, let's go with the school that's there (as, shockingly, there are no schools using Triangles as a nickname).
Southern University for the Jacksonville Jaguars - I really wanted to go with IUPUI here, but they don't offer football. And if nothing else, they've got a kick ass band.
Illinois Wesleyan University for the Tennessee Titans - there are a handful of schools using Titans as a nickname, but many don't play football. This is the best of the bunch, and all things considered they may even be competitive in this division.
AFC WEST
Boise State for the Denver Broncos - This may be the most perfect fit of all, between the nickname, uniform colors, and familiarity with playing at altitude (Boise being the Half Mile High City). I should be happy about the serendipity, but as I loathe the Denver Broncos I'm not.
Haskell Indian Nations University for the Kansas City Chiefs - no colleges use Chiefs as a nickname (which should prepare you for some sort of wackiness when we get to the Washington Redskins), and I tried to use Ursuline College in Ohio as they're the Arrows (playing off of Arrowhead Stadium). They don't play football. So I figured if you have a team that trades on Native American culture, why not have them represented by actual Native Americans?
Colgate University for the Oakland Raiders - Fitting, as I think Al Davis and William Colgate were frat brothers.
University of New Haven for the San Diego Chargers - The best of a middling bunch, though New Haven was a D2 power briefly in the 1990s when coached by current Dolphins head man Tony Sparano.
NFC EAST
Oklahoma State for the Dallas Cowboys - Once again, a team I despise gets a good NCAA replacement. I'll just have to enjoy the discomfort folks in the Metroplex will experience by being represented by a team from Oklahoma.
Millikin University for the New York Giants - Only one school uses Giants as a nickname - Keystone College - and they don't play football. Thankfully, Milliken uses Big Blue for a nickname, and as that's a common unofficial nickname for the Giants I'm going with it. It also turns out that they play in the same conference as Illinois Wesleyan, which is something I suppose.
Boston College for the Philadelphia Eagles - You can imagine how much I didn't want to make this substitution, but my only other real option was Eastern Michigan, and they've just not played in enough third-tier bowls to justify selection.
Carthage College for the Washington Redskins - Holy crap, there's still a school using Red Men as a nickname? OK, it seems that they've gone from Redmen (using a feather in their athletic logo) to Red Men, a reference to the all-red uniforms of early Carthage teams (they also replaced that pesky feather with a torch). I have a hard time believing the NCAA bought this, but I guess it's just stupid enough to work.
NFC NORTH
Baylor University for the Chicago Bears - They did make a bowl game this year, which I suppose gives them a leg up on Central Arkansas and Coast Guard. Even if in most seasons, games between Baylor and those two schools would likely have been competitive.
University of North Alabama for the Detroit Lions - I badly wanted to go with Columbia here. Both teams are the Lions, both have blue as a main color, and both are very, very familiar with gridiron futility. But I did say I'd go with the "best" team, and I have no doubt that if North Alabama played Columbia, the final score would be 57-0, and not in the Ivy's favor.
Tulane University for the Green Bay Packers - Green Bay presents the opposite problem from the Colts. There are no colleges using Packers as a nickname, and there's no wiggle room to use an historic nickname. The Packers have always been the Packers, no mergers, no moves, nothing. So rather than play around with coaches or whatever, I went with the best team whose nickname started with 'green.' Of course, the perfect substitution for the Packers are the Edmonton Eskimos.
Augustana College for the Minnesota Vikings - I was all set to hand this over to Western Washington, but they've apparently dropped football. I assume Jon Kitna is to blame. I was surprised that this Augustana - located in South Dakota - wasn't the one I was thinking of. That Augustana, in Illinois, won four D3 titles in a row in the 1980s. Still, this Augustana is better than my next option, Portland State, who have won 11 games over the last four seasons. Neil Lomax hangs his head in shame.
NFC SOUTH
Air Force for the Atlanta Falcons - This may be the only time in NFL history where a team can run the triple option and get away with it.
Pittsburgh for the Carolina Panthers - I think if you made this offer to Panthers fans they'd take it, even if there were no lockout.
St. Lawrence University for the New Orleans Saints - Not surprisingly, most of the schools with the Saints nickname are Catholic and not particularly large. It's fair to say that those schools that offer football don't exactly command a lot of media attention. So I went with the school I knew the best, even if it is for hockey. Gary Bettman would approve.
Beloit College for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers - I had already typed East Tennessee State in here, but then checked and saw that they don't play football. As an aside, their website touts that the world's oldest person is an alum, as if they had something to do with it. Anyway, I was then going to go with Charleston Southern, except they appear to stink. So it's Beloit, who may be D3 but can at least break even.
NFC WEST
Louisville for the Arizona Cardinals - Like Detroit, there is a team that better fits Arizona's history, and that's Ball State. Both teams enjoyed one recent season of surprising success before returning to their traditional sucking.
Colorado State for the St. Louis Rams - CSU has had some lean years of late, but I'm fairly sure they're still better than Fordham or URI. Perhaps we could schedule a round-robin just to make sure.
Gustavus Adolphus for the San Francisco 49ers - Two schools use the 49ers nickname - Long Beach State and UNC-Charlotte - and neither play football. So I tried to work off the Gold Rush angle, and the one school that actually uses Gold Rush as a nickname - Xavier University in New Orleans - also doesn't play football. So I figured I'd go with the school that had the oddest gold-inspired nickname, and thus wound up with the Golden Gusties of GAU.
Wagner College for the Seattle Seahawks - Because UNC-Wilmington doesn't offer football and Salve Regina's team is somewhat less successful than Wagner's.
Man, I should have broken this up by conference. I was going to try to predict playoffs, but I'm just going to leave well enough alone.
Which got me to thinking - what if the NFL replaced each of its teams with the "best" college team that shares its nickname? Here's how I think it'd go:
AFC EAST
University of Colorado Buffaloes for the Buffalo Bills - there are no teams in the NCAA with Bills as a nickname, but as they have a buffalo on their helmet I opted to go with Colorado. Which, really, is trading on sub-.500 team for another.
Jacksonville University for the Miami Dolphins - JU, a FCS team, was nationally-ranked at the end of the season but did not make the playoffs. Which is better than the NFL team, which was out of playoff contention well before the season ended.
University of the Cumberlands for the New England Patriots - OK, I'm kind of breaking the rules here, as the U of C Patriots play in the NAIA. But most of the schools that use Patriots as a nickname don't play football, which seems un-American. George Mason plays club football, otherwise they'd be a shoo-in.
SUNY-Cortland for the New York Jets - only one school uses Jets as a nickname - Newman University - but they don't play football. We could then use its original nickname, Titans, but Tennessee gets to claim that (for what it's worth). The original owners wanted to buy the Chicago Cardinals, but obviously Arizona gets first crack. And as I'm getting sick of this, I went with SUNY-Cortland, which is where the Jets have summer camp. It's actually kind of fitting, as they are also a team with New York in their name that plays in New Jersey (well, in New Jersey Athletic Conference, which is good enough).
AFC NORTH
Benedictine College for the Baltimore Ravens - again, not a common nickname, and the best I could do is this NAIA school from Kansas. There is a NCAA school I could use - Anderson University - but Benedictine seems to have a better team based on their history of conference titles and playoff appearances.
Idaho State University for the Cincinnati Bengals - I was sorely tempted to use the University of Maine at Fort Kent here, but they don't have football (their men's sports: basketball, soccer and nordic skiing). They still may be better than Idaho State, who went 1-10 last season and haven't had a winning season since 2003.
Brown University for the Cleveland Browns - The closest thing to a school using Browns as a nickname is Lehigh University having an alternate nickname of the Brown and White. It's still used to refer to historic teams, but it's not really in current use, so I'm going with the next best option. Which, based on on-field performance, is probably the next worst option when compare to Lehigh. Cleveland gets screwed again.
East Carolina University for the Pittsburgh Steelers - Shockingly, there are no colleges using the Steelers nickname, so as the NFL team originally played as the Pirates, we'll go back to that. And really, that's not such a bad deal compared to the rest of the division.
AFC SOUTH
Tarleton State University for the Houston Texans - one school uses the Texans nickname, and while the school is much closer to Dallas than Houston I'm sure they'll make do. They had a down year this year, but until the NFL's Texans the TSU version has made the playoffs. They even won a game, too.
University of Dayton for the Indianapolis Colts - OK, the Colts pose a problem. There are no schools using Colts as a nickname (which surprised me), and moving to their previous nickname we get... Texans. And it doesn't as we go deeper. The best I can do is Tigers, which a long-ago precursor to the Colts used for one season before merging with the Boston Yanks. So my solution is that as the team can trace itself back to the Dayton Triangles, let's go with the school that's there (as, shockingly, there are no schools using Triangles as a nickname).
Southern University for the Jacksonville Jaguars - I really wanted to go with IUPUI here, but they don't offer football. And if nothing else, they've got a kick ass band.
Illinois Wesleyan University for the Tennessee Titans - there are a handful of schools using Titans as a nickname, but many don't play football. This is the best of the bunch, and all things considered they may even be competitive in this division.
AFC WEST
Boise State for the Denver Broncos - This may be the most perfect fit of all, between the nickname, uniform colors, and familiarity with playing at altitude (Boise being the Half Mile High City). I should be happy about the serendipity, but as I loathe the Denver Broncos I'm not.
Haskell Indian Nations University for the Kansas City Chiefs - no colleges use Chiefs as a nickname (which should prepare you for some sort of wackiness when we get to the Washington Redskins), and I tried to use Ursuline College in Ohio as they're the Arrows (playing off of Arrowhead Stadium). They don't play football. So I figured if you have a team that trades on Native American culture, why not have them represented by actual Native Americans?
Colgate University for the Oakland Raiders - Fitting, as I think Al Davis and William Colgate were frat brothers.
University of New Haven for the San Diego Chargers - The best of a middling bunch, though New Haven was a D2 power briefly in the 1990s when coached by current Dolphins head man Tony Sparano.
NFC EAST
Oklahoma State for the Dallas Cowboys - Once again, a team I despise gets a good NCAA replacement. I'll just have to enjoy the discomfort folks in the Metroplex will experience by being represented by a team from Oklahoma.
Millikin University for the New York Giants - Only one school uses Giants as a nickname - Keystone College - and they don't play football. Thankfully, Milliken uses Big Blue for a nickname, and as that's a common unofficial nickname for the Giants I'm going with it. It also turns out that they play in the same conference as Illinois Wesleyan, which is something I suppose.
Boston College for the Philadelphia Eagles - You can imagine how much I didn't want to make this substitution, but my only other real option was Eastern Michigan, and they've just not played in enough third-tier bowls to justify selection.
Carthage College for the Washington Redskins - Holy crap, there's still a school using Red Men as a nickname? OK, it seems that they've gone from Redmen (using a feather in their athletic logo) to Red Men, a reference to the all-red uniforms of early Carthage teams (they also replaced that pesky feather with a torch). I have a hard time believing the NCAA bought this, but I guess it's just stupid enough to work.
NFC NORTH
Baylor University for the Chicago Bears - They did make a bowl game this year, which I suppose gives them a leg up on Central Arkansas and Coast Guard. Even if in most seasons, games between Baylor and those two schools would likely have been competitive.
University of North Alabama for the Detroit Lions - I badly wanted to go with Columbia here. Both teams are the Lions, both have blue as a main color, and both are very, very familiar with gridiron futility. But I did say I'd go with the "best" team, and I have no doubt that if North Alabama played Columbia, the final score would be 57-0, and not in the Ivy's favor.
Tulane University for the Green Bay Packers - Green Bay presents the opposite problem from the Colts. There are no colleges using Packers as a nickname, and there's no wiggle room to use an historic nickname. The Packers have always been the Packers, no mergers, no moves, nothing. So rather than play around with coaches or whatever, I went with the best team whose nickname started with 'green.' Of course, the perfect substitution for the Packers are the Edmonton Eskimos.
Augustana College for the Minnesota Vikings - I was all set to hand this over to Western Washington, but they've apparently dropped football. I assume Jon Kitna is to blame. I was surprised that this Augustana - located in South Dakota - wasn't the one I was thinking of. That Augustana, in Illinois, won four D3 titles in a row in the 1980s. Still, this Augustana is better than my next option, Portland State, who have won 11 games over the last four seasons. Neil Lomax hangs his head in shame.
NFC SOUTH
Air Force for the Atlanta Falcons - This may be the only time in NFL history where a team can run the triple option and get away with it.
Pittsburgh for the Carolina Panthers - I think if you made this offer to Panthers fans they'd take it, even if there were no lockout.
St. Lawrence University for the New Orleans Saints - Not surprisingly, most of the schools with the Saints nickname are Catholic and not particularly large. It's fair to say that those schools that offer football don't exactly command a lot of media attention. So I went with the school I knew the best, even if it is for hockey. Gary Bettman would approve.
Beloit College for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers - I had already typed East Tennessee State in here, but then checked and saw that they don't play football. As an aside, their website touts that the world's oldest person is an alum, as if they had something to do with it. Anyway, I was then going to go with Charleston Southern, except they appear to stink. So it's Beloit, who may be D3 but can at least break even.
NFC WEST
Louisville for the Arizona Cardinals - Like Detroit, there is a team that better fits Arizona's history, and that's Ball State. Both teams enjoyed one recent season of surprising success before returning to their traditional sucking.
Colorado State for the St. Louis Rams - CSU has had some lean years of late, but I'm fairly sure they're still better than Fordham or URI. Perhaps we could schedule a round-robin just to make sure.
Gustavus Adolphus for the San Francisco 49ers - Two schools use the 49ers nickname - Long Beach State and UNC-Charlotte - and neither play football. So I tried to work off the Gold Rush angle, and the one school that actually uses Gold Rush as a nickname - Xavier University in New Orleans - also doesn't play football. So I figured I'd go with the school that had the oddest gold-inspired nickname, and thus wound up with the Golden Gusties of GAU.
Wagner College for the Seattle Seahawks - Because UNC-Wilmington doesn't offer football and Salve Regina's team is somewhat less successful than Wagner's.
Man, I should have broken this up by conference. I was going to try to predict playoffs, but I'm just going to leave well enough alone.
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