Book Log 2014 #10: The King's Deception by Steve Berry

And we stay with thrillers, this one the latest Cotton Malone outing, where he and his son are involved in a plot to quash the release of a Libyan terrorist from a Scottish jail by proving that Queen Elizabeth I was actually an impostor (meaning that anything done in her name could be legally invalid, including the transfer of lands in Northern Ireland to English and Scottish Protestants). 

The story is actually told in flashback, and includes the revelation that Cotton's son is actually not his son, biologically at least. We're also introduced to two characters we'll likely see again, one a streetwise teen, the other a British cop who has a bit of a wild streak (and just may wind up being Cotton's latest romantic interest).

Things go pretty much as you'd expect, but I liked it better than his previous couple of outings.

Book Log 2014 #9: The Labyrinth of Osiris by Paul Sussman

Our favorite pair of mismatched Arab and Israeli detectives is back, investigating poisoned wells, the murder of an Israeli journalist in Jerusalem's Armenian quarter, and how they may be connected. The titular labyrinth - an ancient mine - figures prominently, as you might imagine.

But so does the personal lives of our two protagonists. Ben-Roi has lost his girlfriend - and mother to his unborn child - due to his obsession with work. Khalifa has the double whammy of being displaced due to a massive building scheme and coping with a family tragedy that has left his wife nearly insensate.

But as they work together and uncover new connections - an American energy company and the 1930s death of an archaeologist become important to the investigation - the personal issues work their way in, too, and by the time the pair come together for force a conclusion, it's not always clear where the line is between their professional functions and personal obligations to their families and to each other. There's also one very surprising twist, which led to me to wonder how it would play out in future books.

But, sadly, there aren't going to be any more books in the series. Not long after this one hit the shelves, Paul Sussman died from a ruptured aneurysm. There is a posthumous book that came out in May, not part of the series. I'm both looking forward to reading it and sad that it's the last of book his available to read.

Book Log 2014 #8: Inferno by Dan Brown

I hadn't planned on reading this - The Lost Symbol was bad enough to put me off the series - but when I found myself short on reading material and copies of Inferno readily available, I figured I'd give it a go.


Unlike previous books, Inferno takes a more direct thriller approach rather than trying to shoehorn a worldwide conspiracy into the plot. In this story, our symbologist hero Robert Langdon wakes up in a hospital with no idea where he is or how he got there. Over time he begins to figure out the where (Florence) and when (a day or two after his last memory), but is still stumped by the why, and what his visions of a grey haired woman has to do with any of it.

An attack on the hospital leads him to flee with one of the doctors, whose brilliance belies her attachment to a fairly mundane hospital. Over the course of time the pair learn what Langdon was doing in Florence - trying to stop a mysterious, Dante-loving figure from releasing a man-made plague into the world.

It's still not the most compelling writing out there, even for the genre, but it's miles ahead of The Lost Symbol. There's still too much exposition for my taste - memories of a lecture given on Dante at some point in the past pop up quite a bit to explain how Langdon makes connections, for example - and there's some unproven mumbo jumbo about how the shadowy Consortium in the book is an actual thing. But for what it is, it's surprisingly not bad. Not the most ringing endorsement, but better than what I was expecting to say about it.

As entertaining as the World Cup has been so far, the corruption allegations for Qatar's 2022 hosting linger, a specter that seems to be staying on the fringes just until the current tournament ends. That specter took center stage briefly when it was reported that FIFA had contacted the US soccer federation about taking over. That blew over after a few days, but leaves the thought: how would the US host the World Cup if it was reassigned?

Group Stage

For the eight groups, I would pair two reasonably close stadiums to host three group games each:

New England - Gillette Stadium and Rentschler Field or the Yale Bowl. Gillette is a no-brainer, as Foxboro hosted in 1994. They'd have to use the grass trays, but that's hardly a drawback at this point. The other venue would either be an expanded Rentschler Field (capacity is currently 40,000) or the Yale Bowl (which is old but a reasonable size at just over 61,000).

Mid Atlantic - Lincoln Financial Field and M&T Bank Stadium. Two newer stadiums with capacities in the high 60,000s and low 70,000s. No brainers.

Southeast - Bobby Dodd Stadium and EverBank Field. I went with Georgia Tech's home over the new stadium for the Atlanta Falcons as Bobby Dodd Stadium is open air, and I'm favoring those where I can (though the use of the Pontiac Silverdome in 1994 shows they could be used). EverBank Field hosted a pre-Cup friendly earlier this year and it went pretty well, so I'm giving them the nod. Jacksonville is also closer to Atlanta than Tampa or Orlando.

Mid-Central - Heinz Field and Ohio Stadium. I'd thought about putting both stadiums in this group in Ohio, but opted to go with Heinz Field instead. Ohio Stadium reflects the support Columbus has given the USMNT over the years and the reality that Crew Stadium is too small to host Cup games.

Great Lakes: Ford Field and Michigan Stadium. Ford Field has hosted Gold Cup matches, and is plenty big enough for the World Cup. And the idea of the World Cup at the Big House is certainly appealing. Maybe too close to each other?

Show-Me: Arrowhead Stadium and Edward Jones Dome. Kansas City gets in thanks to supporting their MLS team and to recognize Lamar Hunt's support of soccer. St. Louis, while a historically important city for US soccer, doesn't have a great venue for it. I'm reluctantly going with it for now.

Lone Star: AT&T Stadium and Reliant Field. Like Mid Atlantic, two newer stadiums with plenty of seating, as well as two cities with MLS teams.

Northwest: Levi's Stadium and CenturyLink Field. Also not particularly close, but both home to dedicated MLS crowds, Seattle especially.

Round of 16 and Quarterfinals

Also two stadiums per group, three games in total.

Garden State: MetLife Stadium and High Point Solutions Stadium. MetLife, of course, gets you New York atmosphere with New Jersey location. Getting actual New York location is a problem, as Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, and both planned soccer-specific stadiums are too small. So we do down to Rutgers to borrow their stadium, which is on the smallish side as well but larger than any other option.

Sunshine: Raymond James Stadium and Florida Citrus Bowl Stadium. You could flip these two with the Atlanta/Jacksonville pair and it would be OK with me.

Midwest: Soldier Field and Lucas Oil Stadiu. Indy can handle one game, right? Solider Field was a host in '94, and unless the renovation made the field to narrow they'd be an easy pick to host again.

Southwest: Qualcomm Stadium and University of Phoenix Stadium. OK, not particularly close, but for three games you can make it work.

Semifinals and Finals

Rose Bowl. Of course. Why would it end anywhere else? 

Book Log 2014 Extra: Esquire.com Book Lists

I suppose one could troll the Internet for lists of books that you should read and find no end to them, but these found me while I was getting my daily dose of Charlie Pierce.What's interesting is that I found lists of 75 and 80 books all men should read, and a list of 10 books men should read before they die, and there were some books on one list but not another. How does one of the 10 books I need to read before I die not get on the list with 80 books all men should read? Someone over there needs to straighten this out before I expire!

In any case, it turns out I've read very few books on any of these lists. From the 80 books every man should read (warning, slideshow), I've covered:

• A Sense of Where You Are, John McPhee's book about Bill Bradley, which I enjoyed greatly.
• The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer's WWII epic that I also enjoyed greatly (if you can used the word "enjoyed" in that context).
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which I read for AP English about a million years ago but remember liking.
• Master and Commander, which I didn't like as much as I thought I would. Probably worth another look.
• A Confederacy of Dunces, also read a long time ago but remember enjoying.
• The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, which introduced me to the concept of the literary spy novel.
• Winesburg, Ohio, which I didn't care for all that much. 
• Lolita, which caused me some conflict between the great writing and the awful subject matter.

 I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised by the number of war books on the list. I was also reminded of the books that I'm surprised I've never read (Slaughterhouse-Five, for example). Overall it's not a bad list for something billed as "an unranked, incomplete, utterly biased list."

Moving on to the ten essential books for life (the "read before you die" tag was in the link to yet another slideshow), I seem to be missing most of the essentials, except for U.S.A. (the John Dos Passos trilogy that I never quite finished but found interesting if for nothing else than its format of mixing fiction in with news and biography from the period) and A Sense of Where You Are.

The list of 75 books took me back to the list of 80 books, which I guess is a good thing as it keeps us from having one more list floating around.

Book Log 2014 #7: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Six stories, told in advancing - and retreating - order make up this novel about the human civilization and how our drive to learn, explore and conquer may lead us to places we'd rather not take ourselves.

Not that all the stories are about warfare and strife. Really, all of the stories are personal, looking at one person and their experiences within the civilization. There is some linkage between stories, but it's generally not central to the stories (though the author did state that all of the main characters, with one exception, are reincarnations of the same person, as seen in a shared birthmark).

Five of the six stories are split in two, so you get the first halves of the first five stories, then the whole sixth story, and then the second half of the other five stories in reverse order (so the first story makes up the first and last section of the book, for example). It's an interesting device, and I did find it helpful in seeing how each of the stories led to central, uninterrupted story.

Oddly enough, it's that story that I had the most trouble with. Not sure why; could be that the structure of the book made me less able to stick with the one longer story. Or the use of a local dialect was just that too distracting. Whatever the problem, it wasn't significant, and mostly manifested itself as a desire to get to the conclusions of the other five stories.

I do recommend the book, though I think it's one I'll have to revisit at some point to see if what I've taken away from it has changed.

Book Log 2014 #6: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

I was surprised to see that I'd never written about this, but I likely read it first before I was logging books here. In any case, this is the story of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the serial killer who took advantage of it (and the general population boom Chicago was experiencing) to find victims.

The story of the fair is one of triumph over adversity, between the long delay in Chicago getting the fair and the difficulties encountered in trying to build it quickly in a section of Chicago short on amenities and long on difficult, unimproved terrain. The personal conflicts are given equal attention, and proved equally as daunting, from the rivalry between Chicago and New York/Boston architects to competing interests in how the fair should be run and funded.

This is countered by the way in which Dr. H. H. Holmes is able to build "the castle," the hotel and retail building into which so many people entered and never came out. It's kind of amazing to think in this day in age that a man could con so many people into providing him goods and services without getting paid, or that so many people could disappear more or less completely, but it does demonstrate how much difference a century can make. Holmes wasn't perfect by any stretch, but the fact that no one could ever quite determine the total number of his victims suggests he wasn't off by much.

If you haven't read this by now it's worth reading, as are pretty much all of Larson's books.

Book Log 2014 #5: The Bookman's Tale by Charlie Lovett

A reclusive book seller, still reeling from the untimely death of his wife, finds himself drawn into a mystery when he discovers a painting of his wife in an old book, a painting that dates to well before his wife's birth. In trying to track down this mystery, he gets pulled into a greater one - whether or not Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him - that is proving to have deadly consequences.

There's a lot to like about this book - the historical chapters tracing a book central to solving the Shakespeare question are a nice change of pace - but I did find some of the story set in the present day a little too neatly wrapped, especially the ending.  Maybe that's intentional, reflecting some of the unlikely coincidences and neat endings you might find in Shakespeare. Still, it wasn't a bad book, worth a read if you're into the Shakespeare question.

Book Log 2014 #4: The Fire Witness by Lars Kepler

I didn't realize how much I'd been putting off the Book Log until I noticed we were nearing the halfway point of the year and I'd logged all of three books. Time for some catch up in the form of talking about books I vaguely remember.


This is the latest in the series featuring Joona Linna, who is investigating a gruesome pair of murders at a home for troubled girls. Progress on the case is slow, but picks up when a woman claiming to be a medium - or who had at least been pretending to be one in order to earn some spare cash - has a vision about the case.

I find I've liked each of the books in this series more than the first, and that holds here. There's a good balance between the formal investigation and the involvement of the medium, and we get more background as to how Linna wound up in Sweden and what happened to his family, which appears to be setting up the next book in the series (which looks like will be released in the US this August).