Say.....Hey, this Book is Amazing

I have probably read over a hundred biographies in my life and I have to say that I just finished the best one I have ever read. WILLIE MAYS: The Life, The Legend by James S. Hirsch should be on every baseball fan's reading list.

I remember the tail end of Mays' career. The clearest memories I have are in the final year with the Mets. By this time, his peak years were way behind him and he was a shadow of his former self. However, as Hirsch makes very clear, Willie was a difference maker until the day he retired.

The detail within the book is a reflection of the research done (24 pages of Notes and 5 pages of Bibliography along with a 29 page index). But I have to say -- while most bios give you facts and historical context, Hirsch has succeeded in delivering a book which allows the reader into Willie Mays' head and into the heads of his friends, teammates and opponents. According to Hirsch, Willie still remembers in great detail events of particular games played more than three decades ago.

All of this is to say that this book is easily the most in-depth, thoroughly researched biography I have ever had the pleasure to read. I feel like I really know Willie Mays -- a man who lived as private a life as he could while simultaneously being probably the greatest baseball player who ever lived. (A case Hirsch makes.) And because I now "know" Willie Mays, I can announce: I really, really like him.

The Devil is in the Details

Being a non-fiction fan is to be reminded regularly of the adage, "truth is stranger than fiction." Some of the best non-fiction writing is to be found in the pages of our dwindling supply of magazines. Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, the New Yorker and others supply much of the best "true stories" out there.
To that end, David Grann, he of THE LOST CITY OF Z, has delivered a delectable collection of "Tales of murder, madness and obsession," entitled THE DEVIL AND SHERLOCK HOLMES.
I have said this before, but you know it's a good book when you put other books aside to finish it and that is the way it was with DEVIL.
Spanning the genre from the prison politics of white supremacists to the final baseball days of Rickey Henderson to the last heist of an elderly bank robber, this collection would make a great gift for the non-fiction fan in your life.
To be honest, I could spend the rest of my life reading this kind of book. And, you know what? I think I will.

http://www.davidgrann.com

http://www.doubleday.com

http://www.randomhouse.com

Honest Porno

I recently finished Kevin Sampsell's A COMMON PORNOGRAPHY and I have to say it is one of the most honest memoirs I have ever read. Sampsell writes with candor about his evolution from little boy to man.
The best way I have to describe this book is that it is like having a stranger sit down at your table and proceed to tell you dozens of little stories of things that have happened to him. Now, if just anyone did that it would likely become very old and boring very fast. But Sampsell writes with a flair for detail and with seemingly nothing held back. This is doubtlessly one of the most honest and confessional memoirs I have read.
Sampsell is a musician, publisher and bookseller -- a full life for anyone. This book is told, not in narrative style, but in a series of honest and hilarious vignettes.
This book is neither common nor pornographic but is definitely a book to read if you like memoirs.
I enjoyed having Kevin at my table.

http://www.kevinsampsell.com

http://www.harperperennial.com

Far from Perfect, Far from Doomed

I just finished Kyria Abrahams' I'm Perfect, You're Doomed, a book I've been wanting to read since it was released in early 2009. Thank Jehovah I wasn't disappointed.

Ms. Abrahams was raised a Jehovah's Witness, a particular denomination I didn't know much about except they handed out fliers that remind me of early reader books and that they don't vote. Now I know more than I ever expected to and I am relieved to discover that I feel neither perfect nor doomed.

As a side note, the JW's have been knocking on my door recently. And, thanks to my 91-year-old grandmother who lives with me, they've even been sitting on my sofa. I have been gently warning my grandmother that the "friends" she has met are actually not friends at all. But how do you tell a lonely, elderly lady that the seemingly nice people she has invited in are one day going to bare their teeth and announce that her Southern Baptist lifestyle is all for naught? How do I tell her that one day she will be told that she will die in Armageddon like the rest of the non Jehovah's Witnesses? I wish I could let her read this book, but it's not available in large print. So instead I have to be content to feed her tidbits of information like, "Nana, did you know your friends don't celebrate their birthdays," or "Nana, did you know Jehovah's Witnesses think that everyone except Jehovah's Witnesses are going to die and not receive eternal salvation?" This ploy seems to be working. She'll still talk to them but she'll put up her Southern Baptist dukes.

Also, I have a good friend who is a Jehovah's Witness. Luckily my personality is strong enough that this person will not try to "Bible Study" me. She and I have spirited debates and I am happy to report that, compared to the JW's described in Ms. Abrahams' book, she seems quite normal.

Regardless, if you've ever wondered what those non-voting, Watchtower peddling, door to door salesmen are all about, this is the book for you. A very, very funny and descriptive book. I put down one book I had already started an devoured this one in just a few days which is not my normal way of reading.

Get this book and thank Go...uh, Jehovah that you did.

Published by Touchstone
A Division of Simon & Schuster

http://www.simonandschuster.com

http://www.kyriaabrahams.com

Gonville by Peter Birkenhead

O.k., so I couldn't come up with even a remotely clever headline for this review.
As someone who grew up with a father who took his anger out on his family, I seem drawn to memoirs of bad dads. (See All Over But the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg).
Birkenhead tells in vivid detail his story of growing up with a gun-obsessed yet liberal father. The father in this memoir strikes me as a very complicated man. Throughout this engaging book, I got the feeling that there was a lot going on inside his head that no one could have known. However, this book is a masterful tale of what is going through the son's head while he tries to figure out the world around him.
The author was spared the brunt of the physical abuse, most of that going to his mother or three siblings. Birkenhead struggles with the why of that fact, finally guessing it is due to his ability to his skill at distracting his dad.
I don't like giving too many specific details from a book such as this. Suffice to say that if you like stories of families coming out the other end of tumultuous times, you will enjoy GONVILLE.
I know I did.

I'm Not Sorry at All

Public disclosure: I am in love with Diana Joseph. (I've never met her but I feel as if I have.)

I have just completed Diana Joseph's memoir I'm Sorry You Feel That Way --The astonishing but true story of a daughter, sister, slut, wife, mother, and friend to man and dog.

"Sorry" is an funny and bitingly honest look at Ms. Joseph's relationships with seemingly all the men she has ever come into contact with. I exaggerate but not by much.

We read of her father's admonition, "see, what happens is sometimes a girl will go with this one, and then she'll go with that one, and then she thinks what the hell, that one over there doesn't look so bad, why not go with that one, too." Apparently, she wanted to test dear ol' dad's theory. (I didn't put "slut" in the title!) In all seriousness, the "S word" is debated in hilarious detail by Joseph and her teenage son.

No male is safe from the sharpness of the wit. But the best moments are this mom's attempts to understand "the boy." Her son, despite her best attempts, develops political views 180 degrees from hers. This horrifies and intrigues her.

While reading this book, I imagined every mother and teenage son I've ever seen together. And then I imagined every one of those mother's having thoughts like Ms. Joseph. And then, strangely, I felt better about this planet.

I am in love with Diana Joseph. Read this book and you will be also.

http://dianajoseph.net

http://imsorryyoufeelthatway.blogspot.com

Positively Side-Splitting

I have read two of Augusten Burrough's books now and, despite myself, I am drawn to his achingly honest autobiographical style. When Burroughs is on his game, as he mostly is here, the reader is taken on a voyeuristic tour of an absurd life closely examined.

We all have strange things happen to us throughout our lives, but, if you're like me, most of them are filed away in our memories until some other event reminds us of them. Burroughs seems to remember every crazy thing that has ever happened to him and in vivid detail.

This book is funny and, at times, poignant. There were a few times I felt a little unsettled by the brutal honesty, but that is what you get with him. I enjoyed this book -- due in small part to the realization that no matter how weird my life gets, I could never top his.

http://augusten.com

http://us.macmillan.com/smp.aspx

New This Week

The only book on my radar this week is THE FORTY YEARS WAR: The Rise and Fall of the Neocons, from Nixon to Obama by Len Colodny and Tom Shachtman.

As a political junkie and a decided foe of the neocon belief system (the actual one not the stated one), I want to read this book. Published by Harper Collins, it'll be in stores on Tuesday.

Queen's Highway

Doreen Orion is the female Bill Bryson.

I have often stated that Bill Bryson is one of my favorite authors. He is a writer who does what a professor should: he makes learning fun and hilarious. I advise never to read Bryson in a public place. Passersby will think you are insane due to the snickering and full-out laughing you will be doing. As it always is with authors we love (unless you like James Patterson -- I don't), it is always too long in between new books. So it is with pleasure that I found and read QUEEN OF THE ROAD by Ms. Orion.

If you like books that are funny and well-written, get yourself to a bookstore and get this book. You will be glad you did, and will quickly make a list of people you want to read small passages to. Doreen and her husband (Project Nerd -- just read the book...) are the perfect comedy pair.

Ms. Orion is the star of the book with credible performances by her husband (awesomely named Tim), the bus, the pets and a slew of new-found friends in RV parks throughout the U.S.A. and Canada. When first we meet Doreen she is addicted to only a few things: shopping, Oprah and the great indoors.

A self-proclaimed "Princess from the Island of Long", there is no way she herself or you the reader can believe she will be able to successfully complete the mission declared on the book cover: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 miles, 200 shoes, 2 cats, 1 Poodle, a husband and a bus with a will of its own.

Through mechanical mishaps, family visits, an armed robbery, mountain hiking and nudist parks, Doreen and Tim bring us along on the trip of a lifetime. You can measure this trip in laughs, not miles.

I won't ruin the ending, but suffice to say when the family arrives back in Boulder, Colorado, she is a changed woman....for the most part.

QUEEN OF THE ROAD is published by Broadway Books. http://www.broadwaybooks.com .

Please also visit http://www.queenoftheroadthebook.com .

A Place For His Stuff

One of my best friends turned me onto George Carlin when I was about 15 years old and I will be eternally grateful. Carlin appealed to teenage me in part because his humor was unlike anything else I had ever heard. When my friend played Class Clown for me I not only laughed at the shock of all the wonderful (to a 15 year old boy) swearing but because the Carlin was so different from any other comedian I had ever listened to.

This posthumous autobiography Last Words, tells in 294 glorious pages of the life of the constantly-in-motion comedian. Carlin, with help from writer/comedian Tony Hendra, tells of his childhood on the fertile grounds of New York City, his love-hate relationship with the Catholic Church (a recurring subject onstage), and his crazy family life. Saddled with the ubiquitous alcoholic father, a precursor to his own later addiction problems, Carlin became an actual class clown and a comedy seeds were planted.

Carlin's mother, Mary, was quite the woman. Clearly, Carlin loved his mother, but theirs was a complicated relationship. The story of how, despite her strong Catholic roots, she (and the local nuns) justified Carlin's later language and opinions about the Church are interesting to say the least.

For the longest time I was only aware of the profane, outrageous Carlin. It was some years later before I saw video of the short-haired, suit-wearing George Carlin performing comparatively conservative routines. I always wondered how he got from point A to point B. Thanks to this deeply personal and brutally honest book, I now know.

If you are a Carlin fan, you really need to read this book. In wonderful detail ( and plenty of Carlin insight along the way), we watch Carlin go from smart-ass kid to the envelope-pushing comedy giant on his always entertaining HBO specials.

Sadly, Carlin left us too early, still with dreams of his own unfulfilled. The book is a treat for anyone wanting to know more about the genius behind the man who brought us Al Sleet, the Trippy Drippy Weatherman. Get this book for someone for Christmas.

But with no more HBO specials, no more books and no more CD's to be forthcoming from the mind of Carlin, I feel sad. After finishing this book I feel I have literally "closed the book" on one of my heroes. Makes me want to (expletive deleted) cry.

Advantage: Agassi

I thought I was a fan of Andre Agassi.

But I just completed his recent autobiography Open, and I have to say: I've never admired a tennis player more.

Inside the pages, Agassi tells , with brutal honesty, of his childhood with an overbearing father who makes no secret of his dream of his son being the best tennis player in the world. Agassi is 7 years old at the time. It is no surprise that Agassi spends his life collecting father figures to surround himself with.

Familiar names are peppered throughout: Connors, McEnroe, Courier, Sampras, Federer. If you are a tennis fan, you will learn even more about these greats with the behind-the-scenes tales. (Although I'm not sure I can forgive AA for giving me the image in my head of a naked Ivan Lendl.)

Tennis players are not the only familiar names. Agassi's courtship of and marrige to his first wife Brooke Shields gets fully covered. Some of the story is a little heartbreaking at times, so I'm impressed that she is listed as someone who read the manuscript ahead of time and yet allowed the scars to show.

The book covers Agassi's time at the Bollettieri Academy in Florida as well as his early days on the professional tour. There are many mentions of Pete Sampras and their rivalry. I can't imagine Pete will be too happy with the "valet" story, but this is a very honest book.

And that is what I enjoyed most about it. It is clear that AA has cleared his desk, his mind and his conscience with the airing of the dirty laundry contained inside the nearly 400 pages. We have all heard the sordid headlines lately about the crystal meth use and the hairpiece. It is clear that coming clean about these secrets are a catharsis for a man who clearly has evolved.

Agassi dropped out in 9th grade. He now has a college preparatory school he founded and mostly funded. The dropout is now a proponent of education. Some would say this is ironic. But, if you read this book you will see that Agassi was always smarter than he appeared.

The sweet side of Agassi emerges as he attempts to get Steffi Graf to go out with him. It is clear that these two belong together and the calm she provides has been the influence a now-retired Agassi has needed.

However, as the book makes clear, things were not always so calm. Early in his career, Agassi was defined in the public's mind with an advertising slogan for one of his endorsement deals. Posters and television ads with his face and the words "Image Is Everything" were ubiquitous back in the day. However, Agassi was always bothered by the advertising campaign -- he was being cast as a rebel and a punk. The truth is he didn't evern know what image he wanted to have. In truth he was nothing like his public image -- what almost no one knew is that Agassi was secretly a pretty sensitive guy who actually listened to soft rock. And the long flowing hair wasn't even his. The image being sold to tennis fans meant nothing.


Reading this book, I felt like I was hanging out with Agassi. It's that personal. I always liked Agassi the tennis player. After reading Open, I like and admire the man.

-----

In the acknowledgments Agassi lists J.R. Moehringer as the person who helped "tackle my memoir and give it shape." Moehringer refused to let his name be on the cover despite Agassi's request because, while proud of the work, he "couldn't see signing his name to another man's life." Moehringer wrote one of my favorite books of all time, his own memoir, The Tender Bar.

New Releases for Next Week

Books scheduled to come out next week include:

The Professional (a Spenser novel) by Robert B Parker
American Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood by Marc Eliot
Christmas List: A Novel by Richard Paul Evans
Evidence: An Alex Delaware Novel by Jonathan Kellerman
Finding It by Valerie Bertinelli
The Ghost King by R.A. Salvatore
Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeanette Walls
How to Raise the Perfect Dog by Cesar Milan
Julie Andrews' Collection of Poems, Songs and Lullabies
Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon
New Moon Illustrated Movie Companion by Mark Cotta Vaz
Return to the Hundred Acre Wood by David Benedictus
Three Feet from Gold by Sharon L. Lechter
A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris
Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

New Releases This Week

New books coming out this week include:

Karen Armstrong -- The Case for God***
Margaret Atwood -- The Year of the Flood
J.G. Ballard -- The Complete Stories
Glenn Beck -- Arguing with Idiots***
Pete Dexter -- Spooner
James Ellroy -- Blood's a Rover
Craig Ferguson -- American on Purpose***
Diana Gabaldon -- An Echo in the Bone
Robert Hicks -- A Separate Country
Steve Hodel & Ralph Pezzuillo -- Most Evil***
David Hoffman -- The Dead Hand***
Kazuo Ishiguro -- Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall
Garrison Keillor -- Pilgrims: A Woebegon Romance
Robert T. Kiyosaki -- Rich Dad's Conspiracy of the Rich***
Peter Maass -- Crude World***
Jill McCorkle -- Going Away Shoes
Sara Paretsky -- Hardball
Ruth Reichl -- Gourmet Today***
Anita Shreve -- A Change in Attitude
Alexander McCall Smith -- The Lost Art of Gratitude
Stuart Woods -- Hothouse Orchid

***Non-fiction