Play their Hearts Out - by George Dohrmann

George Dohrmann is a reporter who writes for Sports Illustrated. In this book, he follows the stories of some 7th and 8th grade kids, as they compete and play in AAU basketball. (Mostly, it's the story of the coach who tried to bring them all together and win games, and the star player that he recruited for the team.) For those of you who watch college basketball (or even the NBA), this is a very interesting behind-the-scenes look at how many of the star basketball players get to the good college or NBA teams.

The author was able to trail the team for a number of years, doing interviews with the players, their parents and the coaches. He also attended a bunch of the games, practices and meetings/dinners. In other words, he had pretty good access to the people in the stories. Some of the stories he tells, and the characters that you learn about who are involved in the AAU basketball system, really make you open your eyes to what it really takes to get a good college to recruit you (or a good NBA team to do the same). Opens your eyes, and makes you sick, all at the same time. Overall, a very good book about something I didn't really know a whole lot about before.

The Litigators, by John Grisham

I've read almost all of John Grisham's books (there may be one or two nonfiction ones that I haven't read). For the most part, his books are good-quality legal fiction. The courtroom scenes are pretty close to how things really go. Sometimes the stories get a litle "slow" or "contrived". I especially enjoyed his earlier books (The Firm, The Chamber (HATED the ending of this one - which is what made it such a good book!), A Time to Kill (easily his best book ever!)). Some of his later books haven't gotten me as excited.

This one, however, was pretty well done. A small firm gets involved in some large tort claims (think large pharmaceutical cases). They bring in a new young associate who's had it with the large firm life (the scenes showing his meltdown are pretty hilarious). Unlike some of his more recent books, in this one you do actually start caring about the characters, and what happens with them. I think he spent a little more time developing their past and history, so by the end you're genuinely interested in what's going to happen to them. I won't say the ending wasn't predictable - it was. But, you still wanted to know what was happening to the folks.

On a different John Grisham note - is anyone watching the new series The Firm? It's a continuation of the Grisham novel by that same name - continuing the story ten years later. We've been recording it, but I haven't been able to watch it yet.

Son of Neptune

So - for those who follow this blog (both of you!), you already know I like Rick Riordan's heroes books (both the Olympus heroes, and the Egyptian heroes). For Christmas, Santa brought me this one, which is the second book, in the second series of Roman/Greek heroes in America. I won't mention much about the book, other than that I really liked it, and it easily lives up to the quality of all the previous books (and may be even a little bit better!).

A Quick Update

So, it's been a few weeks since my last post - and I've definitely been reading (it pretty much never ends). However, I haven't had time, what with the end of semester frenzy, plus the holidays and all the vacationing/shopping that's required - not to mention the fact that I have a "real job" that I have to spend at least a little time at! In any case, a quick glance at what I've read in the past few months:

Jeffrey Archer is one of my favorite authors. I've read everything he's written. This latest is the first in a series of books about a single family. He's best known for writing about British families, tracing them through years at a time. One of his best books is "Kane and Abel" - I've read that one thrice. This latest is along those same lines. Highly recommended.



OK - I have to preface this one with the comment that I don't really like, or understand, the recent craze for vampire books. I'm comfortable enough as a man to freely admit that I read the whole "Twilight" series (right alongside my Craftsman and John Deere catalogs and Sports Illustrated magazines) - but I don't really get the frenzy for teenage vampire fiction that stemmed from it. I chose this book because it was on the Amazon 2010 list - I didn't really know much about it. Basically, the US Government develops a new "weapon" consisting of humans infected with a certain virus that makes them "inhuman". In essence - they become vampires. The first part of the book introduces the main characters (i.e., the folks who become the vampires), and the young girl who ends up being able to conquer them. The remainder of the book jumps ahead about 100 years after the vampires escape, and tells the story of one small group of survivors, and their quest to continue surviving. Once I got past the fact that I was reading a vampire book, it actually was pretty good. Recommended, even for those who don't get the vampire-book fever.

Lee Child writes a series of mystery/detective books starring a guy named Jack Reacher. Reacher is a retired army investigator, who now lives "off the grid". In each book, he turns up to save the day. They're your basic detective novel - I like reading them when I'm looking for just a straightforward detective novel (i.e., something that I can read in bed, and don't feel bad falling asleep before I finish the chapter). In the spirit of full disclosure - I'm reading another of his right now (hoping to get it done before Christmas - see below for the reason why). I probably won't post about that other book. Most of his can all be described like this one was.

This one is a short little Christmas story I read just to get into the season of Christmas. There's a set of 12 Eastern European "Christmas Glass" ornaments that get passed down in an Italian family. During WWII, the Christmas Glass makes it's way to America, where it gets split up with the feisty Italian lady who's the matriarch in this family. Fast-forward to present day. The family is split up, and each piece of Christmas Glass is now with a different family member or friend. The matriarch, who's now in her '80's, issues an ultimatum to her children, which leads to the Christmas Glass being reunited. Each chapter is the story of each of the friends and family members. A fun little book that I really enjoyed. If you want a quick little Christmas read - this one will do it!

Lastly, I re-read The Lost Hero. I have a sneaking suspicion that Santa is bringing me "Son of Neptune" for Christmas, and wanted to make sure I was remembering what had last happened in the story. For those who don't know, these are the first two books in the "sequel series" to the Percy Jackson books that came out a few years ago. The author, Rick Riordan, does a wonderful job at mixing the old Greek/Roman stories of the gods/goddesses/heroes with modern-day heroes. Not only are they fun to read (my oldest daughter has really gotten into them as well), but I like how they're educational as well (helping "the kids" to learn about that history). Hopefully Santa has his delivery right, so I can continue the series.

I've got the new Amazon 2011 list all ready and sorted, so I'll probably start posting about some of those newer books on their list. I already sorted about 30 or so off their Top 100 list that I probably won't read - but I have plenty more to look forward to this coming year!

The War for Late Night

So, if you can't tell from this latest rash of books - I've always enjoyed the "behind the scenes" of tv shows or movies. I'm one who always likes to watch the "Making of the Movie" features on DVD's (my wife always makes fun of me for that - or usually falls asleep in the middle of it). It's just always been a fascination.

A few years back, there was a big brew-ha-ha (did I even spell that right?!), about the shake-up in late-night television. For those in the know, it dealt with Jay Leno vs. Conan O'brien vs. David Letterman (sort of). All of a sudden (for those who didn't watch the shows religiously), Conan was taking over The Tonight Show, and Jay Leno moved to a 9 o'clock (MST) slot. "Interesting..." was my first reaction. I'd always enjoyed watching the late night shows (when I could stay awake long enough). I'd already noticed that Jay's opening monologue was much better than David Letterman's - but that Letterman had lots more funny skits on his show (mostly outside his theater - I loved when he would drop stuff off the roof of his building!). I had watched Conan a few times, and got his humor as well. So, I was interested to see how this new experiment with Jay at 9 was going to work. Yeah - it didn't. Colossal failure. Then, all of a sudden, Jay was back with The Tonight Show, and Conan was out of the picture (only to reappear later on TBS). I remember some news coverage at the time, with Conan being indignant that he was forced out, and never really given a chance.

So - this book gives you the background behind the whole deal - why Conan took over for Jay, why it didn't work, how the other late-show hosts (Letterman, Kimmel, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Craig Ferguson, and Jimmy Fallon) all dealt with the whole thing, and how they played small roles in the whole process as well. There's a lot in here about the negotiations that went on between Jay and NBC, Conan and NBC, and a little about Dave and CBS. As a lawyer, I found the negotiations interesting.

Overall, the entire book was good. There wasn't any part where I felt like it was "plodding", or including information solely for the sake of expanding the length (as sometimes I feel). It was a good "behind the scenes" look at the various players. If anything, it could have used a little bit more - maybe in the form of an update on how the new time slots have really worked out for everyone. But, a good read, nonetheless.

No Rest for the Dead

This one was hyped pretty highly. Even the book itself has a whole bunch of awesome reviews. Basically, the premise is they got 26 different famous mystery or thriller writers to come together and write a book together. The story takes place in San Francisco, and revolves around the death of a museum curator and his wife's later execution after being found guilty of the murder.

The introduction of the book makes it seem like there was going to be a big surprise ending at the end of the book, that you wouldn't be able to figure out until the end. The introducer even comments on the fact that a good mystery keeps you guessing until the end - without letting you figure out the plot resolution before you get there. However, they failed to do it here. Without letting you know too much, I still had at least 100 pages to go when I'd figured out what happened (or, at least, had a pretty good idea, that later proved to be right). While a few of the writers who were involved are good writers, that I've read alot (John Lescroart and Jeffrey Deaver particularly - almost anything from those two is very good!), there were many others that I'd heard of, but not really read much from. While the book itself didn't necessarily impress me - there were individual chapters from these individual authors that I did find very well-done. I may look up other books by those authors to see how their entire writing is.

Anyway - the story here is a good one, and the book was an interesting concept. I just figured out the conclusion to early to make it a 5-star for me. Probably more like 3.5.

Those Guys Have All the Fun

For those sports nuts out there (there has to be at least one somewhere who reads this blog!), this is the book for you, sort of. If you spend any time watching ESPN, and have for awhile, you'll find portions of this book interesting. Along the same lines of the "Live from New York" book detailed below, this book is almost entirely a mish-mash of interview quotes from folks who've been intimately involved with ESPN from the beginning of the network.

There's some really funny moments in the interviews - you can tell the folks really knew each other. At times, the author was good at juxtaposing the different views together - for instance you'd get a quote from someone saying "So and So would almost always do this whenever they were working with me." And then, immediately afterwards, the other guy saying something like "I would never have dreamed of doing that when I was working with him." Shows how people can have different views of their history - even if it's shared together.

Reading the book, sometimes you get bogged down in the negotiations over certain "big events" - i.e., NFL contracts, NASCAR contracts, affiliate cable station contracts, etc. As an attorney, I found those parts interesting. However, the average sports nut probably wouldn't care for those parts of the book. There are some other interesting parts about very specific stories that happened during the development of the channel. Overall, it was a good interesting read - helps put some of what they all do in perspective, and makes me want to watch it more now - just to see if I recognize more names.