DaWoolf

Gritty accounting of less than perfect person

Reviewed: 07-10-16

House of Nails (HON) is an interesting and entertaining read. As a baseball fan familiar with Lenny D, I found the bio engaging and rarely bored by. Lenny gives you the whole story and is not afraid to call out less that flattering stories of others: Davy Johnson, Mitch Williams, Robert DeNiro, Charlie Sheen, and Micky Rorke.

HON is not a baseball book. Instead, it's a tale of an extreme lifestyle. A lifestyle full of over confidence, drugs, sex, lavish spending, and an over aching desire for success. It's hard to believe that Lenny is the most honest person, but he upfront about his early use PEDs and umpire manipulation that all functioned to earn big money baseball contracts.

The end of the book (last 49 minutes) is somewhat disappointing. He never delivers on his promise to explain his hitting strategy and suggests his incarceration was 100% setup by the federal government due to a nasty letter he wrote. But in the end, I was fully entertained.

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Superior fiction

Reviewed: 05-25-15

Fourth of July Creek (FOJC) was in my audible wish list for 8 months before I pulled the triggered and made the purchase. The author, Smith Henderson, was publically lauded as the next big deal writer and received exemplary book reviews from almost all the major book critics. I was not at all disappointed with FOJC and should not have hesitated to engage this entraining and throughout provoking book. Henderson is a magnificent writer who brings the reader into situations and communities one would never have an opportunity to experience. FOJC is realistic, gritty, and full of deep meaningful concepts lying just underneath the facades of the main characters. The book can be enjoyed solely based on the story or as an examination of communities in rural America.

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8 people found this helpful

Bluntly Entertaining

Reviewed: 04-03-15

Barney Frank’s biography is a no holds barred tour de force overview of his 32 years as an elected representative. After just completing David Axelrod’s overly cautious autobiography, it was refreshing to read Frank’s take no prisoner’s bio. Frank is a gruff unapologetic left wing liberal who changed the culture of the country based on his progressive ideology. He admits to numerous mistakes, making many enemies, and taking pride in pissing off others. He was also one of the most effective members in the history of the House of Representatives who was the champion to the LBGT community.

The most interesting part of “Frank” is to witness his transition from a desperately closeted gay politician at the start of his career to the de facto LBGT spokesperson by the end of his 32 year reign. His energy and bare knuckles battling to protect the rights of others and fight all forms of discrimination for the LBGT community is inspiring and serves as an important history lesson. Frank also documents many political events he affected: Clinton Impeachment, Financial Reform, and Affirmative Action.

Overall, I was immensely entertained and educated by Frank. He provides insights to people, politics, and the political process that are unique and brutally honest. Frank also admits that his diction is very poor. Considering he narrates the book, this diction problem only adds to the character of the narrative.

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4 people found this helpful

Clever addition to the Zombie genre

Reviewed: 03-30-15

In the Zombie genre, the Girl with the Gifts (GWG) is original, fast paced, and well written. Mr. Carey is an effective and mature writer, which allows GWG to be enjoyed by readers not traditionally attracted to macabre literature. GWG works because the author is able to provide the reader multiple character perspectives. The book’s main character is both endearing and deadly, where the reader struggles to make a definitive judgement relative to her ultimate intentions. The same can be said about the supporting characters, where in their efforts to save humanity they exhibit behaviors deemed morally reprehensible. In GWG there is a narrative that makes it difficult to classify the heroes and villains.

Overall, GWG is an almost perfect audio book: Great narration, finite number of characters to follow, and great pacing. If you enjoy the horror genre and are slightly more sophisticated in your reading taste, GWG is your type of book.

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3 people found this helpful

Love letter to Obama

Reviewed: 03-15-15

Believer is pseudo autobiography of David Axelrod with a specialized emphasis on his experiences as Senior Advisor to President Obama. The book is best described as a re-telling of the Obama Senatorial and Presidential elections from the guy who designed and implemented the strategy. The story is entertaining and reminds an educated reader about how Obama basically came out of no-where to become President within 5 years of any public notoriety. Believer does suffer from two major faults: 1) Axelrod does not provide the informed reader any new or revealing information. If you are an avid reader of current events, Believer will read like cliff notes. 2) Axelrod paints a picture of President Obama as a near deity. According to Axelrod the three worst you can say about the President is he smokes, uses profanity, and occasionally refuses to listen his advisors. Don’t think me an Obama hater! I twice voted for him and consider him one of the most consequential President’s since LBJ. But my experiences indicate that no one is so perfect.

Overall, if you love the President and would like to relive the enthusiasm and excitement of the Obama elections, Believer is your book.

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13 people found this helpful

The agony and ecstasy of Obamacare

Reviewed: 03-02-15

Steven Brill provides a critical analysis of the development and implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Brill starts with the 2008 Democratic Primary, where Barak Obama seemed underprepared to provide a substitutive healthcare plan compared to Hillary Clinton. Recognizing his short-comings, Obama launches himself into the issue that will serve to define his legacy. Brill provides the details on the political deals, players, compromises, and negotiations that allowed the ACA to become law.

Brill does an expert job to describing the ACA registration rollout fiasco and the herculean efforts needed to create a functional enrollment website under immense political pressure. There are also numerous stories of ordinary people with significant health conditions and how they were affected by the ACA.

The problem with America’s Bitter Pill (ABP) is the big take away, although universal health coverage is terrific the ACA lacks the regulations to contain consumer costs. This issue is due to the fact that the ACA was written to protect the financial interests of insurance providers, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment suppliers. ABP reminded me of Otto von Bismarck’s famously stated quote “Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.”

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9 people found this helpful

Irving at the height of his powers

Reviewed: 03-02-15

John Irving gave us all a gift by consecutively writing four of the greatest novels in American history: The World According to Garp (1978), The Hotel New Hampshire (1981), The Cider House Rules (1985) and A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989). It is not that Irving has failed his readership since 1989, but the novels listed above represent the historic height of any author’s powers. Cider House is a must read novel for any lover of serious fiction. Irving is a master story teller and effortlessly weaves together socially significant themes into morally complex human dilemmas without sounding too preachy or erudite. The novel has a natural flow that permits the reader to evaluate complex human interactions and perplexities they otherwise would not experience.

Why should you read Cider House? 1) Cider House is an engaging and beautiful story about human motivation, child development, and lasting friendships, 2) Irving will challenge your belief system relative to abortion, family, and breaking the law for a social good, 3) You are reading a great author at the height of his writing powers, and 4) Cider House is just that good of a novel and better than the 1999 movie.

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8 people found this helpful

Drifting towards isolationism

Reviewed: 01-11-15

“The Accidental Superpower” (Superpower) is a surprisingly interesting and powerful analysis about the geopolitical state of the world. The author, Peter Zeihan, uses regional histories, geographic topographies, demographic trends, and economic data to make predictions about the conditions of specific countries between 2015 and 2030. The big winners are Mexico and the United States. The big losers are Russia and China. However, its Zeihan’s culmination of the data that makes his hypotheses so compelling.

Zeihan, who also expertly reads the book, does not stray far from the data when making predictions about the world’s future. “Superpower” opens with the author discussing his love and obsession with maps. Zeihan suggest that a county’s financial and military success can be strongly correlated to its native topography. The author posits that the United States is the supreme superpower due to its numerous internal rivers that result in the cheap transport of goods, large costal oceans that provide a natural defensive border from hostile nations, and fertile farmlands that can feed the masses. No other country or superpower comes close to having the topographical advantages inherent to the United States.

Although Zeihan predicts the United States will continue its dominant superpower status for the foreseeable future, there will be bumps along the way as the country moves toward a more isolationist political policy. The shift toward isolationism is in part a result of achieving energy independence through increased petroleum production due to the Shale revolution. Simply put, the United States will have minimum incentive to protect oceanic trading corridors when energy independence is achieved. This sets the occasion for global disorder through regional conflicts and wars as the United States loses interest in policing water corridors across the world.

Readers of nonfiction and geopolitics will very much enjoy “Superpower”. I provided a very small taste of what this powerful and interesting book has to offer readers.

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19 people found this helpful

Comparable to Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot

Reviewed: 01-05-15

“Lock In” is first and foremost a well-conceived detective story takes place in the near future centered in Washington DC. Too often writers of science fiction attempt to razzle-dazzle the readers with all sorts of freaky technology with little emphasis on the actual plot. John Scalzi develops an intriguing/well-organized plot with terrific character development.

The plot centers around a deadly flu pandemic that affects the masses worldwide know as Haden syndrome. Although much of the population die of this meningitis type disorder, others develop a Lock In, where victims lie in a constant state of physiological paralysis but retain full cognitive awareness. Because mother is the necessity of invention, robotic and bioengineered interventions permit Lock In victims to transfer their cognitive beings to vehicles outside their unresponsive bodies and re-integrate in society.

“Lock In” is comparable to Isaac Asimov’s collection of short stories titled” I, Robot”. If you are an Asimov fan and enjoy reading about the moral dilemmas associated with integrating advanced technologies (artificial intelligence) within society, I would highly recommend “Lock In”.

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2 people found this helpful

Naomi Klein kicking Arse

Reviewed: 11-22-14

“This Changes Everything” (TCE) is an in your face analysis about the impending global climate crisis and the forces conspiring to obfuscate its cataclysmic consequences. The author, Naomi Klein, takes on the climate deniers, Republican Party, Fossil Fuel industry, billionaire philanthropists, and even President Obama in light of the impending climate catastrophe. Klein’s main hypothesis is that conservatives of this country are more aware of the consequences of climate changes resulting from human application of fossil fuels than any other group. However, the interventions needed to thwart the effects of carbon induced climate change are an anathema to the principles of the consecutive movement. These interventions include the very intrusive government regulation of the energy industry and an individual’s use of various energy products. The interventions needed to slow down the earth’s warming must include increased taxation in forms of carbon taxes to fund clean energies (wind and solar), development of mass transportation systems to negate the use cars, and the elimination of global consumer consumption (The Farmer’s Market to replace Walmart).

Klein suggests that conservatives would rather roast to death in a fossil fuel induced heatwave than succumb to the needed government regulation to manage man made climate change. For these reasons the fossil fuel industry has funded various climate denier associations and conferences in an effort of cast public doubt about the science related to human induced global warming. This is despite that fact that “97 percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities, and most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position” (http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/).

TCE is a great book! Her prose, writing style, ability to clearly explain complex scientific research, and maintain the engagement of the reader is exquisite. The reader can feel Klein’s desperateness in attempting to explain the realities and certitude of global warming on the future of the world’s economy, food sources, wildlife, and people. She is furiously attempting to wake up the American public from its comatose state of climate apathy and clear out all of the noise associated with this critically important subject.

I would strongly recommend you read this critically important book. TCE will open your eyes to the most pressing challenge facing human existence today and force you into action.
Another book that echoes a similar theme related to human motivation to change behavior for long-term good is “The Impulse Society”.

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7 people found this helpful