December 29, 2006

Boot's Top Books 2006 - #5-1

5. Saturday - Ian McEwan

The more I think about this book the lower it goes on the rankings. Look for it tomorrow and you may not find it here. Some awesome writing takes place here though and it's a post 9/11 book that doesn't scream "look at me, look how creative I can be about the terrorist attacks, look how I'm dealing with it!" Example: as the main character sees a plane out of his window he remarks, "there gathered round the innocent silhouette of any plane a novel association. Everyone agrees, airliners look different in the sky these days..." And even though the book takes place on the day of an anti-war rally it's not overtly political - in fact, it is more a wonderful meditation on individuals and culture, connection and disconnection, and the arbitrariness of fate and violence on both a national and personal scale. On second thought, maybe it should move up the charts...

4. Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip - Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov

The last book that I read in 2006 ended up being one of the best. It was a total impulse buy from Cabinet magazine. Basically, these two Russian photo-journalists come to the United States in the 1930's to try to find the real "America." They buy a car in New York and drive out to San Francisco then head back through the South. The pictures (he used a Leica) are so artless that they are awesome; just snapshots really, and the commentary is priceless and spot-on, innocently charming but fool of satirical snootiness. They seem particularly obsessed with American advertising (refreshing Coca-Cola, burma shave signs, political posters). "We withstood it for a month. We didn't drink Coca-Cola. But then advertising got to us. We experienced the drink. Yes, Coca-Cola does refresh the throat, stimulate the nerves, and has a salutary effect on a weakened constitution. How could we not say that, when for three months it's been drilled into our skulls every day, every hour, and every minute?" So how did they find America? "The most advanced technology in the world and a horrifyingly oppressive, stupefying social order." I wish I could buy you a copy.

3. The Path Between the Seas - David McCullough

Can anything be more impressive than the engineering of the Panama Canal? The Panama canal was an essential part of American empire-building and I expected to hear about that as I read this book, however, the focus here is a tale of disease and hardship was. The sheer mechanics of building this project were amazing. The construction and political decisions will make the reader cringe at times. It would be easy to attribute the ultimate success to superior American ingenuity and resolve, however, while this did indeed play a part, the impact of a national, government financed effort (as opposed to the privately financed French effort) coupled with huge strides in medical and mechanical technology in the intervening years probably was the most compelling reason for American success. Get this: when work was at its height, the US was excavating at Panama the equivalent of a Suez Canal every three year. However, one of the least impressive things about the big dig was the understanding of disease. To protect themselves from the ants attacking, family put everything (plants, bed posts, food) inside of bowls of water which in effect were breeding grounds for mosquitos and yellow fever.

2. Bering - Orcutt Frost

When I worked at the Barnes years ago people used to recommend books to me all the time - "You just have to read the Purpose Driven Life; the DaVinci Code is to die for; have you heard of the new Patterson?" I, of course, never listened - good for them that they like trash fiction and that they are at least reading. Anyway, this is one book that I actually listened to a customer on and it was incredible. I read it in February and it still has the sticking power to be the top non-fiction book that I read this year. You can read about Bering in this previous post; however, this fact is something that seems awesome. Scurvy is among the most easily cured of all diseases known, yet from the 15th to the 20th centuries more human beings dies from scurvy that from any other disease. For as incredible and imposing a figure Bering is in this book, the doctor, Steller, ends up being the true protagonist by administering to the crew's ailments and helping to improve their spirits until they can make it home.

1. The Road - Cormac McCarthy

This book easily won the "Booty" for best book of the year, it seems to be making it into a lot of top ten lists this year. To be honest, I was at first a little skeptical about this book. The whole premise, a man and boy walk across the land after the apocalypse, seems a little too Beckett-esque to be any good. Plus McCarthy just came out with a book in 2005, so another book in less than a year seemed a little Stephen Kingy. However, it is a true masterpiece in subtle characterization. It has one of those perfect endings: one that at first leaves you feeling a little cheated but then when you stop to think about it, and it makes perfect sense (a la 1984).

Well, there you have it.
My top 10 books of 2006; 5 non-fiction, 4 fiction, and 1 lit crit ... Stay tuned for honorable mentions...

December 27, 2006

Boot's Top Books 2006 - #10-6

10. The Crusades Through Arab Eyes - Amin Maalouf

I read this book as part of the History Book Club at Barnes and Noble, and I thought this book was pretty average until the last few chapters when Maalouf ties the crusades to modern thinking. The author points out that at the time of the Crusades, the Arab world was actually culturally, scientifically, and intellectually ahead of the rest of the world. The Franj army invaded and took not only land but also their ideas. The ideas went back to Europe, were improved upon, and led to the rise of Western power. When the Arab world thinks about getting back to a time when they were superior to the Western world they don't look at adopting our advances and improving on them, they look backward at a time when the mindset was even more militantly anti-Western. There were many books published in 2006 that deals with the Middle East question; however, very few of them look back at history to see that the crusades continue to this day.

9. Fortress of Solitude - Jonathan Lethem

I received this book as an advanced reader copy at the Barnes. The first half of this book is an awesome meditation on the dynamics of growing up. It took me a while to read this book because it begins to drag a little in the middle when the kids grow up and begin to navigate the adult world where difficult choices can have very real consequences. I think the influx of magical realism (super ring, kids flying) actually hurts the tone of the book even if it may augment the theme. Ultimately, As She Climbed Across the Table may be a better (and shorter) Lethem work.


8. Housekeeping Vs. the Dirt - Nick Hornby

How can you not love a book with a sentence like this? "I would like my personal reading map to resemble a map of the British Empire circa 1900; I'd like people to look at it and think, How the hell did he end up right over there? ... I'm always reading works of bloody literature; I'm never reading about migration patterns." I'm so sick of the New Criticism that says a book must stand outside of its time period both in reading and writing. Hornby acknowledges his personal prejudices and appreciates that certain books hit us exactly when we need them instead of just trudging through a wish list of books that should be read. I tried to read Gatbsy three times before I finally got through it - I wasn't ready for it at the time. It is now one of my favorites.

7. Walking to Vermont - Christopher Wren

Speaking of personal prejudices, I love Vermont and would love to walk the Long Trail up the spine of Vermont sometime soon. When Wren retired from the New York Times, he decided to walk to his new house in Vermont from New York City, and instead of half-assing it like Bryson does in a Walk in the Woods, Wren actually walks the whole darn thing. Plus he does it while recounting field assignments that he had for the paper. Something about being in a bunker in Vietnam and having to make the choice between letting rats continue to have sex on top of him or make noise by shooting the rats and risk revealing the troops position - how can you forget a book like that? But the walking to Vermont part is actually even more engaging because it doesn't try to get all preachy about why the trek is important or why the environment is good or anything like that; it's a well-told chronicle of his walk.

6. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

I'm a little embarrassed to be putting this on the list. It seems like I should have been able to cross this off the list sooner. In fact, this is the first Steinbeck I've ever read. Sure, most of the characters are flat and static and the foreshadowing would have to actually reach out of the book and punch you in the nose to be more obvious. But for some reason I'm becoming fascinated by the time period of the Great Depression/Dust Bowl so this nice little story about the friendship of George and Lennie hit me right where I was hankering.


****Well, that's numbers 6-10. The top 5 will be coming shortly, as well as 3 books that I was surprised didn't make the list.****

December 20, 2006

Time Out

I finally got my Internet back tonight. It's been broke for about a week because squirrels chewed through the wires outside; K said it took the guy like two and a half hours to find and fix the problem.

I'm working on my top 10 books for the year post; I only read 28 in last twelve months but there are some prime contenders for the 2-9 spots. Number 1 was a lock the moment I finished it.

December 5, 2006

The Ref


To say that being a referee for a Special Olympics High School basketball game is "interesting" may be the understatement of the year. This is my first time ever doing such a thing and I think some people thought that I was too much of a sarcastic jerk to do it well, but I had a smile on my face the whole time. It was awesome helping students understand a game that I love watching and playing. Sure there were times where flagrant traveling and double dribbling occurred but for the most part parents understood that I let their kid get away with as much as everyone else. And sure, there were times that I had to dodge the kid that would just run randomly around the court or the kid that would just stand in the paint biting his hands. Would I do it again? You betcha.