WHALE TALK by Chris Crutcher

Whale Talk, a young adult sports novel, was over-the-top and bordered on the melodramatic because of the many circumstances packed into one book, but the themes were deep and thought-provoking. It touched on racism, adoption, child abuse, bullying, dealing with death, living with guilt, high school relationships, fear, special needs children, anger issues, murder, peer pressure, romance, and of course, sports.

In this much-more-than-a-sports-story, an adopted mixed-race boy is the only person of color in his school. He does not participate in organized sports even though he’s a great athlete. His snubbing of school sports annoys many of the athletes with letter jackets. Letter jackets are the ultimate symbol of success and status in the school and community.

The protagonist, T.J., organizes a swim team, though the school has no pool. He puts together a group of misfit swimmers (one special-needs boy, one surly student with a prosthetic leg, one overweight boy, and others) and begins the quest to earn each of them a letter jacket.

On the bus to and from swim meets, with a sage bus driver/friend/coach/homeless man and a teacher/coach who delights in bucking the system to help the young outsiders grow and succeed, the boys guardedly share bits of themselves with one another. We learn of child abuse and loneliness and more on the bus rides (think: Breakfast Club).

I loved this book. My favorite character was T.J.’s father. Overcoming a horrendous accident resulting in the death of a child formed him into a wise, gentle, forgiving person full of smart insight and advice for his son.

A complaint about this book is the overly exaggerated stereotypes (good ole boy athletes and bullies), but the author did a good job, through T.J.'s father's empathy, of explaining why the bullies are the way they are.

This story is written for young adults (teenagers). I am far from that, but immensely enjoyed reading the novel.

JJ

MEDIUM RAW by Anthony Bourdain

 

It was never my intent to read Medium Raw. I had read Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential and enjoyed that one. That book talks about Bourdain's early days as a cook and the harsh life that it is for the majority of cooks and the other folk in their kitchens. It was interesting and eye-opening and helped launch Bourdain onto the path he now walks; that of glamour travelogue/guest judge/fancy schmancy pants cook. Instead of hanging in the low-end kitchens of his younger days, he now is part of the posh three-star Michelin restaurant kitchens (as an eater, not a cook), festival attending, being on television crowd. Well, really it's just a crowd of one; him. Bourdain has crafted a unique place for himself in the food chain (pun intended).

The subtitle of Medium Raw, "A bloody valentine to the world of food and the people who cook" wasn't really appealing either. It seemed as if the book might be a "bite the hand who feeds you" type of approach. I do like Bourdain but I didn't believe that I would get much out of reading this book. I'm not going to be eating at the same restaurants or traveling to the same countries or sharing a table with people he does. He's entertaining to watch and listen to (and, in Kitchen Confidential, to read) but that didn't inspire me to want to read Medium Raw.

Michael Ruhlman did, though. The author of two great books on cooking that I have read, Ratio and Making of a Chef, posted this review on his website. Ruhlman's anticipatory take was similar to mine:

"...I thought great, fine. (Another rehash of travel stories and opinion on foie gras and chefs, detritus sloughed off during too-long plane rides and passing time in airports. Repurposing material because he’d taken a chunk of cash from his publisher and had to deliver something.)"

Ruhlman then goes on to state how wrong he is and how admirable he finds Bourdain's writing skills and the book he produced.

So I read it. And didn't like it. The chapters have a feel of essays and don't move well from one to another. There's no middle ground with Bourdain, either, in his viewpoint of things. He either likes it or hates it. Given the role he plays in the food world, this makes sense. Like so much of our media today, it's not enough to report on something, you have to take a side to keep conversation/arguments going. I hate that. Nothing is ever clear cut and the fact that something can be controversial indicates that there is more than one side. I like to see that side, too. You don't get both sides from Bourdain very often.

I also think it's a shame that someone who writes as well as Bourdain (and shame on Ruhlman, too, in his blog post) that he feels the need to utilize profanities with the incredible frequency that he does. It feels like he overuses profanities in order to remind readers (and maybe himself) that he isn't all high-falutin', that he came up on the other side of the tracks, and that while he may dine with people worth millions, deep down he's still the heavy-drinking, chain-smoking blue-collar guy he once was.

Bourdain does talk about his past a good bit in the book and the final chapter is an update on the people he wrote about in Kitchen Confidential. But in the end, I never feel like there is any point to this book. It does feel like it was about taking a chunk of change from the publisher. Perhaps if you are a die-hard food person and eat at David Chang's restaurants and care about the James Beard awards and the foie gras controversy, then sure, this might be a good book. To the average person, I can't recommend it.

--Jon

DROWNED BOY by Jerry Gabriel

I prefer to read novels, but another scan of the library’s new book shelf showed the usual selection of mysteries and romances. In keeping with my philosophy that the smaller the author’s picture on the dust jacket, the more I will enjoy the book, I selected a thin volume of short stories, Drowned Boy by Jerry Gabriel. This is his first book of fiction for which he won the 2008 Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction.

Eight short stories are loosely linked together by a main character, his high school years, and his rural Ohio home town. I liked how the stories flowed together, making the book more like a novel than individual short stories.

Nate Holland is 8 years old in the first story and 24 in the last. Each story depicts some sort of loss: an older brother leaving home, an ace high school baseball player who goes into a slump, deaths of a father and a class mate, the burning down of a house, a breakup with a girl friend. But the stories are not sad and heavy. In each story the characters cope, reap some understanding of life, grow, and move on.

SS

THIS BOOK IS OVERDUE by Marilyn Johnson

 

Marilyn Johnson's book This Book is Overdue is about librarianship in the 21st century and the challenges and changes that librarians face in a world of rapidly developing technology. Johnson is not a librarian herself which enables her to write with a very unbiased look at the changes going on in the field.

Some of the changes are encouraging to me, some disappointing. Some are just downright odd. Librarianship in the realm of Second Life....not interested. The chapter on libraries in New York City made me long to be in an area where there are library positions (even though NYC libraries are facing the same budget cuts so many other libraries are). Other chapters examine privacy issues, how librarians don't look like librarians any more, blogs, digitization, archiving and more.

This isn't necessarily a book for librarians, though. It's not a how-to manual and is not dry by any stretch of the imagination. If you use a library at all, I think you'll like the book. And if you don't use libraries, well, what the heck is wrong with you?

--Jon

LIVE FOR YOUR LISTENING PLEASURE by David Sedaris

I have been a fan of Sedaris since the beginning of the century (Me Talk Pretty One Day). As both an author and essayist, I found him to be hysterical. At least for a while. In the middle part of the decade, he stopped being funny to me and started to show more of a bitter side to him. In the last couple of years, funny again.

The director here, Kristin, is also a fan and she had purchased this CD, Live for Your Listening Pleasure for the library, then listened to it when she had to go on a trip. She came back and gave it to me to listen to saying it was extremely funny.

It is. Sedaris starts with a fable using two critters (and I believe his newest book is mostly, if not entirely, such stories). He goes on to talk about his trip to Costco with his brother-in-law which is absolutely hilarious. My other favorite is his discussion of non-natives speaking foreign words with an accent. The CD concludes with some notes from a book tour and then a story concerning his family, always a source of Sedaris' humor.

Really entertaining stuff and with only one CD, it is very brief. Even if for some reason you hate it, it's short enough that the pain will be minimal. In all likelihood, though, you will be wanting more.

--Jon

REWORK by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

Rework was a long time coming for me to read. I'm a big fan of the 37Signals guys, especially David Heinemeier Hansson, and have read and listened to a huge amount of their thoughts on various topics. It was because I am so well versed in their theories that I did not purchase this book. I was afraid of shelling out twenty bucks and not learning anything new. So I waited for it to hit the library system.

The book was published in March and the system got two copies, only one of which was being loaned out to other libraries in the system, in April. I put in a hold request but May rolled around and my spot in the hold queue had still not been reached. Being as I was headed for New York for the summer, I removed myself from the list. When I returned in August, I put myself back on the hold list and finally, in October, the book arrived for me at the library.

Sadly, it wasn't worth the wait. I've read it or heard it all before. I was initially shocked by the size of the book (288 pages) but the amount of content across those pages is minimal. The book could contain the same information in half the pages. There are a dozen chapters, each of which is broken into multiple sections. Each section has a full page graphic for the chapter heading and then the text of each section runs about two pages. With only two pages (with huge margins), you're not getting any indepth content. The book almost misses being a collection of pithy sayings just because they do write few paragraphs about each section concept.

That being said, if you're new to 37Signals and don't want to wade through interviews, blog posts and videos to understand their way of thinking, it's nice to have it all in one place. You can even get a lot of it free in their first book, Getting Real.

If, like me, you're well versed in the business and design philosophies of Fried and Hansson, it doesn't make much sense to get this. If you're interested in a fresh new approach to running a business, it's definitely worth a look.

--Jon