THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS by Jon Ronson

I picked up The Men Who Stare at Goats because I had been hearing good things about the Jon Ronson's new book, The Psychopath Test. I knew this had been made into a movie starring George Clooney but I had heard pretty much nothing about that. George Clooney and zero fanfare? That seemed unusual. So I wasn't sure what I was getting into when I picked this book up.

A big ole mess of nonsense is what I got into. The book is sort of about the U.S. military trying to use psychic powers. Ronson tracks down lots of people, most of whom deny things or point in the other direction. There's not a whole lot of facts. Certainly not much in the way of a paper trail and no smoking guns, dead bodies, or anything else resembling something one would call proof. Maybe the most solid portion is about psychological tactics used at Guantanamo Bay. That at least seems believable given what has come to light over the years.

The book is all over the place making me wonder how on earth this was turned into a movie (a question that does not make me curious enough to watch the movie).

While reading this I also saw Ronson interviewed on The Daily Show. I wasn't impressed there either. Wasn't impressed with this book. Won't be reading The Psychopath Test.

--Jon

THE BLIND SIDE by Michael Lewis

I really wouldn't think that I would be disappointed by a Michael Lewis book, especially when I had read the wonderful piece on the subject matter that spawned the book (which can be found at this great new (to me) site, Byliner), and especially when I enjoyed Liar's Poker and Moneyball so much.

So why didn't I like The Blind Side?

Nothing that had to with Lewis, per se. What made me dislike the book was Michael Oher, about whom the book is about, and others after him got the treatment they did because they had some sort of athletic ability. Sure, it's nice to be able to pull kids from bad settings, broken homes, no finances. But when you're only doing it because the kid can play on the football field or basketball court, and strings are being pulled left and right to enable the kid to eke by academically so that he can put his skills to use for the school/team, who is it really helping?

Even for the longshot kid like Oher, who finds his way to millions of dollars as a professional athlete, what good is it? Where will they be when they can't play anymore and the money is spent? Right back where they began it all.

For those of you don't know the story, I recommend reading the article above. But in a nutshell, Michael Oher was a big athletic kid who grew up in a poor part of Memphis, Tennessee. He had numerous brothers and sisters, same mother, multitude of fathers (I seem to recall counting seven). Didn't go to school. Didn't learn to read. He was friends with a kid whose father was trying to get him into a rich private school. He brought along Oher in an attempt to do the same for him. Because of Oher's size, exemptions were made so he could attend. His size and athleticism made him an ideal left tackle, a position in football that is important because it protects the quarterback's blind side (assuming a right-handed throwing quarterback).

One of the families at the school adopts Michael and then later they start a foundation to help allow underprivileged athletes follow in Oher's footsteps.

Special treatment for athletes is nothing new and so it probably shouldn't bother me. But it did if for no other reason than you have these people with money and a willingness to help and instead of doing something that could help multitudes, they are singling out kids who can run fast or who are big. Athletes get hurt, their talents don't develop. The percentage that make it big is very low. Why not promote learning? Why not develop skills that can be used to help others in a manner other than entertainment? It just frustrated me.

And it's frustrating because I live in a state whose politicians seem to find ways to cut funding to schools and libraries and restrict our ability to learn. Why educate our children (and our adults) when we can outsource all our jobs to educated people in other countries who work cheaper? It seems to me that society's priorities are all out of whack and it stems, in part, because of a misuse of resources.

Am I carrying my frustrations about the world around me over to my frustrations with the subject matter of this book? I don't think so. I think it's connected. Regardless, I can't recommend this book. But Michael Lewis in general, I can. Check out one of his other books or read his stuff on Byliner.

--Jon

SEX ON THE MOON by Ben Mezrich

The title Sex on the Moon annoyed me from the start. The book is not at all about sex. It is about the moon, or at least pieces of the moon. But, as they say, sex sells.

What drew me to this book (published in 2011, brand new to the Strasburg-Heisler Library) was the subtitle: The Amazing Story Behind the Most Audacious Heist in History. Amazing, Audacious, Heist – these words better describe the book than s-e-x.

Oh, and I was interested in the author: Ben Mezrich. Mezrich’s Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions (which was the premise for the movie "21") captivated me. That story entered my mind and danced in my thoughts as I went throughout my normal day (my definition of a great read!). Ben Mezrich is also the author of the popular The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal, which I haven’t read yet, but surely will.

Back to Sex on the Moon, the true story of a NASA intern who managed to remove a whole safe full of lunar samples from the Johnson Space Center. Thad Roberts, a Utah college student, landed a dream job as a co-op at NASA. Intelligent and driven, Roberts dreamt of success and someday going to Mars as an astronaut. A fun-loving adventurer who thrived on attention from colleagues, Thad often had difficulty distinguishing between reality and fantasy. It was with this skewed view of reality and a healthy dose of testosterone, passion, fearlessness, and a giant ego that he devised and carried out a plan to steal moon rocks from an esteemed scientist.

Mezrich did not disappoint in delivering a nail-biting story. Granted, stealing moon samples from NASA would be a fascinating tale no matter the storyteller, but Mezrich’s writing style is exceptionally entrancing. Some have complained that his account is one-sided – Thad Roberts’ side to be specific. But since this is a book, not a news story, I don’t care. I’m a sucker for a great story. I figure if you are brazen enough to rob NASA of priceless national treasures, you may get a book written about you.

My rating: 5 stars
Based on my newly devised rating system:
1 star – Yawn or horrible writing
2 stars – Ick but slightly higher than horrible and boring
3 stars – Respect the author but it’s just not my thing
4 stars – Like the book but didn’t obsess about it
5 stars – Thought about the book day and night, hated for it to end, talked about it with anyone who would listen

JJ

A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD by Jennifer Egan

If you haven't noticed from my reviews on here, I'm not a huge fan of popular authors or books. I like books published by independent presses. I like authors who publish sporadically and don't churn out books on a regular basis for a check. I also tend to avoid books that gain in popularity. Between reviews and overhearing others talk about them, I usually can get the gist and when there are a bajillion other books out there to read, I'm not going to feel badly about not reading it.

The winner of last year's Pulitzer Prize, A Visit from the Goon Squad, is one of those rare books where I knew a lot of people who had read it before I did, I had read a lot about it, and I still wanted to read it. Most of the people I talked to did not like this book but for most of those folk, the reason was because they didn't like the layout of the chapters. Each chapter takes place in a different point of time and involves different characters. There's really a lack of fluidity in that regard. It's almost like a collection of short stories. However, they all tie into one another and although it really takes until the end of the novel to tie them all together, I found it satisfying and actually enjoyed the style. To me it was a bit of a puzzle to figure out how what I was reading would tie in to what I had already read.

The book is primarily about people involved in the music industry. The focus is definitely on the people with music being the bond that ties them together. It's an interesting look at how people change, what the passing of time does to us, and the power of coincidence and luck in our lives. That final aspect, luck, could be really abused by the author since she tries to tie all the loose endings together. It would have been very easy to end this book in a very sappy way. To Egan's credit, she doesn't, which I found to be much more satisfying.

I liked this book a lot but I don't expect to find it on my top ten of the year when all is said and done. I didn't think it was that great of a story. The character development is the focus and Egan is really good in that regard. The style is different although I am finding more and more books with the multiple character/time frame point of reference. I certainly recommend giving it a shot for that reason alone.

--Jon

CASTLE by Robert Lennon

Castle is a book that I couldn't really decide if I liked or not. It was spooky. A guy buys a house with a huge amount of land (over six hundred acres of woods) in the town where he grew up in upstate New York. The guy isn't all that friendly and not many people in town recognize him. When he interacts with folks, he seems to find a way to alienate them.

Despite growing up in the town, he doesn't have family there and the reader is left to wonder why on earth he came back. As he fixes his house up, he finds that he can see a giant rock outcropping out on his property. When he checks the property map, he is surprised to discover that where the outcropping is, smack in the middle of his land, is a plot of land owned by someone else whose name has been removed from the records. There are no points of entry to this area. All is confuseded.

Upon investigating the outcropping, he discovers a castle. To talk about it anymore would ruin the story. The outcome involves the discovery of the narrator's past which is a wacky one indeed. As a matter of fact, it is so out there, it sort of ruins the story for me.

I liked the writing, though. I wanted to press on throughout the story. Everything is detailed well but still the story is mysterious. Who is this guy? Why did he come back? What's the castle all about? Why does this guy alienate everybody? You feel like you're getting a lot of information but you can't seem to piece it together. When the pieces are put together, you're left feeling like this was some other puzzle. It was just really unsatisfying for me.

Ultimately, I think I didn't like this book. The writing style couldn't overcome a lousy denouement.

--Jon

I AM THE MARKET by Luca Rastello

Subtitled "How to Smuggle Cocaine by the Ton in Five Easy Lessons", I was hoping I might pick up some sort of business lesson, even if I'm not a drug dealer myself. At the very least I hoped for an interesting story. My hopes were dashed all around.

The book seems to be one extensive interview of a former semi-successful coke smuggler by an Italian journalist. The coke smuggler himself would tell you he was more than successful but being as he's saying that from prison, I'll disagree.

The dealer is full of himself, the interview seemed as if it was lightly edited, and outside of some interesting tidbits, but not necessarily facts, I didn't enjoy it that much. Despite the title, each of the five chapters isn't really a lesson in and of itself. It's just a bunch of rambling about the drug trade from the dealer. The author of the book, an Italian journalist, interviewed the dealer and then appears to not have edited the transcription in the least. Or maybe he did, which would be even more sad.

The book is a reliving of the guy's glory days and he talks about some of the ways he smuggled cocaine which are no longer valid because they've been shut down by law enforcement.

About the only thing good about this book are some of the interesting unsubstantiated claims the guy makes like the "fact" that the drug trade is keeping Florida's banks afloat or that law enforcement officials often buy drug sniffing dogs from the drug cartels themselves. If true, well, yes, that is quite interesting. But how are you going to substantiate the claim?

Given the lack of anything remotely concrete, the amount of braggadocio, and the fact that five chapters does not equate five lessons if there is no structure, I cannot really recommend this book, even if it is short.

--Jon

ASSASSINATION VACATION by Sarah Vowell

I can't speak for my co-workers but I just got out of the habit of doing book review here. I'm going to try and catch up with Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation.

I kept coming across reviews of Sarah Vowell's new book, Unfamiliar Fishes, and it looked mighty good. It's a history of Hawaii, which, despite my operating hawaii-baseball.com, isn't a topic in and of itself that I would want to read a book about.

Then again, I wouldn't really want to read a book about presidential assassinations which this book is about. Nonetheless, I did.

Sarah Vowell is weird. I like that about her. Her writing reminded me a lot of another weird woman writer, Mary Roach. You have to be weird to be researching the killings of presidents. And not only researching, but visiting all the pertinent places. Not just where the killings took place, but the homes of the presidents and the killers. And museums that have fragments of body parts from those involved.

What sets apart the book from your typical delving into dead presidents is that Vowell has fun. And she definitely seems like someone who isn't going to enjoy something on her own so she drags along/tricks friends and relatives to accompany her to all the places. Her trips with her nephew are especially entertaining.

I like her writing, too. It is very conversational. I don't like her overuse of the word "lousy" to mean abundant, as in "This place is lousy with tourists". She is also very zealous in her politics which could kill a lot of people's interest in the book. But she's honest and doesn't care who knows.

The book itself is broken into four chapters. The longest and first covers Lincoln's assassination. That is followed by Garfield and McKinley and then the final chapter wraps things up with a semi-focus on angel of presidential death, Robert Todd Lincoln. His father was killed, he saw Garfield be shot and he supposedly was on the scene where McKinley was shot soon after the attack.

This was a fun book and I expect I'll read more of Vowell somewhere down the road.

--Jon