Category: Books

I felt like I had to read something that was a bit more on the positive side than zombie or end of the world stuff. Just needed to mix it up a bit.

With nothing specific in mind, I perused the new arrivals section at the library. My goal was to get something happy but not be a super girly book. From the titles and covers, this was looking to be a very daunting task.

After much indecision I figured I’d try The Good Luck of Right Now. It was blueish and seemed safe.

It turned out to be a pretty good book too. Not quite as happy as I was expecting, but still happiness was found in the end for some unlikely characters.

The whole philosophy behind the title was interesting and does seem to make sense at times. The format of letters written to Richard Gere was interesting as well. Strange at first, but you catch on to it in no time.

Easily my favorite part was the mecca to Cat Parliament. I did chuckle a bit at the grandness of it all and the excitement it brought.

Different, but a good break from the recent books I’ve read.

My last trip to the library was right around the start of baseball season, so when I saw a new Pete Rose book I figured, why not? While I was a bit too young to know all the details of Pete Rose’s baseball scandals growing up, I was aware that they were going on. So I figured I could learn more about him and recall what all the fuss was about.

I did learn much about his early years and didn’t realize that he grew up right where he would end up playing the majority of his career. Besides his constant hustle which I knew all about, it must’ve been pretty exciting to have a local guy do so well for your team.

What did get a bit interesting was reading about the more modern Mr. Rose. I had no idea of his shady friends and even of his fairly recent reality TV show (didn’t sound too good). I’ve heard some negative stories from those who met him at card shows,etc. and a lot of it was matching up with what the author shared on him.

While I understand how wrong it is to bet on a sport that you are playing and playing/managing in, I can’t say I’m that surprised by his behavior. Not to justify it one bit, but athletes are extremely competitive individuals and for them to find themselves gambling a great deal doesn’t seem very unrealistic to me.

We treat them like their super beings and then eventually they begin to think that the rules of a typical person no longer apply to them. I’m surprised it doesn’t happy more often actually.

While the subject matter wasn’t incredibly interesting to me, the author did do and excellent job telling the story of Pete Rose’s rise and eventual fall from baseball.

Despite working in the tech field for just about 15 years now, I have to admit I really don’t know about the inventor(s) of the computer. I know a good amount about the invention of the personal computer, the Internet, and most modern software concepts. However, the computer itself not so much.

So this book turned out to be very interesting to me. A couple of the names did ring a bell once I heard them, but I learned so much of the early concepts that led to the invention of the computer.

I don’t think I can ever explain just how genius of a concept it was to base it off of the binary system. I can’t imagine how someone could have thought of going that route, when it’s a system that is rarely used in any field that I’m aware of. It’s simply genius, and I will always be amazed by it’s choice. It’s really amazing how it works and how flexible it turned out to be. Amazing.

While the book started a bit slowly for me, once World War II hit is where it really picked up. As horrible an event WWII was, the innovation that came out of the war efforts is astonishing. Not the weapons, and aircraft advances, but the need to compute for those advances that led to the computer.

Though I’ve read about it, I still have a hard to believing how those early computers were developed using the technology that was available at the time. For instance, vacuum tubes to store an on or off value? That’s insane to me, yet it worked! A very interesting read.

I was a bit stumped as to what read next while stumbling through the library and figured to give the massive The Stand by Stephen King a shot. I’ve heard very good things about it.

It was pretty awesome. Despite being easily a two hander book, it was so good that I went through it quite fast. While I’ve read a lot of exciting end of the world type of books (that sounds a bit more morbid than it really is), knowing when this was written it was even more appreciated. I felt like it laid the foundation for the genre that is so popular today.

My favorite character was Kojak the dog of course. Dogs are  great and I was surprised at just how large a role he went on to serve. He reminded me of many a loyal dog I’ve had the great pleasure to know.

While I was bummed by the demise of so many great characters, all had a very interesting path. It was really fun to follow along and find myself rooting for a few of them to make it through to the end.

Like any great book I found myself reading “just one more chapter” many times. Very good stuff! Highly recommended.

This book came highly recommended by the legendary Hank, plus growing up Mike Tyson was a pretty big deal. We’d watch his fights on HBO as family with my brothers and my dad, and were obsessed with playing Mike Tyson’s Punch Out! for the NES. It was a pretty big deal at the time.

The book was very interesting and insightful at his most interesting life. While I am very thankful that I cannot at all relate to his difficult upbringing, it was very, very interesting to read about. I couldn’t imagine having to go through all that craziness at such a young age, or really any age. A truly different world than mine, yet only a few hours away.

I really liked learning about his childhood and early rise in boxing. Not only did I begin to recall much of his early fights, but it also brought back many memories from my youth as I recalled the various fights on HBO. When a Mike Tyson fight was on, we were all glued to the TV and anxious to see another wild knockout. We’d usually invite some friends over to watch along as well. It really was a major event for us growing up.

Reading about his life toward the end of his career and after was a bit sad at times. I know he’s just a human like the rest of us, but watching him on TV when I was a little kid you kinda think he’s something more. Almost like a comic book character or something like that. Even though I know better, it’s still the memory I still have in some ways.

By no means a role model or someone I’d admire for the overwhelming majority of his life, I did enjoy reading about him a lot. This was a pretty solid book and it really brought back memories of fun times that were had watching him.

I’m pretty sure I had seen a positive review for this one somewhere recently, but can’t remember where or when. Maybe I was glancing a magazine at some point and came across a review, no sure. Either way I figured I’d give it a shot.

It was pretty interesting, and I must admit the the ending was a bit of a surprise. Didn’t really see all that coming at all.

It was kinda a mixture of a ghost story, mystery, and thriller I suppose to me. Different from the past couple of things I’ve been reading and that was a good thing.