The Books of 2014

One of the (many) joys of retirement is having the time to read as many books, and as many kinds of books as you want.  In 2014, I read 43 books.  Yes, I actually keep track of such things.  And, yes, I will confess that there were some, but not many, among those 43 books, that I either skimmed, or never finished, because, I am doing this for my pleasure, and if I find I'm not enjoying it, I toss it!

Anyway, looking back at the list one more time, here are some recommendations for you, just in case you missed them the first time around, or if perhaps I didn't mention them in an earlier Grandstander post.

Non-Fiction

"Their Life's Work" by Gary W. Pomerantz.  A book about the Pittsburgh Steelers dynastic teams of the 1970's.  If you are a life-long Steelers fan and think that there is nothing more that could possibly be said about these teams (as I did), think again.  It has been called the football version of Roger Kahn's classic "Boys of Summer", and a higher compliment could not be paid.   You will gain new respect for Chuck Noll and Joe Greene after reading this.  A definite MUST READ for football fans in general and Steelers fans in particular.

"One Summer - America, 1927" by Bill Bryson.  The always entertaining Bryson takes a look of momentous and (seemingly) mundane events that occurred over the course of the summer of 1927.  Fascinating, informative, and immensely readable.

"Pedstrianism" by Matthew Algeo.  A look at a spectator sport that swept America in the late 19th century, made celebrities of the athletes, and even led to the use of performance enhancing drugs, but then disappeared from the landscape of the American sporting scene almost as quickly as it appeared.  

"Where Nobody Know Your Name" by John Feinstein.  A look at life in baseball's minor leagues over the course of one season.  Feinstein focuses on about a dozen minor league folks: players, managers, an umpire, and even a broadcaster.  Fabulous book that will reinforce your knowledge, in case you've forgotten it, that ANY player who makes it to the Major Leagues has truly earned it.


"FDR's Funeral Train" and "The Hidden White House" by Robert Klara.  Remarkably detailed and endlessly fascinating books on Presidential history by Klara.  The first one describes the funeral train that left Warm Springs, GA in April 1945 with the dead body of President Roosevelt and traveled to Washington DC and Hyde Park NY and back to Washington in the space of four days, and how one Presidency ended and another began.  The second describes the renovation and rebuilding of the White House that took place during the Truman Administration from 1949-52.

Fiction

I read a number of novels over the course of the year, including those from perennial favorites Jonathan Kellerman, John Sandford, Jeffery Deaver, Carl Hiaasen, and even Agatha Christie, but I want to focus instead on the works of Max Allan Collins.

I have written about the incredibly prolific Collins in this space on many occasions.  I first discovered him in 2013 when I read one of his "historical mysteries" called "The Titanic Murders", and I have been hooked ever since.  He has written literally hundreds of novels and short story collections, and, frankly, not all of them are to my taste, but I enjoy his aforementioned historical mysteries, and I absolutely love his series of of private detective novels involving the character of private eye Nathan Heller.

Heller started as a Chicago police officer in the early 1930's and then became a PI. The stories are written as first person "memoirs" of Heller's, and they recount his numerous cases involving real historical figures such as Al Capone, Frank Nitti, John Dillinger, Huey Long, Bugsy Siegel, Charles Lindberg, Marilyn Monroe, Jack Ruby, and Jack and Bobby 
Kennedy (yes, Heller gets involved in the JFK assassination!).  You have to suspend disbelief when you consider that ONE guy could be involved in the investigation of seemingly every major crime of the twentieth century, and even Collins agrees that this is ridiculous, but once you do, you are in for some very entertaining reading.

In 2014, I read ten books by Collins.  Six of those were Nate Heller novels.  In all, Collins has written fifteen Nate Heller novels and published three collections of Heller short stories. I have read all but four of those novels and all of the short story collections, and my goal for 2015 is to finish reading the Heller Canon in its entirety.

You don't have to read these novels in order of publication, but if you want to start, I would suggest that you start with the first one, "True Detective", wherein Nate gives you a lot of his biographical detail which is helpful as you read subsequent novels.  After that, you can pretty much dive in anywhere along the way.

If you like mystery and detective fiction, you won't be sorry.

Here's to great reading for everyone in 2015!

Catching Up - "Captain Phillips"; "One Summer - America 1927"

I have been away from the keyboard for several days (surely, you've noticed), so I need to catch you up with a couple of reviews, one movie, one book.

The movie is the "Captain Phillips" starring Tom Hanks and directed by Paul Greengrass. Finally caught up with this one on Blue-ray DVD.  Great movie about the capture of a United States merchant ship by Somali pirates, and the subsequent rescue efforts by the US Navy. Suspense and excitement galore in this one and an absolutely tremendous performance by Tom Hanks in the title role.

The film has been justifiably nominated for Best Picture of the Year by the Motion Picture Academy, and actor Barkhad Abdi, who played the captain of the Somali pirates, has received a Best Supporting Actor nomination.  Greengrass did not receive Best Director nomination, and in an unbelievable omission, Hanks did not receive a nomination for Best Actor.  You know what I have to say to that?

Seriously, I look at all the Best Actor nominees, I haven't seen all the performances, and surely they deserve their nods, but I don't know how Hanks could have been left out.

This marks the second movie this season where Hanks has put forth a terrific performance - "Saving Mr. Banks" being the other - and looking at these two movies, plus his career body of work, one has to say that Hanks is among the very best actors of his generation.  Is it too much of a reach to say that he belongs in the same breath with other "actors of their generation" such as Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, and Paul Newman?  I don't think it is.

******

The book I just read is Bill Bryson's "One Summer - America, 1927".

As the title suggests, Bryson - and if you've never read Bill Bryson's books, you are missing out on a very informative and entertaining writer - documents all of the momentous events that took place in America in that one Summer.  Why 1927?  Consider the following:

• Charles Lindbergh flew from New York to Paris, and immediately became the most famous person in the world.
• Babe Ruth hit hit 60 home runs for what may have been the best single season baseball team ever.
• Four international bankers met in secrecy and set in motion a chain of events that led directly to the 1929 stock market crash and the great depression.
• Floods of wiped out much of the Mississippi River Valley.
• Perhaps the most successful business man in America was Al Capone
• Great store was put into a frightening plan of social engineering called eugenics (look it up; it's scary stuff). 
• Sacco and Vanzetti were executed as the nation was set upon by the anarchist movement (domestic terrorism is nothing new).
• A guy planted a bomb in a school house that killed over 40 children.  
• Calvin Coolidge was President of the United States and governed with a hands off approach that is unimaginable today.  It was almost a part-time job for him.

There is lots of other stuff written about in "One Summer", but the central figure of the book is Lindbergh, and the main story line is the development of the aviation industry in America and the world during that time.  Following the first World War, the aviation industry in America was non-existent to, at best, primitive.  In fact, the United States lagged far behind many European nations.  Hard to imagine.  However, that all changed once Lindbergh made his historic flight, and followed that by flying his Spirit of St. Louis on a nationwide tour. Each stop along the way drew tens of thousands of people, Lindbergh was mobbed everywhere he went and never had a moment of privacy again.  As Bryson phrased it, "Like others before him, Lindbergh discovered that it was a lot more fun getting famous than it was being famous."

Lindbergh's fame crashed when he associated himself with a movement called America First, defended many of the leaders of Hitler's Germany, and espoused theories of race relations that were closely aligned with the extreme policies of Nazi Germany.  While he supported the United States when their entry into WW II came about, his days as an American hero were pretty much over.  The arc of Lindy's celebrity really is a fascinating tale.

Lindbergh died in 1972 and some thirty years after his death, it became know that from 1957 until he died, he had secret relationships with three women in Germany, two of them sisters, with whom he fathered seven children.  He supported those children until his death, and visited them once or twice a year, although they never knew his true identity, and his own wife and family in America never know of this double life he led.  How he managed this is a story that will probably never be known.

I highly recommend this book.  It is entertaining to read, and you really can learn a lot form reading it.  What more could you ask for in a book?