The Gashouse Gang

I have a passion for baseball that stretches all the way back to 1986, when I turned 2 years old and wanted to go to a baseball game for my birthday. I learned how to read when I was 4 because my father was sick of reading the baseball scores to me. By the time I was 6, I could tell you most of the big players on all of the sports teams. By the age of 10, I had begun to memorize yearly stats of certain players. To this day, baseball remains one of my favorite passions. For some reason, though, I don't read a lot of baseball books.

My grandmother purchased me the book The Gashouse Gang, by John Heidenry because she knows I like baseball and reading. I wasn't so sure that I would enjoy it. It chronicles the story of the "Gashouse Gang," the nickname for the 1934 St. Louis Cardinals team that would go on to win the World Series. The Cardinals are a division rival of the Houston Astros, my co-favorite team (along with the Philadelphia Phillies), so I naturally don't have the best feelings towards them.

Heindenry spins a marvelous tale throughout these pages. He weaves biographical information, wacky tales, and historical details about the 1934 season into a seamless narrative. The story revolves around the amusing Dizzy Dean, the ace of the Cardinals' pitching staff. He is a character of Tall Tale status, an American legend from the early days of live-ball era baseball. His wild personality rivals that of modern head cases like Nyjer Morgan and Manny Ramirez. The reader also gets a taste of the other members of this motley crew, like strong-headed Joe Medwick, player-manager extraordinaire Frankie Frisch, eccentric Pepper Martin, future HOF coach Leo Durocher, and the frugal-to-a-fault yet saintly genius general manager Branch Rickey.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which is as much a passionate anthem to the glory days of old-time baseball as it is to this particular Cardinals team. Baseball then was a different sport - a bit rougher, more down-to-earth, and full of characters. Back then, baseball was truly America's national pastime.

Heindenry is at his best in the book when he weaves together stories of the players and the St. Louis team with the day-to-day baseball stuff. Towards the end he focuses on the historical run of the Cardinals at the end of the season and then the playoff run. He eschews most of the stories and sticks to a play-by-play analysis of the games. Things get a bit slow then, especially since I bought into this book more as a tale of old-time baseball than as a tale of this particular team's season.

If you enjoy baseball, then this is a worthwhile read. If you don't enjoy baseball...well, it's still a good book, but the last third of the book may lose you.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

66/100 books...about 2/3 of the way!

Panicology

I'm a bit of a worrier, so when I found the book Panicology, by Hugh Aldersey-Williams and Simon Briscoe, I thought that might be a great way to perhaps ease some worries. Briscoe and Aldersey-Williams are statisticians and look at various  media and societal scares from the past 10 years or so and analyze them to see what is and what isn't worth your angst.

They picked some very good and obvious things to look into: terrorist threats, several aspects of global warming, the autism-vaccine link, and overpopulation, just to name a few things. They also picked some very strange issues: the death of cinema, alien abduction, dangerous art (in a literal sense - odd-shaped large sculptures, buildings created as "art"), and the decreasing frequency at which people are having sex.

The authors explore each issue with adequate depth. Both sides of the issue are presented followed by the authors' analysis of the stats and of the validity of different arguments. Each issue concludes with a rating scale that shows three things (which are never really explained - it seems like they are were a last-minute addition): Panic (the level society/media panics over the issue), Risk (the actual risk the issue poses), and Personal Empowerment (the amount that we can do to decrease panic or deal with the issue).

In the end I found myself disappointed. I'm a media skeptic, so when big scares come around, I do my reading. The statisticians do that work for you. For the most part, I was aware of the information they were sharing. There were a few issues where it was nice to see my conclusions verified. It made me smile to see them absolutely blast proponents of the autism-vaccine link, which was perhaps their harshest condemnation of panic-pushers, and it was affirming (though discomforting) for them to take on global warming issues one by one and show that for nearly every issue, we aren't panicking enough.

Overall, though, this book falls into an odd niche. The type of people that would read this book are likely to be either already informed on these issues or bored by the depth of the analysis. It also starts off slow by tackling social issues that people may be concerned about but not panicky about. Most people would look for something with more depth on a smaller amount of issues, or something with less depth but more breadth. I actually was hoping for the latter, perhaps short one or two-page fact sheets or mini-analysis concerning the odds of things happening like getting hit by lightning (not covered), getting cancer from cell phones (sort of covered), getting autism from vaccine (covered), or losing control of your vehicle in ice/snow (not covered).

Anyhow, it's not a bad book, but I'm not quite sure who I would actually recommend this book to.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

65/100, about 8 books ahead of schedule

Paris in the Twentieth Century

In 1863, Jules Verne attempted to have Paris in the Twentieth Century published. Verne had not reached the level of popularity that he would in a couple of years. This was a very early work, and publishers were skeptical of some of his predictions, claiming the book unfit to be published. In retrospect, that's pretty funny.

This book is fairly short, especially compared to some of Verne's most well known works. Two threads follow through the book. The first is merely Verne's exposition of Paris's history from 1860 to 1960, highlighting the technological advances. The second is what makes up the formal plot of the book.

The thin plot follows Michel, a 16-year-old who has just graduated from an academy with a degree in the arts. Unfortunately, art has all but died by 1960, and Michel can find no related work. His uncle signs him up to work at a bank, where Michel meets a pair of friends that share his interest in art. The three friends explore various art mediums, along with an old professor of Michel's. Along the way, Michel falls in love with his professor's daughter. However, after an unfortunate accident at the bank, he finds himself unemployed. Will Michel find occupational salvation in art or will he find himself lost in this dismal land?

Verne's visions of a futuristic Paris may not have impressed publishers from the 1860s, but looking at it today is overwhelming. Verne predicted many things that were not at all in existence in 1860. These inventions include (but are not limited to):
 - Gasoline-powered automobiles
 - Skyscrapers
 - Computers (although they were primarily calculators)
 - Fax machines
 - a rudimentary form of the internet
 - High-speed trains
 - Electric chairs
 - widespread electricity (mostly for lighting)
 - Electric organs (and other electric instruments)
 - Digital (he calls it mechanical) books and music
 - The Panama Canal
 - The Eiffel Tower (not by name, but described it fairly accurately over 20 years before it was built)
 - The Industrial Revolution

Amazing! Some of these things would be in existence by 1960, some later, and he did come up with a couple ideas that never came to be, such as the piano-table-bed combo. That was just plain silly, but to Parisians in 1860, many of those mentioned inventions were far sillier. Verne was also off in predicting that art would be dead and the world would be at peace by 1960. He also seemed to miss the concept of home heating, despite all of the other predictions. Even so, this book is stunningly accurate considering that it was written 100 years before.

I enjoyed the book, mostly for the inventions and Verne's ideas. The plot was thin but adequate. Some books go unpublished for good reason, but Paris in the Twentieth Century does not fit that bill. While far from Verne's strongest (and most popular) works, this book still holds up pretty well.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

64/100

The Church that Forgot Christ

The book flap of Pulitzer Prize-winner Jimmy Breslin's The Church that Forgot Christ claims that this book will detail the reasons that Breslin has been torn about his allegiance to the Catholic church. Apparently, Breslin makes a call to give Catholicism a booster shot of Christianity. The back cover features favorable reviews from the likes of Kurt Vonnegut and Frank McCourt (2 of my absolute favorite writers), as well as one of my favorite historians, Studs Terkel. I thought this had a lot of promise!

Instead, it became my first 0-star review.

Breslin does indeed take on the Catholic Church, of which he is a member. He challenges three areas. First (and by far foremost) is the sex abuse scandal. At least 2/3 of the book covers that. The rest covers criticism of their supposed monopoly (at least in New York City) of cemetary plots and of the amount of money made by Bishops. He also goes on several tangents to talk about other issues, that I'll mention later.

Oh yeah, and he DISSES MOTHER THERESA. Yes, you read that correctly.

Breslin has some good material to work with. The sexual crimes committed by priests and then covered up by some members of the church heirarchy was and still is horrific. His point about Bishops making too much money (and cathedrals being over-decorated) has some weight. There are also significant issues with Church heirarchy. He held all of the ingredients for a wonderful argument but instead wrote a stinking turd.

Let's begin with his main issue - the pedophile priests. This issue was (and is) absolutely horrific. The criminal acts are disgusting, of course, but equally to blame are all of the Bishops who didn't do anything except reassign the priests. This coverup happened all the way up to the level of Pope. Terrible and awful. However, the viciousness with which Breslin attacks virtually all priests (with the exception of a few close friends of the order) far exceeds the limits of reasonability. Yes, many awful things happened. But only a VERY small percentage of priests committed sexual abuse of some kind. There's a lot of priests in the U.S., though, so that leaves a large number of stories to pull from. There are an awful lot of really excellent well-behaving priests out there.

The two chapters about Catholic funeral plots was lost on me. Breslin seems to think that one of the greatest crimes of the Catholic churches is that they own funeral plots in NYC and charge people to use them. Um, what? What does this have to do with "forgetting Christ?" Or pedophiles? Or legitimate criticism?

His two chapters on the excesses of Bishops were a nice break from the other angry chapters. Bishops are like royalty. Major cathedrals are filled with gold, jewels, and other unnecessarily expensive decorations. They come off very much like televangelists who make millions and revel in it. That's a legit concern, but Breslin mostly glosses over this.

Breslin's greatest flaw in this book, though, is the inane assertion that the Catholic church uses issues like abortion, homosexuality, and the sainthood of Mother Theresa to make people forget about pedophiles. WHAT? Abortion is undoubtedly a terrible, terrible tragedy. Breslin seems to think it's pretty great. Homosexuality may be a smoke screen, but honestly I don't hear much from the Catholic church concerning that issue. Finally, the sainthood of Mother Theresa...I have no words. He gives a rather unfavorable opinion about her, saying that she was a mean-spirited nasty privileged  woman who only did her service in India to get media attention. And because she is so anti-abortion, she contributed to the coverup of pedophiliac priests.

This book has no journalistic integrity whatsoever. Crazy stats are referenced, but not cited or given any source whatsoever - just "some sources say..." Some of these "estimates" are later referred to as facts. Terrible.

This book is complete garbage. Any good points that Breslin makes are marred by all of the nonsense - the anger, the illogical points, and the ridiculous fake stats and assertions. This ranks down there with the worst Fox News drivel. There's nothing to recommend about this book, and absolutely no reason to read it unless you are a mindless zombie with destroying the Catholic church on your agenda. I left the Catholic church (but not Christianity), but even I could find almost nothing of merit to add to the discussion about some of the issues surrounding the Catholic church. (As a side note, while I have my issues with it, I still think the Catholic church is mostly good, and a definite denomination through which one can know Jesus and experience his love and grace). In my opinion, NOBODY should EVER read this book.

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars (Breslin should have known better than publish this)


63/100 books, still on track

The Color Purple

Alice Walker's The Color Purple ranks fairly high on a lot of peoples' book lists. It won a Pulitzer Prize and was adapted into an award-winning movie. I had very much been looking forward to pulling this book off our bookshelf to read.

The Color Purple tells the story of Celie, a black woman from 1930s Georgia. The book follows a series of letters she writes at first to God and then to her sister, Nettie. Celie's lives a rough life. Her father rapes her, she is married to a cruel man who regularly beats her and forces her to work hard on the farm they own. Celie is surrounded by other woman in similar situations. After her husband finds a lover, a local jazz singer, things begin to turn around.

Celie falls in love with her husband's lover, Shug, and the two soon become close friends. Shug keeps Celie's husband (at first referred to as Mr. ______, but later Albert) from beating her, and when she's ready to move on to another man, she takes Celie with her. Celie's life brightens considerably from there as she finally finds her life's calling.

There's a second story told throughout the book. Celie's sister Nettie gets hired as a maid for a pastor and his family, which happens to contain two children who are very connected to the characters in the book (don't want to give away any major spoilers). This family becomes missionaries to a small African village and they take Nettie along with them. Nettie recalls her adventures there in letters written to Celie.

Walker weaves a complex story through these pages. She fills them with plenty of emotion, particularly in Celie's tale. Readers should be aware that there is a lot of sexuality in the book, as well as violence (though not terribly graphic), profanity, and some potentially poisonous comments about God. The book can be read fairly quickly, but with Celie's letters written in her dialect, it's worth taking your time so you don't miss anything.

My personal feelings about this book are mixed. It's a well written book, and I really enjoyed Nettie's adventures in Africa. On the other hand, I was very annoyed by Walker's hidden agenda. It's no accident that nearly every male figure is borderline evil, and nearly every female figure a saint or a victim. But I could look past that if it wasn't for Walker's constant negative commentary about the Juseo-Christian God. She's really sneaky about it, but it's everywhere and completely unnecessary. It stuck out like a sore thumb.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

62/100, still ahead of schedule

Smart Kids, Bad Schools

I'm a sucker for cheap books. I figure that for $2 or less any book that looks interesting to me is worth picking up. Saves me a trip to the library and potential fines, and if it's any good, I can hold on to it. Sometimes, particularly when I find the book used from Half Price Books, a yard sale, or a library sale, I find a gem. Usually, though, the books range from decent (but not worth rereading) to awful. I found this book for $1 at Big Lots and figured it was worth reading, given my profession.

Brian Crosby has given a lot of thought to the educational system. He obviously isn't happy with how it works and its growing failures. He has put all of his ideas together to form this book: Smart Kids, Bad Schools: 38 Ways to Save America's Future. To Crosby, nothing is sacred. In order to fix America's school system, we need to look at every aspect of education and see if it needs reworked. He calls for radical transformation rather than reformation: a whole new system instead of the same system with some tweaks. He's got 38 propositions for this transformation.

Crosby has developed a fairly comprehensive plan for educational transformation. I appreciate the level of thought he gave this project and commend him for his thouroughness and his transparency. He's honest, somewhat consistent, willing to look at any and every aspect of education.

Unfortunately, though, Crosby's thoroughness stops at research. Don't waste your time looking for footnotes, references, or a bibliography. If he doesn't mention a source then it's just a reflection of his thoughts and observations. In about half of the chapters it's clear that he's had some experiences that he's unhappy with and he's basically just venting. That becomes grating to read, even if the point resonates with the reader.

Some highlights from his points (to me, at least):
- Lengthen the school year and the school day
- Administration needs to treat teachers with professional respect (see tangent below)
- Abolish homework so kids can be kids
- Provide healthy and appealing lunches
- Abolish teacher unions
- Focus on efficient spending rather than looking for increased funding

Some really awful suggestions:
- Cut Title 1 and Special Education spending (he makes a terrible argument, basically stop punishing the many to benefit the few)
- Give better pay and benefits to Secondary Education teachers because their job is SO much harder than Elementary (what??? many secondary teachers only have to plan for a couple of classes and have multiple prep periods, while Elementary teachers teach almost all day and teach 4-5 different subjects...yes secondary material is harder and teachers do have more students, but they are equal in difficulty - one is not tougher than the other!)
- Make parents pay for books and supplies and charge a small tuition ($200) for public schools (what about families that are struggling to put food on the table?)

Crosby has some good suggestions, but they are weakened by minimal research (most of which comes from Time, newspapers, and Education Weekly) and often accompanied by whining. It's hard for me to feel bad when he complains about having to stay at work until almost 5:00 when his school has staff meetings. My school's staff meetings run until 5, and it's not terribly uncommon for me to stay that late, although lately I've been going in earlier so I can leave a bit earlier. I also can't feel all that bad when he complains about "only" having 2 prep periods per day.

These weakened good points, in addition to some really poorly thought out terrible points make for a book that certainly has potential, and certainly could act as a good discussion starter, but ultimately isn't worth the time or effort to fully read. If you can find it for super-cheap, it might be worth reading through the table of contents and picking and choosing whichever sections interest you to read.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

61/100 books, still well on track

Walk Two Moons

I just recently took on the responsibility of coming up with our grade-level's weekly vocabulary words. We use a common text that is read aloud in each class, and the vocabulary comes from that text. I had a bunch of make-up testing to administer, which provided an abundance of time for me to finish our first book, Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech.

Walk Two Moons won the Newbery Award, an award that goes out to the best piece of children's literature every year. Typically these are the types of books that appeal to both children and adults and feature rich, vivid characters, and a well-developed plot. I think adults enjoy these books just as much as children!

Walk Two Moons tells the story of Sal, who is on a journey with her grandparents to visit her mother - all the way from Kentucky to Idaho. Her grandparents love a good story, and coax a series of stories from Sal about her best friend, Phoebe. As the stories progress we learn more about Sal as well.

Three storylines are built upon as the story progresses. One follows the adventures of Sal and Phoebe. They encounter a "lunatic" who weaves in and out of the story, the curious Mrs. Partridge, an enthusiastic teacher, a kiss-hungry boy, and a woman named Mrs. Cadaver who is spending quite a lot of time with Sal's father. Somehow, all of these people are connected, and the connections become more clear as the book progresses.

The second storyline follows Sal and her interactions with her father throughout time, as well as memories of the times when her mother was around as well. Here the reader is exposed to Sal's inner feelings, often hidden around others.

The third storyline follows the often humorous misadventures of Sal and her crazy grandparents as they travel to Idaho. Each pit stop brings a new story to life, and we also get some looks into the stories of her grandparents' past.

It all weaves together in the end with plenty of surprises, both good and bad. The stories are so wonderfully developed and the characters feel like you've known them for a long time. I must say that I would recommend this book to children (10 and up) and adults with equal enthusiasm. Just don't forget to keep a box of tissues nearby.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

60/100 books and still on track!

Piercing the Darkness

Great sequels build upon their predecessors. Good sequels provide a different spin on the original. Poor to average sequels take the original source material, change a few details, and then release a near-clone of the first book. Frank Peretti's Piercing the Darkness falls into this last category.

Reading this book felt at times like I was rereading the first book, This Present Darkness. Once again, a town is under attack from demonic forces. Tom Harris, principal of a local Christian school, is under attack from the family of a former student (backed by an organization that definitely is meant to represent the ACLU). Claiming that he abused this child, this organization aims to tear down every Christian stronghold, including the local Community Church. Meanwhile, they try to hunt down Sally Beth Roe, who is connected to everything somehow.

Expect plenty of spiritual battles, generic action sequences, and a few appearances from the characters from the first book. Expect plenty of conspiracies, jabs at liberals, and critique of other Christian denominations. Don't expect anything too surprising or new.

If you liked the first book, you'll like this one. If you didn't like it, don't bother with this follow-up.

It was OK to me, but I gave it 1/2 star less for lack of progression. It's still an above average Christian fiction entry.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

59/100 books, still on track!

Summerland

Much to my surprise, without even knowing it at first, I've managed to read my first "children's" book for this challenge. Summerland is written by Michael Chabon, widely known for his rich award-winning writing for adults. I purchased this book from my library's book sale, found in the adult section. After a few chapters, I noticed that the writing remained very light - still rich, but more at a 10-15 year old level. Coming in at exactly 500 pages, this book certainly was not an attempt to pad my reading rate or book total.

It turns out that this was Chabon's first (and only as of yet) attempt at writing for children. It follows the vein of the Narnia books and the Harry Potter series, books aimed at children but still very accessible to adults.

Summerland tells the tale of Ethan Feld, an ordinary boy who finds himself in an extraordinary situation. After a terrible baseball game (one of many for Feld), Ethan finds himself confronted by a mythical creature. This fairy-like character explains that he's being scouted for an otherworldly adventure. His baseball skills would be of most importance on this adventure, despite the fact that Feld was perhaps the worst player in his league.

Another mythical creature, a werefox, visits Ethan one day and takes him on a journey through the other worlds that exist in addition to the world he lives in. One of these is titled Summerland, and its world intersects with our world (Middling) in the baseball field where Ethan's baseball league plays. It happens to be a location where it never rains in the summer. However, the evil Coyote (a Satan-like character) is trying to erase all of the places where the different worlds meet. Not long after this tour of the worlds, Coyote's people kidnap Ethan's inventor father.

Ethan then is pressed into service, to rescue his father and prevent "Ragged Rock," the end of the universes. Joined by teammates Jennifer T. and Thor (a very strange child who thinks he's half robot), Ethan sets off on an adventure that he certainly will never forget. Along the way he meets up with baseball legends in fairy (or ferisher, the term used for them in the book) form, giants (including a midget giant), a sasquatch, were-animals of all sorts, and many other strange mythical creatures. Naturally, they play a lot of baseball, which happens to be a sport of great importance in all corners of the worlds.

Chabon exhibits a great mastery of writing through Summerland. In addition to weaving an enchanting story, Chabon has created a mythology that resonates well with folktales and American history. Much like J.R.R. Tolkien created the Lord of the Rings trilogy to provide England with its own mythology, Chabon has given life to an American mythology. He also succeeds in writing in a style accessible to both children (10 and up) and adults. His only failure is that his characters are a bit flatter than I would hope for in a Chabon book. That's it.

If you are a fan of fantasy, you may very well enjoy this book. Fans of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings would find much to love in the pages of Summerland.


Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

58/100 books...still well ahead of schedule!