BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS
I had some vacation time between Christmas and New Year's. Among other things, I was able to read a few books. That means it's, wait for it, book review time!!! These are books I've read since Thanksgiving, so there are a few of them.
The Hardball Times Baseball Annual
I am not finished with this book, but then again, I never really will be. It is a compilation of material from The Hardball Times, which contrary to the perverted expectations I understand people to have, is a baseball web page. It covers a ton of apparently esoteric baseball questions, as well as a number of esoteric baseball statistics. In addition, it contains a number of articles originally published on the web. The writing is good, and pretty interesting. It is $6.25 to buy an electronic version (in pdf) and the page is made up on young fellas trying to be baseball writers. Surely a worthy endeavor. Buy this if you like baseball.
The Numbers Game : Baseball's Lifelong Fascination with Statistics
This book is a very nice history of the who and why of the new baseball statistics movement. It tells the story of the early people who found average, home runs, and runs batted in to be insufficient in judging baseball production. It is not statistics heavy, but does expect that you already know that there is a statistics revolution in baseball, and what the old stats were. It would be well-read in conjunction with Moneyball. If you are interested anyway, but this used, or damaged.
Krakatoa : The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883
I have been trying to read this book for six months. Usually if I say that, it is because a book is bad. This book is good. However, L accidentally dropped one copy in a place from which it shall never emerge, and I left the replacement at L's parent's house in Boogy. I finally got it back at Christmas.
Anyway, the book tells the story of the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 and resulting destruction in Indonesia. It covers some fundamental geology and geography, as well as some history. Very good. What was eerie was reading it after the tsunami hit south Asia. Aceh is essentially the same area hit by Krakatoa, and waves killed many more people than debris in 1883. I almost felt like I was reading what I was seeing on the news.
In any case, this book is a buy, if for nothing else than the discussion of the geological split in the middle of Indonesia, and the consequent changes in the flora and animals present. Fascinating.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
This is a Pulitzer Prize winner. I wasn't sure if that impressed me until I read it. What a fine, fine book. It tells the stories of two Jewish cousins from the 1930s to roughly the 1960s. One starts the story in Prague under Hitler and is forced to flee, leaving his family. He escapes Prague traveling with the Golem of Prague, and makes his way across Russia to Japan to the United States to escape Hitler. The other is a New Yorker. Their lives take them through the comic book craze in the 1930s, wealth, war, poverty, insanity, and other stuff that is much more interesting than I thought it would be. It is a good book, and does not slip into sappy coming-of-age cliches. This is a buy.
The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan, the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America
I could swear I blogged about this. If so, I will keep it short. The Dutch were in New York before the English. Their coloby was a free-thinking colony, unlike the English colonies, which were eseentially made up of people fleeing free thinking. Therefore, New York is the city it is because the Dutch were more interested in business than ideology. I think the author proves too much, but it is a pretty interesting history of New York's early days. Borrow this book.
I feel like there were more books, but I can't think of them now. And so it goes.
I had some vacation time between Christmas and New Year's. Among other things, I was able to read a few books. That means it's, wait for it, book review time!!! These are books I've read since Thanksgiving, so there are a few of them.
The Hardball Times Baseball Annual
I am not finished with this book, but then again, I never really will be. It is a compilation of material from The Hardball Times, which contrary to the perverted expectations I understand people to have, is a baseball web page. It covers a ton of apparently esoteric baseball questions, as well as a number of esoteric baseball statistics. In addition, it contains a number of articles originally published on the web. The writing is good, and pretty interesting. It is $6.25 to buy an electronic version (in pdf) and the page is made up on young fellas trying to be baseball writers. Surely a worthy endeavor. Buy this if you like baseball.
The Numbers Game : Baseball's Lifelong Fascination with Statistics
This book is a very nice history of the who and why of the new baseball statistics movement. It tells the story of the early people who found average, home runs, and runs batted in to be insufficient in judging baseball production. It is not statistics heavy, but does expect that you already know that there is a statistics revolution in baseball, and what the old stats were. It would be well-read in conjunction with Moneyball. If you are interested anyway, but this used, or damaged.
Krakatoa : The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883
I have been trying to read this book for six months. Usually if I say that, it is because a book is bad. This book is good. However, L accidentally dropped one copy in a place from which it shall never emerge, and I left the replacement at L's parent's house in Boogy. I finally got it back at Christmas.
Anyway, the book tells the story of the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 and resulting destruction in Indonesia. It covers some fundamental geology and geography, as well as some history. Very good. What was eerie was reading it after the tsunami hit south Asia. Aceh is essentially the same area hit by Krakatoa, and waves killed many more people than debris in 1883. I almost felt like I was reading what I was seeing on the news.
In any case, this book is a buy, if for nothing else than the discussion of the geological split in the middle of Indonesia, and the consequent changes in the flora and animals present. Fascinating.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
This is a Pulitzer Prize winner. I wasn't sure if that impressed me until I read it. What a fine, fine book. It tells the stories of two Jewish cousins from the 1930s to roughly the 1960s. One starts the story in Prague under Hitler and is forced to flee, leaving his family. He escapes Prague traveling with the Golem of Prague, and makes his way across Russia to Japan to the United States to escape Hitler. The other is a New Yorker. Their lives take them through the comic book craze in the 1930s, wealth, war, poverty, insanity, and other stuff that is much more interesting than I thought it would be. It is a good book, and does not slip into sappy coming-of-age cliches. This is a buy.
The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan, the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America
I could swear I blogged about this. If so, I will keep it short. The Dutch were in New York before the English. Their coloby was a free-thinking colony, unlike the English colonies, which were eseentially made up of people fleeing free thinking. Therefore, New York is the city it is because the Dutch were more interested in business than ideology. I think the author proves too much, but it is a pretty interesting history of New York's early days. Borrow this book.
I feel like there were more books, but I can't think of them now. And so it goes.
posted by David at 1:23 PM
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