Review: Mister Monkey

Mister Monkey by Francine Prose
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is like a chain of related stories. At times, the chain is a bit tenuous, pulling in a character based on as loose a relationship as sitting next to another character in a restaurant. But as the book continues, you start to see additional relationships pop up, and the author does a wonderful job of showing this inter-relatedness. The story starts a bit oddly, describing a local theater performance of a play based on a children’s book called “Mister Monkey”, a performance that doesn’t go as well as planned. The story then jumps through different characters’, related to the immediately previous characters. As you read toward the end, you realize the relationships have been made with other characters, circling back in effect. There’s an ending that can be best described as “nice”. I liked the book and appreciated the effort to tie these characters together while making them real. I would read more by this author.

View all my reviews

Review: Monologue: What Makes America Laugh Before Bed

Monologue: What Makes America Laugh Before Bed by Jon Macks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this book by a former Jay Leno Tonight show head writer quite a lot. I was thinking I might end up rating it a 5 star book. But as I got into the second half, I realized how dated some of the material was. Late night monologues are often politically based, and some of the jokes retold were very dated. If you want to relive some of the punchlines of the late 80s through the early 00s, this is quite a good book. The author tells his own story, coming from the political world, writing ads and speeches, and turning that into a job writing jokes. You get some of the background of that kind of work, and you get a history of late night monologues back to before Jack Parr. His WC “joke” is included in its entirety. While most of the jokes retold are from Leno’s Tonight Show, the author includes many stories and favorite bits from other late night hosts. If you are interested in reliving past late night monologue jokes, are of a certain age to understand the for-the-time topical humor (say 45+), and are interested in the behind the scenes work of a joke writer, this is perfect for you. If you just want the best of Leno’s monologues, this is also a good bet.

View all my reviews

Review: Affirmed and Alydar: Thoroughbred Legends

Affirmed and Alydar: Thoroughbred Legends by Timothy T. Capps
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As I read my way through the Thoroughbred Legends series, I sense a bit of a formula for these books about great racehorses. This one breaks the mold in a couple of ways. First, it covers two horses instead of just one. There's good reason for this - these horses were tied together by age and by results. Second, possibly because this covers two horses, the race coverage is not as detailed as in other books. Here, at times, you get just a paragraph or two describing some of the lesser races. I found this refreshing. Instead of filling space describing less consequential races, the author chose to cover the head-to-head races and the races with unexpected outcomes a bit more. Good choice. Thirdly, this one spent about a third of the pages describing the progeny of both Alydar and Affirmed, to really make the case that while Alydar was the lessor racer, he was the better sire. This was quite overwhelming in terms of listing offspring by season, and in many cases drilling down (and up) the family tree to make a point. The point was made, but with an almost Biblical listing of names that wasn't all that fun to read. That dropped my score down. Perhaps a graphic would have done a better job here. Beyond that choice, I found this one of the better ones in the series, although I already was an Alydar fan, and had read of Calumet's issues and Affirmed's demise in Ann Hagedorn Auerbach's Wild Ride: The Rise and Tragic Fall of Calumet Farm, Inc., America's Premier Racing Dynasty .

View all my reviews

Review: On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance

On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A history of the Harlem Renaissance. You expect to read about how the Harlem area became the home to many Black Americans, and here you get a history of the circumstances and the landlords who made this possible. You expect to read about the culture, and here you read at length about the writers and the musicians who were center stage at this time. And you don’t expect to read about basketball. But it ends up Abdul-Jabbar makes a good case that basketball should be part of that story. He tells of the beginnings of professional basketball in Harlem, sponsored by large ballrooms and often played on the slick ballroom floors between band sets. He tells of the Rens and the Original Celtics, and the Chicago team called the “Harlem Globetrotters”. I found the basketball stories to be very interesting, and mostly new to me. As a pop history book, covering a lot of areas I am interested in, I enjoyed this.

Abdul-Jabbar also interleaves his own story, growing up years after the events portrayed as the Harlem Renaissance, and in a nearby neighborhood. He tells how the people and events of the Renaissance impacted him, often through meeting some of the people mentioned later on. Abdul-Jabbar also claims to be a historian based on writing prior books about his playing days. Seems like a bit of a reach, but OK. I enjoyed this book more than I expected, and will look for more of the same type by Kareem for light reads.


View all my reviews

Review: The Old-Time River Rats: Tales of Bygone Days Along the Wild Mississippi

The Old-Time River Rats: Tales of Bygone Days Along the Wild Mississippi by Kenny Salwey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Salwey writes about a couple of river rat families he knew growing up, back quite a few decades ago, as well as a couple of dogs he had and a couple of family stories from when he was young and living on the hills over the Mississippi. I chose to read this book because I grew up on a hill over the Mississippi a couple of hundred miles downstream from the lands Salwey talks about, but I had noticed the same kinds of folks. I was often called a river rat when visiting other high schools as a fan of our school’s basketball team and I didn’t know what that meant. Ours was one of only two rural school districts to encompass both the Mississippi banks and the Rock River, so there were plenty of river rats in the area. But I lived on the hill. Salwey’s book explains the difference in the people, in part based on the difference in the land and in how the people earned their livings. River rats earned their livings through the river, heavily focused on fish. Hill people were more the typical farmers. Salwey choses some real characters to illustrate river rats, and there are some good anecdotes about them. He also includes good anecdotes about his family and neighboring farmers threshing, or thrashing as he calls it. This must be from before the Second World War. Salwey also includes some stories about memorable dogs he has owned, which fit right in. This is a nice taste of the past, giving these rural folks from upriver of Dubuque and downriver from LaCrosse (sometimes called the Driftless) a voice from a simpler time. I’ve heard similar stories from family from around my part of the River.

View all my reviews

Review: Born to Walk: The Transformative Power of a Pedestrian Act

Born to Walk: The Transformative Power of a Pedestrian Act by Dan Rubinstein
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The author mentions in this book using Google to look things up. As I read through this book of walking and noticed the sections, including sections on the physical and mental benefits of walking, cops walking a beat, walking (more marching) in protest, and more, I found myself wondering if the author had just googled the term “walking” and categorized the results, writing parts of the book based on how popular the categories were. This is a broad overview of the term “walking”, and the sections do not congeal. Perhaps “walking” is too loose a connection between these topics. I think a focus on walking as a method of civic transformation, like the subtitle hints at, would have been enough of a topic to make a fine book. This just reached a bit too far. I enjoyed the voice of the author, and would consider reading more of his work.

I listened to this in the Booktrack audio edition. In this version, the book narration was accompanied by light background music and occasional appropriate sound effects. For instance, when quoting cops walking a beat, car horns and other city traffic noises were mixed in. I had mixed feelings about this experience. I actually enjoyed the sound effects and most music. I felt it raised the feel of the performance to be similar to listening to a well done NPR radio story. However, I noticed a few times while listening in the car that the choice of music was more of a repetitive industrial noise than music, and more than once I thought I had brake problems, or was dragging a metallic object, because of that noise. I recommend the Booktrack folks consider where their listeners tend to be when listening, and try not to send the wrong message with their additions to the monologue.


View all my reviews

Review: What Is Your What?: Discover the One Amazing Thing You Were Born to Do

What Is Your What?: Discover the One Amazing Thing You Were Born to Do by Steve Olsher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have read so many “find your purpose” books, I wonder why I keep going. But I know. It isn’t reading the book, it’s actually doing the work that, purportedly, help you find your purpose. And I don’t have a good track record at doing this work. So I continue, and I notice the differences in these types of books. This is one that is more of a workbook, with lots of fill-in-the-blank sections to work through. I actually found the exercises to be more thorough than many of the books I’ve read, so this was a good thing, but there are also plenty of blanks to fill in, which all require a lot of reflection. Hence more work.

I liked this book. It was ambitious. It had more steps than I was expecting. Although it was set up as a workbook, it’s hard cover – you don’t see that combination often. The font was a size smaller than I expected, and the text covered more of the page than I’m used to, with smaller margins. It felt like the author had a lot to say and wanted to maximize that paper. I wish he had used higher quality paper, though, instead of the typical disposable workbook paper that yellows quickly. Nevertheless, I found the design of the book was interesting and lead to me liking it more that I otherwise would have expected.

Overall, I found this one of the more interesting examples of the “find your purpose” genre.


View all my reviews