Review: Twice Shy

Twice Shy by Dick Francis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have enjoyed Dick Francis’ formula for stories related to the horse racing industry. Most of his stories mix some aspect of horse racing with some other topics, such as glass blowing, survivalist skills, running a veterinary service, or computer security. This one was an early story in computing and coding. The story revolved around a (view spoiler)[computer program that predicted winning horses. The program was coded and saved to an audio cassette used for data. This kind of thing was a reasonable enough idea for the times. However, Francis took a different tact on this story, stretching it out over many years. To make his story work, that program still had to work correctly, and that data cassette had to be easily read. Anyone living through the business computer industry in the time know that programs like this tend to age poorly, and media like cassettes were quickly replaced by better technology and often difficult to be able to use. This technology-based aspect of the story, in the end unrealistic, kept me from fully enjoying the story. But I will say that the underlying story was quite good. You actually get two stories for the price of one here. In the first, a typical Francis hero prevails against a bad guy who goes to jail. In the second, the bad guy does his time and is freed, and mistakenly goes after our first hero’s relative, (hide spoiler)]…who prevails in a typical Francis manner. In summary, a good Francis story, or two, marred by a mistaken belief that technology change moves slowly. If you are not that into technology, the story is a winner.

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Review: Just Another Race Horse

Just Another Race Horse by Marion N. Seidel
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A short book written as if a mid-level race horse were reflecting on his life. You get a feel for what a day in the life of a race horse is during different parts of his life. The author covers the youth of the horse, auctions, breaking and training, gelding, race training and racing, claiming, and recuperating at a farm. The author focuses on the fear of horses in new situations. She also tells of poor treatment by her human handlers, sometimes intentional, sometimes without thought. There is a relatively happy ending. I’ve read a few horse books like this that told the story in the third person. I found this exercise to tell the story from the horse’s anthropomorphized perspective was not as compelling, but still an interesting perspective as so few racehorse books cover the lower level claimers as they fall in value and reach the end of their racing career.

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Review: How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing

How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing by K.C. Davis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is like Disney's song "Let It Go" applied to house cleaning.

It seems I've read a gross of house cleaning and organizing books, and this is another one. I didn't take away any new tips, but I did appreciate the different focus this one has, less on gimmicks and more on self-help. Good therapy for those worried about how others think of you.

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Review: Wallet Activism: How to Use Every Dollar You Spend, Earn, and Save as a Force for Change

Wallet Activism: How to Use Every Dollar You Spend, Earn, and Save as a Force for Change by Tanja Hester
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read Hester’s first book, about retiring early, and enjoyed reading her thoughts on her family’s efforts to save and plan well enough to no longer have to maintain full time jobs. The how-to parts of that book were pretty basic, but the justifications and opinions were what I found interesting. With Hester’s newer book, “Wallet Activism”, you get a lot of detailed ideas about how to spend your personal money to try to force change in society. I grew up in a small town, and was told often by my parents to support our local businesses or they would not be there when we needed them. I get the concept. I found some of Hester’s specifics to be spot on, while some were totally out of left field, and possibly wrong. What I got out of the book was that you might decide X is right and good, and Y is wrong and evil, so you spend money in support of X. But over time you may find out that you were totally wrong, or didn’t appreciate the complexity of the situation. You’ve really got to keep thinking if you want your money to support what you (currently) think is right. For example, another reviewer mentioned her disregard for the environmental costs of flying to France. She used that segment to rail against, if I recall, Black Friday sales in France, which doesn’t have a Thanksgiving to give that day the meaning it has in the US. You get the impression that she wants change elsewhere, but not in this foreign country, which she wants frozen in a time before it could be influenced by America. Where do you draw the line when you are thinking of spending to influence? Is it right vs wrong, or is it to maintain your comfort level? Hester has thought about these issues a lot, and gives you dozens of ideas for support here. But human inability to judge our fluid and complex world suggests not diving headlong into any one of them. Moderation and reflection are key.

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Review: Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We'll Win Them Back

Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We'll Win Them Back by Rebecca Giblin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Written to show that in many different creative endeavors, the creative laborers are being exploited by the companies that funnel the art to the end consumers. While I suspect everyone has heard of monopolies – where consumers have but one source, this book focuses on the mirror image of that state of affairs, monopsony, where the sellers have limited choice in who to sell to that isn’t an end consumer. So for instance, you want to get people to listen to your music through streaming, but there’s only a small handful of streaming companies that people use, and they require very stringent and self-serving contracts. The book talks about many such markets, including Amazon’s e-book reader market, Apple and Google’s app stores, and Spotify for streaming music. This isn’t just a recent business innovation. The authors start with many descriptions of one-sided recording contracts with the popular musicians of the 50s and 60s. Once you see how one marketplace has been turned against the creator, you start seeing it everywhere. The authors use about 2/3 of the book to identify the problem and show it in various marketplaces, and offer some possible solutions in the last third, including legislative action. I sadly kept picturing Woodie Guthrie singing songs in support of…himself.

Disclosure: I won a copy of the arc of this book in a contest, I believe. This didn't influence my review.

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Review: Rambling Willie: The Horse that God Loved

Rambling Willie: The Horse that God Loved by Donald P. Evans
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found a copy of this book, “Rambling Willie: The Horse that God Loved”, at a used bookstore. I’ve read 30 or so books about racehorses, but hadn’t read one about a Standardbred, outside of the Dan Patch book that took place 100 years ago. This was a book of recent vintage (only 40 years ago!) covering a horse of that time. Another thing going for it was the connection to where I live, Chicago. Much of the action took place at Chicago tracks, in my quick perusal at the store. But the biggest surprise was finding the book was “autographed” by, at least I suspect, Rambling Willie himself. There’s a big inked horseshoe on the inner flyleaf, and you can see that it was made with a lot of weight behind it, as the horseshoe indented the sheets below like an embosser. Also signing the book, inside the horseshoe, were Vivian and Robert Farrington. Vivian, Bob’s wife, was half owner of the horse, and Bob was the trainer and driver. These three weren't the authors of the book, but they were the authors of the story.

Ends up this is a story of record breakers and faith. Rambling Willie holds or held a number of records for fast wins, longevity at the track, and money earned, and Bob Farrington holds records as a driver and with his family’s stable as owners and trainers. Vivian represents faith here, as she tithed her earnings to her father’s church, and believed in healing of injured horses and husbands through prayer. I came to see this book was less about the horse, who doesn’t really take on a personality here, and more about the comparison of Vivian’s faith in religion and her husbands belief in himself. It provides quite a bit to think about, and this was much more than I was expecting with a race horse book. I enjoyed the trip, but wanted a bit more about how the horse lived as his racing days were fading.


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Review: Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies by William Golding
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I managed to live 59 years without reading “Lord of the Flies”, or seeing the entire movie. But while filling out reading lists on the website List Challenges, I kept running across this book. Fearing I was missing something, I gave the audiobook a listen. I found a story that I already knew, to quite a level of detail. Since this book was used as examples in so many other books that I’ve read, and since movie clips were used in many documentaries that I’ve seen over the years, I found that I didn’t really need to read the book for the basic story, for the personalities of the boys, the island descriptions. I found this surprising when reading this book. “Is that all there is?” I thought when done. To me, it appeared to end quite abruptly – so I can say that the specific ending I hadn’t picked up over the years. Or perhaps it just wasn’t as memorable as the rest of the story. It wasn’t. It was a bit of a disappointment. But I will say that the story here is a good one for the collective consciousness, as anyone can refer to it and find at least some people get the reference. I’m glad I read it, at least to verify my understanding of the story.

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