1rocketjk
OK! I'm back once more. Four years ago, given my second full year of retirement and first year of Covid, I hit an amazing 82 books read, 31 of which I counted as "Off the shelf." Over the last 3 years, my "off-the-shelf" reading, was off somewhat for one reason and another. Anyway, my 2021 totals were 67 books read, with only 22 off-the-shelfers, well short of my 30-book OTS goal. 2022 brought me 53 books read, and 24 OTS, just short of my 25-book goal. In 2023 I bumped the goal back up to 30 and read 27 OTS, so better but still a little short.
In May of 2023, my wife and I packed up the SUV, coaxed the German shepherd into the back, and rolled out to drive across country from our Mendocino County, California, home to spend a year in New York City, where we will be through May of this year. That has had two effects on my OTS reading. One is that I'm no longer in my Mendo County reading group. That was a very fun group of friends, but the monthly selection only very rarely counted as OTS books for me. So as great as that group was, being away from it will enhance my OTS reading and help me maybe, who knows, reach my goal this year. On the other hand, I am now 3000 miles away from my books. The collection of those still unread numbers somewhere around 2,000. So for the first half of 2024, as during the second half of 2023, my OTS reading selections have come by scanning my LT library, but either getting the actual book from the NY Public Library or actually buying a second copy. Still those are books that are on my shelves back in CA, so, at least for me, they count. So once again my OTS goal will be 30 books.
In addition to the books I read straight through, I like to read anthologies, collections and other books of short entries one story/chapter at a time instead of plowing through them all at once. I have a couple of stacks of such books from which I read in this manner between the books I read from cover to cover (novels and histories, mostly). So I call these my "between books." When I finish an "Off the Shelf between book," I add it to my yearly list. Cheers, all!
Book 1: The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
Book 2: The Ploughmen by Kim Zupan
Book 3: Inheritance by Lan Samantha Chang
Book 4: Collier’s Magazine - May 10, 1941
Book 5: Robert Owen by Joseph McCabe
Book 6: This is Murder, Mr. Jones by Timothy Fuller
Book 7: The Mountains Wait
Book 8: Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era by Elizabeth Pepin Silva and Lewis Watts
Book 9: The Miracle at Coogan's Bluff by Thomas Kiernan
Book 10: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower by Marcel Proust
Book 11: The Estate by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Book 12: Balls by Graig Nettles and Peter Golenbock
Book 13: The World's Greatest Romances edited by Walter J. Black
Book 14: The Third Ghost Book edited by Lady Cynthia Asquith
Book 15: A Walk in the Sun by Harry Brown
Book 16: Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege - 1942-1943 by Antony Beevor
Book 17: Official Baseball Guide - 1963 Edition edited by C.C. Spink
2connie53
Hi Jerry, good to see you back with the ROOTers and reading about your adventures with books in New York.
Love the name of that writer ;-))
Love the name of that writer ;-))
4rabbitprincess
Welcome back and have a great reading year!
5MissWatson
Welcome back and have lots of fun with your shelves!
7curioussquared
Happy new year, Jerry! Sounds like you are having an adventurous year.
8detailmuse
Happy reading and happy New York-ing!
9Robertgreaves
Hope you have a great reading year, Jerry
10rocketjk
Book 1: The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
Until now I have been one of those stupid idiots who had never read any of Louise Erdrich's novels. Finally I rectified that by reading her much acclaimed 2021 novel, The Sentence. Given this book's 91 reviews on LT so far, I'd say that nobody needs a long review of this book at this late date from the likes of me. But here's what I will say: all the acclaim is warranted. This is a good-hearted book about community, friendship, love and identity. It is a book about a bookstore, and so brought me back quite vividly--and in a good way--to my own days of bookstore ownership. The story centers around a group of Native American women living in Minneapolis who together run the aforementioned bookstore, as well as the husband of one of the women, Tookie, our narrator. There is also Flora, a regular customer. Flora is a white woman who, sometimes to the amusement but also often to the annoyance of the store's employees, identifies strongly with Native American culture. Well, but this identification often takes the form of acts of kindness and positive action, so how annoyed can they be with her. But early in the novel, Flora dies and soon thereafter begins haunting the store, in particular targeting Tookie for her increasingly unwelcomed attention.
Then Covid hits, and everything is turned upside down. And then George Floyd is murdered and, since we are in Minneapolis, the world explodes. Erdrich does an astoundingly good job of recreating the feelings of uncertainty, fear, isolation and dread of those early Covid days, events which already, only a few short years later, have faded from my memory, or have at least lost their vivid, horrifying intensity. And then stir in the turbulence, anger and regret of the George Floyd protest and the violent, repressive response of the police.
But ultimately The Sentence is, as I said at the beginning, a book about community and reconciliation. The strength of friendships and the vital role that we can play in others' lives through straightforward acts of support, and by listening to each other. The revelations about Flora and her purpose, and about a strange, very old, book that enters the story along the way, come in due course. The ending is spot on and the whole enterprise was for me an entirely uplifting (in a non-maudlin way) and satisfying experience.
Until now I have been one of those stupid idiots who had never read any of Louise Erdrich's novels. Finally I rectified that by reading her much acclaimed 2021 novel, The Sentence. Given this book's 91 reviews on LT so far, I'd say that nobody needs a long review of this book at this late date from the likes of me. But here's what I will say: all the acclaim is warranted. This is a good-hearted book about community, friendship, love and identity. It is a book about a bookstore, and so brought me back quite vividly--and in a good way--to my own days of bookstore ownership. The story centers around a group of Native American women living in Minneapolis who together run the aforementioned bookstore, as well as the husband of one of the women, Tookie, our narrator. There is also Flora, a regular customer. Flora is a white woman who, sometimes to the amusement but also often to the annoyance of the store's employees, identifies strongly with Native American culture. Well, but this identification often takes the form of acts of kindness and positive action, so how annoyed can they be with her. But early in the novel, Flora dies and soon thereafter begins haunting the store, in particular targeting Tookie for her increasingly unwelcomed attention.
Then Covid hits, and everything is turned upside down. And then George Floyd is murdered and, since we are in Minneapolis, the world explodes. Erdrich does an astoundingly good job of recreating the feelings of uncertainty, fear, isolation and dread of those early Covid days, events which already, only a few short years later, have faded from my memory, or have at least lost their vivid, horrifying intensity. And then stir in the turbulence, anger and regret of the George Floyd protest and the violent, repressive response of the police.
But ultimately The Sentence is, as I said at the beginning, a book about community and reconciliation. The strength of friendships and the vital role that we can play in others' lives through straightforward acts of support, and by listening to each other. The revelations about Flora and her purpose, and about a strange, very old, book that enters the story along the way, come in due course. The ending is spot on and the whole enterprise was for me an entirely uplifting (in a non-maudlin way) and satisfying experience.
11Jackie_K
>10 rocketjk: I'm not too bothered about the novels, but I hope to read some of Erdrich's non-fiction, I've heard lots of good things about her NF books.
12rocketjk
Book 2: The Ploughmen by Kim Zupan
The Ploughmen is a very effective but dark dual-character study about the springing trapdoor of loneliness and the sly banality of evil. The novel begins with a heartless murder in rural Montana. Soon it becomes apparent that we are going to spending a lot of time in this novel with the murderer. He is John Gload, orphaned in his early teens, who has learned soon thereafter that he is able to kill without remorse or revulsion. Very quickly, Gload has been captured and is sitting in a jail cell in Copper County. There he encounters Deputy Sheriff Valentine Millimaki, the book's main protagonist. The police have Gload dead to rights on this murder; they're certain of a conviction. But at the same time they are fairly sure that Gload, already in his 70s, has killed before, and often. He seems to respect Millimaki, however, so Millimaki's boss asks him to remain on night shift weeks past his regular rotation for that duty should be up, to see if he can get Gload talking about past crimes.
And so we watch the two men interact and develop, not a friendship, but an eery closeness. Gload is a man devoid of decency yet still beholden to his own sense of propriety. Millimaki is a decent man trying to maintain balance, and keep his marriage from falling apart, alone in his cabin while his wife works by day and walking the hallway between jail cells at night.
So, as I mentioned above, this novel is pretty dark. But it is also beautifully written, especially when Zupan goes about describing the Montana countryside. Sometimes these descriptions enhance our sense of foreboding, but often they serve as a palliative and as a ray of hope. This is not an easy read, as we spend a lot of time in very gloomy places. But my personal opinion is that overall this is quite a good psychological study and therefore a fine book.
The Ploughmen is a very effective but dark dual-character study about the springing trapdoor of loneliness and the sly banality of evil. The novel begins with a heartless murder in rural Montana. Soon it becomes apparent that we are going to spending a lot of time in this novel with the murderer. He is John Gload, orphaned in his early teens, who has learned soon thereafter that he is able to kill without remorse or revulsion. Very quickly, Gload has been captured and is sitting in a jail cell in Copper County. There he encounters Deputy Sheriff Valentine Millimaki, the book's main protagonist. The police have Gload dead to rights on this murder; they're certain of a conviction. But at the same time they are fairly sure that Gload, already in his 70s, has killed before, and often. He seems to respect Millimaki, however, so Millimaki's boss asks him to remain on night shift weeks past his regular rotation for that duty should be up, to see if he can get Gload talking about past crimes.
And so we watch the two men interact and develop, not a friendship, but an eery closeness. Gload is a man devoid of decency yet still beholden to his own sense of propriety. Millimaki is a decent man trying to maintain balance, and keep his marriage from falling apart, alone in his cabin while his wife works by day and walking the hallway between jail cells at night.
So, as I mentioned above, this novel is pretty dark. But it is also beautifully written, especially when Zupan goes about describing the Montana countryside. Sometimes these descriptions enhance our sense of foreboding, but often they serve as a palliative and as a ray of hope. This is not an easy read, as we spend a lot of time in very gloomy places. But my personal opinion is that overall this is quite a good psychological study and therefore a fine book.
13curioussquared
>10 rocketjk: I have that one on my shelves; glad to see you liked it! I have The Night Watchmen on my list of books to get to this year; that will be my first Erdich.
14rocketjk
>13 curioussquared: I hope you decide to read The Sentence, Natalie. I'll be very interested to learn what you think of it.
15atozgrl
Hello Jerry, I'm returning your visit. I made it over here more quickly than I thought I would.
>10 rocketjk: I have to admit I haven't read any Erdrich yet myself. Looks like I need to add The Sentence to my ever growing TBR pile. It sounds like a great book.
>10 rocketjk: I have to admit I haven't read any Erdrich yet myself. Looks like I need to add The Sentence to my ever growing TBR pile. It sounds like a great book.
16rocketjk
>15 atozgrl: Welcome, Irene, and thanks for dropping in. Yes, The Sentence is a wonderful book. I would recommend to just about anyone. Hope you read it and review it. I'm interested to know what you think of it. Cheers!
17atozgrl
>16 rocketjk: Thanks! I don't know how quickly I'll be able to get to it, but I'll certainly write something up whenever I do.
18rocketjk
Book 3: Inheritance by Lan Samantha Chang
Inheritance is a novel that takes us through three generations of a Chinese family, from the beginning of the 20th century up through the late-1980s. The narrative takes us through the Chinese Revolution of 1911 through the gathering threat of Japanese imperialism, the Japanese invasion and occupation, the Chinese Civil War and the calamity (from the point of view of our protagonists) of the Communist victory and the family's exile to Taiwan. The focus is primarily on the women of the family, told often through the point of view of Hong, the daughter of narrative's central figure, Junan. Although narrative is often in the third person, we understand that the perspective is Hong's and that she is relating the family history as it has been told to her or as she has pieced it together or sometimes even conjectured. This somewhat shifting narrative strategy I found to be largely effective. And as importantly, or perhaps even more importantly as the historical events the family lives through, and are often drastically effected by, the novel takes us through a near-century of shifting and evolving attitudes and expectations of the roles and duties of women in Chinese society, from Hong's grandmother, who had spent 6 years with her feet bound before "the practice went out of fashion," to Hong's adulthood as a professional woman in the United States.
I found Inheritance very much worth reading, offering an interesting (if necessarily limited in focus) picture of Chinese society during extremely turbulent times, with memorable characters throughout. As a first novel, I'd say it's admirable indeed, and I will be keeping an eye out for Chang's subsequent works.
Book note: This book has been on my shelves since March 2021, though I have no recollection of where I bought it.
Inheritance is a novel that takes us through three generations of a Chinese family, from the beginning of the 20th century up through the late-1980s. The narrative takes us through the Chinese Revolution of 1911 through the gathering threat of Japanese imperialism, the Japanese invasion and occupation, the Chinese Civil War and the calamity (from the point of view of our protagonists) of the Communist victory and the family's exile to Taiwan. The focus is primarily on the women of the family, told often through the point of view of Hong, the daughter of narrative's central figure, Junan. Although narrative is often in the third person, we understand that the perspective is Hong's and that she is relating the family history as it has been told to her or as she has pieced it together or sometimes even conjectured. This somewhat shifting narrative strategy I found to be largely effective. And as importantly, or perhaps even more importantly as the historical events the family lives through, and are often drastically effected by, the novel takes us through a near-century of shifting and evolving attitudes and expectations of the roles and duties of women in Chinese society, from Hong's grandmother, who had spent 6 years with her feet bound before "the practice went out of fashion," to Hong's adulthood as a professional woman in the United States.
I found Inheritance very much worth reading, offering an interesting (if necessarily limited in focus) picture of Chinese society during extremely turbulent times, with memorable characters throughout. As a first novel, I'd say it's admirable indeed, and I will be keeping an eye out for Chang's subsequent works.
Book note: This book has been on my shelves since March 2021, though I have no recollection of where I bought it.
19rocketjk
Book 4: Collier’s Magazine - May 10, 1941
Read as a "Between Book" (see first post). This is another publication from the stack of old magazines I've accumulated on the floor of my home office closet. This one is fascinating in that it was published just 7 months before the Pearl Harbor attack finally pulled the U.S. into World War 2. But the debate between FDR, who wanted to support the Allies as strongly as possible, and the isolationists was going full throttle. Colliers, as per this edition, had a very strong pro-Allies editorial stance. There are several short pieces and photography essays about the U.S. military and its drive toward preparedness. The centerpiece of this editorial policy is the long essay by Republican Wendell Wilkie. Interestingly, Wilkie had recently lost the 1940 presidential election to Roosevelt. He ran against Roosevelt's New Deal policies, but he refused to break with Roosevelt on his European policies, much to the chagrin of the isolationists, who dubbed him, iirc, "Me Too" Wilkie. At any rate, Wilkie's essay in this Colliers is titled, "Americans, Stop Being Afraid: The Dangers of Isolationism." There are also three or four fun short stories (by authors I've never heard of), and one very interesting feature on the famed race horse Exterminator by Bob Considine. All in all, a very interesting time capsule.
A note that this is the last of the magazines that I brought with me from California for our year in NYC, so my old magazine reading will be on hiatus from the "Between Book" lists until we get back to the west coast. At that point, we'll be packing up to move here permanently, and I guess most of the remaining magazines will get bundled up for the move.
Read as a "Between Book" (see first post). This is another publication from the stack of old magazines I've accumulated on the floor of my home office closet. This one is fascinating in that it was published just 7 months before the Pearl Harbor attack finally pulled the U.S. into World War 2. But the debate between FDR, who wanted to support the Allies as strongly as possible, and the isolationists was going full throttle. Colliers, as per this edition, had a very strong pro-Allies editorial stance. There are several short pieces and photography essays about the U.S. military and its drive toward preparedness. The centerpiece of this editorial policy is the long essay by Republican Wendell Wilkie. Interestingly, Wilkie had recently lost the 1940 presidential election to Roosevelt. He ran against Roosevelt's New Deal policies, but he refused to break with Roosevelt on his European policies, much to the chagrin of the isolationists, who dubbed him, iirc, "Me Too" Wilkie. At any rate, Wilkie's essay in this Colliers is titled, "Americans, Stop Being Afraid: The Dangers of Isolationism." There are also three or four fun short stories (by authors I've never heard of), and one very interesting feature on the famed race horse Exterminator by Bob Considine. All in all, a very interesting time capsule.
A note that this is the last of the magazines that I brought with me from California for our year in NYC, so my old magazine reading will be on hiatus from the "Between Book" lists until we get back to the west coast. At that point, we'll be packing up to move here permanently, and I guess most of the remaining magazines will get bundled up for the move.
20rocketjk
Book 5: Robert Owen by Joseph McCabe
This is a short, clear biography of visionary English social reformer, Robert Owen, written by Joseph McCabe, who was himself, 70 years later, a prominent Rationalist writer and lecturer. (McCabe's wikepedia bio here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCabe)
Robert Owen was a British industrialist in the early 19th century who spent his life and a major bulk of his money attempting to improve the lot of the British working class in a multitude of ways, including promoting shorter work days (the standard at the time was 14 hours per day), raising the minimum age of factory employees from 7 years old to 10 or 12, creating schools for children and even day care at company and/or public expense and full equality for women.
Owen spent his long life trying to set up enlightened industrial town and factories and agitating for his ideas, first in the English Parliament and then, giving up on the politicians, among British society as a whole. He never gave up on trying to replicate his success in Scotland, and in trying to point out the ultimate justice and economic advantages of improving the lot of factory workers, including champion and financially supporting the early English labor union movement. Not surprisingly, his pleas fell on deaf ears among British industrialists and politicians.
This is a short, clear biography of visionary English social reformer, Robert Owen, written by Joseph McCabe, who was himself, 70 years later, a prominent Rationalist writer and lecturer. (McCabe's wikepedia bio here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCabe)
Robert Owen was a British industrialist in the early 19th century who spent his life and a major bulk of his money attempting to improve the lot of the British working class in a multitude of ways, including promoting shorter work days (the standard at the time was 14 hours per day), raising the minimum age of factory employees from 7 years old to 10 or 12, creating schools for children and even day care at company and/or public expense and full equality for women.
Owen spent his long life trying to set up enlightened industrial town and factories and agitating for his ideas, first in the English Parliament and then, giving up on the politicians, among British society as a whole. He never gave up on trying to replicate his success in Scotland, and in trying to point out the ultimate justice and economic advantages of improving the lot of factory workers, including champion and financially supporting the early English labor union movement. Not surprisingly, his pleas fell on deaf ears among British industrialists and politicians.
21rocketjk
Book 6: This is Murder, Mr. Jones by Timothy Fuller
This is the fourth of the 5-book Jupiter Jones mystery series written in the late 1930s through early 1940s by Timothy Fuller. When we meet Jupiter Jones in the series' first book, Harvard Has a Homicide, he is still a Harvard student who stumbles onto the murder of one of his professors. By this fourth novel, Jones is a Harvard English professor. The year is 1943 and our hero is about join the Navy to fight in the war. Since there have been three previous books, you'll not be surprised to learn that Jones has already solved three baffling murder mysteries. So we're not surprised to learn that Jones, along with his wife, Betty, has been invited to be a guest at a radio broadcast from an old, deserted mansion in the Massachusetts countryside where, 100 years ago, a still-unsolved murder had taken place. Furthermore, you will not be astonished when I tell you that, once cast, crew and assorted guests are gathered at the house, a brand new murder takes place forthwith. Luckily, our man Jones is on the scene, as usual a step or two ahead of the local police. These mysteries are far from classics, but they are fun, with enough gentle, self-deprecating humor to keep things light, and an interesting time-piece of their era.
I've had this fourth entry in the series on my shelves since my LT "big bang" in 2008. I took it down from the shelf to read a few years back, only to realize it was part of a series. So, given my predilections, I had to go back and read the first three Jupiter Jones books in order before attending to this one. There's one more in the series, which I'll be attending to sooner or later.
This is the fourth of the 5-book Jupiter Jones mystery series written in the late 1930s through early 1940s by Timothy Fuller. When we meet Jupiter Jones in the series' first book, Harvard Has a Homicide, he is still a Harvard student who stumbles onto the murder of one of his professors. By this fourth novel, Jones is a Harvard English professor. The year is 1943 and our hero is about join the Navy to fight in the war. Since there have been three previous books, you'll not be surprised to learn that Jones has already solved three baffling murder mysteries. So we're not surprised to learn that Jones, along with his wife, Betty, has been invited to be a guest at a radio broadcast from an old, deserted mansion in the Massachusetts countryside where, 100 years ago, a still-unsolved murder had taken place. Furthermore, you will not be astonished when I tell you that, once cast, crew and assorted guests are gathered at the house, a brand new murder takes place forthwith. Luckily, our man Jones is on the scene, as usual a step or two ahead of the local police. These mysteries are far from classics, but they are fun, with enough gentle, self-deprecating humor to keep things light, and an interesting time-piece of their era.
I've had this fourth entry in the series on my shelves since my LT "big bang" in 2008. I took it down from the shelf to read a few years back, only to realize it was part of a series. So, given my predilections, I had to go back and read the first three Jupiter Jones books in order before attending to this one. There's one more in the series, which I'll be attending to sooner or later.
22Jackie_K
>20 rocketjk: Owen's New Lanark in Scotland is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's very interesting seeing the housing and school etc that he built alongside the mills.
23rocketjk
>22 Jackie_K: " It's very interesting seeing the housing and school etc that he built alongside the mills."
I bet it is! So sad, though not surprising, that Owen got so much resistance, scorn and worse from not only his fellow industrialists but also from the church.
I bet it is! So sad, though not surprising, that Owen got so much resistance, scorn and worse from not only his fellow industrialists but also from the church.
24rocketjk
Book 7: The Mountains Wait by Theodor Broch
This is the memoir of Theodor Broch, who was the mayor of the far northern Norwegian town of Narvik when the Nazis invaded in 1940. The book begins with Broch getting away over the mountains into neutral Sweden, having escaped arrest for his resistance activities several months after the Nazi's arrival. But then, quickly, we go 10 years back in time to Broch's arrival in the town with his wife. He is a young lawyer intent on starting a practice away from the bustle (and competition) of Oslo. His wife will run the law office. This first third of the book is a charming description of the town, its lifestyle and citizens, many of whom are charmingly eccentric. Imagine All Things Bright and Beautiful, but in an Arctic fishing and mining town on the inner coast of a Norwegian fjord, as told be a lawyer rather than a veterinarian. Broch's law practice is slow going at first, but eventually the couple gains traction. Then, pretty soon, Broch finds himself on the city council, and then the town's mayor. In the meantime, war clouds are gathering over Europe, though the folks of this sleepy town somehow assume they'll be spared.
But, of course, they aren't. In April 1940, German destroyers show up in the fjord. The Norwegian Navy ships on hand refuse to surrender, but are almost immediately sunk. The defeatist (and/or Nazi sympathizing) commander of the local Norwegian Army forces does surrender. The British, during their rather inept and soon to be aborted attempt to help the Norwegians resist invasion, send their own destroyers to the scene and actually win the ensuing naval battle, though the occupation of the town is not lifted. Weeks later, however, Polish, Norwegian, English and French Foreign Legion forces actually do run the Germans out, but only for a short time. Soon, the British decide to abandon the effort to defend Norway, withdrawing their forces to go defend their own island. Out go the British, and back into town come the Nazis. Broch describes all of this quite well, naturally emphasizing the daily lives of the people of Narvik and their experiences under Nazi rule, including his own negotiations with the Germans in his role as mayor as he attempts to placate the occupiers, keep the daily lives of his constituents as normal as possible despite disappearing food supplies and jobs, and keep the morale of the town as high as he can so that defeatism doesn't set in. Things go a little bit easier for the Norwegians than for other occupied nationalities, as the Nazis considered the Norwegians to be Aryans, people to be won over to the New Order rather than to be crushed, humiliated and exploited.
But, finally, Broch's activities in getting information out to the British and other minor acts of resistance are discovered, and he has to flee. Broch eventually made his way to the U.S., where he became active in trying to raise money for the training and supplying of the Norwegian military and government in exile. He travels the country, especially the midwest, where Norwegian immigrants have been settling for decades. when Broch talks to American college students, he is frequently asked how Norway could have let itself be caught by surprise. That's until the Pearl Harbor attack, when those questions naturally cease. Finally we visit an airfield in Canada where Norwegian airmen are being trained. The Mountains Wait was published in 1943, while the war, obviously, was still ongoing. Broch couldn't know that Norway would still be in German hands right up until the end of the war.
This book has been on my shelves since before my LT "Big Bang" in 2008.
This is the memoir of Theodor Broch, who was the mayor of the far northern Norwegian town of Narvik when the Nazis invaded in 1940. The book begins with Broch getting away over the mountains into neutral Sweden, having escaped arrest for his resistance activities several months after the Nazi's arrival. But then, quickly, we go 10 years back in time to Broch's arrival in the town with his wife. He is a young lawyer intent on starting a practice away from the bustle (and competition) of Oslo. His wife will run the law office. This first third of the book is a charming description of the town, its lifestyle and citizens, many of whom are charmingly eccentric. Imagine All Things Bright and Beautiful, but in an Arctic fishing and mining town on the inner coast of a Norwegian fjord, as told be a lawyer rather than a veterinarian. Broch's law practice is slow going at first, but eventually the couple gains traction. Then, pretty soon, Broch finds himself on the city council, and then the town's mayor. In the meantime, war clouds are gathering over Europe, though the folks of this sleepy town somehow assume they'll be spared.
But, of course, they aren't. In April 1940, German destroyers show up in the fjord. The Norwegian Navy ships on hand refuse to surrender, but are almost immediately sunk. The defeatist (and/or Nazi sympathizing) commander of the local Norwegian Army forces does surrender. The British, during their rather inept and soon to be aborted attempt to help the Norwegians resist invasion, send their own destroyers to the scene and actually win the ensuing naval battle, though the occupation of the town is not lifted. Weeks later, however, Polish, Norwegian, English and French Foreign Legion forces actually do run the Germans out, but only for a short time. Soon, the British decide to abandon the effort to defend Norway, withdrawing their forces to go defend their own island. Out go the British, and back into town come the Nazis. Broch describes all of this quite well, naturally emphasizing the daily lives of the people of Narvik and their experiences under Nazi rule, including his own negotiations with the Germans in his role as mayor as he attempts to placate the occupiers, keep the daily lives of his constituents as normal as possible despite disappearing food supplies and jobs, and keep the morale of the town as high as he can so that defeatism doesn't set in. Things go a little bit easier for the Norwegians than for other occupied nationalities, as the Nazis considered the Norwegians to be Aryans, people to be won over to the New Order rather than to be crushed, humiliated and exploited.
But, finally, Broch's activities in getting information out to the British and other minor acts of resistance are discovered, and he has to flee. Broch eventually made his way to the U.S., where he became active in trying to raise money for the training and supplying of the Norwegian military and government in exile. He travels the country, especially the midwest, where Norwegian immigrants have been settling for decades. when Broch talks to American college students, he is frequently asked how Norway could have let itself be caught by surprise. That's until the Pearl Harbor attack, when those questions naturally cease. Finally we visit an airfield in Canada where Norwegian airmen are being trained. The Mountains Wait was published in 1943, while the war, obviously, was still ongoing. Broch couldn't know that Norway would still be in German hands right up until the end of the war.
This book has been on my shelves since before my LT "Big Bang" in 2008.
25Jackie_K
>24 rocketjk: That sounds fascinating! There is such interesting history related to Norway in the war - I'm thinking of the "Shetland Bus" in particular, Norwegian fishing boats that sailed between Norway and Shetland with supplies for the resistance, and also helped get refugees and fugitives out.
26benitastrnad
>24 rocketjk:
I love a well written memoir and this one sounds like a good'un. I guess that is a BB. And I have taken so many of those lately. My ROOT list will never get smaller at this rate.
I love a well written memoir and this one sounds like a good'un. I guess that is a BB. And I have taken so many of those lately. My ROOT list will never get smaller at this rate.
27rocketjk
>25 Jackie_K: & >26 benitastrnad:
Thanks for the kind words, kids.
>25 Jackie_K: "There is such interesting history related to Norway in the war - I'm thinking of the "Shetland Bus" in particular, Norwegian fishing boats that sailed between Norway and Shetland with supplies for the resistance, and also helped get refugees and fugitives out."
Right, and I know so little of it. I might search out an actual history of these events some time.
>26 benitastrnad: "My ROOT list will never get smaller at this rate."
Ha! Who ever heard of a ROOT list getting smaller?
Thanks for the kind words, kids.
>25 Jackie_K: "There is such interesting history related to Norway in the war - I'm thinking of the "Shetland Bus" in particular, Norwegian fishing boats that sailed between Norway and Shetland with supplies for the resistance, and also helped get refugees and fugitives out."
Right, and I know so little of it. I might search out an actual history of these events some time.
>26 benitastrnad: "My ROOT list will never get smaller at this rate."
Ha! Who ever heard of a ROOT list getting smaller?
28rocketjk
Book 8: Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era by Elizabeth Pepin Silva and Lewis Watts
From the 1930s through the late-1960s, the Fillmore district of San Francisco was an ethnically-mixed working class neighborhood, alive with minority-owned businesses, a with a bustling neighborhood feel where different groups got along as a matter of course. Starting in the early '40s, the Fillmore became a hotbed of blues, R&B and jazz clubs where local musicians flocked and famous musicians came to jam after their paid downtown gigs, blowing until dawn in bars and cellar sessions alike.
The World War 2 years brought a great influx of African American families to the Fillmore, both looking for work in the Bay Area's war plants and navy yards, and fleeing the Jim Crow oppression of the South. And while they certainly found plenty of prejudice and rejection based on race in San Francisco, the Fillmore neighborhood was in many respects an oasis of community and inclusion. The exception was the Japanese population, who were yanked out of their businesses and homes during the war and sent to internment camps. Some were able to return and reclaim their businesses after the war, but most never came back.
Soon, as mentioned above, the neighborhood exploded with music clubs. Harlem of the West is a beautiful collection of photographs from the area's heyday, along with dozens of short oral histories from many of the musicians and other local residents who were still available to be interviewed when the authors were first doing their research in the early 2000s. We are lucky that most of the clubs had photographers who took photos of the patrons and musicians. The middle section of the book goes through the neighborhood, club by club, telling the stories of how each was established, and the colorful characters who ran them and performed in them. A reading of this book is a visit back in time to a wonderful era of jazz and inclusiveness in San Francisco history.
Of course, Golden Eras come to an end, and the Fillmore was done in by the usual culprits, prejudice and greed. Even while Fillmore residents were enjoying what many described in retrospect as great times in their lives, the City of San Francisco's Redevelopment Commission was taking pictures of the buildings and labeling them decrepit and liable for demolition. The buildings were, indeed, old and in need of repair, but the people who lived in the neighborhood loved them. From the mid-60s through the late-70s, whole blocks of the neighborhood were summarily knocked down. Geary Street which runs through the neighborhood was widened into a 6-lane highway as it goes through the Fillmore in order to allow drivers to essentially bypass the neighborhood on their way from the western urban suburbs to their jobs downtown. More houses and businesses were destroyed so that an ugly mall, intended to be a Japanese community center and known citywide as Japantown, could be built. When I lived in San Francisco from 1986 through 2008, Japantown was a dingy affair full of cheesy gift shops and mediocre restaurants. Certainly not worth eviscerating a vibrant neighborhood for. Well, developers gonna develop, I guess.
I should note that this is basically a reread for me. The book was originally published in 2007, and I bought and read it then. Over the intervening years, many folks who had lived the history and/or had photographs to share approached the authors, who decided to use these new stories and photos and expand and republish the book. The original publishers, ChronicleBooks, had taken the book out of print, so the authors launched an Indiegogo campaign and republished the expanded version themselves. This new version suffers from some copy editing problems, but those are not enough to lessen the book's overall value, which is substantial.
From the 1930s through the late-1960s, the Fillmore district of San Francisco was an ethnically-mixed working class neighborhood, alive with minority-owned businesses, a with a bustling neighborhood feel where different groups got along as a matter of course. Starting in the early '40s, the Fillmore became a hotbed of blues, R&B and jazz clubs where local musicians flocked and famous musicians came to jam after their paid downtown gigs, blowing until dawn in bars and cellar sessions alike.
The World War 2 years brought a great influx of African American families to the Fillmore, both looking for work in the Bay Area's war plants and navy yards, and fleeing the Jim Crow oppression of the South. And while they certainly found plenty of prejudice and rejection based on race in San Francisco, the Fillmore neighborhood was in many respects an oasis of community and inclusion. The exception was the Japanese population, who were yanked out of their businesses and homes during the war and sent to internment camps. Some were able to return and reclaim their businesses after the war, but most never came back.
Soon, as mentioned above, the neighborhood exploded with music clubs. Harlem of the West is a beautiful collection of photographs from the area's heyday, along with dozens of short oral histories from many of the musicians and other local residents who were still available to be interviewed when the authors were first doing their research in the early 2000s. We are lucky that most of the clubs had photographers who took photos of the patrons and musicians. The middle section of the book goes through the neighborhood, club by club, telling the stories of how each was established, and the colorful characters who ran them and performed in them. A reading of this book is a visit back in time to a wonderful era of jazz and inclusiveness in San Francisco history.
Of course, Golden Eras come to an end, and the Fillmore was done in by the usual culprits, prejudice and greed. Even while Fillmore residents were enjoying what many described in retrospect as great times in their lives, the City of San Francisco's Redevelopment Commission was taking pictures of the buildings and labeling them decrepit and liable for demolition. The buildings were, indeed, old and in need of repair, but the people who lived in the neighborhood loved them. From the mid-60s through the late-70s, whole blocks of the neighborhood were summarily knocked down. Geary Street which runs through the neighborhood was widened into a 6-lane highway as it goes through the Fillmore in order to allow drivers to essentially bypass the neighborhood on their way from the western urban suburbs to their jobs downtown. More houses and businesses were destroyed so that an ugly mall, intended to be a Japanese community center and known citywide as Japantown, could be built. When I lived in San Francisco from 1986 through 2008, Japantown was a dingy affair full of cheesy gift shops and mediocre restaurants. Certainly not worth eviscerating a vibrant neighborhood for. Well, developers gonna develop, I guess.
I should note that this is basically a reread for me. The book was originally published in 2007, and I bought and read it then. Over the intervening years, many folks who had lived the history and/or had photographs to share approached the authors, who decided to use these new stories and photos and expand and republish the book. The original publishers, ChronicleBooks, had taken the book out of print, so the authors launched an Indiegogo campaign and republished the expanded version themselves. This new version suffers from some copy editing problems, but those are not enough to lessen the book's overall value, which is substantial.
29connie53
Hi Jerry. >24 rocketjk:. That sounds very interesting not just as a story but as a historical description of reality as it was, back then. Trying to dodge the BB, but I'm not sure if that's the case. I've been searching my online bookstore.
30rocketjk
Book 9: The Miracle at Coogan's Bluff by Thomas Kiernan
This fine baseball history tells the story of the National League pennant race of 1951, when the New York Giants came from 13 1/2 games back with just 6 weeks to go to overtake the Brooklyn Dodgers to win the pennant. The regular season ended in a tie, resulting in a best-of-three playoff series to decide the victor. In the third and deciding game of that series, the Giants came to bat in the bottom of the 9th inning trailing by three runs, but won the game thanks to a home run by third baseman Bobby Thomson, one of the most famous and dramatic home runs in baseball history, known alternately as "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" and "The Miracle at Coogan's Bluff." (The stadium the Giants played in, the Polo Grounds, was built below a rocky cliff in Harlem known as Coogan's Bluff.)
In the first half of the book, Kiernan provides the story of that season through the eyes of the Giants. He gives effective pocket biographies of the team's important players and their manager, Leo Durocher. Happily, rather than giving a blow-by-blow account of every day of the season, he picks out important points in the campaign to focus in on and provides overall themes that he allows us to follow along with. Just often enough, he picks out particular games to describe in detail, with an eye toward understanding how a season that ended in a tie could have a multiplicity of key moments: a double play not turned, an easy grounder bobbled, a light-hitting backup player's unexpected home run.
That's the first half of the book. Kiernan was writing in the early 1970s (the book was published in 1975) or only about 22 years after the event. That meant he was able to track down many of the most important Giant players from the team and interview them at length. The second half of the book is a collection of those interviews, providing a Roshoman-type picture of the season, the final game, and even the famous final rally that culminated in Thompson's blast.
Especially due to the excellent set of player interviews, as noted above I found The Miracle at Coogan's Bluff a very good entry in the genre of baseball histories.
This fine baseball history tells the story of the National League pennant race of 1951, when the New York Giants came from 13 1/2 games back with just 6 weeks to go to overtake the Brooklyn Dodgers to win the pennant. The regular season ended in a tie, resulting in a best-of-three playoff series to decide the victor. In the third and deciding game of that series, the Giants came to bat in the bottom of the 9th inning trailing by three runs, but won the game thanks to a home run by third baseman Bobby Thomson, one of the most famous and dramatic home runs in baseball history, known alternately as "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" and "The Miracle at Coogan's Bluff." (The stadium the Giants played in, the Polo Grounds, was built below a rocky cliff in Harlem known as Coogan's Bluff.)
In the first half of the book, Kiernan provides the story of that season through the eyes of the Giants. He gives effective pocket biographies of the team's important players and their manager, Leo Durocher. Happily, rather than giving a blow-by-blow account of every day of the season, he picks out important points in the campaign to focus in on and provides overall themes that he allows us to follow along with. Just often enough, he picks out particular games to describe in detail, with an eye toward understanding how a season that ended in a tie could have a multiplicity of key moments: a double play not turned, an easy grounder bobbled, a light-hitting backup player's unexpected home run.
That's the first half of the book. Kiernan was writing in the early 1970s (the book was published in 1975) or only about 22 years after the event. That meant he was able to track down many of the most important Giant players from the team and interview them at length. The second half of the book is a collection of those interviews, providing a Roshoman-type picture of the season, the final game, and even the famous final rally that culminated in Thompson's blast.
Especially due to the excellent set of player interviews, as noted above I found The Miracle at Coogan's Bluff a very good entry in the genre of baseball histories.
31rocketjk
Book 10: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower by Marcel Proust
In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (a title originally translated into English as Within a Budding Grove) is the second entry in Proust’s famous 7-book reverie, In Search of Lost Time. I read the first book, Swann’s Way, in the original translation by C.K. Scott Moncrieff. Happily, for this second book, I was able to find a used copy of the Penguin Classics edition with a more modern translation by James Grieve.
Our nameless protagonist is looking back at his young adulthood with longing, remembering two particular segments of his early experiences with love while delving deeply into the nature of memory and of the relationship between thoughts, perceptions and reality. Proust’s expositions of the tensions between the splintering “realities” of anticipation, actual experience and memory are often fascinating although, at least to me, sometimes repetitive and dull. This, however, seems to be woven into Proust’s intent: the fascination each of us has with our own memories, and our proclivities, even delight, in delving into them over and over again, even when they bring us pain, or the regret of missed opportunities, or of pleasures that will never come again. Sometimes we are indulging in the delight of experiences long past, and sometimes we are endlessly putting our tongue onto the throbbing tooth.
It's all a long, slow wander, with plot, what there is of it, subordinate to reverie. There are long passages of natural descriptions, which we strongly suspect are not meant to accurately represent the narrators observations at the time, but instead are heavily invested with the longing and enhancements rendered by time as the narrator looks back at them. The first part of the book takes place in Paris. The second segment brings our narrator, with his beloved grandmother, to a seaside town in Brittany. Because he is in poor health, his physical abilities are limited, helpful for an author constructing a novel of a young man who spends way too much time inside his own mind. The problem is that we often don’t really sympathize much with this poor fellows problems. I mean, sure, we can empathize with someone overthinking (to put it mildly) his nascent relationships with potential romantic partners. But the fellow is of a well-to-do upper middleclass family, and his observations of the prejudices and complications of the French upper class society do not make compelling subject matter for most of us these days. So there is a matter of, I guess you’d call it, willing suspension of disapproval in the reading.
The book is long: 533 pages in my edition. And it took me forever to read it. There were three main reasons for this. 1) I started the book just before my wife and I left for our cross-country drive from New York to California. Most evenings I’d get two or three pages read, but no more, before falling asleep in some nondescript motel. Between that and the work we immediately dove into of getting our house ready for showing in readiness for putting it on the market for sale, and also getting packed up and ready to move, reading time has been scanty. 2) Sometimes the prose becomes particularly dense and not particularly interesting, and the mind (at least this one) will wander. 3) Sometimes Proust’s observations hit home, and the writing would send me off into internal wanderings and memories of my own, off to revisit experiences and relationships from my own past.
In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (a title originally translated into English as Within a Budding Grove) is the second entry in Proust’s famous 7-book reverie, In Search of Lost Time. I read the first book, Swann’s Way, in the original translation by C.K. Scott Moncrieff. Happily, for this second book, I was able to find a used copy of the Penguin Classics edition with a more modern translation by James Grieve.
Our nameless protagonist is looking back at his young adulthood with longing, remembering two particular segments of his early experiences with love while delving deeply into the nature of memory and of the relationship between thoughts, perceptions and reality. Proust’s expositions of the tensions between the splintering “realities” of anticipation, actual experience and memory are often fascinating although, at least to me, sometimes repetitive and dull. This, however, seems to be woven into Proust’s intent: the fascination each of us has with our own memories, and our proclivities, even delight, in delving into them over and over again, even when they bring us pain, or the regret of missed opportunities, or of pleasures that will never come again. Sometimes we are indulging in the delight of experiences long past, and sometimes we are endlessly putting our tongue onto the throbbing tooth.
It's all a long, slow wander, with plot, what there is of it, subordinate to reverie. There are long passages of natural descriptions, which we strongly suspect are not meant to accurately represent the narrators observations at the time, but instead are heavily invested with the longing and enhancements rendered by time as the narrator looks back at them. The first part of the book takes place in Paris. The second segment brings our narrator, with his beloved grandmother, to a seaside town in Brittany. Because he is in poor health, his physical abilities are limited, helpful for an author constructing a novel of a young man who spends way too much time inside his own mind. The problem is that we often don’t really sympathize much with this poor fellows problems. I mean, sure, we can empathize with someone overthinking (to put it mildly) his nascent relationships with potential romantic partners. But the fellow is of a well-to-do upper middleclass family, and his observations of the prejudices and complications of the French upper class society do not make compelling subject matter for most of us these days. So there is a matter of, I guess you’d call it, willing suspension of disapproval in the reading.
The book is long: 533 pages in my edition. And it took me forever to read it. There were three main reasons for this. 1) I started the book just before my wife and I left for our cross-country drive from New York to California. Most evenings I’d get two or three pages read, but no more, before falling asleep in some nondescript motel. Between that and the work we immediately dove into of getting our house ready for showing in readiness for putting it on the market for sale, and also getting packed up and ready to move, reading time has been scanty. 2) Sometimes the prose becomes particularly dense and not particularly interesting, and the mind (at least this one) will wander. 3) Sometimes Proust’s observations hit home, and the writing would send me off into internal wanderings and memories of my own, off to revisit experiences and relationships from my own past.
32detailmuse
>31 rocketjk: I like your willing suspension of disapproval. And I really like that the writing would send me off into internal wanderings and memories of my own, off to revisit experiences and relationships from my own past. Congratulations on finishing!
33rocketjk
>32 detailmuse: Thanks!
34rocketjk
Book 11: The Estate by Isaac Bashevis Singer.
The Estate is the sequel to The Manor, which I read in January. Really, Singer meant the two novels to be a single book, but due to the length of the endeavor, his American publishers insisted that the work be broken up into two novels. Later, they were republished in a single volume under the title, The Manor. My copy of the combined works comes in at 818 total pages.
The Manor is the story of a Jewish family in Warsaw that begins during the final decades of the 19th century. The Russians are occupying the country and an uprising of the Polish nobility against the occupiers has just failed. In the Jewish community, many, especially among the younger generation, are leaving the old ways, becoming assimilated, or trying to, and embracing the “enlightened” world of science and modern philosophy. The story revolves around Calman Jacoby, an observant Jew who becomes successful through the running of the manor of the title, and his family. The story is of the struggle that his children and other relatives go through to create a place for themselves in the world, physically, emotionally and spiritually, some adhering to the old ways, and some striving to find meaning within the new, all within the context of a rising tide of antisemitism in Poland.
The Estate simply takes up the story exactly where The Manor left us. It is almost exclusively the story of the younger generation, now grown into middle age and eventually beyond, and in some cases their children as well. Some end up in Palestine, some in America, and some stay in Warsaw, either to live the old ways or to try to work their way into mainstream Polish culture. Ezriel’s daughter becomes a revolutionary. All struggle to make sense of life. For some, might and greed make right. For others, the search for comfort, for meaning and/or for love becomes what seems an ever more futile struggle against personal calamity.
I still The Estate quite a bit. Singer’s terrific powers of description, both of the human condition and of the physical world, had certainly not flagged, nor had his sense of compassion.
The Estate is the sequel to The Manor, which I read in January. Really, Singer meant the two novels to be a single book, but due to the length of the endeavor, his American publishers insisted that the work be broken up into two novels. Later, they were republished in a single volume under the title, The Manor. My copy of the combined works comes in at 818 total pages.
The Manor is the story of a Jewish family in Warsaw that begins during the final decades of the 19th century. The Russians are occupying the country and an uprising of the Polish nobility against the occupiers has just failed. In the Jewish community, many, especially among the younger generation, are leaving the old ways, becoming assimilated, or trying to, and embracing the “enlightened” world of science and modern philosophy. The story revolves around Calman Jacoby, an observant Jew who becomes successful through the running of the manor of the title, and his family. The story is of the struggle that his children and other relatives go through to create a place for themselves in the world, physically, emotionally and spiritually, some adhering to the old ways, and some striving to find meaning within the new, all within the context of a rising tide of antisemitism in Poland.
The Estate simply takes up the story exactly where The Manor left us. It is almost exclusively the story of the younger generation, now grown into middle age and eventually beyond, and in some cases their children as well. Some end up in Palestine, some in America, and some stay in Warsaw, either to live the old ways or to try to work their way into mainstream Polish culture. Ezriel’s daughter becomes a revolutionary. All struggle to make sense of life. For some, might and greed make right. For others, the search for comfort, for meaning and/or for love becomes what seems an ever more futile struggle against personal calamity.
I still The Estate quite a bit. Singer’s terrific powers of description, both of the human condition and of the physical world, had certainly not flagged, nor had his sense of compassion.
35rocketjk
Book 12: Balls by Graig Nettles and Peter Golenbock
For baseball fans only. As baseball fans will know that 1) Graig Nettles was a star third baseman for the New York Yankees from 1973 through 1983, and 2) these years coincide with the period that George Steinbrenner owned the team. Steinbrenner was an egotistical blowhard who made his fortune via his shipbuilding company and knew a lot less about building and running a baseball team than he thought he did. Balls is Nettles’ memoir of the 1983 season, which turned out to be his final year as a Yankee. Nettles and co-writer Peter Golenbock intersperse chapters which follow the ’83 season chronologically with chapters that provide an overview of Nettles’ career up to that point.
Nettles depicts Steinbrenner as an self-centered jerk who wanted to make the story all about himself rather than about his players. He regularly criticized the ballplayers in the press and took credit when things went well. Although he had a general manager, he insisted on decided upon trades himself. Nettles praises Steinbrenner for being willing to pay to bring in high-priced stars, but criticizes what he saw as the haphazard way this was done. In 1977, reliever Sparky Lyle won the Cy Young Award, a rarity for a relief pitcher. Nevertheless, the next season Steinbrenner brought in high-priced closer Goose Gossage. Irritated at having to share the closer role, Lyle fumed all season, was ineffective on the mound, and was traded the next year, an event causing Nettles to offer his famous quip to Lyle, “You went from Cy Young to sayonara.”
The bottom line for Nettles, though, and that factor that bothered him the most, was that although the Yankees were usually good, Steinbrenner’s methods and personality took the fun out of baseball for the players. “Baseball should be a game, not a business,” he says in the book. “Nobody ever says that the Yankees and Red Sox held a business meeting on Friday night. They say that the Yankees and Red Sox played a game.”
As the book ends, Nettles, at age 39, had just signed a new 2-year contract with the Yankees. But the book’s appearance during the 1984 spring training led immediately to Nettles getting traded to the San Diego Padres, which at least was Nettles’ hometown team. Balls is breezy and a relatively quick read, and it will be fun for baseball fans, and particularly for folks who remember those days. Yankee fans will enjoy reading about those players again. Yankee haters will enjoy the disfunction.
For baseball fans only. As baseball fans will know that 1) Graig Nettles was a star third baseman for the New York Yankees from 1973 through 1983, and 2) these years coincide with the period that George Steinbrenner owned the team. Steinbrenner was an egotistical blowhard who made his fortune via his shipbuilding company and knew a lot less about building and running a baseball team than he thought he did. Balls is Nettles’ memoir of the 1983 season, which turned out to be his final year as a Yankee. Nettles and co-writer Peter Golenbock intersperse chapters which follow the ’83 season chronologically with chapters that provide an overview of Nettles’ career up to that point.
Nettles depicts Steinbrenner as an self-centered jerk who wanted to make the story all about himself rather than about his players. He regularly criticized the ballplayers in the press and took credit when things went well. Although he had a general manager, he insisted on decided upon trades himself. Nettles praises Steinbrenner for being willing to pay to bring in high-priced stars, but criticizes what he saw as the haphazard way this was done. In 1977, reliever Sparky Lyle won the Cy Young Award, a rarity for a relief pitcher. Nevertheless, the next season Steinbrenner brought in high-priced closer Goose Gossage. Irritated at having to share the closer role, Lyle fumed all season, was ineffective on the mound, and was traded the next year, an event causing Nettles to offer his famous quip to Lyle, “You went from Cy Young to sayonara.”
The bottom line for Nettles, though, and that factor that bothered him the most, was that although the Yankees were usually good, Steinbrenner’s methods and personality took the fun out of baseball for the players. “Baseball should be a game, not a business,” he says in the book. “Nobody ever says that the Yankees and Red Sox held a business meeting on Friday night. They say that the Yankees and Red Sox played a game.”
As the book ends, Nettles, at age 39, had just signed a new 2-year contract with the Yankees. But the book’s appearance during the 1984 spring training led immediately to Nettles getting traded to the San Diego Padres, which at least was Nettles’ hometown team. Balls is breezy and a relatively quick read, and it will be fun for baseball fans, and particularly for folks who remember those days. Yankee fans will enjoy reading about those players again. Yankee haters will enjoy the disfunction.
36dypaloh
>35 rocketjk: “But the book’s appearance during the 1984 spring training led immediately to Nettles getting traded to the San Diego Padres, which at least was Nettles’ hometown team.”
Must have been a sweet feeling for Nettles that the Yankees did not make it to the 1984 World Series, but the Padres did.
Sounds like a fun book.
Must have been a sweet feeling for Nettles that the Yankees did not make it to the 1984 World Series, but the Padres did.
Sounds like a fun book.
37rocketjk
>36 dypaloh: "Must have been a sweet feeling for Nettles that the Yankees did not make it to the 1984 World Series, but the Padres did."
I hadn't thought of that, but, yes, it must have been indeed! I do know that that 2-year contract I mentioned he'd just signed with the Yankees was for a million dollars per year, a very high salary in those days. I wouldn't be surprised if the trade with the Padres included the proviso of the Yankees continuing to pay at least a part of Nettles' salary. That's not uncommon, as of course you know. That would make things even sweeter for Nettles, wouldn't it?
I hadn't thought of that, but, yes, it must have been indeed! I do know that that 2-year contract I mentioned he'd just signed with the Yankees was for a million dollars per year, a very high salary in those days. I wouldn't be surprised if the trade with the Padres included the proviso of the Yankees continuing to pay at least a part of Nettles' salary. That's not uncommon, as of course you know. That would make things even sweeter for Nettles, wouldn't it?
39rocketjk
>38 connie53: Thanks!
40rocketjk
Book 13: The World's Greatest Romances edited by Walter J. Black
Read as a "Between Book" (see first post). I only mildly enjoyed this jam-packed (68 stories!) collection of stories, most from the 18th and 19th centuries. Most of them were fairly formulaic, having to do with the amorous and/or romantic adventures of nobility and knights and so forth. The first section of 11 tales were mostly gothic in nature and those were entertaining, but after that the collection settled into long waits, matters of honor, unrequited love and tragic misadventures, few particularly compellingly written. My favorite story was one that broke the mold, "Twenty-Six Men and a Girl" by Maxim Gorky, about a group of men in a Russian prison who begin to idolize the young girl who works as a maid in the building. There are some other famous names among the authors, including R.L. Stevenson, Chekhov, Pushkin, Bret Harte and Henry James. Those are all writers I admire, but none of their stories stand out for me. This must be something to do with editor Walter Black's tastes, or what he deemed to be his audience's tastes. The rest of the authors were obscure, at least to me. It was fun looking each of those names up online after I'd read their stories here.
The volume is one of a series Black published called Black's Readers Service. There were (I believe) 32 volumes in all of different topics, published between the late 1920s and early 30s. Given all that, you might not be surprised to learn that there are no more than three or four female authors represented here.
Book note: This collection has been on my shelves since my LibraryThing "big bang" in 2008. It will be off to the thrift store now.
Read as a "Between Book" (see first post). I only mildly enjoyed this jam-packed (68 stories!) collection of stories, most from the 18th and 19th centuries. Most of them were fairly formulaic, having to do with the amorous and/or romantic adventures of nobility and knights and so forth. The first section of 11 tales were mostly gothic in nature and those were entertaining, but after that the collection settled into long waits, matters of honor, unrequited love and tragic misadventures, few particularly compellingly written. My favorite story was one that broke the mold, "Twenty-Six Men and a Girl" by Maxim Gorky, about a group of men in a Russian prison who begin to idolize the young girl who works as a maid in the building. There are some other famous names among the authors, including R.L. Stevenson, Chekhov, Pushkin, Bret Harte and Henry James. Those are all writers I admire, but none of their stories stand out for me. This must be something to do with editor Walter Black's tastes, or what he deemed to be his audience's tastes. The rest of the authors were obscure, at least to me. It was fun looking each of those names up online after I'd read their stories here.
The volume is one of a series Black published called Black's Readers Service. There were (I believe) 32 volumes in all of different topics, published between the late 1920s and early 30s. Given all that, you might not be surprised to learn that there are no more than three or four female authors represented here.
Book note: This collection has been on my shelves since my LibraryThing "big bang" in 2008. It will be off to the thrift store now.
41rocketjk
Book 14: The Third Ghost Book edited by Lady Cynthia Asquith
Cynthia Asquith was born into the English upper crust in 1887. Early on, she became friends folks like D.H. Lawrence, J.M. Barrie and L.P. Hartley. She became a fairly well-known writer, known for her short stories and WWI-era diaries. Quite a bit of her writing showcased the unfair social restrictions that English women were saddled with. She was also known for editing anthologies of ghost stories, such as the collection I've just finished. Because Asquith was a writer herself and otherwise strongly connected in the British literary world, she was able to get some quite famous authors to contribute to her collections. In The Third Ghost Book, originally published in 1955, we find writers such as Mary Treadgold, Elizabeth Bowen, Lord Dunsany, Elizabeth Taylor (the writer, not the actress) and Angus Wilson.
The stories are almost all quite good. Most are quite spooky and evocative, though a few are humorous. In “The Telephone,” by Mary Treadgold, a man and his new wife are haunted by his former wife via a telephone that they thought they’d had disconnected. In “The Claimant,” by Elizabeth Bowen, a man lays claim to his former property, even after death. Elizabeth Jenkins' “On No Account, My Love,” while offering a wonderfully disturbing sense of dread, is more of a character study than a true ghost story. A woman recounts her family history, beginning with what she’s been able to piece together from family lore about her beautiful, demanding great-grandmother, who ran a girl’s school very exactingly. The narrator finally visits the old family home. The twist at the end I found quite satisfying. That was one of my two favorite stories. The other was "The Tower," by Marghanita Laski, in which late one afternoon, a young women stops to investigate one last historical site in Italy, much to her regret. Very creepy, that one. Oh, and one more was “The Day of the Funeral,” by Margaret Lane in which a young girl and her dying grandmother hear footsteps and voices in the walls.
The one drawback to reading a collection of ghost stories is that you already know that every story is going to have a ghost. So if a solitary hiker, accosted by a sudden rainstorm, comes upon an lovely hillside inn offering shelter, we pretty much can be assured that either the inn is haunted or the innkeepers themselves are going to turn out to be ghosts. There are a couple of stories that follow this trope, but they are both charming enough tales that I didn't even mind.
So this was fun. My paperback copy was a 9th printing (1965) of the British publisher Pan Books' 1957 edition. It's been on my shelf since before my LibraryThing big bang in 2008.
Cynthia Asquith was born into the English upper crust in 1887. Early on, she became friends folks like D.H. Lawrence, J.M. Barrie and L.P. Hartley. She became a fairly well-known writer, known for her short stories and WWI-era diaries. Quite a bit of her writing showcased the unfair social restrictions that English women were saddled with. She was also known for editing anthologies of ghost stories, such as the collection I've just finished. Because Asquith was a writer herself and otherwise strongly connected in the British literary world, she was able to get some quite famous authors to contribute to her collections. In The Third Ghost Book, originally published in 1955, we find writers such as Mary Treadgold, Elizabeth Bowen, Lord Dunsany, Elizabeth Taylor (the writer, not the actress) and Angus Wilson.
The stories are almost all quite good. Most are quite spooky and evocative, though a few are humorous. In “The Telephone,” by Mary Treadgold, a man and his new wife are haunted by his former wife via a telephone that they thought they’d had disconnected. In “The Claimant,” by Elizabeth Bowen, a man lays claim to his former property, even after death. Elizabeth Jenkins' “On No Account, My Love,” while offering a wonderfully disturbing sense of dread, is more of a character study than a true ghost story. A woman recounts her family history, beginning with what she’s been able to piece together from family lore about her beautiful, demanding great-grandmother, who ran a girl’s school very exactingly. The narrator finally visits the old family home. The twist at the end I found quite satisfying. That was one of my two favorite stories. The other was "The Tower," by Marghanita Laski, in which late one afternoon, a young women stops to investigate one last historical site in Italy, much to her regret. Very creepy, that one. Oh, and one more was “The Day of the Funeral,” by Margaret Lane in which a young girl and her dying grandmother hear footsteps and voices in the walls.
The one drawback to reading a collection of ghost stories is that you already know that every story is going to have a ghost. So if a solitary hiker, accosted by a sudden rainstorm, comes upon an lovely hillside inn offering shelter, we pretty much can be assured that either the inn is haunted or the innkeepers themselves are going to turn out to be ghosts. There are a couple of stories that follow this trope, but they are both charming enough tales that I didn't even mind.
So this was fun. My paperback copy was a 9th printing (1965) of the British publisher Pan Books' 1957 edition. It's been on my shelf since before my LibraryThing big bang in 2008.
43rocketjk
Book 33: A Walk in the Sun by Harry Brown
It only took me a couple of days to rip through this short but very well-written book about a company of American soldiers taking part in the invasion of Italy during World War Two. Their officer is wounded even before the landing takes place, and their mission then becomes unclear to them. All they know is that they have to go six miles up a country road and find a farmhouse. Presumably they are to take it, assuming there are even enemy soldiers in it, and hold it. Then they look at a map and see a bridge near the farmhouse, and decide for themselves that the job must be to destroy the bridge so the German army can't bring reinforcements, tanks and supplies across it. In the novel is about their trudge up that road. They are combat-experienced, having already fought in North Africa and Sicily. Some have become resigned and matter-of-fact about the dangers and horrors. Others are beginning to show the strains of a year straight in combat. As they walk, Brown visits with some of the individual soldiers, as we hear their thoughts and their conversations. They often use banter and jokes to ease the tension and handle the boredom and discomfort of walking the hardened, rocky road in the increasingly hot day. We also listen in on the strategy discussions among the company's leaders, two sergeants and a corporal. They are attacked from the sky more than once. The whole thing takes two endless houses, and then they reach the farmhouse.
Brown was a very good writer, and there are many excellent descriptions of the men, their states of mind, and the surrounding terrain as well. I knew I was in the hands of a very good writer when, as the soldiers are still on the troop transport awaiting their nighttime landing, we read:
"As the time of landing approached a growing tension was added to nervousness and discomfort. The men's mouths were dry. Sounds magnified themselves. The dark closed in like a smotherer's pillow."
Sometimes I wished that Brown had gone a little bit easier on the banter, but all in all, I thought this was an excellent book about men at war, with a few quite vivid characters.
A Walk in the Sun was first published in 1944, while the war was still ongoing. It was made into a movie just the following year. According to Wikipedia, "In 2016, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress, and selected for preservation in its National Film Registry."* My mass market paperback is a first printing of the Signet Book edition from 1957. It has been on my shelves since before my LT "big bang" in 2008.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Walk_in_the_Sun_(1945_film)
It only took me a couple of days to rip through this short but very well-written book about a company of American soldiers taking part in the invasion of Italy during World War Two. Their officer is wounded even before the landing takes place, and their mission then becomes unclear to them. All they know is that they have to go six miles up a country road and find a farmhouse. Presumably they are to take it, assuming there are even enemy soldiers in it, and hold it. Then they look at a map and see a bridge near the farmhouse, and decide for themselves that the job must be to destroy the bridge so the German army can't bring reinforcements, tanks and supplies across it. In the novel is about their trudge up that road. They are combat-experienced, having already fought in North Africa and Sicily. Some have become resigned and matter-of-fact about the dangers and horrors. Others are beginning to show the strains of a year straight in combat. As they walk, Brown visits with some of the individual soldiers, as we hear their thoughts and their conversations. They often use banter and jokes to ease the tension and handle the boredom and discomfort of walking the hardened, rocky road in the increasingly hot day. We also listen in on the strategy discussions among the company's leaders, two sergeants and a corporal. They are attacked from the sky more than once. The whole thing takes two endless houses, and then they reach the farmhouse.
Brown was a very good writer, and there are many excellent descriptions of the men, their states of mind, and the surrounding terrain as well. I knew I was in the hands of a very good writer when, as the soldiers are still on the troop transport awaiting their nighttime landing, we read:
"As the time of landing approached a growing tension was added to nervousness and discomfort. The men's mouths were dry. Sounds magnified themselves. The dark closed in like a smotherer's pillow."
Sometimes I wished that Brown had gone a little bit easier on the banter, but all in all, I thought this was an excellent book about men at war, with a few quite vivid characters.
A Walk in the Sun was first published in 1944, while the war was still ongoing. It was made into a movie just the following year. According to Wikipedia, "In 2016, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress, and selected for preservation in its National Film Registry."* My mass market paperback is a first printing of the Signet Book edition from 1957. It has been on my shelves since before my LT "big bang" in 2008.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Walk_in_the_Sun_(1945_film)
44rocketjk
Book 16: Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege by Antony Beevor
Stalingrad is an extremely detailed and very well-written account of one of the most horrific battles of modern times, written by Antony Beevor, an excellent military historian. Beevor had access to recently opened files and had the cooperation of Russian authorities who let him see their archives (the book was first published in 1998). He got to see diaries, contemporary official accounts and even letters, some mailed and some unmailed and found on the bodies of soldiers killed during the battle. He also conducted interviews with survivors and historians alike. Beevor took all the material and information and crafted an extremely readable and detailed account of this seminal battle, including major troop movements and hour-by-hour accounts of individual engagements. He even, via those interviews, diaries and letters, takes us inside planning sessions, bunkers and trenches to describe individual moments of heroism, terror and misery.
Beevor begins at the beginning of the German invasion of Russia in 1941, even taking us inside the meeting between Russian and German diplomats as the Germans read off Hitler's list of phony provocations and rationalizations for his aggression. As the meeting breaks up and the Russians leave to pack and head home to Russia, the German representative Joachim von Ribbentrop followed his Russian counterpart, Valentin Berezhkov outside, and, with tears in his eyes, whispered, "Tell them in Moscow that I was against this attack."
We get a brief overview of the beginning of the campaign, as the Russian army retreated and then stood firm outside of Moscow. Things get more detailed, of course, when Beevor turns to the German's next effort, to storm their way to the Volga to destroy the Russian army's large war supply factories and depots. Originally, taking Stalingrad hadn't even been the plan, but along the way Hitler's pride became engaged, and he was soon insisting that the city be occupied, even if it has to be destroyed in the process. The German air force's constant bombing of the city did not break the inhabitants' will, nor did it dislodge the Russian soldiers defending it. Instead, the bombs created mounds of rubble and ruins that, in the long run, made the city easier to defend. The German laid siege for months, until they were finally surprised (they shouldn't have been, according to Beevor) when several Russian armies the Germans did realize were waiting in reserve broke out and raced around on two sides to eventually meet up in the Germans' rear and completely encircle the attackers. With quick action the Germans could have broken out, but Hitler refused to allow what he saw as a retreat, and told the German 6th Army to hold on at all costs and await a relieving column from the west. And though the German army did try it, the Russians were waiting for the expedition and destroyed it miles from the encirclement. Beevor shows us how, from beginning to end, Hitler's meddling in military planning and execution led to the invasion's downfall. (For one thing, it turns out that the old cliche about Hitler's fatal error in insisting that the invading army be split so that they could also try to capture the oil fields in the Caucuses is correct.)
All of the military action is tough enough reading on its own, although related, as I've said, with compelling detail, right down to the human element. What comes across most strongly in the narrative, though, was the toll of human misery and death on both sides. Beevor describes the Germans' atrocities, including the massacre of Jews and anti-German partisans and their general bloodthirstiness and callousness towards civilians during their advance. He also shows us Stalin's disregard for the lives of his own soldiers, who were frequently sent in waves to certain death and were even shot down by their own comrades if trying to retreat from a losing battle, and for the lives of Russian citizens, who might be turned out of their homes into the cold of winter by either side. During the initial Russian retreat, their scorched earth policy meant the burning of villages and stealing or slaughter of livestock, all of which might easily lead to starvation for the villagers left behind. As the German siege of the city endured into late fall and then early winter, and then the encirclement of the German army in January of a particularly brutal winter, their was death on both sides by the tens of thousands from freezing, starvation, exposure, exhaustion, suicide and disease. The list of horrors goes on, even after the battle ends, for the lot of the thousands of German soldiers taken captive during the battle and at the surrender, was mostly more misery and death. Russian prisoners fared no better. Somehow, Beevor is able to paint this picture largely in human terms.
Sounds like a fun read, eh? If one is interested in military history, this book is probably the ultimate account of this pivotal battle of World War 2. Once the German army had lost this battle, it was clear to their generals that what would come thereafter would be a long retreat and ultimate defeat. The Nazi leadership, on the other hand, of course turned a blind eye to this obvious truth, and the war ground on for another two years. Also, though, the book is an account of the misery that humans are willing to endure for nationalism and/or to protect their homeland, and for pride and loyalty, misplaced or not. This isn't a book that one "enjoys," as clearly written and readable as it is. It is a in-depth account, though, on the horrors of war and the follies of fanaticism and loyalty to power-(both political and economic)-besotted leaders.
I've had Stalingrad on my shelves since before my LT "big bang" in 2008. I've previously read Beevor's even longer history, The Battle for Spain, about the Spanish Civil War. I also have his The Battle of Arnhem: The Deadliest Airborne Operation of World War II on my history shelf awaiting my attention.
Stalingrad is an extremely detailed and very well-written account of one of the most horrific battles of modern times, written by Antony Beevor, an excellent military historian. Beevor had access to recently opened files and had the cooperation of Russian authorities who let him see their archives (the book was first published in 1998). He got to see diaries, contemporary official accounts and even letters, some mailed and some unmailed and found on the bodies of soldiers killed during the battle. He also conducted interviews with survivors and historians alike. Beevor took all the material and information and crafted an extremely readable and detailed account of this seminal battle, including major troop movements and hour-by-hour accounts of individual engagements. He even, via those interviews, diaries and letters, takes us inside planning sessions, bunkers and trenches to describe individual moments of heroism, terror and misery.
Beevor begins at the beginning of the German invasion of Russia in 1941, even taking us inside the meeting between Russian and German diplomats as the Germans read off Hitler's list of phony provocations and rationalizations for his aggression. As the meeting breaks up and the Russians leave to pack and head home to Russia, the German representative Joachim von Ribbentrop followed his Russian counterpart, Valentin Berezhkov outside, and, with tears in his eyes, whispered, "Tell them in Moscow that I was against this attack."
We get a brief overview of the beginning of the campaign, as the Russian army retreated and then stood firm outside of Moscow. Things get more detailed, of course, when Beevor turns to the German's next effort, to storm their way to the Volga to destroy the Russian army's large war supply factories and depots. Originally, taking Stalingrad hadn't even been the plan, but along the way Hitler's pride became engaged, and he was soon insisting that the city be occupied, even if it has to be destroyed in the process. The German air force's constant bombing of the city did not break the inhabitants' will, nor did it dislodge the Russian soldiers defending it. Instead, the bombs created mounds of rubble and ruins that, in the long run, made the city easier to defend. The German laid siege for months, until they were finally surprised (they shouldn't have been, according to Beevor) when several Russian armies the Germans did realize were waiting in reserve broke out and raced around on two sides to eventually meet up in the Germans' rear and completely encircle the attackers. With quick action the Germans could have broken out, but Hitler refused to allow what he saw as a retreat, and told the German 6th Army to hold on at all costs and await a relieving column from the west. And though the German army did try it, the Russians were waiting for the expedition and destroyed it miles from the encirclement. Beevor shows us how, from beginning to end, Hitler's meddling in military planning and execution led to the invasion's downfall. (For one thing, it turns out that the old cliche about Hitler's fatal error in insisting that the invading army be split so that they could also try to capture the oil fields in the Caucuses is correct.)
All of the military action is tough enough reading on its own, although related, as I've said, with compelling detail, right down to the human element. What comes across most strongly in the narrative, though, was the toll of human misery and death on both sides. Beevor describes the Germans' atrocities, including the massacre of Jews and anti-German partisans and their general bloodthirstiness and callousness towards civilians during their advance. He also shows us Stalin's disregard for the lives of his own soldiers, who were frequently sent in waves to certain death and were even shot down by their own comrades if trying to retreat from a losing battle, and for the lives of Russian citizens, who might be turned out of their homes into the cold of winter by either side. During the initial Russian retreat, their scorched earth policy meant the burning of villages and stealing or slaughter of livestock, all of which might easily lead to starvation for the villagers left behind. As the German siege of the city endured into late fall and then early winter, and then the encirclement of the German army in January of a particularly brutal winter, their was death on both sides by the tens of thousands from freezing, starvation, exposure, exhaustion, suicide and disease. The list of horrors goes on, even after the battle ends, for the lot of the thousands of German soldiers taken captive during the battle and at the surrender, was mostly more misery and death. Russian prisoners fared no better. Somehow, Beevor is able to paint this picture largely in human terms.
Sounds like a fun read, eh? If one is interested in military history, this book is probably the ultimate account of this pivotal battle of World War 2. Once the German army had lost this battle, it was clear to their generals that what would come thereafter would be a long retreat and ultimate defeat. The Nazi leadership, on the other hand, of course turned a blind eye to this obvious truth, and the war ground on for another two years. Also, though, the book is an account of the misery that humans are willing to endure for nationalism and/or to protect their homeland, and for pride and loyalty, misplaced or not. This isn't a book that one "enjoys," as clearly written and readable as it is. It is a in-depth account, though, on the horrors of war and the follies of fanaticism and loyalty to power-(both political and economic)-besotted leaders.
I've had Stalingrad on my shelves since before my LT "big bang" in 2008. I've previously read Beevor's even longer history, The Battle for Spain, about the Spanish Civil War. I also have his The Battle of Arnhem: The Deadliest Airborne Operation of World War II on my history shelf awaiting my attention.
45rocketjk
Book 17: Official Baseball Guide - 1963 Edition edited by C.C. Spink
Read as a "between book" (see first post). The wonderful but now defunct weekly publication, The Sporting News, used to publish these digest-sized guides each year during spring training. So, because this is the 1963 edition, is provides a compendium of the events, accomplishments and statistics of the 1962 baseball season. Not only does the publication encapsulate the 1962 Major League season, but every minor league season as well. It contains relatively long rundowns of the American League and National League 1962 seasons and the World Series as well. There is also a fairly detailed account of the AAA (the highest level of the minor leagues) playoffs. Also, the publication is sprinkled with very short (1 to 3 paragraphs) little stories about interesting in-game accomplishments or statistics. For example, we learn that Jerry Wild, pitching for the Billings Mustangs of the Class C Pioneer League, set a Pioneer League record by striking out 21 Pocatello Chiefs on August 21, 1962, breaking the mark of 20 that had been set in 1953 by Vern Kilburgh of the Ogden Reds.
Other than that, the publication provides standings tables and long lists of statistics for every minor league then in existence. In those days, there were a lot of leagues. For a hardcore baseball fan such as myself, it's kind of fun to peruse the standings and stats of, say, the Class B Northwest League, with six teams in places like Yakima, Eugene and Wenatchee. Because I was seven in 1962, when I scan the lists of batting averages and pitchers' won-lost records for a league like this, I occasionally come upon names of players who actually made it to the majors and whom I remember from my adolescence. But also the list of names opens up for me an endless opportunity for conjecture.
Obviously . . . for baseball fans only.
Read as a "between book" (see first post). The wonderful but now defunct weekly publication, The Sporting News, used to publish these digest-sized guides each year during spring training. So, because this is the 1963 edition, is provides a compendium of the events, accomplishments and statistics of the 1962 baseball season. Not only does the publication encapsulate the 1962 Major League season, but every minor league season as well. It contains relatively long rundowns of the American League and National League 1962 seasons and the World Series as well. There is also a fairly detailed account of the AAA (the highest level of the minor leagues) playoffs. Also, the publication is sprinkled with very short (1 to 3 paragraphs) little stories about interesting in-game accomplishments or statistics. For example, we learn that Jerry Wild, pitching for the Billings Mustangs of the Class C Pioneer League, set a Pioneer League record by striking out 21 Pocatello Chiefs on August 21, 1962, breaking the mark of 20 that had been set in 1953 by Vern Kilburgh of the Ogden Reds.
Other than that, the publication provides standings tables and long lists of statistics for every minor league then in existence. In those days, there were a lot of leagues. For a hardcore baseball fan such as myself, it's kind of fun to peruse the standings and stats of, say, the Class B Northwest League, with six teams in places like Yakima, Eugene and Wenatchee. Because I was seven in 1962, when I scan the lists of batting averages and pitchers' won-lost records for a league like this, I occasionally come upon names of players who actually made it to the majors and whom I remember from my adolescence. But also the list of names opens up for me an endless opportunity for conjecture.
Obviously . . . for baseball fans only.
