Thoughts on the book challenge

I've just finished my final book of the year to hit the goal Book and I set.

I enjoyed the book challenge this year and look forward to doing it again in 2009. We have slightly altered some of the rules, but, by and large, it will remain the same. This year we will assign each other a few books to read. We still have to have at least one epic book on the year. Mine will be Team of Rivals for 2009 and I'm getting a minor start on it now.

I am going to be a little better about choosing books this time around, though. I ended up reading some books I wish I could have back. "I May Not Get There With You" was written like an academic paper and focused on comparisons between MLK and Tupac. Half-way through it I wished I could just have a do-over. I also really did not enjoy "Catch-22," even though it is apparently widely regarded as a great book. Just not my style.

"Turning of the Tide" was great for 150 pages and then turned absolutely unbearable. The last 100 or 150 pages seemed like various random sports updates stapled to the back of the books with conclusions stating how it just shows that black players played in those various games. Entire chapters were just transcripts of interviews with people who really had nothing to add to the story. It's a shame because if that book ended on about page 150, it would have been one of my favorites of the year.

This year I am going to try to avoid many of the political books. I think the more I read about the Bush administration, the more generally angry I became and I kinda burned out my outrage switch. This year, any political books will be carefully chosen. Of course, I'm already compiling my list and a few are on there, but I'll at least try to mitigate them. Obama 2012!!!

HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2008

I really enjoyed "The World Without Us." I didn't expect it to be as interesting as it was. "'77," which was about the 1977 Broncos, was a really fun read. I also got intesely into "Bringing Down the House," which was about some MIT students who could count cards and took Vegas for millions.

I'm generally not a fiction reader, but I liked "Angels and Demons." Still, the book "jumped the shark" at the end, which disappointed me. That is usually why I don't read a lot of fiction. Still, the book was entertaining.

By far the best book was "Bearing the Cross" because I think I will take the lessons of the civil rights movement into the rest of life with me. Unbelievably great book. It was worth the time it took to read. I'm still amazed at the spying done on MLK and how much infighting made the struggle one that went up hill.

Barack Obama's two books were extremely good, although "Faith of My Fathers" was far superior and was in the discussion for favorite book of the year.

I enjoyed "the Great Derangement" very much. It was quite sarcastic and snarky, but also hilarious. The guy infiltrated the Hagee church (before his controvercial endorsement of McCain) and the 9/11 Truthers to show just how nuts many people can be and how impressionable as well.

"The Nine" was very interesting about the Supreme Court and how it functions behind the scenes. It confirmed my suspicion that the politics of a justice absolutely impact decisions about the hot-button issues of the times.

Finally, nothing made me laugh like "I am America and so Can You!" I read that one twice.

2009 LIST

Some of the books on my list for 2009:

Soldat
Team of Rivals
Southern Storm
Born Standing Up (Steve Martin)
Me of Little Faith (Lewis Black)
Stranger in a Strange Land
How to Rig an Election
The Express (About Ernie Davis)
Da Vinci Code
Seabiscuit
American Lion (Andrew Jackson)
Stories of blood and sweatsocks (Mankind)

As always, the list can change and I'm always open to suggestions. I am still awaiting my assignments from Book, so who knows where it will go. I'm just glad to be doing it again.