Last Car to Elysian Fields, by James Lee Burke

Dave Robicheaux is an alcoholic detective working in southern Louisiana; this is the third book in which he stars I’ve read. The plot is a bit crazy, including a decades old murder of a blues guitarist, a tragic car crash that kills three teenagers, and a hired killer that masquerades as a priest. You don’t read Burke for the stories, though; you read Burke for the rich and evocative descriptions. “New Orleans wasn’t a city. It was an outdoor mental asylum located on top of a giant sponge.” Or, “Lightning rippled like quicksilver across the thunderheads in the south, and the sugarcane in the fields along the road to St. Martinville thrashed and flickered in the wind and rain, the oak canopy blowing leaves that stuck like leeches on my windshield.” I love imagery like this; it makes the literary experience so much richer.

First Sentence:

The first week after Labor Day, after a summer of hot wind and drought that left the cane fields dust blown and spiderwebbed with cracks, rain showers once more danced across the wetlands, the temperature dropped twenty degrees, and the sky turned the hard flawless blue of an inverted ceramic bowl.

Persuader, by Lee Child

Another Jack Reacher novel, another winner. The first chapter is a roller-coaster ride with Reacher accidentally shooting a cop while foiling a kidnapping, and it doesn’t slow down after that. Child weaves two gripping stories together, one in the present and flashbacks of the past. The two come together with the revelation that the villain in both is the same supposedly already dead man. There were many clues along the way that didn’t appear to make sense, but a twist towards the end neatly explained them all in a way that was truly surprising and not at all contrived. Entertaining and well-written, this is a perfect novel for an afternoon escape.

First Sentence:

The cop climbed out of his car exactly four minutes before he got shot.

100 Things Longhorn Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die, by Jenna McEachern

As most folks that know me can attest, I do love my Longhorns! I finished this the day before the first game of the season and it certainly helped to put me in the right frame of mind. It should really have been called 100 Things Longhorn Football Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die because virtually every item is either about football or strongly related, but then football is the lifeblood of the University so I suppose that should be expected!

The book is a series of vignettes covering the history and traditions of Longhorn football. Sections on places (Memorial Stadium, the Drag, the Cotton Bowl), people (Vince Young, Clyde Littlefield, Rooster Andrews), and important years and decades make up the bulk of it, and McEachern admirably captures the essence of them all. For instance, when discussing the Texas-OU game she mentions Robert Heard’s quote, “There is no rivalry to rival this one.” She follows it with, “Just reading those quotes [sic] makes you want to drive to Dallas tomorrow. It makes your mouth water, makes your heart pump faster, and makes your breathing shallow.” Well said! Another fun story: Yards After Contact is a common football statistic; it turns out that UT was reportedly the first school to track it, although at the time it was called “Yards Made by [Earl] Campbell After First Hit by a Tackler.”

In places this book was entirely too repetitive and could have used some judicious editing. At one point we learn “the day Texas football was truly born was November 30m 1893, when The University of Texas Foot Ball Club accepted a challenge from the Dallas Foot Ball Club, the self-proclaimed champions of Texas.” On the very next page we are told “no game was more crucial than the very first one, when the Texas Varsity stormed into hostile territory to challenge the Dallas Foot Ball Club, self-proclaimed "champions of Texas."” This particular tidbit gets mentioned elsewhere too, but to be found on facing pages is a bit too redundant for me. Another oddity was the seeming lack of logic behind what items had dedicated sections and what ones were combined into overviews. For instance, the World’s Largest Texas Flag didn’t get it’s own section—it had to share with the Hex Rally and Pig Bellmont in the More Traditions category. However, both the color PMS 159 (burnt orange, naturally) and the tunnel at the Cotton Bowl got their own entries—with the actual Cotton Bowl getting yet another! Seems like odd logic to me, but the stories were all still entertaining.

First Sentence:

The University of Texas was legislated to be great.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni

This is a fast read—about 200 pages but a small size, large font, and vacuous phrasing. The simplicity is a good indication of the ideas contained within however; Lencioni’s approach to what makes an effective team is remarkably simple too. In order, a team needs trust, healthy debate, commitment, accountability, and rewarding results. You can’t skip any of these phases along the way; e.g., without trust it isn’t possible to have unfiltered discussions. Simple and obvious, like many of the popular business theories today. Unlike some popular theories though, these have the ring of truth.

This is a fable book, like The Goal or Virtual Leadership. The story in Five Dysfunctions was clumsy and contrived, but the points it tries to make come across well. It was hard to see how some of these techniques would work in the real world where people have multiple motivations and are more complex than cartoon characters, but the assessment template and discussions that close the book seem very useful. Despite the mixed review this is well worth your time, but make sure this isn’t the only book you take on an airplane!

First Sentence:

DecisionTech was located in Half Moon Bay, a foggy, coastal farming town just over the hills from San Francisco Bay.

The Emperors of Chocolate, by Joël Glenn Brenner

This examination of the world of “big chocolate” was fascinating. I was shocked to find out both how massive these corporations are, and how few of them exist. “M&M’s alone generate more revenue than Camel cigarettes or Maxwell House coffee. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, the nation’s No. 3 brand (owned by Hershey), outsells such well-known products as Advil and Ivory Soap. ... Mars is bigger than such corporate giants as RJR Nabisco, McDonald’s and Kellogg.” There are really only four major players in the mass-market candy industry: Mars, Hershey, Cadbury, and Nestlé. In America Mars and Hershey rule the candy aisle, with a staggering number of recognizable treats belonging to them. Mars owns M&M’s, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, Snickers, Dove Chocolate, Twix, Kudos, Skittles, Starburst, and the entire Wrigley Company (not to mention Banfield—The Pet Hospital, Whiskas, Pedigree, and Uncle Ben’s Rice). Hershey has all the various incarnations of the Hershey Bar and Kisses, as well as Symphony, Special Dark, Krackel, Mr. Goodbar, 5th Avenue, Almond Joy, Mounds, Heath, Kit Kat, Milk Duds, Reese’s, Whoppers, Jolly Rancher, PayDay, Bubble Yum, Breath Savers, and Twizzlers. These companies are surprisingly secretive as well; recipes and costs are obviously important trade secrets, but the Mars corporation wouldn’t even confirm the founder had ever worked for the company after his death!

The author does an effective job of describing the mysteries of chocolate; many people believe the taste is so complicated that it rivals scotch and wine to sophisticated palates. Odd words such as “mouthfeel” are commonly used, and the descriptions of how subtle differences in ingredients can have a huge impact on the resulting flavor were quite interesting. Learning about how the industry has grown from being simply large kitchens to modern factories in just the last 100 years was also captivating. For instance, in the Hershey factory before automation, “workers were known to pick up a Kiss, lick the bottom, dab it on the pile of tissues, then deposit that on the foil and twist. Not exactly sanitary, but fast.” This book is more than just a simple case study; it is an enthralling tale that I didn’t want to put down.

First Sentence:

Theo Leenders hadn’t moved from his desk all day.

Midnight Train to Memphis, by Derek B. Davis

I don’t remember where I came across this book, but it held my interest. The story and characters are interesting despite the Steven Seagal-ish plot: a proud veteran framed by a corrupt businessman gathers his military friends to fight back and clear his name. Gambling, smuggling, murder, and rape give this a clearly adult tone, but the simple writing and large print give this a distinct young adult feel. The unevenness can be forgiven, though, as it is Davis’ first outing as an author and the promise shown here is intriguing.

First Sentence:

A new model Chevrolet Silverado passed by, leaving behind a gust of wind to part Ryan’s hair.

Zoe’s Tale, by John Scalzi

The fourth tale in the Old Man’s War series, this one is a little different than the others. Instead of a new story in the same universe, in the fashion of Ender’s Shadow and Wicked this tells a familiar tale from a different viewpoint. Scalzi did a good job of making a story we already know (The Last Colony) interesting and compelling. Told from the point of view of Zoë, the daughter of the protagonists of the previous novel, we visit the same events again but with a fresh outlook. Much like teenagers everywhere, they know much more about what is happening than the adults believe, and they sneak out and get into trouble without their parents ever finding out. Some of the dangling threads of the earlier book are wrapped up (like why the werewolves vanished) which was nice, but some of the characterizations were weak; Zoë’s friend Gretchen has an identical personality and outlook, coming off as a simple copy rather than a separate person. This makes a nice companion to The Last Colony, but it is the weakest in the series.

First Sentence:

The flying saucer landed on our front lawn and a little green man got out of it.