The Last Best League, by Jim Collins

While I like baseball, I admit I'd never heard of the Cape Cod Baseball League before reading this book. I found it fascinating: a detailed look at what is often the last phase of amateur baseball prior to a professional career. The juxtaposition of an amateur league run largely by volunteers and low-paid managers that attracts the attention of top MLB scouts and whose players routinely receive six or seven figure signing bonuses was interesting. The players—mainly 20 and 21 year old college students—know that playing well on this stage can mean serious money if they do well, or kill any dream of playing professionally if they don't. The coaches are there for the love of the game, knowing they'll never see the kind of money many of their young wards will. The Last Best League captures the emotion of this situation well, following one team through the summer season of 2002.

One of my favorite aspects of baseball is that there is no clock; no matter how far behind one team gets, it is theoretically possible to close the gap in a single inning. Collins takes this truth and uses it as a metaphor to capture the beauty of baseball through the years. "The game had the awesome ability to stop time. There is no clock in baseball. The players out there on the field were twenty years old, just as they were last year, five years ago, ten. Nothing had changed—that was the illusion. Forget that the big electronic scoreboard in left field was new. ... Forget that this little old-fashioned club had spent $60,000 in the off-season on field improvement... That was real grass out there, those were wooden bats. The generations blurred. Mike MacDougal, Mike Lowell, Jeff Bagwell, Thurman Munson, Johnny Schiffner watched from the dugout. These were the same kids out there, chasing the same dream, giving the same gift." While baseball is often seen as being reluctant to embrace modern technology, this reluctance helps give the sport a timeless quality. Collins gives us a compelling glimpse into this aspect of our national pastime through the eyes of young men with dreams of playing at the highest level.

First Sentence:

For John Schiffner the summer of 2002 began at four o'clock on the eighth of June.

When the Mob Ran Vegas, by Steve Fischer

Fischer opens this series of Las Vegas anecdotes with the story of the Kefauver committee and its investigation into organized crime. While the visibility and findings of the committee are what eventually caused the mob to close their illegal casinos and concentrate in Vegas, the hearings are much better known for when Bugsy Siegel's girlfriend Virginia Hill announced on live television while under oath, "I'm the best damn cocksucker in the United States!" When the Mob Ran Vegas is a series of stories about the early days of Las Vegas and organized crime's role in its growth. It isn't a traditional history filled with footnotes and a thirty page bibliography, but more of a casual retelling of various legends from an enthusiastic aficionado. Most of the stories are pretty interesting, although a few devolve into lists of people with brief bios, but the last one about the closing of the Sands runs a bit maudlin with the author reminiscing about seeing Buddy Hackett perform or sharing an elevator with Doris Day. After reading I felt more like I'd spent an evening hearing tales about the not-so-good-old-days rather than learning about the history of the City of Lost Wages, but it was certainly an entertaining evening!

First Sentence:

From March 13 to March 30, 1951, the living room at our house was the place to be.

Believing the Lie, by Elizabeth George

The Lynley novels have been uneven lately, but I haven't quite given up yet. Believing the Lie is just good enough to stand on its own, but still not as impressive as the earlier outings. The mystery is solid—George keeps us guessing as to the outcome until late in the novel—and the side-plots with one exception are intriguing as well. Homophobia is a major plot driver, with several minor characters showing a violent intolerance and others fully accepting; sadly nobody is ambiguous towards the topic at all removing the opportunity for any serious comment on the issue—everyone is a stereotype on one side or the other. At this point, though, we don't read this series for the plot but for the characters.

Inspector Lynley continues to act out after his wife's death, continuing his ill-advised affair with his alcoholic and unlikeable boss. Simon St. James is largely in the background here which is unfortunate. Deborah St. James however remains virtually intolerable; I don't understand how the reader is expected to believe people with the character and intelligence of the other leads would put up with the self-centered antics of Deborah who seems to exist only as a plot device. Barbara Havers continues to be my favorite; here she demonstrates the same grasp of Spanish I do: "I can't—of course—read the caption since it's in Spanish, in which language I can actually say una cerveza por favor but, believe me, nothing else."

Believing the Lie is better than the last few outings, but still not what I'd hope. The last few pages, however, cause me to eagerly await the next volume which looks to focus on Havers and Lynley. Hopefully Deborah will stay off page and quiet!

First Sentence:

Zed Benjamin had never been called into the office of the editor before, and he found the experience simultaneously disconcerting and thrilling.

Redshirts, by John Scalzi

I loved, loved, loved this book! It starts as a parody of Star Trek, then starts making fun of the development process of a TV show, and then it gets weird. The plot follows a group of people that the readers immediately recognize as being crew members on a starship 400 years in the future that is a dead ringer for the Enterprise. These characters start to recognize that something about the ship isn't quite right, with an abnormally high mortality rate for those not on the bridge crew and a mysterious device that solves any problem just in the nick of time. Eventually they come to believe that the strangeness is being caused because their lives are actually being controlled by a 20^th century TV series. "It's messed up that the most rational explanation for what does go on in this ship is that a television show intrudes on our reality and warps it. But that's not the worst thing about it. ... That as far as I can tell, it's not actually a very good show."

Three codas wrap up the story, but not before Scalzi shows his wicked humor by first telling us the ship is vaporized six months later killing everyone, then writing chapter 24: "No, no, I'm just fucking with you. They all lived happily ever after. Seriously." The codas are where the book gets truly meta; the first is written in first person, the second in second person, and the third in third person—each following a different set of characters from our century and providing a satisfying conclusion on several fronts. What started as a simple skewering of Star Trek ends as creative, well-written, and surprisingly emotional novel. A great read.

First Sentence:

From the top of the large boulder he sat on, Ensign Tom Davis looked across the expanse of the cave toward Captain Lucius Abernathy, Science Officer Q'eeng and Chief Engineer Paul West perched on a second, larger boulder, and thought, Well, this sucks.

John Dies at the End, by David Wong

This is easily one of the stranger books I've ever read. Imagine an H.P. Lovecraft novel adapted to the screen by W.D. Richter, directed by Tarantino, and starring Bruce Campbell: that representation still doesn't reach the level of weirdness this book does. The plot follows two twenty-something friends that accidentally ingest a powerful drug that opens a door to another universe and forces them to fight off alien invaders. Along the way we are introduced to wig monsters, penis doorknobs, lamp-humping jellyfish, and a mysterious dog named Molly. A typical sentence reads, "I once saw a man's kidney grow tentacles, tear itself out of a ragged hole in his back and go slapping across my kitchen floor." And this occurs in the first 25 pages during a simple introduction; the happenings during the novel itself are much more bizarre. I found it to be both creepy and hilarious at the same time—I'm a sucker for deadpan delivery of lines like, "There is no possible combination of English words that would form a dumber plan than that."—but it does feel at times like it drags a bit and the story could be tightened up. John Dies at the End is outrageous enough that I suspect there are very few ambivalent reactions to it, but I for one loved it.

First Sentence:

Solving the following riddle will reveal the awful secret behind the universe, assuming you do not go utterly mad in the attempt.

Agents of Treachery, edited by Otto Penzler

I like anthologies. Not being one of the many e-book enthusiasts, I usually have a book of short stories stashed in my truck so I have something to read when unexpectedly stuck somewhere. Agents of Treachery appealed to me because of both the subject matter (I love spy thrillers) and one of the authors is one of my favorites: Lee Child. Overall, this was a solid set of stories well worth my time.

While Child's name on the cover was a draw, his story Section 7(A) (Operational) was the weakest of the bunch. It concerned the formation of a black ops team, but came off as simply eight pages of character introductions. James Grady's Destiny City was better, showing how a terrorist cell is tracked in today's world. Andrew Klavan's Sleeping with My Assassin and David Morrell's The Interrogator were other highlights, but Joseph Finder's Neighbors was my favorite with an Arlington Road vibe. Good stuff.

First Sentence (from the Introduction):

The international thriller is one of the most successful literary genres in the world, its primary oractitioners becoming household names, insofar as any author's level of fame can compete with an entertainer, sports figure, or world-class criminal.

The Presidents Club, by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy

The President's Club must be the most elite organization on the planet: to be a member you must have served as the President of the United States. Established at Eisenhower's inauguration by Harry Truman and Herbert Hoover its membership ebbs and flows over time; when Clinton took office the first Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, and Nixon were all in the club, but towards the end of Nixon's presidency the club was on hiatus when LBJ died. Gibbs and Duffy do an amazing job of examining the importance the President's Club plays in being everything from a simple sounding board to political ambassadors.

One of the most fascinating aspects about the club is that once people leave office, in a lot of ways politics seem to lessen in importance. Hoover and Truman became close friends and allies despite being on opposite sides of the political aisle, as did both Bushes with Clinton. Conversely but proving the same point, although Obama is not yet a member he and Clinton have a chilly relationship if not an outright rivalry. Regardless, though, only a handful of people truly understand the pressure of being the Leader of the Free World and being able to lean on that understanding often trumps political ideology. "[P]residents do not just compare themselves to one another; they weigh their leadership against what might have been. A president knows, each day, that if he makes the wrong call on fiscal policy a million more people could lose their jobs, or the wrong judgement about an enemy means thousands lose their lives." I can't imagine a job where even my wife would have difficulty appreciating what I do each day at work.

The authors do a wonderful job humanizing the people in the office. "Nixon preferred the nearby Lincoln Sitting Room as a smoker; he'd go in, build a fire in the fireplace, and then crank up the air conditioner. Reagan installed a weight room in the White House living quarters and worked out every day. Nixon had the trails at Camp David paved over so that his golf carts could scoot along faster; Reagan had them torn up and taken out so he could use them as horseback-riding trails." It is easy for me to see the presidency as a cipher, as a robotic entity far removed from everyday life. Anecdotes such as the passage above or about George W. Bush hitting golf balls at cars as a kid helps remind me that there are actual people sitting in the Oval Office, not just the caricatures we read about in history books and newspapers.

We all know how Nixon's administration ended in disgrace. Interestingly, he wasn't the first President to record what happened in the Oval Office—Kennedy and Johnson did the same. But their tape systems were manually controlled rather than voice activated, leading to the inability to select what was saved and the collapse of a presidency. The existence of the President's Club, though, eventually allowed Nixon back in the game. Reagan quietly sent Nixon to Moscow on a "private, fact finding" mission and to meet with Gorbachev. The positive results from this meeting allowed Nixon to begin taking steps towards a public rehabilitation. Eventually he largely overcame the specter of Watergate and died a respected elder statesman. All because of the Club.

Former presidents want to remain relevant and assist their predecessors while simultaneously competing for time and favorable mention in the history books. Truman once said, "time must pass before anyone, even an ex-president, can evaluate the performance of a man in the White House." This willingness to let go of judgement is one of the reasons the organization works, and frankly is a good lesson for all of us. Bush 43 is widely disliked and without even completing his term Obama seems to be in the same boat. Of course, because these people served so recently it is difficult to separate the political rhetoric from factual evaluation. So while history's jury may still be out on Carter as a president, it is clear that at the least he was a very difficult ex-president; without approval from Clinton he once cut a deal with North Korea about their nuclear program and then announced it on CNN without clearing it with the Oval Office or the State Department. Other club members at times behaved in similar manners, but Carter went rogue for multiple presidents putting him in a class by himself.

I am politically independent; I believe both the Republican and Democratic parties are morally bankrupt. This look inside the world's most exclusive fraternity is largely ideologically neutral which tipped my opinion from excellent to superb; reading about anecdotes like Reagan teaching Clinton how to salute is much more entertaining without having to deal with political spin. If you are any kind of student of history, this book should be on your nightstand.

First Sentence:

The modern Presidents Club was founded by two men who by all rights should have loathed each other.