Currently re-listening to audiobook "41: A Portrait Of My Father" by George W. Bush. He acknowledges up front it is not objective, it is a love story by a son about a father. Politics aside, it is neat hearing the story in the author's own voice.

I just started reading The Fifties by David Halberstam. It's long but I wanted to give it a try. Hopefully there's some baseball.

Just started 59 in '84, about Old Hoss Radbourn's famous season. The book is well written and I am learning a lot about baseball of that era...a season that just predates the WIS database. Great photos too...look out for the two instances of an impish Radbourn flipping the bird while posing for a photo...

American Stories (1991) by Calvin Trillin. A dozen non-fiction pieces on diverse topics, including murder, the legal battle over the royalties of the 1950s hit “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?” (look for the "bullpen widow" line), magicians Penn & Teller, and redneck movie reviewer Joe Bob Briggs. Written with Trillin's usual dry humor and eye for interesting detail.

Wilderness of Error (2012) by documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. Sprawling 500-page look at the Jeffrey MacDonald case, the Green Beret doctor convicted of the 1970 murders of his wife and daughters who, 40+ years later, is still sticking to his story that drug-crazed Manson-style hippies did it -- and Morris convinces you that MacDonald’s probably telling the truth, or at the very least that he got shafted every step of the way by a corrupt and incompetent criminal justice system. Lots of criticism as well of authors Joe McGinnis (who wrote the first big book on this case, Fatal Vision, with MacDonald’s cooperation, befriending the suspect at his trial and pretending to believe in his innocence before betraying him in his writing by twisting the facts to make MacDonald look guilty) and Janet Malcolm, who wrote The Journalist and the Murderer about McGinnis's relationship with MacDonald (famous first line, which infuriates Morris: "Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.") Morris’s documentaries are great (Thin Blue Line, Fog of War, etc.) and the subject matter here could arguably have been handled better as a film. Still, I recommend this book, especially if you’ve already read McGinnis and Malcolm.

Here's a blurb I came across today while browsing in a used bookstore, printed on the front cover of a novel titled The Noticer:

"This is the best book I have ever read in my life."

The blurb writer was identified as "Nancy Lopez, LPGA Hall of Famer."

I laughed out loud, and the owner of the store (he was the only other person there) asked me what was so funny. When I read him the quote and who it was from, he said, "She's probably the author's next door neighbor."

Good guess!

I didn't buy the book. Still waiting to hear what Lee Trevino thinks of it.

Some holiday reading I got through:

The Pledge (1958) by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. A detective novella set in Switzerland, literary and philosophical, a good quick read. I also saw the Sean Penn film (2001, starring Jack Nicholson) based on this story. Okay flick, but something was lost in the translation.

The Story of Mr. Sommer (1991) by Patrick Süskind. Another novella, whimsical and melancholy, autobiographical tales of the author growing up in rural Germany.

Cary Grant: A Biography (2005) by Marc Elliot. Good overview of Grant’s life, entertaining anecdotes, but heavy on sordid generalities and light on sordid details (Grant's bisexuality, crappy marriages, LSD use, spying for the FBI, etc.) His early co-star Marlene Dietrich was once asked to grade Cary Grant as a lover; she gave him "An F, for ***." Harsh! In 1980 Chevy Chase got in trouble for calling Grant a "****" on Tom Snyder's show; Grant sued him and won, but Elliot bizarrely says this ordeal amounted to "career suicide" for Chase (this is before he did any of the Fletch or National Lampoon movies). Aside from lapses like this, there's some pretty cheesy writing. Last paragraph of the book: “In the universe of the imagination, as long as there are movies and audiences who seek to find in them the reflection of their highest hope and deepest dreams, Cary Grant’s star will indeed shine forever, offering the illusion of the pleasure of his company as it guides us along the most difficult journey of all: the one into ourselves.” Bah.

The Man Who Watched Trains Go (1938) by George Simenon. The author’s 11^th book – of 1938! Man, this guy cranked them out, makes Stephen King look sluggish and slow. Decent writer, though, sort of a leaner Patricia Highsmith with a dash of Camus. Here the main character, a solid Dutch citizen, has a mental breakdown after he discovers his boss bankrupted the company and left everyone financially ruined. Crime spree ensues.

Thunder in the Mountains----Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard, and the Nez Perce War--- Daniel J. Sharfstein

Green Eggs and Ham - Dr Seusss

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon

Raymond Chandler meets James Ellroy meets Hunter S Thompson

You ever read a work of fiction that references the title of a book, and you look up the title to see if it's real or made up? I tend to guess wrong in these situations. A few years ago I came across a character in a novel who was obsessed with a book of erotic photography called Midnight at the Nursing Academy (the novel was set in Weimar Germany). I figured, incorrectly, there probably was such a book. Just now I'm reading short stories by Peter De Vries, and one of his characters suggests the best way to ward off unwanted conversations on train rides is to immerse yourself in a big book like Four Hundred Centuries of Cave Art.

Says I, "Surely that's made up!"

Nope. The book's currently available at Amazon for $735.73 (or $275.00 used, if you want to be a cheapskate about your cave art).

now you make me wonder if the original cave artists got paid

were they left brain retards

did they get to sit home all day and knit doilies

The Fireside Book of Baseball, edited by Charles Einstein. Published in 1956, received it as a birthday gift from aunt at that time. Wonderful collections of short stories, photos and drawings.

i have a book ..willie mays as told to charles einstein.

The Journals of Alexander Mackenzie---Exploring across Canada 1789-1793

'Grant' by Chernow. I've learned a bunch reading this, Grant really was a fascinating man. Really amazing the heights and depths of the times he went through. Once I get through with this (and it is LONG) I might try and pickup the one bonxcheer mentioned up above 'Thunder in the Mountains----Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard, and the Nez Perce War--- Daniel J. Sharfstein'