Eugene asked me for my favorite 10 books that I read in 2004… that reminded me to clear off my shelf of ‘books read this year’, and also highlighted that I had a LOT of free time on my hands this year, considering my sabbatical in beginning of year, and ‘retirement’ in October.

So, here it is, my 2004 reading recommendations list, in a somewhat ranked order… it obviously became very difficult to rank them… but, I did my best…

Books:

———–

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Kesey)

Theodore Rex (Morris)

The Crimson Petal and the White (Faber)

John Adams (McCullough)

Benjamin Franklin (Isaacson)

Atlas Shrugged (Rand)

Old School (Wolff)

Cryptonomicon (Stephenson)

Middlesex: A Novel (Euginedes)

Shadow Divers (Kurson)

Postcards (Proulx)

Devil in the White City (Larson)

Black Hawk Down (Bowden)

Nickel and Dimed (Ehrenreich)

Angela’s Ashes (McCourt)

On the Road (Kerouac)

Prodigal Summer (Kingsolver)

Cold Mountain (Frazier)

Positively Fifth Street (McManus)

Every Second Counts (Jenkins / Armstrong)

Sea Biscuit (Hillenbrand)

Bringing Down the House (Mezrich)

Reefer Madness (Schlosser)

Moneyball

Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot (Franken)

That Old Ace in the Hole (Proulx)

Winterdance (Paulsen)

The Da Vinci Code (Brown)

The Tipping Point (Gladwell)

The Emperor of Ocean Park (Carter)

Hey Nostrodamus (Coupland)

The Autograph Man

Tuesdays with Morrie (Albom)

‘Tis (McCourt)

Super System (Brunson)

Stupid White Men (Moore)

Vernon God Little (Pierre)

On Writing (King)

Twelve Bar Blues

Living History (Hillary Clinton)

Peace like a River (Enger)

Dogs of Babel (Parkhurst)

Five People you Meet in Heaven (Albom)

Elmer McCurdy (Svenvold)

Darwin Awards II

Movies (obviously, i’ve missed a few…):

———–

Bad Education (La Mala Educacion) – Almodovar

The Return

Sideways

Spiderman 2

21 Grams

Lady Killers

Vera Drake

Coach Carter

Beyond the Sea

Trends making strong gains among masses:

—————————————————————-

Poker

Political Involvement/Interest

Wireless

Tivo

iPod

Netflix

Digital Cameras

HDTV

Was a typical December day in Seattle…

Started off with an 8 mile run with Karen and her cousin Kevin along Lake Washington from Leschi toward Seward Park and back. Was nice to have someone along for the run (Kevin) who was repeatedly talking about how beautiful the run was (describing as “a true runner’s moment”, “noone who lives along the run has an excuse for not being healthy”, etc). From my point of view, I was just happy to have the run finished — only 5-6 weeks until the Carlsbad Half Marathon — wonder if I’ll be in Carlsbad on January 16, 2005? 🙂

After that, I pretty much just found shelter in the house.

I finally got through the last 40-50 pages of Theodore Rex , the second in a 3-part biography series by Edmund Morris, that covered the two terms of his presidency from 1901 (succeeding the murdered McKinley) to 1909 (refusing to run for a second elected term, allowing Taft to continue the Republican stranglehold). It was really an interesting book for me, since I knew so little about his presidency — he accomplished so much in eight years (Panama Canal, many Conservation initiatives, Trust reform vs. railroads and many others, 8-hour workday laws, employer liability laws, helping end the Russo/Japan war). Makes me interested in reading all of the presidential biographies, mainly as a way to learn about how our country got to where it is now.

Of course, it was much slower reading than what I’m used to (aka fiction). I’m really looking forward to reading Winterdance , which was recommended by Laura. Some light reading about the running of the Iditarod.

We all complain about work from time to time, right? What I want to know, though, is… are you willing to admit the extremely cool things about your employer? Working for Amazon.com has a lot of perks… 3 month sabbaticals come to mind… but one of my favorites is our ‘Fishbowls’… where Authors, Bands and various others come in to talk about their goods… Today, we had a living legend, Cal Ripken (and his brother, Billy) in talking about their new book, Play Baseball the Ripken Way : The Complete Illustrated Guide to the Fundamentals.

What made it even better, was that greedy me got my grubby hands on a signed copy. Ahh… bliss.

I don’t know what I expected going in. I expected them to hawk their book (got that). However, I was pleasantly surprised to hear them talking about how much they cared about baseball, and teaching how to play, and enjoy, baseball to the youth of the World. They were definitely witty, even knowing that they’ve told the same jokes to audiences from NYC to LA. Billy’s self-deprecating style made you really think about what it must be like to live life in the shadow of a talented sibling — we all think we understand that because of our brother/sister who’s ‘smarter/faster/nicer…’ than us… but can you just imagine growing up with the Iron Man? That could really drive someone to the bottle 🙂

How do I rate it? I’ll give it 8 1/2 thumbs up, out of 9 and 3/4 🙂 If you have kids involved with youth baseball, you really should check out the book.

Finished reading Moneyball today — tale of Billy Beane’s brilliance with building a statistically-generated major league ballclub — found most of the story a bit tiring, as it was bending over backward to focus on the brilliance of the A’s moves — trouble was that noone could believe that the didn’t make any mistakes; think it would have had more credibility if it covered some of their boners as well. One thing that I thought was very interesting about it was how it is applicable for non-baseball players — issues like “doubting your own abilities”, how important image is to being successful, impact of attitude, etc. In any case, despite it’s weaknesses, I recommend it for anyone who enjoys watching baseball from time to time; I know that it will make baseball more interesting to me going forward. (And, as I’m typing this, the A’s just gave up a home run to the Rangers… isn’t that appropriate? Given that Moneyball is about the A’s? 🙂 )

I really like reading books by E. Annie Proulx — of course, I always wonder what the “E” stands for (found out on Barleby.com that it stands for Edna!)

Read That Old Ace in the Hole : A Novel while traveling, and found it to be a light/fun read. I don’t think it is as strong as Shipping News or Postcards, even (which I also read on the trip!), but it was good nonetheless.

Is a coming of age story… about Bob Dollar… of course, he’s trying to earn a buck, and figure out what to do with his life… story takes you on a hunt for hog farm locations in the texas panhandle…

Some notes I enjoyed:

pg. 163 — “Roosevelt changed the date for Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday in the month, persuaded that more shopping days for Christmas would improve the economy.” (note the was 1939… I found that interesting… moving a quasi-religious day for purposes of commerce… of course, I just assume that’s true… not worth fact-checking

SEE — East of Eden starring James Dean — was supposedly based on the story of Cain and Abel

pg. 211 — “I thought we might hit the Trail Dust for lunch … They have great Texas Steaks” — my friend, Chris Hey, and I once ate at this restaurant on our cross-country car trip… the father of a girl we knew from high school took us there (with her) and treated for us… the steak was the best I ever had, bar none… they had a tradition of cutting off your tie, if you were wearing one, and hanging it on the wall… plus, their was a sliding board in the restaurant… or, maybe I had too many beers?