Gang Leader for a Day

5 stars out of 5

Highly entertaining true-life inside look at Chicago gang life. The premise is that a graduate student at the University of Chicago decides to survey gang members on life in the projects. This goes poorly, but he accepts the gang leader's invitation to come back and hang out with them if he wants to get to know them. So he does - a lot. He provides a very astute outsider's look at life in the projects, drug dealing, and south-side Chicago in the 1990s. It was awesome. Since I lived there for three years (2001 to 2004) I could relate to the characters and scenery. I did not befriend any gangs while I was there, but I could see their handiwork when I did venture out of Hyde Park.

So this guy (who is Indian - a white guy would never have made it) hangs out with them for years, collecting stories and data. Sometimes he makes stupid mistakes and gets people in trouble. He observes the police shaking down the gangs for extortion money and the abuse of the welfare system. Most of all it is amazing to see how it all works. I'm not sure how different it is now that they have torn down most of the high-rise projects that were a blight to Chicago, but it was really a den of poverty and drugs. Amazing.

Note: The title is kind of misleading. He gets to be very good friends with the gang leader and the leader jokingly says "If you think this so easy, why don't you be leader for the day?". So he kind of takes over for the day, but the real gang leader is the one really making all the decisions.

Highly recommend this book for any thoughtful reader - there are some parts that are disturbing, but nothing that is graphic.

Grace After Midnight

3.5 stars out of 5

My fascination with the series "The Wire" (on which more later) led me to find this book, an autobiography from one of the characters on the show, who was apparently plucked from her gangster/drug dealing life to play a gangster-drug dealer on the show. I must say that one the show she is very convincing - I can barely understand a word she says because of her accent/slang/profanity.

The book is unique because there are very few autobiographies from gangsters raised to be drug dealers. Obviously, the education level is low and there isn't much introspection. But it is an enlightening look at life in the slums of Baltimore - despite having supportive grandparents she quickly gravitates to life in the streets - violent crime, drugs, sex, prison, etc. It isn't pretty. But it's also hard to see her alternatives. She does finally get locked away for 7 years, which probably saves her life. Most of her patrons and co-workers are dead or in prison for life by the time she gets out.

I enjoyed the book - there is a bit too much detail at times, but overall it paints the picture pretty well. One of the most interesting details is the reverence that she and the street life had for Tupac, the gangsta rapper. She was really moved when she heard he died. What a life.

Battlestar Gallactica and Philosophy

4 stars out of 5

This book will be pretty much meaningless if you are not a fan of the show. It explores the philosophical ideas raised by the show, such as what it means to be human, gender roles, Darwinian survival, religion, etc. This is largely what kept me in the show originally, was the bigger issues raised by the show and how the characters responded to them.

There is a whole line of these books, covering Seinfeld, the Simpsons, the Matrix, Star Trek, etc. The only one I have ever bought is Seinfeld, but I really couldn't get into it. Highly recommended for fans of the show.

Predictably Irrational

4.5 stars out of 5

This highly entertaining book should be required reading for all budding economists. It is accessible to all students and details, using scientific experiments, how we make irrational decisions. Many economists push the idea that everything we do is rational, given the information that we have. But even with complete information, many choices we make are not the optimal decisions. Little things can change our decision-making process drastically.

I will include one example. They did a study of folks who had lined up for Duke basketball tickets. These people camped out for days for the chance to get a ticket. They were entered into a lottery - some got tickets, some did not. They obtained all of their contact information and decided to see if people valued things differently once they already had it. They tried to play ticket broker - offering to find buyers for people who got tickets and offering to find sellers for people who did not. The results were suprising to me. Those that did not get tickets were willing to pay about $175 for the tickets. Those that already had tickets were not willing to sell for less than $2400 per ticket.

Highly recommended for all readers.

Born to Run

5 stars

The best running book ever. Awesome. If you are a runner, it will change your whole outlook on running. If you are not a runner, it will motivate you to become a runner. It is a combination history or running and story about a tribe of Mexican super-runners. It focuses mainly on ultra-marathoners, guys (and girls) that run 50-300 miles at a time. Also has great chapters on nutrition, shoe companies, the history of running and so forth.

Highly recommended for all readers, even if you never intend to run.

Fast Food Nation

3.5 stars out of 5

Toward the end of my vacation, I really wanted to find another book to read. After wandering for 45 minutes in Jackson, WY, we finally found a bookstore. I saw this book and I thought, why not? It's pretty famous - let's see what he has to say.

To be honest, I am a huge fan of the fast food industry. Because my lovely wife makes good nutritious meals for us frequently, we rarely utilize their services, but when on the road or in need of a quick meal, I have often counted on the Golden Arches to come through. So I started reading this book with a mindset in favor of fast food.

Granted, this book is not all about McDonald's. It covers fast food pizza, KFC, Taco Bell, etc. But McDonald's does get a lot of attention.

He starts the book with a history of how fast food began - apparently in Southern California in the 1950s. The whole book is very well researched and I enjoyed reading many of the historical parts of the book.

I had expected this to be primarily a rant of how bad fast food is for us. But his primary argument was actually how bad they are for the economy. For example, he really hated that most fast food workers were paid minimum wage and had a very high turnover rate. In fact, there is some evidence the fast food industry uses government credits for "training workers" to subsidize their hiring (and then firing) of workers. Yes, these are terrible jobs, mostly filled by teenagers, recent immigrants or people with no other skills. I am just happy there are jobs at all for this group of people. With a higher minimum wage now (this book was written a few years ago) I am not sure how the fast food industry will adjust.

Anyway, he also hated how the fast food chains strived for conformity and so all the restaurants were basically the same the world over. However, I find this very helpful when traveling - it is very comforting for me to find familiar establishments whereever I go.

He did have some valid points which I thought were good cases against the fast food industry:

1. People eat too much fast food. This contributes to obesity, which increases the overall healthcare bill for the country. People should wisen up and stop eating so much cheap food (even though it is so delicious!).

2. The fast food industry abuses various government programs. This is inevitable with government programs. For example, franchisees can use the Small Business Development loans from the government to take out loans to pay large fees to McDonald's, Subway, wherever, to start a franchise. Over 10% of these loans fail. Taxpayers are funding fast food franchisees.

3. Fast food uses a lot of chemicals to enhance flavor in their products. In fact, the whole flavor industry was a bit of a revelation to me - big companies in NJ produce nothing but "artificial flavor" and "natural flavor".

4. The fast food industry, as monopsony buyers of beef, could exercise closer control of conditions at meat packing plants. The author, like Upton Sinclair, was very down on conditions at meat packing plants. Sure, the government could also clamp down, but McDonald's is probably in a better position to do so as one of the economic lifelines of the meat industry.

5. Schools should not allow the fast food industry and soft drink industry to advertise and sell products within their school districts. Many districts, strapped for cash, are signing multi-million dollar deals with the industry and helping them sell their products. This is counter productive.

Overall, I appreciated the author's attempt, but I am still a fan of fast food. Obviously it should be eaten in moderation and natural, healthier food is much better for you. And recently the fast food industry has responded to consumer tastes by offering healthier food to eat, though I'm sorry to report that McDonald's delivery in the Philippines does not include salads.

Strength in What Remains

4 stars

This is a two-part book. The first part of the book, which is not in chronological order, tells the story of a medical student from Burundi who is caught up in the racial genocide in Burundi and Rwanda and winds up coming to New York. A large part of the book tells of his story of adjustment in New York. It is really an interesting story.

The second story tells of the author meeting with the subject and revisiting Burundi and Rwanda. This is not as good. The author seems to comment on himself a lot and his observations of Deo (the main character) are predictable.

Overall, I enjoyed the book - from the perspective of both the genocide in Burundi (most accounts are from Rwanda) and the adjustment of life to the US in NYC. Quick, engaging read that will make you appreciate things more.

Halfway to Heaven

3 stars out of 5

Halfway to Heaven: the title tells it all: one journalist gets it into his head to climb all the peaks in Colorado that are above 14,000 feet. It's a good goal and he has many adventures on the way. People he hikes with, adventures on the mountain, stories about the different mountains.

It's a fine book, but in the end you kind of wonder why you are reading it. It feels like you are reading a climber's blog. I can see being interested in this book if you lived in Colorado and enjoyed hiking or were just older and interested in hiking generally, but generally I found myself kind of bored. There were a few good tidbits here and there, but it is not really a story as much as many short stories, all about one subject.

The Black Swan

5 stars out of 5

I couldn't put this book down it was so interesting. I got it a long time ago, but hadn't started it since I have a million books on my shelves that I haven't read (I have even more in storage). Someone mentioned it one day, and I read the introduction and went from there.

The author's thesis is that the world is not as predictable as it seems. You may shrug and say "Yeah, so, I know the world is unpredictable" but then look around and see how many people are running around doing the following things:

a. trying to predict what will happen in the future - what the deficit will look like, how much oil will be around, how much global warming is going to effect the earth, etc.

b. trying to attribute causes to observed events - journalists, historians, economists, politicians, etc. are all very guilty of this. Politicians especially. Geez, if I had a dime for every time a politician claimed credit for fixing the economy. But of course they never take the blame when the economy tanks.

c. Read "how-to-get-rich" books that chronicle the lives of successful people as if we could figure out the "cause" of their wealth.

Luck and chance have more to do with life than we give them credit for, and we wind up wasting a lot of time trying to figure out what "caused" this and what "caused" that.

The ego of the author is pretty large and it sometimes distracts from the book, but overall it was a fascinating read with a lot to say for it. I skipped some of the technical parts, but overall a tremendous book.

The Great Eight

2 stars out 5

Don't get me wrong: Scott Hamilton strikes me as a great guy. He has lived in an interesting life and he has some good things to say. But this book was not for me. The vocabulary was elementary, the analysis shallow. It's only 200 pages and the font size is large with lots of space. I just didn't feel like it was really worth my time to read the whole book. I wound up only getting about 1/3 of the way through before giving up.

The book felt like he was saying, here are eight reasons why I'm happy and I'll throw in some experiences from my life. For skating fans, I am sure this was fun. But I have very little interest in skating and so I didn't find the stories very interesting. I didn't find his analysis compelling. There are some quality self-help books out there. There are some quality biographies out there. But in my mind, this does not qualify as either.

The Rite

3 stars out of 5

"The Rite" details the journey of an American priest who goes on Sabbatical to the Vatican for some training on being an exorcist. He was tapped by his bishop in the US to be one, and since there are very few ordained exorcists in the US, he had to go to the Vatican to figure out what was going on.

While at the Vatican, he takes a class on exorcisms and also apprentices with a priest who regularly does exorcisms. It takes a while for the priest to get used to dealing with exorcisms and a large part of the book is uneventful. It is informative in the sense that I know how the Catholic church views exorcisms and their doctrines surrounding it. I have read other books on exorcism and demonic possession and found them much more interesting.

When this priest goes in to apprentice, we get little to no backgrounds on the people coming to visit. The exorcism itself consists mainly of reading out of the exorcism rite prayer book. And according to the priests, they often treat people for years and years – some people showing gradual improvement and occasionally they have a full exorcism. This doesn’t strike me as particularly effective, but it could just be my general ignorance with respect to possession. I found books on the same subject by Malachi Martin and M. Scott Peck much more enlightening. There are some good moments in this book, but overall I was not impressed.

Once a Runner

4.5 stars out of 5

"Once a Runner" is a novel about a college runner who specializes in the mile. He does a tremendous amount of training and has plenty of adventures as a college student. It's a great read that will pull you in, especially if you are a runner.

I have never done serious training as a runner, so I can't speak to that part, but I felt like you really got inside a real runner's head. The book is very popular among runners (at least according to Runner's World). I enjoyed it a lot.

The Legend of Z

4 stars out of 5

David Grann sets up a nice multi-part story about exploring the Amazon. The main part is the story of Fawcett. Fawcett is a turn of the century explorer who specialized in Amazon jungle exploration. He was pretty amazing. Different chapters take on different parts of his life and how he got to the point of leading these expeditions into the jungle.

Another part of the story is the author's adventure in researching and ultimately retracing Fawcett's steps into the Amazon. It's a very bold move and interesting in and of itself.

The rest of the book deals with the legend of Fawcett, other explorers and the Amazon itself. It's a good read. It took me a while to get into it, but once I did it was hard to put down. Great history and adventure book. I don't think you will be disappointed.

Parentonomics

3 stars out of 5

I was originally drawn to this book because it was about parenting and I like economics too. I was a little surprised by the actual content, because while it is about parenting, it's not a serious look at parenting. It is more comedy centered than parenting-centered. It is almost like Dave Berry meets economist meets parent.

It's good stuff though, you just need to know what to expect. I thought a lot of it was spot on and hilarious. It was not quite what I expected. It's not hardcare economics and it's not much advice on parenting (though there are some gems). It's a funny book that can provide some good conversation. If you like funny books and the subject matter appeals to you, then this is a book for you.

Dreams from the Monster Factory

5 stars out of 5

"Dreams from the Monster Factory" is basically a biography of one woman's dogged quest to reform the prison system. The book tackles her whole life, but focuses on prison reform and how it can be done. It also spends a good amount of time recounting her experiences working in prisons and why they are generally so terrible.

It is a well written book that flows very smoothly. I found myself eager to find out what happened next in her life. I thought the programs they instituted were brilliant and should be replicated all over. I could have done with less on the personal life and more on prisons, but at some points the personal life is relevant.

Overall, a gritty read - prison life is no bed of roses, but a recommended one.

Pearl in the Storm

"A Pearl in the Storm" is one woman's story of rowing across the Atlantic ocean from North Carolina to France. Yes, she rows in a rowboat - it's a souped-up rowboat, but still, nothing but oars to power you? As survival tales go, it is not the best, but it is pretty darn good. I mean, seriously, what possesses someone to even try something like this? People get seasick on huge ocean liners - she is in those same waves for more than three months with a 10 foot rowboat? She's got to be nuts.

Mixed in with the story is her life story - how she grew up, what paths she took, etc. Usually I find this very boring, but it is mixed up in a way that actually isn't too bad. She is a very interesting person and it helps explain why in tarnation she is trying to pull this crazy stunt.

Not to ruin it, but she doesn't make it. The last third of the book is about her dealing with the aftermath, including another attempt. It is a very quick read - I was done in less than 24 hours and very entertaining. If you like the genre, give it a try.

Joker One by Donovan Campbell (2009)

5 stars out of 5

I am embarrassed to admit that I didn't really know what our troops were doing in Iraq. I knew there were a lot of them there and I knew they suffered a lot of casualties. I knew there was an insurrection, but press me on the specifics, and I would be at a loss.

This book is a terrific ground level view of peacekeeping/counter-insurrection in Iraq in 2004. Told from the point of view of a Lt. in charge of the Joker 1 platoon, we get a peek inside his personal journal and tag along on IED sweeps, patrols, and crackdowns. I found the inside look at the military fascinating. The Lt. telling the story is well-educated and deeply committed to the cause. I have read other military books but couldn't get past the course language. This has some language, but it is in moderation.

I highly recommend this book to all interested in Iraq.

Muscle: Confessions of an Unlikely Bodybuilder

4.5 stars out of 5.

I did not seek this book out. A co-worker who was moving back to the US was giving away books and this was the last. I thought - why not take it off his hands? It proved to be a real gem.

The story: Princeton and Oxford educated Sam gets a job in NYC before he starts a graduate program at Yale. Unfortunately this is New York City in the early 1980s and it is a scary place. Not only that, but his parents have just divorced. Looking for some sanctuary, he enrolls at the YMCA gym to beef up. Being 6'4" and only 170 pounds, he has a lot of room for improvement.

He proceeds to be infected with what he calls "the disease". He eats, sleeps and breathes weightlifting. This book chronicles his adventure from start to finish. I would say "from the bottom to the very top" but that wouldn't be accurate. He is a gifted writer, as both his parents are English professors. The book reads very easily and will provide lots of great material to impress your friends.

Since you will probably never read this book, here are some fun things to know about bodybuilders (advise skipping if you actually plan to read the book):

1. Bodybuilders are much different than power lifters. Power lifters compete by lifting the maximum number of weights. Bodybuilders are in shows that exhibit all the muscles in their body. They train, eat and prepare very differently from each other.

2. Serious bodybuilding often requires that men wear adult diapers during workouts. All concentration and energy is on the workout and sometimes accidents happen. Especially given the volume of food, supplements and steroids that these guys take, they usually utilize it.

3. The subject of the book would often throw up during workouts he was going so hard. His usually plan was 4 hours of workouts per day, 2 in the morning, 2 in the evening. He generally had to sleep 12 hours per day.

4. Steroids does nasty things to the body, including acne, roid rage, baldness, etc. One lifter would drink hydrogen peroxide to limit the acne.

5. There are actually a wide variety of jobs available for serious bodybuilders: bouncers, trainers, models, actors, etc.

6. "Arnold" is a hero for most of the bodybuilding world. To them, he is the epitome of what muscle can accomplish: fame, marriage into a prominent family, acting career, government, etc.

7. Bodybuilders speak predominantly in cliche: No pain, no gain. That which does not kill you makes you stronger. Make haste slowly. In the end, there will be no judges, only admirers of your greatness.

In fact, bodybuilders often recognize one of their own by hearing these idiotic phrases repeated. As if seeing the gigantic muscular-laden bodies was not enough.

8. Bodybuilders eat tremendous amounts of food. That is, until there is a competition. Then they diet so as to shrink-wrap their skin around their muscles. It is quite disgusting the torture they put their bodies through - as bad or worse then skinny fashion models bent on maintaining their waif-like stature.

The author eventually enters one power lifting competition and two bodybuilder competitions. He comes in 3rd of 3 in weightlifting after bench pressing "only" 365 pounds. Apparently being as tall as he is is a disadvantage in lifting - shorter lifters weighing in the 180-200 range (he was 240) can bench well into the 500s. He won his weight class in the first competition but lost the overall. In the second, after a mad diet in which his body fat went down to about 5% he came in 2nd in his weight class. He finally came to his senses and got out of serious bodybuilding.

I love stories that reveal a culture I had previously very little insight into. This is one of those books.

Ethics (for the real world)

4.5 stars out of 5

I am not sure what prompted me to pick this book up but I am glad I did. The authors lay things out like they really are and tell us why ethics are important. They do a great job of defining ethics and how people blur the lines of ethics. Most people don't even think about many things as ethical decisions.

I would highly recommend for any conscientious thinker. Sometimes it is a bit ponderous, but overall, I thought it was a great book and I plan to reread to help define my ethical code.

Influencer

5 stars out of 5

Tremendous book. I read their earlier book (Crucial Conversations) after hearing them speak at BYU. Their previous book was good, but not nearly as good as this one. This book has one clear focus: how do we influence people? They break it down, provide numerous great examples and tell you what you need to do. I fully plan on going back through this book to take some extensive notes. All that time we waste trying to influence people and get them to do things - some much time that could have been better spent! If we are committed to it, this book gives some clear steps to follow. They aren't easy - you really will have to work at it, but it is a great book. Great fun to read. Highly recommend to anyone.