Book review - When You Are Engulfed In Flames

Book: When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris, 323 fast pages

I went to see Up recently, the latest in the brilliant run of Pixar films. I enjoyed the movie immensely - it was moving, creative, beautiful and funny. When I got home, I read a few of the reviews and was surprised to find a somewhat tepid response from several critics. The general gist was: It's another Pixar film, blah. More happiness and individualism, blah.
I don’t dismiss their complaints about the company (though I do disagree), but more importantly: what does WALL-E or Finding Nemo have to do with Up? It felt a little like Up was a victim of Pixar’s success. If it had come out first, it would have been ground breaking and revolutionary. Even if it had come from another studio, it may have gotten a different reception.
I was reminded of this as a I read When You Are Engulfed in Flames, the latest book by David Sedaris. I love David Sedaris. Me Talk Pretty One Day is the funniest book I have ever read. He wrote a story about finding a turd in his friend’s toilet that somehow was not gross and had me laughing so hard I was crying. That is very rare.
Then I read his follow up, Dress your Family in Corduroy and Denim, which I thought was, well, brilliant. It was funny and had a depth that inspired me. I didn’t know you could be so moved while laughing.
So, of course, I grabbed his latest book. Again, it is a series of essays or short stories about his life. He writes about a nasty woman who lives across the hall, accientally insulting the woman sitting next to him on the plane, becoming friends with a sex offender, becoming friends with a spider and buying a skeleton. Each of the essays are true or mostly true, I assume.
I’m not sure there’s much to unify the stories in terms of content other than Sedaris's sense of self, which is the voice that brings you from story to story. He’s insightfully open about his faults and is therefore honest about the faults we try to hide from ourselves.

And Sedaris is a great writer. The way he ends the story about a truck driver propositioning him left me lingering over his words for days.

The clincher for me was the last essay about going to Japan to quit smoking. It was honest and insightful, never dull, and often hilarious. (The title of the book comes from this part, although I agree with his publisher’s sentiment that Sedaris is trying to be willfully obscure with his titles.)
And yet…I found myself not blown away by this book. It wasn’t as funny as Talk Pretty. He wasn’t as insightful and moving as Corduroy. I realized I was falling into Up syndrome: Sedaris has been so good that he set the bar impossibly high. If I had read Engulfed first, I would have been wowed by how funny and honest and touching Sedaris is in each essay.
The point is that this is a wonderful book and I recommend everyone read it. And I promise never to let Sedaris bias me against him again.

Good for: Everyone, really. But, specifically, people who have enjoyed David Sedaris' books or commentary. You're looking for a truly funny book, rather than a stand-up routine turned into a book. (Cough, Tim Allen, cough, Ray Ramano.)
Skip it: If David Sedaris isn't your taste. If you're looking for a novel, rather than a series of unconnected short stories.

Book review - God Save the Fan

Book: God Save the Fan by Will Leitch, 295 pretty-good-then-not-so-good pages

By Matt

For full disclosure I should say that the author of this book, Will Leitch and I went to the University of Illinois at roughly the same time and overlapped briefly at the Daily Illini student newspaper. I read his work in college - awesome - but I never knew him,and he wouldn't know me from Ron Zook. Also, my boss, and friend, is very good friends with Leitch.
I should further admit that I was in no way biased by the fact that I thought it was awesome that on page 138, Leitch mentions - for no reason I can find - the Aurora Beacon News. Booya! All of which really had no impact on this review being posted for six people.
I started out wanting to dislike this book. Leitch is the former editor of Deadspin, an interesting and addicting sports blog that, of course, makes me uncomfortable because I work for a little newspaper that is being eaten alive by blogs. I don’t hate blogs, at all. (Obviously.) But I’m alternately amused and disgusted by Deadspin, which reports rumors and wallows in the mud too often for my taste.

But, on the other hand, I know Leitch is a fantastic writer, a funny guy and very smart. And for the first quarter of God Save the Fan I was hooked. The book is divided into essays about players, owners, the media and fans.
In the players sections, Leitch is fantastic, combining personal experiences, anecdotal evidence and strong logic into insightful essays about sports. I couldn’t stop reading and I was learning about the sports I love. He took on owners and players in insightful, humorous ways. He told me steroids didn’t matter and I was with him. The reason people actually don’t like most blogs (outside of anonymity and no accountability) is that they’re boring. Being an essayist - which is what many bloggers are - is probably the hardest form of writing. But for the first quarter of the book, I was ready to concede that Leitch was the great sports essayist of this generation.
And then he fell off the tracks, in the strangest of places. He went after sports media. Where there had been logic and insight, there was contradictions and pettiness. Consider the chapter called Beware Those Who Come Bearing the Tag "Experts", where he declares there are no experts. To summarize, Leitch says no one knows what they’re doing and no one really has any more information than any other person who wanted to research a topic. Sorry, that makes no sense at all. Someone who studies the subject material, talks to other experts is an expert. This kind of weak logic is littered through the second half of the book, along with petty barbs and no-duh conclusions.
The worst comes out in the chapters about ESPN. I watch ESPN for the game scores, maybe a game, then I move on to other things. But both Deadspin and this book have a full-out obsession with ESPN’s anchors and programming. Leitch clearly delights in embarrassing these people. For what reason, or purpose, he never articulates. (Is Scott Van Pelt's love life really interesting to anyone, including Scott Van Pelt?)

The worst part is that the ESPN stuff is neither well-sourced nor well-thought out. Leitch picks the worst ESPN analysts and eviscerates them, then dismisses the real experts (like Ron Jaworski) with a brush off - “no one cares about experts”. Weak and inaccurate.
Leitch is quick to dismiss sports reporting because - I swear this is in the book - he once had the penis of University of Michigan’s fat center Robert “Tractor” Traylor’s in his face during an interview. It depressed Leitch and so, therefore, sports reporting is dead and irrelevant. Well, bad sports reporting is dead and irrelevant. But I read Mark Tupper of the Dectur Herald and Review because he tells me things about Illinois basketball - and college basketball - that help me better understand and appreciate what I’m watching. I listen to Peter Gammons of ESPN because he knows about baseball and helps me put players and games in perspective.
With great intensity, Leitch tells us ESPN is a big corporate empire that is mean, protects its brand and likes to make money. Well, duh.
The ESPN rant goes on and on. And on and on. (At one point, he watches 24 straight hours of ESPN programming in what’s supposed to be an ironic experiment, but you have to wonder.)

By the end, I came back to the cover of the book, which is a foam finger that is putting up the middle finger rather than the traditional “We’re No. 1” indexer. It was be provocative, surely. It was clever, of course. But what was the point of that image? I sort of felt the same way about this book.

Good for: Fans of Deadspin, although some people say this book is a rehash of what's been up there. (I don't read faithfully enough to know for sure.) People who live on ESPN, fantasy sports or their favorite team. People who want to poke fun at the often too-serious world of sports and sports journalism. People who want to read the first half of a book. Checking out of the library.
Skip it if: You don’t obsess of the sports media landscape. You want in-depth, new reporting on sports.

Book review - The Areas of My Expertise

Book: The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman, 230 very odd pages

The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman is certainly the strangest book I have ever read and maybe the strangest book ever written. But I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy large parts of it. Who wouldn’t want a list of the 700 hobo names? (And really, if the names hadn’t been written down in this book, these heroes of the Hobo Wars may have been forgotten forever.)
Hodgman has collected an encyclopedia of facts known to him alone, which he is kind of enough to share. I got on to this book by seeing Hodgeman - who you probably know as the PC in the Mac vs. PC commercials - on a local news channel where he told a very dumbfounded newscaster about the facts he had gathered in his book. Hodgman was very funny there ,as well as during his frequent appearances on The Daily Show, so I had to check out this book.
I think I wasn't disappointed. This book was funny. But would I recommend it to you? Well, let me ask you:
- Are you looking for a list of nine U.S. presidents who had hooks for hands? (Jefferson designed his own.) If yes, you will like this book.
- Are you looking for facts on all 51 states, including Hohoq, the floating state? If yes, you will like this book.
- Are you curious about the seven U.S. phone numbers that have 666 as a prefix? If yes, you will like this book.
- Are you curious to read the brief timeline of the lobster in America? If yes, you will like this book.
- Would you be interested in five jokes that have never produced laughter? (Sample: “A duck goes into the pharmacy. He says the pharmacist, “I need some ointment for my beak. It is very chapped.” The pharmacist says, “We have nothing for ducks here.”) If yes, you will like this book.
- Do you require hints on building snow forts? If yes, you will like this book.
- Have you been searching for some brief biographies of well-known hoboes? If yes, you will like this book.
Otherwise, look elsewhere.

Good book for: People who thought the above list was intriguing. (Which it kind of was.)

Skip it: If you thought the above list was ridiculous and stupid. (Which it kind of was.)

Book review - The Card: Collectors, Con Men and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card

(Just so you don't think Matt's uber ambitious, this review and the last one are for books he actually finished weeks ago. But now we should be all caught up.)

Book: The Card: Collectors, Con Men and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card by Michael O'keeffe and Teri Thompson

Like every other 12-year-old who ever bought 500 packs of utterly worthless baseball cards, Matt dreamed of somehow, some way getting his hands on the Holy Grail of baseball cards: the T206 Honus Wagner. It is the most valuable baseball card, not because it's the most rare (there's less than 100, but there are scarcer cards), or that it pictures the most famous player (Wagner was great, but the casual fan's probably never heard of him). It is the most valuable because it is the most desired. And why it's the most desired is at the center of The Card.

The best versions of the T206 Wagner - which is less than three inches tall - have sold for millions.
Now, if after reading that, you said: 'A million bucks for a piece of cardboard?', then this book is not for you.
But if, like me, you dreamed of finding the T206 Wagner stuck in a tin can that you dug up in the your garden, or tucked in a book you found at a flea market, The Card is a must read.

The Card is the best book ever written about collecting cards. It has neither blinders on, nor is it cynical. But it explains the phenomenom in a compelling narrative.

The story opens with super collector Bill Mastro in a Long Island collectibles store buying what will become the ultimate baseball card, The Gretzky T206 (so-called because it was once owned by hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky). The Gretzky T206 is considered the most valuable card in history because it is the best example (in other words, in the best condition) of the most desired card.

What Mastro does in that store is much debated in the hobby world and is the central mystery in this book. It's also quite literally the turning point for card collecting and the sports collectible industry. This single deal would usher in the era of big money collectibles, which of course attracted all sorts of people ready, willing and able to take advantage.

I've always wondered about these "authenticating" services that charge big bucks to "grade" a baseball card (tell you how good it is). I can see the appeal, but this book exposes some of my worst fears, such as when they sold two gloves as the glove that Al Gionfriddo used to make a great catch in the 1947 World Series.

The Card is a fast read, which I consider a high compliment. It's written in the style of great narrative journalism and has a perfect mix of research and intrigue. Collectors will not feel as though they're being dismissed. For people who don't collect, the fascination is probably in the way the book explains how artificial markets can be created and how demand can be summoned out of thin air.

Of course, at some level, we collectors know our hobby is literally a house of cards, propped up on speculation more than real value (ask the people who paid $200 for Mark Prior's signature). But The Card is not a slam on collecting. The authors consider the romance and the attraction to collecting by introducing readers to the characters within the hobby. But they don't swoon at the sight of a Mickey Mantle bat.

Just thinking about this book has made me want to take more look up in the attic. You never know where that T206 is hiding.

Good book for: Anyone who has ever collected baseball cards. Anyone who has bought a collectible on eBay. Anyone who ever paid more than $10 for one baseball card. (I have!)

Skip it: If you think the idea of collecting baseball cards is ludicrous...or you'd never pay $10 for a baseball card, you won't understand the premise of the book.

Book review - Stealing Lincoln's Body

Here's book review number two. By the way, Matt is not counting this one toward his presidential biography series. I think you'll see why.

Book: Stealing Lincoln's Body by Thomas Craughwell, 210 pages

In 1876, an enterprising group of counterfeiters came up with an interesting plan: Why not steal the body of America's beloved president, hold it for ransom and use it to win the release of one of their buddies?
They almost pulled it off.
And their half-baked caper, kicked off a series of adventures for Lincoln's body that made this re-telling a fun, fast and fascinating read.
Growing up in Illinois, it's hard not to be captivated by Lincoln. Appropriately many of the Lincoln books cover different aspects of the same ground- his political acumen, his character, his presidency, his policies. Not this book. Stealing Lincoln's Body definitely creates it's own path.
There is nothing in the book about Lincoln's policies, accomplishments or thoughts (except about his wishes for burial). In fact, Lincoln the living man is not a character at all.
Instead, author Thomas Craughwell takes us on the strange and engaging journey of the president's corpse. It appears the turmoil that Lincoln experienced in life didn't end after he died.
The book opens across from Ford Theater in Lincoln's last moments. Although it's not as lively as other parts of the book, the prologue should give you a good feel for whether you're going to be interested in Stealing Lincoln's Body, as it goes into intricate detail about how the body was prepared for his funeral.
After that introduction, we're brought into the world of the counterfeiters who make an attempt to steal the body. Although that episode inspired the title, this caper only fills about the first quarter of the narrative. I think the book is at its best after the robbery, where the story of Lincoln's corpse is filled with great characters, wonderful anecdotes and genuine drama.
At the Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield (highly recommended, by the way), they talk a lot about how Lincoln has become such an icon, it's hard to see the real man, who had weaknesses and strengths, virtues and faults. In that context, it's interesting that the body of this legend was treated so casually. It was almost stolen, practically abandoned, brazenly lied about, often argued over, frequently relocated, crudely hidden and repeatedly disturbed. Lincoln's corpse was treated more like an old coin than a sacred relic.
Thomas Craughwell's book is a readable and well-researched history of those events. And although it's a history the writing feels more like a fictional mystery, with good guys and bad guys, plots twists...and appropriate footnoting.
The research gives us a feel for the times. Craughwell helps explains the laws about grave robbing and talks about the country's mood in the years after the assassination. The way we treated Lincoln's body gave me a lot to think about, in terms of what we value and how we honor the dead.
Craughwell also has an appreciation for those wonderful historical nuggets, such as: As a young boy, which future president was among the people who came out to see Lincoln's body brought through New York? Or, who was the last living person to see Lincoln's face? (He lived until 1963!)
Now, if you believe corpses are holy, sacred things that should never be touched, you may not feel comfortable in this book. It's never gory, but it's practical about how a body ends up in a grave. If that's not going to bother you, I think you're in for a treat.
I've been to Lincoln's tomb before. But next time I go, it will look like a lot more than just a slab of marble. It'll look like the end of an adventure.

Good book for: People looking for an interesting story about Lincoln which they probably haven't read anywhere else. Lincoln buffs who want to read something very different.
Avoid this book if: You're going to be horrified by how they treat a dead body. You don't have a bit of dark humor in you. You don't like history books.

Book review- His Excellency: George Washington

Matt thought he’d offer up some modest reviews of the books he’s reading, in case anyone is interested in some recommendations or warnings. Plus, it’s always nice to have a post-book discussion, right Oprah?
First up: His Excellency: George Washington, by Joseph J. Ellis, 275 pages.

Sometime during the last election, I set a life goal to read a book about every president. I had just finished reading Barack Obama’s Socialist Manifesto, Dreams From My Father, and realized that reading a book on each president’s would give me an interesting look at U.S. history. (A bit of personality-driven, I realize, but fun.)
I don’t remember picking His Excellency: George Washington for any particular reason – maybe I read a review in a newspaper or something. But whatever lead me to it, I found the right book.
Like Lincoln , Washington has become more symbol than human being. His life is so epic that it’s sometimes hard to believe he walked on solid Earth. The book works to chip away at that feeling. Washington is shown as person who had faults (including a nasty temper and a cheap streak) and amazing vision - he was a man who consciously shaped his times.
The book is agonizingly sparse in two areas I desperately wanted to know more about: Why did Washington break away from the British Army, where he was a decorated and respected soldier, to join up with the American revolutionaries? And, second, what were his thoughts during the Constitutional Convention, as the very foundations of this nation’s political and judicial systems were being negotiated?
I’m not going to hold those as strikes against His Excellency. In fact, the premise of the book is that you can only go so far into Washington ’s psyche because he prided himself on his reserve. He was not Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson and we’re all probably better off for it. Washington knew his place in history, even at the time, and he went so far as to ask that his letters to Martha Washington be burned and other personal correspondence be destroyed.
So, the great insights we get into John Adams’ tumultuous feelings about America ’s beginnings (used for David McCullough’s biography) are muted in here. I suppose there’s just an upper limit to how much we’ll ever know about Washington ’s feelings on issues that were both personal and historic. And that probably says something about the guy.
Anyhow, the book is a fast read (that’s a compliment) with crisp writing that covers Washington’s days fighting the Indians for the British up to his last days in Mount Vernon. As the author notes, the book is not meant to be an exhaustive scholarly history of Washington – other books do that – but rather a readable, biography of a fascinating person. The book accomplishes that goal. It touches on the “fun” parts of Washington (the cherry tree, the silver dollar), but gives its real weight to the wash of U.S. history that was happening around, and because of, the man.
I thought the best part of the book was the chapters on the Revolutionary War, probably because that was Washington ’s finest hour. He was leader and soldier. Truly, the world would never be the same.
My only other criticism is that I think the book went out of its way to finesse Washington ’s position on slavery. But overall, I highly recommend this one.
So, for me it’s two presidents down and 41 to go. (I don’t think I’ll read about Grover Cleveland twice.) William Henry Harrison may only be a pamphlet. I’m not sure if I should continue on in order or jump all over. What do you think?
And after I read 5,001 Things to Know About Rutherford B. Hayes Before You Die, Luke says he’ll learn me how to throw a curveball.
One last note: I never realized that Washington had no children of his own with Martha, who was a widower. Father of our country, indeed.

Good book for: People who want to learn more about Washington the man, not Washington the furniture. History fans.
Avoid this book if: You’re not interested in George Washington. You’re looking for an in-depth scholarly evaluation of President No. 1.