#41 Down Thunder Road: The Making of Bruce Springsteen by Marc Eliot

This book, written “with the assistance” of embittered former Springsteen manager Mike Appel, is an interesting early career history of The Boss, although it does tend to focus on the struggle amongst Appel, Springsteen, Jon Landau and Columbia Records to control the cash cow which was mid-to-late 1970’s Springsteen music.

The book is interesting for its view of a very naive young Bruce, signing one bad business deal after another and later having to reap the consequences of same. I do give Eliot and Appel credit for not slamming Springsteen entirely. Most of Appel’s scorn is resolved for Jon Landau, who he definitely seems to paint as the Yoko Ono of 1975 Springsteen (although mercifully without the nude album cover). Appel is very defensive in the book about his role in helping to craft the genius of Springsteen. Ultimately, it seems to me, there is plenty of credit to go around.

I recently read that in Buffalo, at the last show of Bruce’s latest tour, he acknowledged Appel from the stage and indicated that his first album never would have happened without Appel. In fact, Appel and his son were on hand as special guests, and were apparently afforded the royal treatment. I can’t pretend that Bruce Springsteen isn’t a human being. I do give him credit for being a little quicker to recognize that fact than most of his peers and contemporaries.

Eliot’s book is interesting. It wasn’t as negative as I thought, but I do still commend Dave Marsh’s Springsteen books as the best of their type. Start there… but if you wonder sometimes if you’re getting the whole story, you might check this book out.

Joe

#40 A Magnificent Catastrophe by Edward Larson

Larson’s book is in regard to the 1800 US Presidential Election. Thomas Jefferson ultimately defeated John Adams in the first change of power between political parties in American history. This was also the election which appeared to begin such modern staples as the two party system, public campaigning, and of conservatives accusing liberals of being Godless infidels, and of liberals accusing conservatives of trying to set up an aristocracy which governed in its own interests.

While I was familiar with the basic details of this election, Larson digs into primary sources and brings Hamilton, Burr, Adams, Jefferson, Pinckney and others to life. 1800 was a troubled time for a young America, and it is refreshing to see that then as now, candidates quickly resorted to turning on each other like wild dogs to try to salvage the problems of the day.

As a new country, it was essential for America to survive this election with a peaceful transition of power. It did so and, more or less, hasn’t looked back. Larson’s book is an entertaining and relatively quick story of a nation on the brink of major trouble, saved from same by the same combination of democractic virtue and luck which triumph still, more or less.

Joe

#39- Committed: Confessions of a Fantasy Football Junkie by Mark St. Amant

Mark St. Amant quit his job and seemingly dedicated his life to trying to win his fantasy football league. If you think it sounds crazy, you’d be right. So the truth is that he quit his job to write this book about quitting his job to try to win his fantasy football league. Which is mildly more sane– if only by comparison.

Fantasy football, for the uninitiated, consists of “drafting” real (NFL) football players to imaginary teams. The statistics which said players compile in their actual NFL games are weighed against other players, and the team “owners” or “general managers” gain points for the statistical achievements of their particular players.

As a hobby, it’s slightly less nerdy than fighting each other with plastic light sabres or playing Dungeons & Dragons style fantasy card games.

It is, strangely, incredibly popular. I have been part of various and sundry fantasy football leagues for years. Mostly, they were an excuse for a group of my friends to make fun of each other. St. Amant means business, which is kind of amusing and, admittedly, kind of pathetic.

The book is a fun read, if rather light. I am torn on the end result. Part of me buys in to a live and let live sort of credo– if it makes people happy, no matter how nerdy it is, good for them. The other part of me realizes that if 2% of the energy used on fantasy football was instead diverted to something real and meaningful, the world would be a much better place. Of course, you could say the same thing about reading 50 new books in a year.

Joe

#38– Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

Hornby has written another one. It’s brilliant, probably the best book he’s penned since “High Fidelity” and possible even better than it, although I’d like it better if the ending had felt a bit more resolved.

We follow Duncan, who is a manic fan of Tucker Crowe, a semi-Dylan, semi-Springsteen, semi-Leonard Cohen, semi-imaginary creation of Hornby. Crowe apparently experienced a life changing epiphany in a Minneapolis bathroom in 1986 and disappeared. Duncan runs an Internet site dedicated to studying Crowe’s every belch, whimper and fart, and the new rumors of same.

I have to break off here to say that yes, this does ring somewhat true in my own life. I am an equally semi-obsessive Dylan fan. Or maybe was. I can, or at one time could, listen to a few seconds of a version of “All Along the Watchtower” and probably tell you what year it was from. Maybe what tour. Probably who was playing on it. Likely even recommend a better specimen from the same time frame. I have a box of probably over 1,000 Dylan CD-Rs under a spare bed at my house. I certainly own all his albums, I’ve read a good deal of the meaningful books about him, have seen him live something like 16 times, and have spent way too many hours driving other perfectly sane people crazy about Bob Freaking Dylan.

Duncan’s longtime girlfriend and object of his Crowe-worship-torture, Annie, tries to tolerate his obsession. When Crowe releases a “new” album of old demos, it is Annie who hears what is really going on in the music. Partially to spite Duncan, she posts a review on the website. Lo and behold, about the time a cranky Duncan is taking up with a new woman, Tucker Crowe e-mails Annie and appreciates her insight into his work.

I won’t go through the rest of what happens. Even Crowe, who is Dylanish in his inability to take responsibility for his social failures (see Joan Baez, also secret marriage and child/ren, etc), comes off as an amazingly likeable character. I usually want to punch at least one of Hornby’s characters in the face. Not this time. And if I did, it would probably be Duncan.

Again, stepping back in, there was a big “guilty pleasure” factor in this book. I would laugh at the ridiculousness of Duncan’s behavior, and then think, “well, there was that one time when I dd such and such…” and realize that I wasn’t THAT much less ridiculous myself.

This was a very impressive book. Hornby just gets the male psyche. If we can’t BE Bob Dylan or Tom Brady or Barack Obama or whomever, we have to know EVERYTHING about them, and “understand” them completely. It’s utterly pathetic. And accurate. He also gets the female psyche. I like Annie as much as I like any character he has ever written. I’m heartbroken for her failures and problems and wish that just once, he’d broken out happily ever after for her. Maybe when they make it a movie.

Joe

#37- My Cold War by Tom Piazza

I’ve previously reviewed Piazza’s novel “City of Refuge” within the 50 new books for 2009. My wife and I heard him read from that book in Oxford, Mississippi last year, and were struck by the power of his story. “My Cold War” was his first novel and I picked up a remaindered copy from Barnes & Noble for a few bucks.

Piazza’s novel contemplates a middle aged history professor, who is failing in his efforts to work up a new book on America’s cold war heritage, and is failing in his marriage and his efforts to connect with his own painful history of his own family. I do give him mega props on one specific chapter in the book which is about Dylan plugging in at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. By far and away, this was my favorite part of the book, and makes me think that Piazza might be the one who should write the Cold War book.

Our hero eventually goes to Iowa to try to reconnect with his estranged brother, who ends up having befriended some lovely neo-Nazi style racists (sarcasm on the “lovely”, of course). This is where the book gets convoluted. I couldn’t help but feel like Piazza put his hero in a boat, rowed him out into the middle of lake and stopped the book right there.

I can’t recommend this one like I did “City of Refuge”. It’s certainly not a waste of time, as Piazza is an intense and skilled writer, but he’s improved with age. If he continues, the next one should be one for the ages.

Joe

#36– Rock Star Babylon by Jon Holmes

Our next entry was a thin paperback I picked up based on the promise of stories (which are published with the proviso that some, all, or none of them may be true) about the deviant behavior of rock musicians. I picked up the book to browse it and learned that a common story that circulated involved Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac ingesting her daily cocaine intake by, well, having it blown with a straw to a place where the sun certainly doesn’t shine. Cheery, eh?

Jon Holmes is an Englishman with an incredibly absurd sense of humor and a penchant for constant footnotes. To say that the book is sarcastic and ridiculous is probably an understatement. It’s also a lot of fun. I’d heard some of these stories (for instance, the famous one about Motley Crue having a contest to see who could still, uhm, draw the attention of groupies despite the longest period of time with NO work of personal hygene (ie showering, brushing teeth, washing hands, etc.), but plenty of them were new to me. Even the familiar ones were told with some wonderful British contempt that I probably enjoyed them most of all. This is a fun book, and would be superb for an airplane or a lengthy wait someplace.

Joe

#35– We Would Have Played for Nothing (various)

The count for 50 continues, although regular posting has not. Anyway, the good news is that I have several books to list. This book is a second installment in the “Baseball Oral History Project”. I read and reviewed the first, which was called “The Only Game In Town”. In this volume, baseball players from the ’50s and ’60s discuss their game, life and times.

I didn’t find this volume as interesting. As with the first book, the interviewers talked with a handful of stars and minor stars. However, with the ’50s and ’60s, there’s not the same distance from the past. The title of this book aside, baseball players were starting to make insane money by the time of the last players in the book. Once baseball was integrated, which was before these players, it was integrated. Once baseball spread to California, it ceased to be a northeastern game as it had before. Frankly, 1950s and 1960s baseball isn’t THAT horribly different from today. And accordingly, it’s not all that interesting.

I’d much rather read stories about guys who sharpened their spikes to kick people, fought with fans and umpires, couldn’t write their own names, and generally were one step above hit men in the social hierarchy. Unfortunately, most of those guys are dead, but that book was already written… it’s called “The Glory of Their Times”, and I need to read it.

Joe

#34– That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo

First, understand that I love Richard Russo’s novels. He writes about small town life, twistedly human families, and the inner working of human relationships. That Old Cape Magic comes from the same mold.

Russo’s hero is a middle-aged teacher, trying to confront his parents’ failed marriage and deaths, his daughter’s coming of age and marriage, the breakdown of his own marriage, and his own mortality. The relationship between the hero and his parents and his in-laws is at the center of the novel. As is often the case, strong emotions get mixed and overlapped, and everything falls apart.

I don’t think this is Russo’s best work. I’d reserve that for “Empire Falls”, and frankly, I think I liked “Bridge of Sighs” better as a chronicle of middle-aged understanding. That said, I’ve never read any of his books that failed to resonante with me on some level, and Cape is no different. It’s worth reading, but if you haven’t read Russo, you might not want to start here.

Joe

#33- Limitations by Scott Turow

I saw Scott Turow speak at the annual Kentucky Bar Convention and became very interested in this book from the short segment which was shared at that event. Fortunately, I saw it for $4 at Waldenbooks and picked up a copy.

Turow tells the story of an appellate judge who takes on a very interesting rape case. The case troubles him because it reminds him of something from his own life. The central issues is a statute of limitations question– essentially, how long after a person’s crime are they still subject to prosecution? In the meanwhile, the judge has acquired a stalker, who is moving closer and closer, and is trying to decide whether to retire or run for re-election.

Limitations is an interesting book and a very quick read. As the title implies, the central issue is human limitation. Who are judges to judge, and how can the rule of law, arbitrary though it is, serve the best ends possible. As a lawyer, I generally avoid reading about lawyers, but was not sorry to have picked this up. I would recommend this one.

Joe

#32 Rich Tradition by Tom Leach

I picked this book up at Kroger, which is something of an oddity for me. Leach, the play-by-play voice of the Wildcats, chronicles the uptick in the fortunes of UK football, as led by Rich Brooks. The book was an interesting review of the last six years (wow, this really is his 7th year) of the life and (usually) hard times of UK football. While Brooks seems destined like Moses to not journey to the promised land of football greatness, he has done a fair job of setting the table for those to follow.

Extra props to Leach for a game-by-game review of all six seasons, including the first three, which I generally spent trying to forget that there was UK football, much less that I cared about it. The book is enjoyable, if a bit expensive for a paperback.

Joe