On January 8, 2008, we saw Alexander Roy on the Late Show with David Letterman. He is the author of The Driver – My Dangerous Pursuit of Speed and Truth in the Outlaw Racing World.

I went through the 1970’s fascinated by cars. I read Car and Driver Magazine religiously. During this period, the magazine wrote repeatedly about the Cannonball Run. The Cannonball Run was an unofficial automobile race run four times in the 1970s from New York City to Redondo Beach, a Los Angeles suburb. During the Letterman segment, they talked about this race and it brought back a rush of memories. I was intrigued, ordered the book and add it to my stack of books to read.

I read the book in November. I enjoyed it, but with all of the good books in the world, it is not one that I recommend highly. About 200 pages into the 300 page book, I was ready to be finished; then, the last 100 pages pulled me back into the book. This last section covers Roy’s attempts to establish a record for driving from New York to Los Angeles.

Although I am not interested in doing it for speed, the book actually got me thinking about trying to drive one way from Los Angeles to New York or Boston. This is something that I am thinking about adding to my goals for the next ten to fifteen years.

More than five and a half years ago on a trip to the Philippines, I read Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds’ first novel. At the time, I enjoyed the book enough to buy his second novel, Chasm City. The book has been sitting in my pile of books to read ever since.

Looking for a science fiction book to read, I picked Chasm City up a couple of weeks ago and finished it on the trip to Spokane. I really enjoyed the book. With longer books, I often find myself reaching a point where I am ready to move on to something else. Chasm City kept me engaged and interested through 700 pages. The story line reminded me in some ways of the Bourne Identity. Although the resolution of the climatic scene is odd and the last five pages are a little flat, it is a hard science fiction novel that I would recommend.

I finished reading Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly. I heard about this book on the NPR Books Podcast.

Written by a British naval historian who is considered one of the leading authorities on pirates, the book takes a factual look at the life of pirates. The book focuses largely on the pirates active in the Caribbean and the Atlantic Coast in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

The book looks a lot at the differences between how pirates have been portrayed in books, movies and plays over the last three hundred years and real life. Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island is used as an example throughout the book. I am going to add this book to my list of things to read which now includes biographies of JFK, J. Edgar Hoover and Castro and Treasure Island.

The book was an interesting read, but not a book that I strongly recommend.

I finished reading Havana Nocturne. Sharon and I saw the author on the Jon Stewart show several months ago. Although Stewart’s author interviews are often a train wreck, I was impressed enough with the discussion of this book that I ordered it.

The book focuses on mob’s development from 1946 to 1959 of Havana, Cuba into a mecca of hotels, casinos and nightclubs. Cuban political, economic and social events during this period provide an important backdrop for the story. Although Frank Sinatra, John F. Kennedy and Ernst Hemingway make cameo appearances in the book, the central characters are the leading Mafia figures of the day. The lives of almost two dozen gangsters including Meyer Lansky, Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Santo Trafficante are covered in varying levels of detail.

From my perspective, the most compelling individual story was Fidel Castro. His story was much more interesting to me than the life stories of the Mafia bosses. Castro played a key role in overthrowing the Batista government and running the Mafia out of Cuba. I am going to add Castro to the list of people I would like to read more about; the list currently includes JFK and J. Edgar Hoover.

The book is a good, but not great read. I was just not that interested in the back stories of all the mobsters…

I just finished reading The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon. I picked this book up because it won the 2007 Nebula Award and 2008 Hugo Award for best novel. At the time, I did not realize that the author had also won the 2001 Pultizer Prize for Fiction for his book The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

Generally, I prefer hard science fiction; The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is not hard science fiction. The book essentially is an alternate history for the last seventy years. Instead of settling in Palestine after World War II, the Jews end up in Sitka, Alaska. Interestingly, this idea is based on a historical footnote. Promoted by then Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, Congress actually rejected a proposal [The King-Havenner Bill of 1940] to open Alaska to Jewish emigration.

I did not realize that the book was set in Alaska when I bought it. Although we did not get to Sitka on our recent Alaskan Cruise and Land Tour, we were very close. There are some aspects of the book that ring true due to travels through that part of the world.

At its roots, the book is a detective novel. It uses a murder investigation to explore parts of the Jewish culture in this alternative history. For example, the idea of boundaries talked about in an article in today’s Sacramento Bee play a part in the story.

Another plot point includes a red heifer. Oddly, one of the other science fiction books that I read this year, Spin by Robert Charles Wilson, also included a red heifer in the story.

Without giving away the plot, the Alaskan Jews of this alternative timeline do not want to be in Alaska. They want to be in Palestine.

This is a very different book, but definitely one that I would recommend.

Several months ago, I heard Bill Simmons, an ESPN columist, mention this book to Bill Walton during a podcast. I had a hard time finding a copy, but eventually found a reasonable priced one from a used book user on Amazon. David Halberstam spend the 1979-1980 season traveling with the Portland Trail Blazers. This was two years after they won the championship with Bill Walton. In addition to chronicling the season, Halberstam spends a great deal of time going back and exploring the history of the NBA and digging into the life stories of the key people during that season. I was fascinated by the description of Bill Walton playing backetball in junior high and high school. As a fan who has really only followed the game for the last 25 years, the book provided some interesting history of how the league developed in the 1960’s and particularly the 1970’s. My only complaint is tangents to explore people’s lifes slow the pacing of the book.

I found this book slow at the beginning and better in the middle. I was frankly surprised where the ending when; I did not see it coming. Additionally, the ending hit more than a little too close to home for this time of year.

With so many good books to read, I would recommend reading Angela’s Ashes, but skipping this one.

Of all the biographies I have read recently, this is the one that I enjoyed the least. While there are some interesting insights, I felt that I did not get a complete picture of Franklin’s life. This would probably be a good supplemental book after reading a more complete biography.

The Power Plays novels have always been the weaker of the three “Tom Clancy” adult series. This novel is a very poor book. Three hundred pages of wandering for a 30 page sputtering ending.