The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper

Patrick, Phaedra. The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper. Ontario: MIRA. 2016. Print.

First Sentences:

Each day Arthur got out of bed at precisely 7:30 a.m., just as he did when his wife, Miriam, was alive.

Description:

Arthur Pepper is a man of rigid habits. Same time rising in the morning, same breakfast, same daily routine, same bedtime. Any deviance is a cause for internal panic until the schedule can be resumed. 

But then, one year after the death of his wife, Miriam, Arthur discovers a previously-unknown charm bracelet of hers carefully hidden in an old shoe box. It is rich looking, heavy gold, with several unusual charms on it: an elephant with an emerald, an artist's palette, a tiger, a flower, a book, a thimble, a heart, and a ring. None of these figures had any significance to Arthur. 

So he sets out to discover the story behind each charm and uncover the secret life of the woman he once thought he knew completely during their 30 years of marriage. Arthur must summon up all shreds of curiosity and willpower to break his bonds of habit and mourning to follow the trail suggested by the charms. 

Phaedra Patrick's debut novel, The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper, promises adventure, mystery, self-discovery, and love stories, and delivers on every expectation. Along the way Arthur encounters a family living in India, a recluse who keeps tigers roaming freely around his grounds, a well-meaning but pushy neighbor and her surly son, and a neighbor who mows his lawn every day. With each person and adventure, Arthur finds he must question Miriam's past life and compare it to the quiet life they led together for decades. Was she satisfied with him and their life or did she harbor regrets from her previous life? Arthur has to find out somehow, and that's the beauty of this adventure.

I won't spoil any more of the details. Suffice to say, Arthur is in for a long, twisty ride that changes his ideas about his wife, their relationship, and his own inner being. He is wonderful character full of insecurities, drive, and a dogged persistence to find answers, no matter their affect on him or his memories. You cannot help but pull for him throughout each episode of discovery.

What these people and events had stirred in him was desire. Not in the sense of lust or longing, but a reaction to others. When they had shown a need, he found a desire to help. When the tiger attacked he felt a desire to live. 

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Jonasson, Jonas. The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

On his hundredth birthday, a man escapes the old folks home and, armed with a suitcase of stolen money, begins a world-traveling adventure with police and criminals in hot pursuit. Delightfully funny and unexpected on every page. (previously reviewed here)

The Sisters Brothers

DeWitt, Patrick. The Sisters Brothers. New York: Ecco. 201. Print.

First Sentences:

I was sitting outside the Commodore's mansion, waiting for my brother Charlie to come out with news of the job.

Description:

In 1851, the job Eli Sisters and his brother Charlie will take on is to kill a man who stole something from their employer, a man known simply as the Commodore. After all, they are the Commodore's hired guns and are quite good at their craft. Sounds like a typical shoot-em-up story set in the Gold Rush days, huh? 

But Patrick DeWitt's deadpan funny novel The Sisters Brothers is anything but typical or predictable. It is full of dark, quirky humor, ruminations about life, and spare, honest dialogue  

As Eli narrates their journey from Oregon City to San Francisco in his formal sentences, we learn more and more about these two brothers. Sure, they are cold, remorseless killers who have quick tempers and even quicker trigger fingers. But they also have ... well, really not much that redeems them. 

Yet we (I, at least) are riveted by them, root for them to overcome obstacles (human and non), and sympathize with them when results from their decisions run counter to the intentions. They are not cruel; they are simply loyal to The Commodore and their job. They have a bond between them as brothers willing to talk things out with each other and those they encounter with whom they have disagreements. What's not to like about these two other than their propensity for shooting people?

He is not bad, I don't think. Perhaps he is simply too lazy to be good.

Along the trail they encounter a variety of fellow travelers and wandering souls: a man who constantly weeps, an inventor with a gold-finding formula, trappers seeking the fame of killing the Sisters, prospectors, prostitutes, storekeepers, a dentist, a red-furred bear, and a broken down, one-eyed horse. There is drinking and shooting and injuries, of course, but the overall tenor is strangely funny, if tinged with sadness.

The creak of bed springs suffering under the weight of a restless man is as lonely a sound as I know. 

Hard to describe this slim book, but I highly recommend it for its characters, its calm narrative style, and its musings on life, death, and the undying relationship between two brothers. 

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood

Two young men, looking for hidden money, murder a family in the midwest. Their interviews, personalities, and history make up this fascinating, tautly-written history (previously reviewed here)

Beverly, Bill. Dodgers

Four teenage gang members are sent from inner city Los Angeles to the Midwest to kill a key witness against their gang leader. Along the way they try to preserve their perceived toughness in the cold of Wisconsin, trying to deal with the various competing personalities in their car, and facing decisions about violence and duty. (previously reviewed here) 

Handful of Summers

Forbes, Gordon. Handful of Summers. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1978. Print

First Sentences:

Staircase number one at the All England Club leads you into a section of the stadium just above the members enclosure.

Climb the stairs on finals days and there, suddenly, in the sun, the soft old centre court, ling waiting, all green; waiting; for two o'clock. It is venerable, that court, and it lives.

Description:

Remember when sports were played for the love of the game, the comradery, the adventure of travel, and just the freedom to live the life of the young and talented? Was there ever such a time? The answer is a joyous "Yes" from Gordon Forbes, author of Handful of Summers where he chronicles his experiences and the free-spirited men and women playing the international amateur tennis circuit during the 1950s and early 1960s.

Forbes, an 18-year-old South African, grew up hitting tennis balls as a punishment for whatever shenanigans he and his brother and sisters got into on their isolated ranch (stealing eagle eggs, blowing up their homemade cannon, etc.). Gradually, he became good enough to be sponsored to play in international tournaments. 

He kept a diary (which became the basis for this book) throughout those early trips to English and other international tournaments which opened his eyes to the world, fellow competitors ("colorful lunatics"), and of course, women. Even the tournaments themselves offered unique experiences.

They were so simple, those little English tournaments, so utterly artless. Home-made, if you like. They were funny things ... but they were open-hearted, and they allowed ordinary people to play them. Everything was absolutely fair and square -- and the "conditions" that the players were offered, though infinitesimal, were conditions, nonetheless.

Players received a return train fare from London, cold lunches each day, accommodations with a local family, and 50 shillings for "expenses." Tournament winners received prize vouchers of 5 pounds which players could spend only on "white apparel." 

But this book does not linger on the game itself. Rather, the tournaments and matches serve as a backdrop to best feature the idiosyncrasies of the players, their conversations, and their antics when loosened on the world at a young age. For example:

• Torben Ulrich, the Danish philosopher player who played jazz clarinet, but when Forbes when to see him play, Ulrich just stood silently at the mike in front of his band because "I could not think of a single note to play";

• Don Candy who once argued a call with an empty official's chair;

• Roy Emerson who took showers with his clothes on to wash them, singing his song of the week off-key over and over;

• The anonymous player who, at match point, went to the sideline and took out his special racquet painted black which he used only for the final point;

• Abe Segal who loved food and ate a steak in three gulps, meatballs whole, and plates of spaghetti in only a few tennis-ball sized bites without chewing, "like hay being loaded"; 

• Forbes himself who saw visions at night of a wall falling on his roommate or a hand grenade tossed under his bed among dreams that require jumping out of bed, screaming warnings, and waking everyone except himself.

No detail of that era goes unnoticed by Forbes. Whether food or accommodations or playing surfaces or local girls, all are subtly, dryly recorded and commented on:

The [English] toilets themselves had long chains and used to flush like tidal waves, before dying to throaty gurgles and other internal rumblings, so that one finally returned to bed shaken and guilt-stricken after a perfectly ordinary widdle.

"Widdle"? Who uses that term anymore (ever)? Leave it to Forbes to perfectly preserve that innocent, slightly naughty description and capture the essence of that era. It's what makes this book so delightful, so real, and just so fun to linger over. Plus, I had met and hit with (briefly) several of these players, like Rod Laver, Carl Earn, and Allen Fox, so it was fun to read about their early exploits.

Yes, there certainly was an amateur age of tennis that will never be repeated. But thankfully, Gordon Forbes was there to tell us about it and the white-clad characters who made played for the love of the game and the adventures of the world around them.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Forbes, Gordon. Too Soon to Panic: A Memoir  

Follow up to Handful of Summers which covers an insider's view of the world of the early professional tennis circuit from the late sixties to the nineties, with stories of Ashe, Borg, Vilas, Graf, Agassi, and many more. Humorous, personable, and honest in its portrayal of this blossoming age of professional tennis.

Waterman

Davis, David. Waterman: The Life and Times of Duke Kahanamoku. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

The precise moment when Duke Paoa Kahanamoku slipped into the shimmering blue waters of the Pacific Ocean is lost to history.

Duke himself recalled only that he was around four years old when his father, so proud of his namesake, the first of the Kahanamoku children to survive infancy, tossed him over the side of a canoe somewhere off Waikiki Beach.

"It was save yourself or drown," he said, "so I saved myself."

Description:

Is there a more fun name to say than "Duke Kahanamoku" (Kah HAN ah MO koo)? And was there ever a better swimmer and ambassador for everything related to water sports? From surfing to open water swimming, paddle-boarding, outrigger canoeing and upright paddling to body surfing, Duke was The Man of the early twentieth century as recounted in David Davis' fascinating biography, Waterman: The Life and Times of Duke Kahanamoku.

Duke grew up on Waikiki beach in the 1890s when Hawaii was still an independent kingdom. He spent his youth playing in the water, diving for coins tossed from tourist ocean liners, paddling outrigger canoes, and of course swimming. He also mastered "wave-riding" (surfing) using a 16' redwood board that weighed 150 pounds. At that time surfing was unknown outside of Hawaii, so it was Duke who later introduced the sport to California, Australia, and every other beach internationally that he visited.

Duke entered and set world records in AAU swim meets held in the open waters of Honolulu and again in amateur national meets on the Mainland. Duke went on to win Olympic medals in 1912, 1920, and 1924 in the Games held in Stockholm. (with Jim Thorpe), in Antwerp, and Paris (with teammate/rival Johnny Weissmuller). He turned his international recognition turned world tours and swimming demonstrations in Europe, Asia, and Australia. 

But back in Hawaii Duke faced racial discrimination and lack of employment. As an amateur, he could not make money from anything swimming-related, so the only work he could find was as a janitor/caretaker of the Honolulu government buildings, mowing lawns, sweeping halls, and cleaning bathrooms. He later owned a small gas station where he pumped gas below his surfboard hung outside as a promotional sign.

Author Davis details story after story of Duke's life in the water. In 1925, Duke performed a heroic rescue of eight passengers of a sinking boat in dangerously heavy seas in Newport Beach. Using his surfboard he performed "the most superhuman surfboard rescue act the world has ever seen" according to the Newport Chief of Police. Seventeen other passengers from that same perished. After that incident, all California lifeguards started using surfboards for their rescues.

But he always remained upbeat, uncomplaining about his slights in his life. He remained the unofficial ambassador of Hawaii, greeting incoming tourists and VIPs with leis, tours, and surfing lessons. Eventually he became the Sheriff of Honolulu, a small job that became important overnight when nearby Pearl Harbor was attacked. He even made two dozen movies with Paramount Pictures.

Duke Kahanamoku was an international figure in an era when the sport of swimming was as eagerly followed as baseball and boxing by a sports-hungry world. This well-researched book is a wonderful detailing of his life, his skills in the water, and his bigger-than-life personality that brought Hawaii into the consciousness of the world in the twentieth century. Highly recommended for lovers of swimming, history, and Hawaii.

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Checkoway, Julie. The Three-Year Swim Club The Untold Story of Maui's Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory

True story of the non-swimming elementary school teacher who developed 
children from poor sugar cane workers' from splashing around in an irrigation ditch in Maui, Hawaii to winning national and Olympic championships in the 1930s.

Brown, Daniel James. The Boys in the Boat

True story of the men who rowed to Olympic history and a gold medal in the Berlin Olympics in 1936. (previously reviewed here)

Davis, David. Showdown at Shepherd's Bush: The 1908 Olympic Marathon and the Three Runners Who Launched a Sporting Craze.

Historical re-telling of the events of the 1908 Olympic marathon, the controversial finish (where one runner ran the wrong way in the stadium and was disqualified after being assisted by officials) and the training these pioneer runners endured.

438 Days

Franklin, Jonathan. 438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea. New York: Atria. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

His name was Salvador and he arrived with bloody feet, said he was looking for work -- anything to start -- but to those who saw the newcomer arrive, he looked like a man on the run.

Description:

On November, 2012, two men set off in their open fishing boat - really a row boat with a small outboard engine - to a rich fishing spot over 100 miles off the coast from their homes in Guatemala. But a five-day hurricane arises that destroys their engine, tosses their fishing equipment, fresh water, and food overboard, and water-logs their radio and GPS into uselessness. 

Salvador Alvarenga survived 14 months drifting 6,000 miles in his small open fishing boat. Author Jonathan Franklin spent one year interviewing Alvarenga, his friends, and family and talking with survival experts to fully understand this incredibly true story. The result is the brilliant 438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea. 

After the storm, all they have left in their boat is a wood plank, a bucket, a fishing knife, a machete, an empty icebox, some empty bleach bottles, some nylon rope, a broken motor and one red onion. They can only drift with the currents and wait ... and try to stay alive. Working with an inexperienced partner, Alvarenga has to figure out how to get food, protect both of them from unrelenting sun, rain, and salt, and keep their spirits up (or at least away from despair and suicide).  

But they learn to catch fish with their hands, grab birds and keep them alive on board until ready to be eaten (feet, bones, feathers, and all), mark the days by observing the moon and stars, and fashioning "clothes" from turtle shells and shark skins. Their own fingernails and urine provide subsistence in the early days before they learn food-gathering skills.

Franklin cleverly intersperses interesting facts from survival experts and fellow castaways to comment on exactly what Alvarenga is going through at each step, how his actions help or harm his survival chances, and what his mental state is like before, during and after his ordeal.

It's an incredible tale, clearly and methodically told, but full of passion and the will to continue on whatever it takes. Days and events are carefully recalled by Alvarenga and shared with the author so clearly that one seemingly joins the two men in their boat along and feel their fears, successes, and dwindling hope. A fantastic, stranger-than-fiction epic of skill, chance, ingenuity, luck, and human will. Highly recommended, especially when you are feeling overburdened with the setbacks life tosses your way. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Phil brick, Nathaniel. In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

The true story of a whale attack and destruction of a whale ship in the 1800s. Three boats escape, only to drift thousands of miles to try to reach the nearest land. Unbelievable, gripping, and well-researched. (previously reviewed here)

Honeymoon with My Brother

Wisner, Franz. Honeymoon with My Brother: A Memoir. New York: St. Martin's Press. 2009. Print

First Sentences:

Amid the pine tree windbreaks and foamy Pacific shore, Sea Ranch, California, is a wonderful place to be dumped.

The wild lilac and ill-tempered sea lions -- they'll distract your attention for at least a few minutes after the woman of your dreams leaves you at the altar. That, and a hell of a lot of booze.

Description:

What do you do when, just days before your are to be married, the woman on your dreams calls off your elaborate wedding? Well, if you are Franz Wisner and his support team of friends and family, you have a party anyway at the wedding location and then go on the pre-paid honeymoon trip - with your brother. The details of this true, funny experience of travel and re-connection are wonderfully recorded in Honeymoon with My Brother: A Memoir.

Author Wisner, (aka "Wiz") is at first devastated by the break up with fiance Annie, but when best friends call the wedding guests to have them come anyways to the San Francisco resort by the sea, the party is on. Also, there's a spur-of-the-moment ridiculous ceremony between Wiz and his elementary friend John. 

Five days later, after a demotion from his high-power job, Wiz contacts his free spirit brother Kurt and convinces him to take the first-class honeymoon trip with him They are two dissimilar brothers, distant and unfamiliar with each other. But somehow they come to understand (or at least tolerate) each other throughout the ensuing two-week journey to Costa Rica.

I had no idea how we'd travel together, but got a glimpse before we left LAX on the overnight flight to San Jose. 

"Come on, Franz, let's go scam our way into the United Airlines lounge," he ordered as we waited for the flight.

During that trip, they reevaluate their lives and decide they need a radical change. So they quit their jobs, sell all their possessions including their houses to undertake another trip together. This one, mostly unscheduled and without guidebooks, lasts two years and covers 53 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America.

We agreed that prepaid hotel reservations and prearranged tours limited our flexibility. Vacations, like life, needed room for improvisation. No more, we swore.

Honeymoon with My Brother is a story of relationships, disappointments, travel, and the reemergence of the human spirit for Wiz and brother Kurt. Faced with the challenges of lost passports, foreign lands and people, these brothers reconnect with people through conversations, recommendations for food and sites, and thoughts of love and life.

Wisner's style is casual, but thorough, as he records their details and conversations during their wandering adventures around the world. The "unexpected" in people and experiences become the norm for them as they begin to embrace the unknown with open arms and eyes.

A thoroughly delightful, humorous, and thoughtful book with characters you want to follow forever. Fortunately, there is a second book of Wisner's later travels, How the World Makes Love ... And What It Taught a Jilted Groom, where Franz travels the world searching for the meaning of love to the people of different cultures. Can he ever recover from his broken wedding and find love again? You'll just have to keep reading.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Wisner, Franz. How the World Makes Love ... And What It Taught a Jilted Groom  

Continued travels with Franz as he talks with people worldwide to understand what love means to them and how he can recover from his shattered love life.

Now You See Him

Gottlieb, Eli. Now You See Him. New York: HarperCollins. 2008. Print.

First Sentences:

At this late date, would it be fair to say that people, after a fashion, have come to doubt the building blocks of life itself?

That we suspect our food? That we fear our children? And that as a result we live individually today atop pyramids of defensive irony, squinched into the tiny pointed place on the top and looking balefully out at the landscape below?

In such a time of dark views and darker diagnoses, I'll forestall all second-guessing and declare it up front: I loved him.

Description:

In the opening pages of Now You See Him by Eli Gottlieb, Rob Castor, a briefly famous author, has killed his writer/girlfriend and then himself. Six months later, these brooding, psychological actions are examined by Rob's best friend, Nick Framingham, who is still deeply enmeshed in the circumstances of these two deaths. 

He was a deep friend ... part of the landscape of ancient memory, and I loved him the way you love an old land formation like a pier or jetty off which you remember jumping repeatedly into the cool, blue, forgiving water.

Written as a stream of consciousness, Now You See Him  follows Nick as he tries to unravel incidents and people that might have led to these deaths. But Nick's overwhelming concern for his childhood friend and murders soon affects his relationships with his own wife and family, friends he shared with Castor, as well as Castor's surviving family. 

Nick gradually recalls past incidents and decides to delve into the lives of those who might help him overcome his bereavement and withdrawal from the current world. They might also help his wife who cannot understand his six-month obsession over a minor writer and distant friend. Nick even tracks down Castor's mother and sister who once lived across the street from his in his childhood, but his interviews with them have unforeseen consequences. Conversations with Nick's parents also reveal dark secrets that complicate Nick's understanding of his own life and his own possible connection to the murder/suicide.

Gottlieb is a masterful writer or prose. His descriptions of Nick, his wife, and Castor drive this story onward, uncovering personal demons and judgments that can only lead to sadness. Some examples of his compelling writing?

• The city of New York tosses up so much noise and light that it's easy to pretend you're busy and convince everybody else of it as well, even if you're sitting all day in a box of squared failure and staring out a window waiting for the phone to ring.

• The interior of the house had that creepy feeling you sometimes get when everything is like it once was, but shadowed and webby with age, and you realize you've stepped into the end of someone's story that was once the beginning of yours, and that fact can't help but make you thoughtful, and a little sad as well.

• Truth, at least marital truth, is curved, not straight. It's more easily reached through sidelong glances than the burning heartfelt stare. It responds to inference better than it does to blunt disclosure, and sometimes is happiest being tastefully burning in the backyard.

• When we finally fell into each other's arms, there was a touch of relief as well -- relief at the thought that the entire humiliating audition of running to and fro in the world with your heart in a lockbox, praying for a loving soul to find the key, was over.

• Cruelty is not a religion, even when practiced diligently and with faith.

The story is gripping, the narrator both sensitive and idiotic in his personal choices, and the writing always first-rate. Plot, character, and style: Now You See Him has the big three elements of any great read. 

Maybe the best, most passionate love always breeds its own extinction.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Gottlieb, Eli. Best Boy

An autistic man who has spent four decades in a medical facility for damaged people, decides to leave and return to his boyhood home. (previously reviewed here)

McNeil, Tom. Goodnight, Nebraska

Randall Hunsacker is moved to the tiny town of Goodnight, Nebraska after witnessing the death of his father, nearly dying on the football field, and killing his step-father. A coming-of-age story like no other, full of compassion, anger, and solitude. (previously reviewed here)

The Lord of the Rings

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1965. Print.

First Sentences:

When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

Description:

OK, that's probably the worst opening sentence imaginable for any great book, bar none. But my personal rule is that longer, high-quality books do not need to offer a first sentence with the same impact of those in a shorter books. I allow longer books a page or two or even a chapter so I can get a feel for the author's language, characters, and plot before making any judgment. I know, it's my own quirky rationalization, so sue me.

With J.R.R. Tolkien's epic The Lord of the Rings, the language and atmosphere even on those initial pages create a setting. This is a world of simple folk and carefree existence, a world soon to be contrasted with stark forces of evil from the world outside.


In fact, it is not until the end of the initial chapter that the real adventure and action begins. And once the ride begins, the language and plot don't let go for the next 1,100 pages. With the promise of such depth and epic story-telling, I for one am willing to give a very long book a few pages to warm up.

(LOTR actually is one story rather than a triolgy, but was divided and published in three volumes during World War II to save printing and binding costs. LOTR consists of a prologue, six books, and five appendices divided into three separate volumes: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King). 

The setting is in ancient times of Middle-earth, a world populated by wizards (good and evil), elves, dwarves, men, orcs (very bad), a Balrog (don't even ask as it is too dark and powerful to even think about!), and hobbits, the small, quiet people minding their own business and living at peace in a secluded corner of this world.

A simple gold ring falls into the hands of one hobbit named Frodo Baggins, a ring with the power to make its wearer invisible. But Frodo soon learns that the ring is actually the most powerful object in the world. It is the ancient ring which can control all other magical rings (and therefore all Middle-earth) created for powerful leaders in ancient times.

It becomes Frodo's task to destroy the ring in the only way possible: tossing it into Mt. Doom, the fiery mountain where it was originally forged. Unfortunately, that location is deep in the heart in the land of Mordor where lies the fortress of the evil wizard Sauron who also seeks the ring. 

There is no need for me to say more about the plot to convince any fence-sitters to plunge into these books. Suffice to say LOTR provides danger, temptation, treachery, death, beauty, honesty, friendship, and the struggle of the highest order between Good and Evil on every page.

Think about this as a criteria for reading any book. If your family was away for a long weekend, the temperatures outside dipping into single digits, and all your household and work responsibilities were taken care of, what book would you select to settle in with a blanket and warm drink in front of a fire? My choice is and always will be The Lord of the Rings, where Evil is very, very bad, but Good and Truth and Honor are still the stronger forces.

Happy reading.

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit; or, There and Back Again

The initial book describing the quest of another Hobbit to recover the treasure of Dwarves which is guarded by a dragon. Along the way the all-controlling ring is accidently found and carried off back to the quiet Shire, leading up to the action described in The Lord of the Rings. A simpler, more childlike book, but a must read before tackling The Lord of the Rings.

The Year of the Dunk

Price, Asher. The Year of the Dunk: A Modest Defiance of Gravity. New York: Crown. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

On a late winter afternoon in New York at some basketball courts by the Great Lawn in Central Park, my hands jammed into my hoodie pockets, I waited for my pal Nathaniel.

It was crisp, still cold enough to see the breath puff in front of your face, especially if you were winded. An old Spalding street ball, circa 1988, dug out from my childhood closet, sat on the ground between my feet. 

Description:

It's a dream probably most men have: to be able to dunk a basketball into a 10' (regulation- height) hoop. Oh, sure, we can slam it into our kid's plastic mini-hoops, toss Nerf balls into office back-of-the-door rings, or even occasionally stuff a tennis ball over the rim. But putting a real basketball into a real hoop is always the holy grail. Even Barack Obama has this dream:

In 2008, candidate Barack Obama was asked whether he'd rather be the president of Julius Erving, the great dunker of the 1970s and early 1980s, in his prime. "The Doctor," he said like a shot. "I think any kid growing up, if you got a chance to throw down the ball from the free-throw line, that's better than just about anything." [Obama first dunked when he was 16]

Asher Price, author of The Year of the Dunk: A Modest Defiance of Gravity, does more than just think about dunking. He pledges to pursue every means possible to get his 33-year-old, 6' 2", 21% body fat body up high enough to actually stuff the basketball on a regulation goal. He gives himself one year to train using any means possible except using "medical-grade material to make myself jump higher."

The book follows his months of preparation, from being measured and evaluated by the Performance Lab of the Hospital for Special Surgery to identify "capabilities" and "deficiencies," to formulating diet and exercise plans to lose 25 pounds, to lowering his body fat to 10%, and finally adding five inches to his vertical jump.

And he is dogged in his commitment to do this. Page after page describe his pursuit of this goal in a variety of ways, including interviews with experts in physical and dietary fields, working out with former athletes, and generally turning over every stone to improve his body. He writes of the exploits of noted jumpers like Dick Fosbury (high jumping Olympic gold medalist), Spud Webb (5"8" NBA dunk champion), Michael Jordan (NBA all-time great dunker), and Brittney Griner (6'8" WNBA player, the first woman to dunk in a college game). 

Along the way, he makes several discoveries about himself, training, and the dunk itself. He describes the history of the dunked basketball, the silly NCAA rule banning the dunk from the college game for 10 years, and the creativity and power behind the dunks perfected by Black players. He tries shoes which are banned by the NBA for giving a jumping advantage to their wearers (they didn't work for the author). He eliminated carbs, alcohol, and sweets from his diet, and made his drink of choice "Hell's water" (non-fat milk). 

Price is a personable, everyman sort of writer who draws you into his quest with his skilled writing and complete honesty in sharing both his hopes and frustrations. He paints a clear picture of each new endeavor, each new technique that might bring him closer to his goal, and of course each frustration with his own age, body, and gravity. 

Mentally Price has no doubts he will succeed, although the improvements are slow in coming. But they do come. But will they be enough to finally, after 365 days of work, to slam dunk a basketball? You'll have to wait until the final pages to read the results of his dunk test - I won't tell).

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Jacobs, A.J. Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Quest for Bodily Perfection

Very serious, very humorous account of the author's attempt to pursue all fitness trends and find out what diets, mental training, and exercise actually make him healthy and fit, and which ones don't. (previously reviewed here)