What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It was pleasant enough to read if you're not a runner but are a Murakami reader (like me). It seems like he ran out of things to discuss despite the book's short length since he started talking about swimming as well.

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Moneyball by Michael Lewis

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The only reasons I didn’t give this book 5 stars is that it was a little slow in the second quarter and that I’m not at all a baseball fan, with the exception of one season of trying to learn all the Red Sox players only to see them all leave the team the following season- catching me completely by surprise and making me vow never to give away my love like that again. Necessary run-on sentence.

I love data and statistics though and from that perspective, this book is such a joy. If only more people took an interest in what statistics can and cannot tell us, the world would be a more logical and effective place.

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Beartown by Fredrik Backman

Beartown by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very slow beginning really picks up midway. It was pretty stressful for me to read because it's pretty dark after the middle and the ending was a bit scattered. Overall, worth reading and thinking about.

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Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand

Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a great story, but it was a bit too much. Hillenbrand did a great job of describing the people and horses involved, and the excitement of the races, but there was what felt like a lot of filler in between. I also wasn't sure of the relative importance of each of the races, especially all the races Seabiscuit scratched in-- did I need so much detail about so many events that Seabiscuit ultimately didn't participate in?

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The Education of a Coach by David Halberstam

The Education of a Coach by David Halberstam
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The book contained some interesting insights into Belichick's background and football strategy. The beginning suffered from a lack of chronology jumping back and forth between young Bill Belichick and his father Steve. It also felt like there wasn't enough about his most important time on the Patriots, in part because his early years on the Patriots were somewhat devoid of the bitter politics he encountered at his other jobs, and in part because this book came out in 2005, and since then Belichick has been coaching the Patriots an additional 12 years and won another 2 Super Bowls. I am a Patriot's fan via my Massachusetts-born husband, and I was disappointed that Belichick didn't pull out any defensive magic last night in Super Bowl LII.

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The Sleep Revolution by Arianna Huffington

The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time by Arianna Huffington
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very important topic. I pay attention to sleep research whenever it comes up in the news and this still had a lot of new information. Likely worth the read for everyone. It's a serious examination of the benefits of sleep and the serious health consequences of going without sufficient sleep.

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Forward: A Memoir by Abby Wambach

Forward: A Memoir by Abby Wambach
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The best thing about this book is how honest Abby Wambach is about her struggles. She seems like a very decent person, and her honesty might help people struggling with similar issues. I'm not a big sports fan, but her descriptions of games were interesting and not too lengthy.

Unfortunately, the book isn't very well written. There's a lot of public statements and personal emails in the book- and those are largely filled with cliches. Her most important relationship in the book (besides her relationship with her mother) is her relationship with her wife Sarah, and I closed the book without actually knowing anything about it. She doesn't explain how she fell in love with Sarah in any detail, while her relationship with Hailey was covered in some very personal detail. Though we are told many times that she and Sarah were having problems after she didn't go back to Buffalo, there's no actual discussion of what the specific problems are or how she and Sarah tried to work through them.

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Grit by Angela Duckworth

Grit: Passion, Perseverance, and the Science of Success by Angela Duckworth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Understanding this author's points requires some subtlety of thought that, reading some of the reviews, some people seem to miss. Duckworth defines grit numerous ways but it's basically an ability to do difficult things and to try again after failing. Grit is a very important factor in both success and happiness. Grit can be learned and practiced.

What this book does not say is that everyone has equal access to grit. She specifically says that in studies of mice that were shocked without any control over their own suffering could not function as well in other tasks as mice that had some control over their suffering. The mice became victims of learned helplessness. The problem here is that unlike the sections about grittiness, there were no real life examples of human beings suffering these conditions (though arguably there was an example of one person overcoming this condition with a lot of help from other people). There is some discussion of income inequality, particularly with regards to a lack of extra-curricular programs that teach grit in poor schools, but there wasn't any kind of exploration of institutionalized racism, sexism, and poverty- oftentimes working in conjunction to "shock" human beings repeatedly through years and decades of their life without any control over these shocks.

Obviously, this isn't Duckworth's area of expertise, and she only cites the mice studies to add fullness to her exploration of grit. The reason for concern though is that her grit philosophy is very closely adjacent to the pull-yourself-up-by bootstrap mentality that excuses the persistence of income inequality, racism, and sexism because these are "not the most important reasons" for the failure of particular people or societies to thrive.

Other people doubt Duckworth's arguments because they perceive talent to be of crucial importance in success in various physical and creative fields. I find this line of thinking to be less interesting or important because it's difficult to know how much hard work (and "grit") others have invested in particular endeavors. With the exception of certain child prodigies, age isn't a good proxy for hours of focused growth practice. (And there are plenty of child prodigies that don't accomplish anything beyond what average adults later accomplish.) Except in physical endeavors where a particular body type is necessary, I do tend to believe that the highest levels of "talent" can be learned. But for that talent to be learned your main focus in life probably needs to be that one thing, and you need other people support your single-minded focus, oftentimes by literally monetarily supporting you. (Or loaning you money, or paying you at such a high rate that you can take a long leave from paying work, and sometimes by your spouse doing all the housework.)

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100 Things Virginia Fans Should Know by Brian J. Leung

100 Things Virginia Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die by Brian J. Leung
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am not always the biggest sports fan but I did enjoy going to football and basketball games at UVA. I didn't know most of the information in the book. I especially enjoyed the chapters on players and coaches. Now I'm craving a Whitespot burger though.

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The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Jaime, Michele, and I started a virtual book club, and Michele picked this for our first book in April. [Lot's of spoilers below.]

Here's what I liked: he tried to write a book about male platonic love. Not friendship, but love. He contrasted it to male romantic love, though he didn't necessarily do a great job with that, maybe because it was unclear if one of the gay characters was actually gay, and their was no part of the book from the perspective of the actually gay character. The least compelling relationship was the heterosexual romantic love which seemed opportunistic at best.

I also liked how he layered Moby Dick, and the fictional book that President Affenlight wrote about Moby Dick, and the fictional book called The Art of Fielding. Male platonic love, obsession, and introspective panic are all layered on top of each other.

Harry is infinitely more interesting after he starts freaking out. The line about how he expected life to improve little by little, but that that was not reality could have been my own diagnosis, and has stayed with me.

I also like Pella eating her earrings, because why not?

Here's what I didn't like. There's some problem with the pacing of this book, it goes very very slowly for the first 60% or so of the book, and then it moves quickly and somewhat unbelievably towards the end. My biggest problem with the plot is that Schwartz forgives both Harry and Pella. In real life, I think he could forgive one of them, either one, depending on how passionately he felt for one or the other, but not both.

The ending also felt like forced drama. Otherwise, no one is forgiven, nothing in particular happens, and everything just ends. But the baseball ending was forced drama enough- the rowboat scene is just too much. Oh look at us! Our friendship is so deep that we can rely on each other to grave rob! Sure.


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