books

The Whiskey Rebels

02.17.2012 books
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If you like historical fiction, you’ll like David Liss. Most of his books have focused on Great Britain, but this one tackles the US during George Washington’s presidency and focuses on the rise of Alexander Hamilton as a political game-changer. It’s rich in history and has two great fictional main characters who share scenes in [...]

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West by West

02.06.2012 books
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That’s the promo from the Jerry West segment on Real Sports a few months ago. I saw it and immediately bought his new book. It’s an auto-biography without a lot of cheer. He’s a tortured soul who’s unmitigated success in all things basketball hasn’t been able to stop terrible bouts of depression. It made for [...]

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Born to Run

02.04.2012 books
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I saw this article in the NYT during the run-up to the New York City Marathon. It’s a story about barefoot running. I was so smitten by this idea that I bought the book and have started making the conversion to a forefoot strike. Heck, I even announced on Facebook that I was making the [...]

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Call for the Dead

01.22.2012 books
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This is le Carre’s first book and it introduces George Smiley to the world. I happened to snag it from a used book store a few weeks back (gosh it was thrilling to spy it in the smelly racks of old paperbacks). I’ve decided to forego seeing Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy on the screen until [...]

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In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead

01.18.2012 books
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My man, James Lee Burke. It’s been over a year since I read you, which is too long, considering I’m only on the sixth Dave Robicheaux book out of eighteen. After this one, I may speed things up because you did some amazing work here. I have Dixie City Jam sitting next to my bed, [...]

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Berlin Game

12.10.2011 books
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Like I said, I was inspired to read more spy novels after seeing Page Eight on PBS. I had Berlin Game in the hard copy backlog stack (from a summer trip to a thrift shop or used bookstore) and grabbed it just before getting on a flight. I’ll tell you, the burden of hauling paper [...]

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Drinking from the Fire Hose

11.27.2011 books
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People in my generation were there for the real transformation to the information age. I’m not talking about the creation of the supercomputer, or the launch of the PC, or the invention of the internet. I’m talking about the 1990s, when every person, not just the IT department, suddenly had a user-friendly spreadsheet and database [...]

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V is for Vengeance

11.27.2011 books
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This latest install of Grafton’s alphabet series is the first I’ve read in real time. By that I mean I read it right after it came out. I pre-ordered it at Amazon and banged through it over Thanksgiving weekend. I’m all caught up with Grafton now… just waiting around for the next one. This felt [...]

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A Visit from the Goon Squad

11.15.2011 books
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This book kept rolling up on award lists and I thought it sounded kind of cool. Additionally, I needed some literature to round out the year, so I grabbed it. Yep, it’s lit. It won a few best book awards, including the Pulitzer. WAIT, don’t click on that yet! Watch the interview in the link [...]

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The Spy Who Came In from the Cold

10.28.2011 books
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I was inspired to read this by the trailer for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which I saw before Moneyball. This is le Carre’s third book and one of the precursors to Tinker. It features George Smiley, the famous spy from Tinker, but for only a few moments. The main character of this book is Alec [...]

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The Little Book of Valuation

10.23.2011 books
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This is a highly relevant topic for my work life. I don’t value companies, but being familiar with the concept is important. And who better to walk the reader through this than Aswath Damodaran, a finance professor at the Stern School of Business at NYU? In general, he presents a great way to get a [...]

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A Clash Of Kings

10.15.2011 books
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I’m hammering through this Game of Thrones quintuplet thing. It’s good stuff and I think I’ll stick with it, but I’ve had my fill for this year. After book one I was really anticipating this book. But my anticipation for the next book has waned a little. I kind of got stuck at times during [...]

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