Category: play

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books

Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer

Let me bounce a few things off of you. Columbia is an Ivy League school, right? The New York Times sports page is about the size of the Chicago Tribune book section, correct? And New York City is in the northeastern United States, huh? So, are you thinking college football yet? I figured not. So it’s somewhat odd that the author, Warren St. John, is such a college football junkie. He writes for the NYT, he lives in NYC, and he went to CU.

But don’t worry; he comes on strong with the college football cred. Check this out, he once made a three-hour phone call to his parents during college. He didn’t say much to them during the call, he just had them set the receiver next to the radio so he could listen to the Alabama vs Auburn game. This was in the early 80’s, before big TV contracts and ESPNU. It was also during the time of $0.25/minute long distance calls (New York to Birmingham). Nutty.

That sets the scene for St. John’s study of sports fandom. If you think this phone incident is a little over the top, then just imagine what his college mates at Columbia thought. They had never seen anyone quite like him. To St. John, this didn’t make sense. He couldn’t believe that all of his fellow students, who had so much in common with him, didn’t share his same love for college football.

This haunts him well into his adult years. So what’s a guy to do? How about revisiting the fandom of your youth and trying to figure out how a completely normal human can lose all sense of rationality on fall Saturdays? In fact, maybe hitching a ride with one of those crazy, RV owning, crimson clad, ‘Bama fans on every Saturday during the 1999 season would do. But, you wouldn’t actually go to the level of buying your own RV and queuing up every Saturday for a spot in the RV lot? Would you?

Well, St. John would. And did! And what ensues is hilarious, disturbing, touching, and enlightening.

Hilarious is saying “Roll Tide” every time you meet a fellow Alabama fan. Hilarious is missing your daughter’s wedding because she had the audacity to plan it during the Tennessee game, then telling everybody in Alabama about it on the 11 PM news. Hilarious is vomiting before the game because you’re so nervous, just to watch.

Disturbing is racism and hypocrisy within the fan base. Disturbing is being afraid for your physical safety because you pull for the other team or disagree with the fan base. Disturbing is fans with guns.

Touching is bonding with fellow humans through the small thread of this common interest. Touching is realizing that a Saturday on The Grove at Ole Miss is so beautiful and special, that it doesn’t matter who wins. Touching is noticing that the things that made you happy as a kid, still make you happy as an adult.

Enlightening is finding out that I may not be so weird after all. Enlightening is knowing that it’s okay not to be dejected after a loss because everybody deals with disappointment a little differently.

This was a great audio book experience. Fun, not too intense, about a topic that really interests me (so I don’t have to think about it that much), and read by the author.

St. John is still a huge Alabama fan and it appears that he stays in contact with a few people that he met during this season of RVing. For example, he bought two tickets to a Yankee’s game from John Ed, the Tuscaloosa ticket broker. He also went to a game the next year with the Bice’s (spelling?), the people who generously invited him on his first RV trip to start this project off.

St. John seems like an approachable, likable, interested sports fan. I could see hanging with him, despite the fact that he still relishes in one of the Alabama victories over Notre Dame (I think it was the 1985 drubbing).

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books

The Coast of Chicago

What a perfect Christmas gift. I’ve been picking up books of short stories in the bookstores lately but haven’t pulled the trigger. The author, Stuart Dybek, is a Chicagoan now living in Kalamazoo and teaching at Western Michigan University. His collection of his short stories was critically acclaimed and chosen for One Book, One Chicago in Spring 2004.

I can’t remember the last time I read a book of short stories. I had Interpreter of Maladies in my hands at Borders the other day but put it down (also a One Book, One Chicago choice in Fall 2006). I may grab it now that I’ve enjoyed this book.

I have to go into short stories with a different mindset. There just isn’t time for the author to plate things up for me. I was at times frustrated with the symbolism and darkness, but it grew on me. I think it grew on me because of the Chicago connection. Each story incorporates the sights and sounds of Chicago as observed through a born and bred Chicagoan; kind of like Back to Earth incorporates the sights and sounds of the backcountry through a man born and bred with a huge respect for the outdoors. These reading experiences had similarities and differences.

In the last paragraph of my take on Back to Earth, note that I was inspired to “live smaller, to minimize my impact on the globe, to find beauty in nature even if I don’t live in the woods.” Yes, I was inspired, but the inspiration was shallow because I can’t duplicate Temple’s outdoor experiences while living through this cold, dark, and depressing Chicago winter. Temple regularly viewed massive, snow-capped peaks outlined against a brilliant blue sky. I get to view the Chicago skyline. Well, at least the bottom half of it below the low hanging clouds. But what Dybek taught me is that there are plenty of sensory experiences in this great city, even in the dark of night, that can enlighten and inspire.

In fact, I did have an observation the other day that wouldn’t have been there had I not been a reader. And after reading Dybek, I am all the more respectful of the experience. Let me dig into it.

Listen, and don’t forget this, the winter of 2008 was nasty. Not because of any great, single-day snowfall or record breaking cold. But because it just kept coming at you. It just kept throwing wind, rain, snow, cold and darkness at you. Day after day, week after week. It started on New Year’s Eve and it’s now mid February – still nasty. We only had 11 minutes of sun the whole first week of February.

A few weeks ago there was a one-day respite from the cold and the temp spiked up into the high 30s. During this time, I had occasion to walk from the heart of the loop to the west loop before rush hour. I had just left a good meeting and my spirits were high, which was in complete contrast to the moist, quiet blackness that enveloped me as I trudged through the loop. Somewhere, above the fog and clouds, the sun was providing just enough light to make it feel like it was daytime. Plenty of snow was sitting around, but its whiteness was just a memory. My jacket was open, my hat was off, but it was not a refreshing warmth. I was struck with a feeling that I had while reading The Road. The feeling that the light may never come back.

But I knew it would come back, which allowed me to appreciate this day more; to revel in the beauty of the city even in the bleak landscape. Which is what I think Dybek does. It seems like much of it takes place under viaducts, on gray concrete, and shrouded in clouds. Which, from living here, is for real. But he finds the good in this. If you’re an urban dweller, these stories will hit home.

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books

First, Break all the Rules

Management books and the practice of management are kind of mushy. Think about the premise; Jack Welch managed GE – GE had good returns while he was there – you can become a better manager by reading Straight from the Gut and acting like Jack. This seems sensible to me. But what if my persona and skills don’t line up with Jack’s? Can I reasonably expect to be able to incorporate his policies and practices? Or worse, what if his management skills had less to do with GE’s success during his tenure than the corporate culture, the economy, and the great line managers that made their way through the legendary training ground in Crotonville? Or more subtly, does reading a management book by a rock star CEO really give a line manager the stuff needed to build a rewarding work environment that churns out great financial results?

I don’t have answers to these questions. I can’t really even take credit for asking them because these are effectively the questions that Buckingham and Coffman (B&C) ask (and answer) in their fine book. They didn’t focus on one great manager, or even a group of successful managers. They used statistical techniques to compile the results of thousands of interviews of both managers and employees over the course of a few decades, and it ends up being a pretty impressive body of work.

B&C work for the Gallup Organization, which sponsored this huge study. The study ties together employee satisfaction, management practices, and business unit results in a quantitative manner. First they figured out how to measure the strength of the workplace. Then they linked the strength of the workplace to performance in the areas of productivity, profitability, employee retention, and customer satisfaction. Then, after being certain that a strong workplace means stellar business unit performance, they honed in on the management practices that build a strong workplace. Quite fascinating for a digit head like myself.

To assess the strength of a workplace, one that can “attract, focus, and keep the most talented employees,” you just have to ask twelve questions. The more yes answers you get, the stronger the workplace. They know this because they talked to over a million employees over some 20+ years. Here are the questions:

  1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
  2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
  3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
  4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
  5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
  6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
  7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
  8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?
  9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
  10. Do I have a best friend at work?
  11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
  12. This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

But that’s just the start. They took these twelve questions out to the field and posed them to employees of about 2,500 business units in 24 different companies. They matched up the answers (1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree) with business outcomes (profits, productivity, employee retention, customer satisfaction) and reviewed the data. Yes, you guessed it, positive answers to the twelve questions correlate strongly with great business unit results.

So then, as a manager, what are the best ways to get yes answers to those twelve questions? That should be the goal, since yes answers mean great results, right? Additionally, are certain questions more important than others? Great managers have the answers to these questions, so Gallup went out to the managers to document them. Once again, they interviewed thousands of managers. They “listened to the tapes, read the transcripts,” and compiled answers. The result is a treatise on “what great managers know” and “what great managers do.”

Great managers know that there is an order and a grouping aspect to these twelve questions. B&C put them into a mountain climbing analogy.

Base Camp (questions 1-2): What do I get?

Camp 1 (questions 3-6): What do I give?

Camp 2 (questions 7-10): Do I belong here?

Camp 3 (questions 11-12): How can we all grow?

If you answer yes to all 12, you’ve passed the Camp 3 level and reached the Summit of employee satisfaction and productivity. The most important levels are Base Camp and Camp 1, these questions are more closely correlated high performing organizations than the others; they build a strong foundation for happy employees that consistently deliver great results.

As they say, to be the catalyst to get positive answers, especially to Base Camp and Camp 1 questions, “a manager must be able to do four activities extremely well: select a person, set expectations, motivate the person, develop the person.” But there is another ingredient underlying all of this is that they discovered; an insight that came out on top as the most “revolutionary” and the “most common.” Here it is in the manager’s words (collectively):

People don’t change that much.

Don’t waste time trying to put in what was left out.

Try to draw out what was left in.

That is hard enough.

B&C have only been setting the table at this point, we’re at about page 70. They take all of this information and settle on “the Four Keys” of great managers. The rest of the book delves into each of those Four Keys of great management in detail. They are:

When selecting someone, they select for talent…not simply experience, intelligence and determination.

When setting expectations, they define the right outcomes…not the right steps.

When motivating someone, they focus on strengths…not on weaknesses.

When developing someone, they help him find the right fit…not simply the next rung on the latter.

I’m not going to dig into these as part of this post, but I’m going to keep this book around as a reference. I think it’s that good. I think it’s the kind of book you keep in your office and bat around every time you think about your employees and if you’re doing right by them.

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books

The Hostage

Just last month I was voicing my frustration with the international intrigue/espionage thriller. Let me be clear, W.E.B. Griffin is an exception to that rant. His Charley Castillo books have sucked me in. They blaze at a breakneck pace and are chock full of great characters.

Underlying the multitude of characters is the constant clash of politics versus progress, of bureaucratic protocol versus cooperation. But Charley Castillo gets around it because he’s working directly for the President, which doesn’t always guarantee him the cooperation of the CIA, FBI, NSA, or State Department, but makes for a ton of fun. This book is jam-packed with dialog and the best parts are when characters from different agencies engage in macho verbal battles highlighting natural turf wars – wars that I’m guessing are pretty darn accurate based on Griffin’s cred as an insider. In fact, there is more oral sparring than gunfights, resulting in a very intelligent thriller.

The bottom line for me, and this Presidential Agent series of books, is that Griffin has developed a huge amount of interesting characters that I like. Let me give you some examples. Castillo’s boss will go to bat for him no matter what; he’s the type of boss you always want. Fernando, Castillo’s civilian brother, regularly gets dragged into government operations and is constantly giving his brother a hard time. The marine that shuttles Castillo around in Argentina has a freaky amount of knowledge of Argentinean history and won’t stop calling Castillo “sir,” despite Castillo’s pleading. Heck, Castillo has even befriended an international criminal from Russia, now living in Argentina, who shares much needed information with Castillo that Castillo can’t get through normal channels, in return for certain favors of course. This is just a cool group of people. Then there’s Castillo’s love interest, and her obnoxious brother, both of whom add more twists. The list goes on, and on, and on…

I’ve read two of them and they are near-perfect thrillers. I’m ready for the next one.

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books

Back to Earth

Kerry Temple was a married father of two grown boys when his life unraveled in his “middle years.” By unravel, I mean divorce and estrangement from his sons. So he moved into a secluded cabin in the Northern Indiana countryside and tried to make sense of it all. The subtitle of the book is “A Backpacker’s Journey Into Self and Soul” and it’s a recounting of much of that time in the cabin. It’s also an exploration of how nature and outdoor adventures can be positive, influential forces in one’s life.

Before we dig into this, I’ve said it before, some day I’m going to hike the Appalachian Trail. This is a desire harbored in the deepest recesses of my brain, but I’m comfortable getting it out there; it was a hook for this book. The author is also an ND grad and editor of the ND Magazine, providing another hook. And finally, this book was referenced years ago in Outside magazine, a publication that I usually enjoy reading (even though I don’t subscribe).

The cabin I mentioned brackets the beginning and the end of the book. He talks about his stay at the cabin in the first few chapters, switches gears and devotes the middle chapters to his most memorable trips in the backcountry, and ends with his eviction from the cabin and subsequent building of a golf course on the land (I really want to know which golf course).

He writes in an artistic style with many references to the mysticism of the outdoors. This isn’t exactly what I expected because I thought it would be more about how he resolved his family problems through thoughtful meditation in the solitude of the outdoors. But his divorce and the after effects are not part of this book. This book is about his general relationship with the outdoors. Here is one of his thoughts near the end of the book:

My time here [the cabin] has shown me again what I discovered as a teenager loose on the land but had forgotten in those intervening years – that the landscape does offer spiritual sustenance, a sense of grace, and an avenue to the divine. Perhaps those two – the land and its spirit – are not that different. And the human race, in order to find redemption, to locate itself, to be at rest in the world, must find again the union of the two.

I think Temple’s intention throughout the book is to expand on two points from the quote above. First, think about what was special – what you valued – when you were younger and if you’re not living those ideals, figure out why not. Second, the science and technology of the modern world may hinder your pursuit of living a happy and satisfied life, but contemplative time in the woods can offset the destructive aspects of our “technoindustrial” society.

The beauty is that Temple never tells you these things or beats you over the head with these themes. It’s not a self-help book, it’s not an environmentalist rant, it’s a philosophical look at his own life and how his meanderings in both the modern world and the backcountry have affected him. He poses thoughts and retells experiences with wonderment and introspection. I got used to the tone within a few chapters and really enjoyed it.

It inspires me to live smaller, to minimize my impact on the globe, to find beauty in nature even if I don’t live in the woods. I’m sitting in my living room right now with the lights off just watching the snow fall with the city lights as a backdrop. It really is beautiful. In fact, I turned off the golf (Phoenix), in HD, believe it or not.

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books

Of Paradise and Power

This is more like a long political essay rather than a book. The title is kind of innocuous; it’s the subtitle that grabbed me, AMERICA AND EUROPE IN THE NEW WORLD ORDER. I’m going to start near the end of the book with a few quotes from Kagan that I think sum up the main point:

A great philosophical schism has opened within the West, and instead of mutual indifference, mutual antagonism threatens to debilitate both sides of the transatlantic community. Coming at a time when new dangers and crises are proliferating rapidly, this schism could have serious consequences. For Europe and the United States to decouple strategically has been bad enough. But what if the schism over “world order” infects the rest of what we’ve known as the liberal West? Will the West still be the West? (pg 107)

… America, for the first time since World War II, is suffering a crisis of international legitimacy.

Americans will find that they cannot ignore this problem. … (pg 108)

This interests me. I have a strange self-consciousness about the perception of America by other citizens of the globe and I’m trying to make sense of it. Is the perception by the world community that we are too quick to use force and defy international order a fair perception? Does this perception detract from our legitimacy (often-used word by Kagan) as a world power such that it makes it more difficult to gain cooperation from other countries to resolve global problems? Most of all, are we a bad friend to Europe, our long-time ally? Or is Europe a bad friend to us?

I want help understanding this and I want it now! Okay?

Enter 158 pages of foreign policy analysis by Robert Kagan, a Washington Post writer and a Senior Associate for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

This book starts by summarizing the differences between Europe and America. Try this on for size:

Europeans insist they approach problems with greater nuance and sophistication. They try to influence others through subtlety and indirection. They are more tolerant of failure, more patient when solutions don’t come quickly. They generally favor peaceful responses to problems, preferring negotiation, diplomacy, and persuasion to coercion. They are quicker to appeal to international law, international conventions, and international opinion to adjudicate disputes. They try to use commercial and economic ties to bind nations together. They often emphasize process over result, believing that ultimately process can become substance. (pg 5)

Kagan agrees that this is generalizing, but I don’t think he feels it’s an over-generalization. A few paragraphs later he says, “When it comes to the use of force, most mainstream American Democrats have more in common with Republicans than with Europeans.”

Alright, it’s a generalization, but not far from reality. So Americans and Europeans are different. But why? Is one smarter than the other? What about their geography? One is a collection of many mid-sized nations situated close to each other and two oceans protect the other; could that have something to do with it? Or do each region’s historical conflicts have something to do with it? One has been devastated by multiple world wars on their own soil in the last 100 years, the other didn’t have their borders breached by a foreign enemy for most of that time until the horrific events of 9/11.

Could be, but Kagan breaks it down into even simpler terms.

A man armed only with a knife may decide that a bear prowling the forest is a tolerable danger, inasmuch as the alternative – hunting the bear armed only with a knife – is actually riskier than lying low and hoping the bear never attacks. The same man armed with a rifle, however, will likely make a different calculation of what constitutes a tolerable risk. Why should he risk being mauled to death if he doesn’t have to?

This perfectly normal human psychology has driven a wedge between the United States and Europe. (pg 31)

But is this really “perfectly normal human psychology?” I’m left of Kagan and my first inclination is to answer no, it’s not perfectly normal. But am I giving in to hindsight? Am I just not being truthful with myself? Of course, I need to gain some insight into this.

Nonetheless, there is a huge gap in power and it has resulted in America and Europe wanting to resolve world problems in different ways. For two such large and influential regions to disagree so vehemently just isn’t good for the world. Kagan expands further on this disagreement – why it persists and actually continues to worsen. He gets philosophical and invokes Kant and Hobbes often. It persists, he seems to say, because Europe has no incentive to build any significant military power because they are living in paradise – they have achieved peace on their continent without having to resort to violence because America continues to be the protector of the West. So why change? But America builds guns undeterred, and even views the European method of problem solving as a constraint and doesn’t trust them even when they offer military support:

Even after September 11, when the Europeans offered their very limited military capabilities in the fight in Afghanistan, the United States resisted, fearing that European cooperation was a ruse to tie America down. (pg 102)

So what do we do? Can we ever get on the same page? Kagan offers this up.

…If the United States could move past the anxiety engendered by this inaccurate sense of constraint, it could begin to show more understanding for the sensibilities of others, a little more of the generosity of spirit that characterized American foreign policy during the Cold War. It could pay its respects to multilateralism and the rule of law, and try to build some international political capital for those moments when multilateralism is impossible and unilateral action unavoidable. It could, in short, take more care to show what the founders called a “decent respect for the opinion of mankind.” This was always the wisest policy. And there is certain benefit in it for the United States: Winning the material and moral support of friends and allies, especially in Europe, is unquestionably preferable to acting along in the face of European anxiety and hostility. (pg 102)

But if America is to give in this little bit, Europe must also carry the burden of rethinking their stance. He gets into that. At this point, Kagan still has the 50 plus pages of a new afterward to go subtitled American Power and the Crisis of Legitimacy. I gotta tell you, it was interesting reading, but it’s wearing me out writing about it. In the end, Kagan offers up this warning to Europe:

In their passion for international legal order, they may lose sight of the other liberal principles that have made postmodern Europe what it is today. Europeans thus may succeed in debilitating the United States, but since they have no intention of supplementing American power with their own, the net result will be a diminution of the total amount of power that the liberal democratic world can bring to bear in its defense-and in defense of liberalism itself. (pg 158)

That’s complicated, at least to me. I’m going to get this post up there then reread it later this year, near election time, to see if I can make more sense of this book.

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books

O is for Outlaw

Grafton just has the mystery/crime novel wired in at this point (this point being 1999, when the book was published). Just trust me. Start at “A” and bang through ’em. You may have to give them time, but once you get into them, they never disappoint.

The enjoyment level disparity between a mystery/crime thriller and an international intrigue/espionage thriller has never been greater for me. It seems like so long ago when I used to buy the new Tom Clancy in hardcover the day it came out. Those days are long gone and I’ve really turned my attention the last few years to the crime novel.

I noticed a few newish things happening with main character Kinsey Millhone. First of all, Kinsey’s love for McDonald’s is bordering on an obsession. I think there were three occasions in this book where Kinsey had a QP (Quarter Pounder) with cheese, fries, and a Coke. This is somewhat odd to me because I would think the Santa Theresa (Santa Barbara) dweller would have more of a love for In-n-Out Burger. But keep in mind that this book is set in 1986, so maybe they didn’t have those back then.

Also newish is Kinsey’s interest in weight training. I’m betting that Grafton herself just discovered weights and probably decided to write it into this book. If you look on Grafton’s website you can see from the office photo tour that she has a serious weight room with plenty of machines specifically sized for women. This dynamic of author and main character mimicking one another is really fascinating to me.

Finally, each novel appears to be showing a more profane Kinsey and slightly more graphic violence. Kinsey is freer with the f-bomb and really getting in touch with her edgy side. And (PLOT KILLER) in the end the villain actually gets decapitated in a bizarre incident with front-loader.

This novel has Kinsey working on her own behalf by following up on the shooting of her ex-husband. The mystery is solid and the action is tight. The woman is a master of her craft. A master I tell you.

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food

On Life Support

I’m reviving things a little, but only for test purposes for now.

I notice that I’ve lost all my pics during the move to a new hosting provider and an update of WordPress. Not a big deal, I’m going to find all of them on Flickr anyhow, like I should have done in the first place.

Yes, we’re crunching. So Tasty Chicago is taking a few months off, but we plan to be back and better than ever sometime in the second quarter.

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books

The River of Doubt

In the pantheon of great American ass-kickers, Theodore Roosevelt floats to the top of the “political figure” category. This 5’8” fireplug of a man supposedly topped out at a solid 200 lbs during his most active days despite being born a sickly child. He had a long history of tackling hardship and defeat by “vigorously pushing his body and mind to endure punishing outdoor adventures” (I think this is a quote).

After he lost the 1912 presidential election, he was a beaten man. So he decided that the best way to combat the blues was to go on a huge, rigorous South American adventure. This, despite the fact that he was over 50 years old and should have been thinking about retiring to his country estate.

Interestingly enough, for you fellow ND fans, one of the primary planners for the trip was a chemistry and physics professor from the University of Notre Dame named Father John Zahm. Father Zahm was an accomplished adventurer/scholar and an acquaintance of Roosevelt’s. However, Father Zahm’s plan for a safe, easy trip on the Amazon and the exploration of a few of the smaller, connecting rivers was quickly squelched by Roosevelt. Roosevelt viewed this as nothing less than a serious, scientific endeavor, and traveling on a slow-moving boat watching the shore go by was not what he had in mind.

This was only the start of friction between Father Zahm and Roosevelt. At one point early on, well before the expedition even reached the mouth of the River of Doubt, Father Zahm expressed his desire to be carried on a chair by the locals through the jungle rather than walking. Roosevelt disagreed strongly and would not allow Father Zahm such a luxury. In fact, it was important for Roosevelt to maintain equality with the native guides and assistants. At one point Roosevelt refused to use a chair unless his Brazilian counterpart also had a chair.

This incident probably played a big part in what followed. Roosevelt and the rest of the leaders of the trip signed a letter mandating that Father Zahm be sent home. Wow, what a blow! I’m reading this book after a 3-9 season and hearing that Notre Dame is responsible for NBC’s bottom feeding TV ratings. Like I needed to hear more negative Notre Dame sentiment. Oh well, the truth hurts, but we move on.

Yes, we move one, like the expedition did sans Father Zahm. But Father Zahm wasn’t the only member that was sent packing. By the time the expedition reached the beginning of the River of Doubt, all the dead weight had been sent on alternative routes and they were down to 22 men:

  • Roosevelt
  • Kermit (Roosevelt’s son, cool guy)
  • George Cherrie (American naturalist)
  • Col. Rondon (Brazilian leader, famous adventurer)
  • Two other Brazilian leaders/naturalists (one a doctor)
  • 16 local assistants (camaradas)

These 22 men were the heartiest and most important of the expedition but what they had before them seemed insurmountable. Their supplies were running low, they were tired, bugs and wild animals were a constant threat, and they were ill equipped. Despite all the money and planning, they showed up at the mouth of the River of Doubt without a damn boat! They had to buy/trade for seven rickety dugout canoes from the Indians. These dugouts weighed 2,500 lbs each and were far from ideal for navigating a twisting river filled with dangerous rapids. I predict death, and lots of it (I’m writing this as I read it, not afterward).

And there was death, only 19 of the 22 men made it out alive. I figured fewer would make it. It’s pretty unbelievable that this many survived based on the hardship they faced. And you don’t really understand the hardship that they dodged until the end of the book – more on that later.

At one point, Roosevelt is so sick with malaria and fatigue that he declares the following to his son and Cherrie from his deathbed…ahh, I mean, hammock:

“Boys, I realize that some of us are not going to finish this journey. Cherrie, I want you and Kermit to go on. You can get out. I will stop here.

You have to respect that. Roosevelt was, for the most part, giving and respectful of everyone throughout the trip and this declaration was completely in character. But Kermit would have nothing to do with it. According to the book:

Standing next to Roosevelt’s prone, sweat-soaked figure in their dim tent beside the River of Doubt, Kermit met his father’s decision to take his own life with the same quiet strength and determination that the elder Roosevelt had so carefully cultivated and admired in him. This time, however, the result would be different. For the first time in his life, Kermit simply refused to honor his father’s wishes. Whatever it took, whatever the cost, he would not leave without Roosevelt.

There was still a lot of river to paddle and rapids to portage. And a lot of unruly camaradas to deal with. Shortly after the incident, the stress gets so great that one particularly unsavory camarada, Julio, kills another for fear of being outed as a thief (stealing food). Despite his weakened state, Roosevelt is livid and actually hurts himself further trying to engage in the hunt for the perpetrator. The tension comes to a boiling point between Rondon and Roosevelt:

…”Julio has to be tracked, arrested and killed,” Roosevelt barked when he saw Rondon. “In Brazil, that is impossible,” Rondon answered. “When someone commits a crime, he is tried, not murdered.” Roosevelt was not convinced. “He who kills must die,” he said. “That’s the way it is in my country.”

Wow, heavy stuff. They find Julio later, on the banks of the river begging for mercy. But they just pass him by. They later return and try to find him, but they can’t. Certainly the Cinta Larga Indians probably feasted on his innards. The Cinta Larga Indians are what I was referring to when I said that the trip dodged a lot of hardship in retrospect. They did not see any Indians on the whole trip, which is unbelievable because the Cinta Larga were thought to be numerous and hostile. It was always assumed by the river travelers that the Cinta Larga were lurking in the woods, but for some reason, they allowed the expedition to pass through their territory without incident (this may be a quote also).

Eventually, the expedition hits some smooth water and the last part of their trip goes smoothly. It was a long haul. They left New York in October of 1913 and got back to New York in May of 1914. Roosevelt died about 5 years later in January of 1919. Kermit never panned out to be much of anything. He appeared to be destined for great things, but it wasn’t in the cards for him.

It’s really a great story. History buffs will certainly like it. But Millard also expands a lot on the history and culture of the Amazon, Brazil, and the rain forest. It’s a wide-ranging read and I really liked it.

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The Blade Itself

Whoa, what a great book. This is the debut novel by an author who lives in Chicago named Marcus Sakey. Not sure how I heard about him, but you can read more about him at his website. It’s a crime thriller set in Chicago and the suburbs. The main character grew up in Bridgeport, lives in Wrigleyville, and works in construction for a developer who lives in Winnetka. Not sure why, but it’s just cool reading stuff that takes place in your city.

So there are two guys, Danny and Evan, who grew together and had a relatively lucrative trade in small-time robbery. That is, until one job goes awry, resulting in Evan getting locked up for seven years and Danny escaping without a scratch (thanks to Evan for keeping his pie hole shut). Danny goes on to live a normal life; he has a decent gig in construction, a nice girlfriend, and plenty of time for leisurely walks through the Lincoln Park Zoo. But it doesn’t last long once Evan gets out of jail and looks for some payback from Danny.

It’s a classic story line, but not tired. One half of the crime duo has a conscience and the other is a cold-blooded murderer. One wants out and the other can’t envision a life without crime. Sakey keeps it fresh by exploring Danny’s internal struggle, taking occasional shots at developers and yuppies, and making the villain really, really evil.

The ending was a little fluffy. I’ll be interested to see what others say about it.

I love the crime novel and I loved this book. Evidently, Ben Affleck also liked it because his production company supposedly bought the rights to the book. Hmmm. Sakey has his second book coming out any day now but I will sit tight for a year until comes out in paperback.