The Blind Side: Evolution Of A Game – Michael Lewis, 2009 ★★★

A Left Tackle Is a Terrible Thing to Waste

There seems nothing Michael Lewis does not know about his subjects. His way of writing about them is simultaneously zippy and deep, not an easy trick as any writer can tell you.

Of course, he goes on a bit sometimes, and every now and then he pulls a quip out of left field, but overall, he’s very engaging even when discussing data-driven topics like the bond market in Liar’s Poker and the tech boom in The New New Thing. Even when he writes about more accessible subjects, he seems to prefer a complicated approach. Moneyball is a sabermetrics treatise about a small-market baseball team struggling to maintain its relevance in the free-agency era.

In the book being discussed today, Lewis looks at pro football from the perspective of perhaps the most overlooked player on the field, the left tackle.

Wilkes Booth Came To Washington – Larry Starkey, 1976 ★★

Killing Lincoln: The 'Blame Canada Theory

Mystery still surrounds the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It’s not about who did it; but why.

This 1976 account suggests Lincoln’s murder was a kind of Hail Mary pass by the Confederacy, designed to trigger an outsized reaction from the North that would force Great Britain into the U. S. Civil War. 

To this end, author Larry Starkey challenges the conventional view of Lincoln’s assassination. Why did John Wilkes Booth, a nationally-famous tragedian, affect such a rage-inducing scheme without any discernable escape plan? Why did he make sure people recognized him after he shot the President, both at Ford’s Theatre and later on when he crossed a bridge to escape Washington, D. C.?

Absolute Friends – John le Carré, 2003 ½★

Absolute Mess

John le Carré’s Absolute Friends is his most discussed fictional foray into direct political argument, so much so you’d think from the press reviews that the whole book is nothing more than a 450-page denouncement of President George W. Bush and the invasion of Iraq. 

Actually, the novel takes quite a long time being about that, or indeed, about anything else.

This is le Carré at his most frustrating and his most tedious.

Tell Me Why – Tim Riley, 1988 ★★★

Hunting Aeolian Cadences and Other Exotic Birds

Can anyone still remember what a Beatles song sounded like 29 years ago, before later iterations of this thing called life accreted upon their music and inevitably altered how we perceive it?

That’s why I enjoy this critical analysis by Tim Riley. It captures in amber prevailing notions about Beatles music during an era where I myself was just beginning to dope out what was so special about them.

Christine – Stephen King, 1983 ★★★½

Remembering My First Time with the King

Is Christine a clever chrome-plated gorefest a young and still-hungry Stephen King dashed off with deceptive ease? Or is it rather an early signpost of decline when the blockbuster horror writer was bottoming out on booze and coke?

Popular opinion favors the latter; I understand the argument. As for me, I love Christine.

This has little to do with it being a scary story about a demon car. For me, it’s something of a perverse nostalgia rush. I was in my last days of high school when I read this, my first King novel, and to say I related to the lead character, pathetic loser Arnie Cunningham, is an understatement. Every blow and insult directed at him echoed in my own memory well.

Cincinnatus: George Washington & The Enlightenment – Garry Wills, 1984 ★★

Unlocking the Washington Code

Do you know the many Classical allusions buried within artistic representations of George Washington? Are you interested in why Washington stands with his right (not left) arm outstretched in Gilbert Stuart’s famous portrait, and what it says regarding how he was viewed by those he led?

Garry Wills lays out the meaning behind the iconography of our foremost Founding Father, in this hopping, learned, rambling analysis.

Anton Chekhov's Short Stories: A Norton Critical Edition – Edited by Ralph E. Matlaw, 1979 ★★★½

34 Stories, Many More Conclusions

Stuck in a baseball frame of mind with the playoffs underway and my team eliminated, I find myself pondering literary figures the way I do baseball stars. Some are known for home runs. Others are less spectacular but more consistent singles hitters.

After reading this old Norton collection containing 34 of Anton Chekhov’s short stories, I’m inclined to push against any Ruthian comparisons and place the famous Russian author with other great singles hitters; Eddie Collins, Rod Carew, Ichiro Suzuki, and Ben Jonson. Solid swing, but you expect the ball to stay in the park.