May 22, 2013

Baseball’s Natural by John Theodore

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???????The Story of Eddie Waitkus
Format: Hardbound
Pub. Date: 2002
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
Type: Non-Fiction, Baseball ~ Library Book
Pages: 136
Read: 5/20/2013
Rating: Liked it ♥♡

When The Natural (starring Robert Redford) was released in 1984 I went to see it with my best friend. I liked baseball and I liked Robert Redford. While I may have been aware that it was based on a book (“The Natural” written in 1952 by Bernard Malamud), since a lot of movies are, I was not aware there was a real life inspiration for the character of “Roy Hobbs”.

Eddie Waitkus was a first baseman for the Cubs, he was known for his slick footwork on the field and the ability to catch almost any ball thrown to him. His baseball career was interrupted by WWII, following the war he became one of the most popular players of the time. He lead the Cubs in hitting and was one of the best first basemen in the National League. However the Cubs traded him to the Phillies in December 1948.

The next June the Phillies were in Chicago, Waitkus was lured to a hotel room by a young woman named Ruth Steinhagen who proceeded to shoot him. She made no attempt to escape and was judged insane and confined to a mental hospital.

In this account we have a brief history of Eddie Waitkus and Ruth Steinhagen, Steinhagen’s is rather sketchy but Theodore reveals at the end of the book he was not able to talk to her or her sister. The bulk of the book is about Waitkus baseball career, how he got started and his recovery after the shooting. Theodore gets his information from interviews with surviving members of Waitkus family, fellow servicemen, teammates, reporters who covered the team and friends of his. There are also excerpts from letters written.

Waitkus suffered from PTSD from the trauma of the shooting and from his years at war, he never got help for this, choosing instead to self-medicate with alcohol which may hastened the end of his baseball career, he suffered physically from the shooting and surgeries to repair the damage. His marriage ended and he was hospitalized with what was diagnosed as a nervous breakdown, after he left the hospital he never got any follow up care. He died in 1972, he was 53. Ruth Steinhagen died last December 2012, she was 83.

I felt this was a well researched and well written book. I found it to be very interesting, I think anyone who enjoys biographies and memoirs would find it interesting, you don’t need to be a baseball fan to enjoy this book.

Posted by on May 22, 2013 in 2013, Biography, Historical True Crime, History, Memoir, Non-Fiction, True Crime and tagged , , , , .

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May 22, 2013

Jenny Pox by J.L. Bryan

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9306975Format: eBook
Pub. Date: 7/24/2010
Publisher: Self-published
Type: Non-Fiction, Horror/Fantasy
Pages: 214
Read: 05/12/2013
Rating: Liked it ♥♡

Jenny Morton has a killer touch, literally. When she touches someone they die. After an unfortunate incident in elementary school she was dubbed “Jenny Pox”. To keep everyone around her safe, she is always covered up, including wearing gloves. This has given her the nickname “Jenny Mittens”, also unpleasant but Jenny reasons, better than Jenny Pox. Not being able to touch anyone and not being able to tell anyone, makes for a lonely life for Jenny. Then she meets Seth, who has the opposite power, the power to heal and Jenny can touch him, unfortunately Seth has a girlfriend who also has a power, Ashleigh is also manipulative and ruthless. To keep Seth and to survive, Jenny must learn how to use her “Jenny Pox” to fight Ashleigh.

Not recommended for readers under eighteen.
Book contains profanity, depictions of sex and other adult situations.

I thought this was an interesting ‘power’ for someone to have and I thought the story was carried out in a reasonable way, by having Jenny cover up and wear gloves you see how she is coping, you also see and feel her loneliness. It makes her jumping into a relationship with Seth believable. I didn’t get what Ashleigh was up to, but her actions were well thought out and carefully planned and her objective becomes clear in the end. Also in the end you receive an explanation of sorts of where the powers are coming from. Just as you see Ashleigh plans, you also see how Jenny grows in confidence, having Seth to love her and as she learns to control her ‘power’. I originally thought this book to be YA but there is an advisory with it. This is the first book in a series and I plan on looking for the next book.

Posted by on May 22, 2013 in 2013, Fiction, Horror, YA Fiction and tagged , , , , , , , , .

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May 21, 2013

Library Loot: May 22 to 28

LibraryLoot

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire fromThe Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

Feeling kind of lazy this week, thus the picture of what I got from the library, a documentary of Rasputin ‘The Mad Monk’, to go with the book I borrowed last week and The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth

The Jackal. A tall, blond Englishman with opaque, gray eyes. A killer at the top of his profession. A man unknown to any secret service in the world. An assassin with a contract to kill the world’s most heavily guarded man.

One man with a rifle who can change the course of history. One man whose mission is so secretive not even his employers know his name. And as the minutes count down to the final act of execution, it seems that there is no power on earth that can stop the Jackal.

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Posted by on May 21, 2013 in Biography, Crime Fiction, Fiction, Thriller and tagged , , , .

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May 17, 2013

Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

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UnderNeverSkyA MILLION WAYS TO DIE. ONE WAY TO LIVE.
Under the Never Sky #1

Format: eBook
Pub. Date: 01/03/2012
Publisher: HarperCollins
Type: Fiction ~ Library Book
Pages: 268
Read: 5/11/2013
Rating: Liked it ♥♡

Still searching for a dystopian novel I checked this book out, only to discover that it is also not dystopian but post-apocalyptic. Actually I might be wrong about that since I don’t remember any mention of a war destroying this world. No matter, this book is better than Arena One.

In the world Aria lives on there are enclosed cities where others like her live, the area where she lives is called a pod, all of their recreation happens in the Realms, which are virtual environments accessed through an eyepiece called a Smarteye. It all ends after a tragic accident that Aria is blamed for and she is thrown into the outside, called The Death Shop, where there are a million ways to die. Except Aria doesn’t die, Perry, an Outsider, saves her and keeps her alive, they stay together through their mutual need for each other. Aria to get back to her home and Perry to get inside to rescue his nephew. You know what happens next, their grudging respect turns to love.

Some Outsiders have enhanced senses such as hearing, seeing or smelling. Perry is able to smell danger, good and emotions. The atmosphere is called Aether and Aether storms are deadly. Perry is able to sense when an Aether storm is coming.

Good character development and a good story line made this book easy to read. Ms. Rossi doesn’t waste time explaining things (like what is Aether?), just writes about them and you come to understand them or don’t but just enjoy the story. It was a quick read, suitable for older teens I would say, it has some violence and adult situations. This is the first book in a series, unfortunately I could find any others but I will continue to look for them.

Posted by on May 17, 2013 in 2013, Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, YA Fiction and tagged , , , , , , .

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May 16, 2013

Arena One by Morgan Rice (with spoilers)

ArenaOneArena One by Morgan Rice

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS, CLICK THIS LINK FOR A SPOILER FREE REVIEW

One of my book groups has a monthly challenge. The challenge was dystopian fiction for the month of May. When I put Dystopian in the search feature of the library this book came up. After starting I realized its not dystopian it is post-apocalyptic. Since I had started it I figured I should finish it.

The novel is set in upstate NY after the 2nd world war which included the firing of nuclear missiles. There are roving bands of Slaverunners, looking for people to entertain them in “Arena Fights”. Brooke lives in the Catskills with her sister hiding from these roving bands, one day her sister is captured and taken to NYC. The rest of the story is Brooke chasing after the gang to rescue her teamed up with Ben, whose brother was also taken.

This was the most ridiculous novel I have ever read. I like the action scenes, they flowed quickly but there was so much that was unbelievable that it interfered with my enjoyment of the book. For instance, the slave runners have Hummers, Brooke drives into one of them with a motorcycle and disables it. Then with a broken rib she runs, jumps and climbs. With her only driving experience a motorcycle she is then able to drive the Hummer at speeds in excess of 100 MPH. The Humvee rolls ending up on its roof, and Brooke has more injuries but is able to rock the Hummer over on its wheels and the only damage to the Hummer is a flat tire.

Also during the war missiles exploded around NYC the people who weren’t killed are called Bio-victims and have melted faces and mental problems, if you’re that close to a nuclear missile you don’t get a melted face you get dead, you don’t go crazy you die.

Brooke follows the slaverunners into NYC through the streets and Central Park, then she crashes into the glass cube where the Apple store is. After trying so hard to make it seem ‘real’, Brooke states she crashes through the Apple store, however the cube is above the Apple store, if Brooke had crashed into the cube she would have fallen into the store.

Earlier in the book Brooke striped a dead slaverunner of his clothes which included steel toed boots that ‘climbed all the way up my shin’, then when she is fighting in the Arena she gets bitten by a snake in her calf which is covered with these super boots.

In NYC there are ‘crazies’ more victims of the missiles who have somehow obtained grenade launchers and grenades. How they did this when the slaverunners own everything is never explained.

The last thing I remember is when they escape from NY they steal a boat and Brooke mentions she has ‘driven boats all her life’. She never mentioned this before and how does a girl who grew up in Manhattan, with occasional trips to the Catskill ‘drive boats all her life’?

Those are the things I remember and are the reason I don’t recommend this book.

View all my reviews

Posted by on May 16, 2013 in 2013, Fiction, Manhattan, YA Fiction and tagged , , , , , , .

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May 16, 2013

Arena One by Morgan Rice

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ArenaOneFormat: eBook
Pub. Date: 02/02/2012
Publisher: Morgan Rice
Type: Fiction ~ Library Book
Pages: 300
Read: 5/11/2013
Rating: Was O.K.

One of my book groups has a monthly challenge. The challenge was dystopian fiction for the month of May. When I put Dystopian in the search feature of the library this book came up. After starting I realized its not dystopian it is post-apocalyptic. Since I had started it I figured I should finish it.

The novel is set in upstate NY after the 2nd world war which included the firing of nuclear missiles. There are roving bands of Slaverunners, looking for people to entertain them in “Arena Fights”. Brooke lives in the Catskills with her sister hiding from these roving bands, one day her sister is captured and taken to NYC. The rest of the story is Brooke chasing after the gang to rescue her teamed up with Ben, whose brother was also taken.

This was the most ridiculous novel I have ever read. I like the action scenes, they flowed quickly but there was so much that was unbelievable that it interfered with my enjoyment of the book. I can’t really explain without giving away spoilers, just to say I’m glad I was able to read this in a day or I would have probably been upset at how much time was wasted reading it.

Posted by on May 16, 2013 in 2013, Fiction, Manhattan, YA Fiction and tagged , , , , , .

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May 15, 2013

Library Loot: May 15 to 21

LibraryLootLibrary Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

I got two books out from the library this week:

RasputinRasputin: The Untold Story by Joseph T. Fuhrmann

Based on new sources—the definitive biography of Rasputin, with revelations about his life, death, and involvement with the Romanovs A century after his death, Grigory Rasputin remains fascinating: the Russian peasant with hypnotic eyes who befriended Tsar Nicholas II and helped destroy the Russian Empire, but the truth about his strange life has never fully been told. Written by the world’s leading authority on Rasputin, this new biography draws on previously closed Soviet archives to offer new information on Rasputin’s relationship with Empress Alexandra, sensational revelations about his sexual conquests, a re-examination of his murder, and more. Based on long-closed Soviet archives and the author’s decades of research, encompassing sources ranging from baptismal records and forgotten police reports to notes written by Rasputin and personal letters Reveals new information on Rasputin’s family history and strange early life, religious beliefs, and multitudinous sexual adventures as well as his relationship with Empress Alexandra, ability to heal the haemophiliac tsarevich, and more Includes many previously unpublished photos, including contemporary studio photographs of Rasputin and samples of his handwriting Written by historian Joesph T. Fuhrmann, a Rasputin expert whose 1990 biography Rasputin: A Life was widely praised as the best on the subject Synthesizing archival sources with published documents, memoirs, and other studies of Rasputin into a single, comprehensive work, Rasputin: The Untold Story will correct a century’s worth of misconception and error about the life and death of the famous Siberian mystic and healer and the decline and fall of Imperial Russia.

???????Baseball’s Natural The Story of Eddie Waitkus by John Theodore

Baseball’s Natural is John Theodore’s true account of the slick-fielding first baseman who played for the Cubs and the Phillies in the 1940s and became immortalized in baseball lore as the inspiration for Bernard Malamud’s The Natural. Eddie Waitkus grew up in Boston and fought in the Pacific theater in World War II. Following the war, Waitkus became one of the most popular players of his era. In 1949, with his career on the rise, his life changed dramatically in a Chicago hotel when a nineteen-year-old shot him in the chest. Waitkus’s dramatic recovery the next year inspired his teammates as the Phillies won the National League pennant. Although Waitkus survived the shooting, he could never outlive it. Through interviews with Waitkus’s family, fellow servicemen, former ballplayers, and childhood friends, and aided by fifteen photographs, Theodore chronicles Waitkus’s remarkable comeback as well as the difficult years following his Major League career.

Posted by on May 15, 2013 in Uncategorized.

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May 14, 2013

Living on the Black by John Feinstein

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LivingonBlack

Format: eBook
Pub. Date: 5/1/2008
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 525
Read: 05/11/2013
Rating: Liked it ♥

This is an account of the lives of two major league pitchers, one for the Yankees and one for the Mets during the entire 2007 season, from off-season work to spring training and real baseball.

Before we get to 2007 John Feinstein gives us a history of their lives leading up to this year.

Even though I am a big baseball and Yankee fan I didn’t quite love this book. At one point I remembered how 2007 ended and almost quit. It is incredibly detailed, at time too detailed which tended to make it drag at points. It was an almost game by game narrative, which makes it good that he was writing about pitchers who don’t play every game. The book also contains thoughts and observations from team mates and friends and family members. A very fascinating account of life in the major leagues that I feel could have been shorter than it was.

Still if you are a baseball fan I would recommend it.

Posted by on May 14, 2013 in 2013, Memoir, Non-Fiction and tagged , , , , , , , .

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May 13, 2013

Ascendant by Diana Peterfreund

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AscendantKiller Unicorns #2

Format: eBook
Pub. Date: 2010
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Type: Fiction ~ Library Book
Pages: 292
Read: 05/07/2013
Rating: Liked it (barely)

This book did not thrill me as much as the first did. I thought that the author was trying to make this as realistic as possible as in, “What would happen if all of a sudden unicorn’s were real?” That the only thing different about this world is it has unicorns. That being the case, in addition to the hunters, you now have a group trying to ‘save’ the unicorn. There is even a PETA like group protesting in this book and Astrid’s cousin is trying to get Unicorn’s declared an endangered species, Astrid’s mother is still being a total drip.

There are loose ends that never get explained, and people act out of character. I don’t know if there is a third book after this, I don’t think I will be reading it if there is.

Posted by on May 13, 2013 in 2013, Fantasy, Novel, YA Fiction and tagged , , , , , .

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May 4, 2013

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

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BigSleepFormat: eBook
Pub. Date: 1939
Publisher: Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published by Alfred A. Knopf, 1939
Type: Fiction ~ Library Book
Pages: 185
Read: 5/3/2013
Rating: Liked it ♥♡

This is considered the start of the modern detective story. I also heard that about The Murders in the Rue Morgue, but no matter. This is a very enjoyable read. At 185 pages I finished it in a day. There are a ton of characters, and one murder that, according to rumor, Chandler forgot about when he was writing the book so it is unsolved. The book starts with Philip Marlowe being hired to deal with a blackmailer, who ends up getting murdered. A lot of people get murdered and Marlowe is in the thick of it.

Chandlers descriptions are vivid and sharp, his protagonist is a no nonsense guy with apparently no sentimentality. Some have described this book as confusing and convoluted, I thought it was busy and filled with characters but thought the story line flowed, I didn’t have much trouble following it. I recommend this book.

Posted by on May 4, 2013 in 2013, Classic Literature, Crime Fiction, Novel and tagged , , , .

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