The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs

In this book, Jacobs attempts to live by all the rules set forth in the Bible, both New and Old Testament, for a year. Since he was raised in a secular Jewish family, this wasn't the easiest task. Also, being Jewish (and because most of the rules are), he spends most of the year working on the laws from the Old Testament.

Jacobs' writing style is excellent. This comes, I'm sure, from his years writing for Esquire. The book was extremely readable, especially for a topic that could have been deathly dull. But his humor, good grace, and honesty all make the reader really involved in his mission.

He didn't have much problem with some of the laws (such as animal sacrifice, since that's only to be done at the Temple in Jerusalem, and the Romans destroyed the Temple a long time ago). Others, such as not touching his wife or anything she sits on during her menstrual cycle are significantly more difficult.

What's most revealing about the book is that we learn a lot of the thoughts on the reasons why the biblical rules came about. Obviously there are the face value reasons: God said so. But then there are reasons that are out of vogue (no pork to avoid spoiled meat) and current cultural anthropological thinking (no pork to establish a clear group identity, as opposed to say, the Samaritans).

I could go on a lot longer, but suffice it to say that the pictures of Jacobs' beard from the beginning of the year to the end of the year tell a story of his commitment. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and learned a lot along the way which is some high praise from me.

A Few Seconds of Panic by Stefan Fatsis

In A Few Seconds of Panic, Stefan Fatsis takes us into the locker room of the Denver Broncos during his attempt to make the team as a kicker. Mind you, Fatsis is a 43 year old, 5-8", 170 pound sportswriter. However, Fatsis takes his job as a kicker seriously.

He works out with kicking coaches before mini-camp and makes an effort to get in the best shape possible. Despite all this, he's still tiny and not in nearly as good a shape as the rest of the Broncos. Fatsis goes all out to actually be a part of the team, rather than just being an embedded journalist.

The biggest lesson that the reader learns is that the football players are actually real people. It's easy to think of them as players in a video game or just some dudes making big paychecks. They have families, interests, and everything that you and I have. You also learn of the attendant pressures of being a fringe player in the NFL, with no guaranteed contracts. Making the team means everything, even if it's playing hurt.

Fatsis is with the Broncos through the summer, through minicamp, through training camp, and through the exhibition season. He gives the reader a fresh perspective on the players in the game and how cruel a business pro football can be.

Finally writing up The Corner by David Simon and Ed Burns

The Corner is written by the co-creators of HBO's awesome show, The Wire and NBC's (I think) Homicide: Life on the Streets. Burns was a homicide cop in Baltimore and Simon was a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. In The Corner, they spend a year examining life in one of Baltimore's run-down, drugged-up inner city neighborhoods, focusing on one corner.

Oddly, street gangs didn't have much control over individual territories in Baltimore in the early and mid-nineties. I'm certain they did on the larger distribution end, but there was a lot of freelancing going on by different crews. The drugs sold were hardcore: heroin and crack.

Simon and Burns largely follow one broken family made up of Fran Boyd, Gary McCullough, and DeAndre McCullogh. DeAndre might be considered the main figure in the book, since he clearly shows how an adolescence in the ghetto turns a smart young man into just another dealer using his own supply.

But more than that, the authors show the full constellation of people in the inner-city neighborhood. From the hard-working "civilians" who haven't fled yet, to the dealers, to the cops, to the touts, to the shooting gallery "doctors," to the shooting gallery owners, to the stick-up boys who prey on the unwary dealer, and most importantly, to the addicts themselves. The reader becomes truly immersed in this microculture. And it's not a pretty place to be.

Simon and Burns show the desperate measures these people go to just to get their next fix. Further, they include sub-chapters where they examine the social failures that led to the creation of the drug culture and dependency culture in the inner-cities. Their take on welfare as a "bribe" to keep the poor from rising up is very insightful.

The Corner is one of the best non-fiction books I've read in a long time. It's disturbing to middle-class sensibilities, but it's a story that we've ignored for far too long. While I don't agree with some of their conclusions, Simon and Burns make the reader face some realities that we often feel safer ignoring. An excellent book excellently written.

Them: Adventures with Extremists by Jon Ronson

Ronson gives a humorous and enlightening view into the world of conspiracy theorists. Keeping in mind that these adventures were pre-9/11, not much of made of Islamic fundamentalist conspiracy theories (except for the first chapter where Ronson befriends the self-styled "Osama bin Laden's man in London"). Largely the conspiracies deal with anti-Semetic theories of how the Jews run the world. And in the conspiracy theorists minds, you don't even have to be Jewish to be a Jew. You just have to be part of the small ruling group. One of the groups continually referred to is the Bilderberg group (which actually exists, but doesn't have much to do with running the world).

Other adventures include meeting with leaders of two different Ku Klux Klan sects, a man who thinks that the ruling elites are actually genetically 12 foot lizards, and Randy Weaver, the man who holed up in a cabin at Ruby Ridge, Idaho where the FBI and ATF held his family under siege.

In all, an interesting look at the paranoia of the conspiracy theorists and how one might get swept up in their passions.

Finished The Corner by David Simon and Ed Burns Last Night

The dog is making it difficult to get a lot of reading done.

Review forthcoming.