Book #17

I could have picked any one of the dozen awesome books by George Pelecanos (literally there are a ton, check it out) to review. After a long debate, I went with the one book he has written that has stuck with me longer than any other. If you are unfamiliar with Pelecanos, he writes crime novels set in and around Washington DC. He has written a trilogy about one character, and a DC Quartet (obstensibly about the decline of Washington's urban landscape) that rivals the best of James Ellroy.

His books are not subtle in their social commentary, or themes, yet they get under your skin. Pelecanos books are in many ways the literary equivelant of a twelve round streetfight. When you come away from one of his stories it seems as if you have been dragged through it with his characters, it is a powerful experience that gets you jacked up while still feeling as if you've taken a hard right to the jaw.

The reason I chose The Sweet Forever is because it represents the best of Pelecanos (who also wrote a bunch of The Wire) writing. His characters are gritty, flawed and headed toward an unavoidable chasm of destruction - Pelecanos pretty much writes urban westerns. This book follows a bag of money stolen from a brutal crack dealer, and details the devestation the drug had on the streets of DC. It is not a pretty picture, and the conclusion is forgone the moment you open the book. However, Pelecanos is a very talented writer and his ultimate avoidance of the showdown you expect shows how far above petty re-used plots he is. Nothing is simple in one of his books and The Sweet Forever is no exception. This book however, has an added spector of death hovering over it the entire time. One of the "characters" (spoken of, but never directly in the story) is Len Bias. The hope and promise of his career is on of the minds of all the DC natives and the reader, knowing the tragic end to his short story, is left waiting for the inevitable gut punch. It is an intense and bleak world Pelecanos has created and we are all the better off for having read it.

This book, like the rest of his DC Quartet - and all his books, rightfully deserves its spot at the top of the crime fiction heap.

Book #16

Open by Andre Agassi is a life changing book. Keep in mind, I am not one to throw around the phrase "life changing book" lightly and this masterpiece fits the criteria. It made me want to shave my head and rise to the top of the tennis world...kidding...or am I?

Seriously though, I was an Agassi fan back at the beginning and followed his miraculous career revival. I did not know all the facts, and I guess no one did - suffice it say, Agassi is so brutally honest he might just add Pulitzer Prize Winning Author to his already impressive shelf of accolades.

In the book Agassi is insightful about his career, marriages and opponents (including Pete Sampras) as well as his eventual fall to rock bottom. However, the real power of his book lies in his ability to look inside himself. Agassi constantly evaluates and evolves with the times and his reflections are potent and often so real the reader is truly touched. This is a long way from Chad Ochocinco's "I love me some me". The book inspires the reader to look deep inside themself in a new way in order to constantly challenge themselves to try and be better.

Let's face it, if an over the hill thirty year old tennis star can completely reinvent himself and rise to the top why can't you? Agassi pretty much throws down the gauntlet to his readers and there is no way you can step away from this book without being moved. It sticks with you long after you turn the final page. A definite - and surprising - early contender for book of the year.

The ball is back in your court Sampras, but I figure memoir writing ends with an indelible Agassi victory.

How "The Wire" Ruined Crime Novels

HBO's brilliant The Wire has effectively ruined an entire genre for me: crime books. Unless they have the same, brilliant, deeply textured plots I came to know and love on The Wire I simply have no patience for them. That is not to say of course I have not read some great crime books already this year, because I have (but more about that in a future post).
One of the reasons David Simon's series set the bar so high was it refused to dip into an predictable plot or stock character. Now, when I pick up a book that touts reviews calling it "an urban gem" (the exact review on "Thug Life") I know I will just be disappointed. My patience for terrible books has grown thin. More and more I find myself wanting to read something that gives me more than just a couple of hours of entertainment. Stieg Larsson's brilliant Millenium Trilogy is a good antidote, as is David Peace's dark and twisty Red Riding Quartet. A couple of Don Winslow books, most notably The Power of the Dog, showed what an intelligent narco thriller could be.
A Moment of Silence:
Since I am already talking about a brilliant show, I figured I would give a shout out to another one that ended: The Shield. If you've never watched, this show follows a detective in LA who is about as corrupt as you would expect. He dispenses his own brand of justice while managing to elude various factions looking to take him down. That is the story...on the surface anyways. The first three seasons were a rollicking ride through corruption as well as a twisted morality tale. The final four were claustrophobic and intense to the point where you could barely watch - yet could not turn away. One of the central questions asked through every season, episode, day was "do the ends justify the means?" Ultimately, a show as smart as The Shield allows viewers to make up their own mind. A stunning television achievement, if you have never watched the show, you are in for seven seasons of staggering entertainment. Enjoy.

Book #15

The Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy does not quite attain the heights of its predecessor American Tabloid but it comes pretty close. This is a cannot-put-it-down; just.one.more.page...kind of reading experience. The plot picks up right after the breathless final seconds of Tabloid; it's Dallas - November 22, 1963. Once again Ellroy uses a triple character format to weave his taut, complex, Shakespearean tale and it works brilliantly. The narrators are connected and know each other but only appear together as a triumvirate at one, brilliantly searing point in the novel. This scene occurs at the jaw-dropping midpoint of the book and illustrates Ellory's achievement in his Underworld USA trilogy. Two of the characters, "Big" Pete Bondurant and Wayne Tedrow Jr. are hunting down one of their Vietnam Cadre companions who is responsible for a civil rights bombing. The other character Ward Littell, former Fed turned Mob lawyer and clandestine Civil Rights activist shows up at the last possible second, surprising his two allies. What happens in that hotel room with the three men sends the rest of the novel spinning towards its harrowing climax - and their ultimate fates. The fact all three characters converge at all and converge only once in the entire novel serves to separate the narrative theme and the links - and separations - of the main characters.

Plotwise, Ellroy bumps and slides through the dirt of the sixties, tying together Fed, Mob, CIA and Vegas conspiracies into a violent ride through subterranean American history. He concludes with the assassinations of RFK and Martin Luther King, as well as Howard Hughes takeover of Las Vegas. Vietnam, and particularly its heroin trade, loom over all.

The twists are shocking and delivered like a machine gun blast to the English language. This is a dark, hard book that stands not only as a linguistic achievement but also as the definitive "fictional" take on American history through its most turbulent times.

The 1st Annual Books of the Year Awards

This has been a great year for books; and in the spirit of Amazon.com issuing their Best of 2009 already, I decided to get on the bandwagon and release mine. I have read some great books this year and I have read some not so great books. Here are the good, the bad and the 5 best books I have read this year.

The Clive Cussler Award (The "I Could Not Put it Down" Award):

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

This book was a masterful thriller that twisted, turned and finally had the reader spinning in complete circles. It keeps you from truly placing a label on it by being so many different books crammed into one thrilling package - a thriller, a serial killer mystery, industrial espionage and a straight up whodunnit. Terrific writing, and I have heard the second in the series is as good, if not better.

The David Simon Award (The "Smartest Book" Award):

The Things they Carried by Tim O'Brien

A masterful blend of fact and fiction that plays off the darkness of Vietnam while also taking a metaphysical view on storytelling itself. Not to mention the fact it makes you want to keep reading it incessantly...without any pause. A personal favorite portion - when O'Brien tells you about war stories; how they are never heroic and how a true war story makes you feel sick afterwards. Compelling, vivid and the rare book that truly deserves the handle: masterpiece.

The James Patterson Award (The "Worst Book I read this Year" Award):

Thug Life by Sanyika Shakur

To be honest I only read 100 pages but you can get a sense of a book in 100 pages. I loved Monster by Shakur, it was a book that changed my life. Unfortunately, lightening only struck once for this reformed gangbanger. Atrocious does not begin to describe this text. Not only was this the worst book I attempted to read this year, it definitely falls into my top ten worst books I have read in my life. It was that bad. Not recommended.

The Rick Reilly Award (The "Best Written Line of the Year" Award):

Tim O'Brien - The Things They Carried pg. 68

"A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue."

Michael Paterniti - "Never Forget" the opening of a haunting article about the shattered remenants left behind by the brutal Khmer Rouge.

"Once upon a time - 1975, actually, in Cambodia - there was a regime so evil that it created an antisociety where torture was currency and music, books and love were abolished. This regime ruled for four years and murdered nearly 2 million of its citizens, a quarter of the population. The pervasion was so extreme, the acts so savage, that three decades later, the country still finds itself reeling. Now, as the surviving leaders of the regime go to trial and unimaginable past rises again, we're left with this question: What took us so long to remember?"

The Top 5ish Book of the Year

5. Travels by Michael Crichton - Given that Crichton died recently, I figured he deserved a place on the list with one of his lesser known books. This book challenges the way you look at the world and is written as well as any of his previous thrillers. An autobiographical look at the world and the things in it we do not understand.

5A. A Quiet Flame by Philip Kerr - The fifth book in Kerr's series about former Nazi Bernie Gunther took the character to Argentina in 1950. As usual, he uncovers a trail of death and destruction he is powerless to stop. Powerfully written, haunting, hilarious, stunning and with twists that literally take your breath away, this is one of the best of the series and without a doubt one of the best written books of the year.

4. The Way of the Dog by Don Winslow - As I recently wrote, this examination of the growth of the Mexican drug cartels spirals into an epic saga wrought with the consequences of revenge. Expanding outward and yet intently focused inward, this book was quite simply incredible.

3. The Stand by Stephen King - Given our fears about H1N1 this book is very topical...except for that fact it was originally written in 1978 and revised/added to in 1990. King mentions swine flu and creates a horrific picture of a world devestated by a superflu and the battle of the survivors against an even worse evil. Thematic, allegorical and a triumph of modern literature, this is the best book King has written and, will likely ever write.

2. Generation Kill by Evan Wright - Firstly, any book in which I can draw parallels from HBO's The Wire is tops in my list. Secondly, this book forced me to completely reexamine my position on the Iraq conflict. I tried to ignore the books about the war that weighed down the history section but this book changed that for me. It takes the chaotic first few weeks of the conflict and shatters all you thought you knew about it. The author's final stand that we have abandoned a generation we sent off to do our dirty work is one of the most profound - and important - things I read this year.

1. American Tabloid by James Ellroy - For me, only one book could be number one this year. James Ellroy has created a book that is completely unlike any other out there. He strips language down to its brutal base and crafts a machine-gun style that spits out evocative prose that peppers the reader and says more with less. That is only the praise of his writing style. Plot wise, Ellroy takes the magnificently large canvass of American History in the Kennedy years...before he takes a sawed-off shotgun to it. His history turns on the dark undercurrents and goings on behind the scenes in the tumultuous times. His characters rise and fall along Shakespearean arcs that are indelibly complex and perfectly crafted. When each of the three main characters turns on the Kennedy Brothers, you know where Ellroy is headed...Novemember 22, 1963. This book also boasts one of my all-time favorite characters in print "Big" Pete Bondurant, a sadistic, ex-LAPD, mob killer who works tirelessly to create the invasion of Cuba - while also serving the CIA, Jimmy Hoffa and working as a Howard Hughes goon. Without a doubt this one of the best books I have ever read.

Book #14

The Ticket Out by Michael Sokolove is the incredible true story of the most talented collection of high school basbeball players in history: this team featured two future major league all-stars including Darryl Strawberry. This collection of young men were incredible players and from Crenshaw, of the worst parts of South Central LA. This book functions on many levels - it shows how powerful sports can be in overcoming socio-economic status (and the lures of gang life) but also details the perils of stardom which can lead to the downfall of young men who grew up with nothing; Strawberry serving as the prime example.

The team was so good they stormed through the regular season and playoffs, virtually unchallenged. However, in the league championship they met a previously unknown foe: John Elway - yes, that John Elway. Ultimately, Crenshaw lost that game and the players went their seperate ways. While many have been moderately successful, others have been completely destroyed. Strawberry's story is a tragic and cautionary tale but pales in comparison to that of his teammate, catcher Carl Jones. After succumbing to the street, Jones was sentenced to an automatic 25 years in prison for violating California's three strikes laws.

The book serves as an examination of the laws which are in place to punish those who can least defend themselves. Sokolove examines the "three strikes" rule and argues passionately against it, detailing how even the man for whom it was enacted knows the difference between "the life of his daughter and someone stealing an air conditioner for the third time".

The examination of this talented but troubled team is a haunting account which weaves through time, lives and the power of sports to provide a ticket out.

Book #13

The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow is an incredible complex novel detailing the rise of the Mexican drug cartels and their impact on life in Mexico and the United States. This is a page turner, but it is also a thought provoking book. Several themes dominate throughout including a meditation on the destructive seduction of revenge. In the novel, revenge is on the mind of each of the four, interwoven, main characters. They are, in no particular order, Art Keller (a DEA agent waging war with a Mexican cartel due to the torture and murder of his partner); Nora (a hooker who forms a complicated bond with a kingpin); Adan Barerra (the aforementioned drug kingpin who takes the drug trade in Mexico to amazing heights with his genius and brutality) and Callan (an Irish gun for hire who drifts through the carnage of the drug world).

Ultimately, the journeys of these characters is what makes this novel a deeply satisfying read. There is more of course, as we witness the drug trade from a unique standpoint - the winning side. These are criminals who are making hundreds of millions of dollars and have become so engrained in politics and society it is virtually impossible to root them out. "Good guys" or "heroes" is a lax term in this book and the characters are rich, vivid and perfectly drawn. This book is impossible to put down and stays with the reader long after the final page is turned.