Joseph Kucharski III

Play Ball!

Revisado: 04-03-25

Ron Shelton has written a masterful book that explores both baseball and moviemaking. Truly, what could be better?

BULL DURHAM is easily in the Top 3 of the all-time Best Sports Movies list (The other two? Rocky, Miracle. Yup.) and is without a doubt the single best movie about baseball. Shelton's intimate recollection of writing, directing, and saving the movie is as compelling as BULL DURHAM itself.

What are you waiting for? Give this one a listen!

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A fantastic (but not perfect) slice of nostalgia

Revisado: 01-26-25

Totally entertaining. Slayers was a wonderful slice of nostalgia and a fun opportunity to catch up with old friends and meet new ones. Indira is a fun character and a perfect entry into the lore of Buffy. I would like to see her adventures continue.

However, I could have done without the parallel worlds aspect of the story. Elements of this tale could have fit in with mainstream Buffy canon between seasons 2 & 3 (when Buffy leaves Sunnydale and briefly becomes "Anne"), seasons 3 & 4 (between high school and college), or after Buffy's death (season 5). Trying to explain all the "What Ifs..." and "Mirror, Mirror" aspects of the narrative detracted from the impetus of fighting the Big Bad, obtaining redemption, and simply having a good time dusting vamps.

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Horns up! This one rocks!

Revisado: 12-12-24

Horns up! We Sold Our Souls is part rock n'roll memoir, part horror-conspiracy-adventure. Grady Hendrix has written a compelling, imaginative story complete with relatable, lasting characters.

I would have sold my soul for a slightly tighter ending, but truly, this read rocks. Encore!

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Bookends with some uncanny terror

Revisado: 10-03-24

Christopher Golden knows how to intermingle the everyday drama with the supernaturally terrifying. On this point Snowblind does not disappoint. And Snowblind bookends with some uncanny terror.

The middle part, where Golden goes deep focusing on the characters and their internal struggles, becomes a slog in the snow. The story begins to thaw and the temperature doesn't really drop until the twilight of the book.

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A helluva entertaining listen

Revisado: 10-01-24

A helluva entertaining listen that any fan of The Godfather can't refuse. Packed with a ton of interviews and more sound clips than there are bullets at a tollbooth.

Mama Mia! Grab a cannoli and give this Audible Original a listen before Luca Brasi makes you a different offer. And you can take that to the mattresses!

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Sue ... who...?

Revisado: 03-25-24

The "...Birth of Outlaw Country Music" part of the subtitle was completely entertaining. Fun anecdotes were relayed and short stories spun on the group of musicians who would later become the super-team known as the Highwaymen. Waylon Jennings. Willie Nelson. Johnny Cash. Kris Kristofferson. Each had a tale or two told about their humanity and even humility.

The other part of this Boar's Nest subtitle (and c'mon every single Gen X-er listening to this Audible Original totally thought this was going to be about the Dukes of Hazzard! Right?) mentions someone named "Sue Brewer". Sure wish I knew who she was.

Sue seemed nice. Single mom. Taste for good music. But that's about it. Sue Brewer might get top billing but, sadly, not much of the story.

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Change is good

Revisado: 03-17-20

Hockey, for the casual fan – the guy who catches the highlights while at the bowling alley bar or tunes in for a period when the local team hits the playoffs – can be defined by one all-encompassing element of play: the fight.

That diehard fan? Fighting, save for the occasional benches-clearing melee that lasts the entire third period (like that unforgettable Flyers/Senators brawl from 2004), is passé and even a time waster. For the diehard, it’s all about the speed, the slapshot, the butterfly save, the hat trick. The play and the score are what truly matters. And Ken Dryden, former Montreal Canadiens goalie and Maple Leafs president, now author, would agree. With his latest, Game Change, Dryden skates deep into another issue: concussions that come as a result of body checking, and yes, fighting.

Game Change is an entertaining, enlightening read. The book is also an important one, and topically so. In Game Change, Dryden explores the life and career of Steve Montador, an everyman defenseman who played for six NHL teams and whose career ended as a result of multiple concussions. Montador died in 2015 after suffering from the effects of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease commonly known as CTE, an acronym anyone who saw the Will Smith movie Concussion should recall.

Dryden cleverly disguises his treatise with an enjoyable look into hockey history, how the game started, and how it has evolved. Within is also Montador’s story: how he played, how he trained, and most importantly, how he loved the game. Yet, similar to the fighters and goons of the game, Dryden does not pull any punches as he throws down his gloves to present his call to arms: no hits to the head. No excuses.

Dryden writes like a hockey player. His sentences are short and clipped, he often repeats highlights he finds important to ensure the reader takes notice. He is also passionate, writing from the heart, even when he is talking about the mind. To do so, he presents interviews not only from scientists and doctors who share his philosophy of changing – and only slightly at that – the game of hockey to preserve the quality of life for the player, but also talks to players. Former Bruin Marc Savard, Flyers captain Keith Primeau, and someone named Sidney Crosby all share their stories and fears and recovery from post-concussion syndrome, how it has changed their play, and their lives.

Game Change is written for the casual fan, but the diehard will enjoy the deep cuts. More importantly, and even more important than hockey, the respect for life offered within is shown as a universal constant. That players, with their athleticism, their passion, their talent, are much more than just a product. Theirs is a life that should be cherished and celebrated. Dryden believes that is a constant on which everyone can agree. Unless, of course, you are NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.

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refreshing and entertaining

Revisado: 03-17-20

Run to the hills, Maiden fans. Front-man Bruce Dickinson’s autobiography What Does This Button Do? is fun, relatable, and likable, just like the rock deity himself. Bruce is, after all, a different sort of heavy metal artist, so there is no reason why his book should also not be equally unique. Alongside the tales of an international rock star with travels to Sarajevo, Japan, Rio, Australia, and, heaven forbid, Detroit, Bruce is a brew master, a fencing master, an actor, and, oh yes, an airline pilot. In fact, with a large portion of his book devoted to his extensive pilot’s training, his enthusiasm of flying, and details of all types of planes, his family life is as silent and forgotten as unclaimed luggage.

Autobiographies, particularly those belonging to rock stars, are often filled with the cliched travels and travails of life on the road: cheap hotels, roadside bars, one-night stands, sex, drugs, and, occasionally, a little rock-n-roll magic. Surprisingly, not so much for Bruce and his time in Iron Maiden or even his solo career. Yes, yes, there are the typical hot tub parties and experimentation with hallucinogenic wacky weed within, but for the most part, Bruce lived a straight life, putting all his passion onto the stage, and then later, into the pilot’s seat.

Always a performer, Bruce’s recounts are refreshing and entertaining.
Even during chapters discussing a crushingly-depressing tour to Sarajevo during the height of the Balkan war, and his, thank Eddie, recovery from cancer, his style is open and welcoming. Although mostly linear, the narrative occasionally jumps around at times like an excited teenager anxious to talk about a cool concert or blockbuster movie. Again, and deliberately, Bruce foregoes any mention of his love life; his wives, his children. In his afterword he mentions this book is his tale to tell, and gives his family as much privacy as possible. However, such absences do make significant holes in his timeline.

The best of autobiographies are when the reader feels like the author is speaking to them directly while sharing space at a bar. Bruce does not disappoint. Tragic, engaging, and, real, Bruce is the real deal and enjoys the respect of his fans. Although, I’m sure he’d prefer it if you were drinking a pint of Trooper ale.

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Masterful

Revisado: 03-17-20

Beautifully efficient.

That is how I described Lou Berney’s writing style to my wife referencing his latest, and allow me to add the hyperbole of masterful, book November Road.

November Road book reviewWithin November Road, Berney fashions the perfect genre mashup. The tale is a first-rate crime story, that’s also a chase story, joined with a love story, wrapped around the ultimate of conspiracy thrillers: the assassination of JFK. With me so far? Ready for the dramatis personae? Frank Guidry is a clean-up guy for the mafia with a whiskey smile and cleft chin. Charlotte Roy is a mother splitting Nowheresville, OK, away from her deadbeat husband. Paul Barone is the hitman with Anton Chigurh patience after them both. You might think you have an idea on what’s going to happen to next, but brother, your roscoe is an empty piece if attempting to shoot holes into genre clichés. Berney delivers on originality and does it with a hip 60s style that is more than cool cat retro for the 21st century; he delivers a piece of Americana that’s as recognizable as the Marlboro Man, and just as dangerous.

November Road is tight and elegant, a compelling, you-can’t-put-it-down-even-though-it’s-one-AM narrative. Every word is essential. Every thought adds to the characters’ internal struggle. Guidry wants peace. Charlotte, adventure. Barone, acceptance. In a way, Berney provides a dream-come-true to all three by the time the final cover closes.

Berney is an author’s author, November Road is his classroom syllabus, and Novel Writing 101 is in session. The book is a road map that, similar from the escape to Las Vegas presented within, counts off mile markers, allows for rest stops, and relishes those long stretches where you can let it all rip.

Berney’s writing style is so good that at times it fills me with a jealous zeal, yet he is setting an artistic bar tempting, poking you to reach. Above all, Berney’s work is inspiring and I would like nothing more than to meet him for coffee in the French Quarter.

Scratch that. Make it a scotch.

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More IQ!

Revisado: 11-24-18

Joe Ide opens “Wrecked”, the latest of his neo-noir IQ series, with the book’s protagonist in a world of trouble. For Isaiah Quintabe, the eponymous hero of Ide’s novels, his world consists of the mean streets of LA. Yet, hot to help a desperate artist track down her long-lost mommy, IQ’s world expands as he becomes tangled with Blackwater-ish consulting firm involved with the Abu Ghraib atrocity. IQ, naturally, only wants to be involved with said desperate artist and her tricked-out GTI. “Wrecked,l unlike Ide’s other offerings, sets IQ’s usual introverted coolness into conflict with a perilous need for action. Intuitive reflection gives way to risky reaction, placing this otherwise unique offering a step into the general genre.

Ide is a master in presenting a character’s progression. Dodson, IQ’s quote-unquote partner, is a newbie daddy who begins to realize that the hustle of the street is not beneficial to being a father, or a husband. He introduces Grace, who is neither quite a damsel-in-distress nor a femme fatale yet sits in the delta of the love interest Venn diagram. Ide, as always, excels in cutting to the quick with the villains du jour: Walczak, an ex-CIA op, and Rictor, a disgraced ex-LAPD. Ide gives meaning to their machinations and even a touch of honor to their code, warped or not.

“Wrecked”, though, has too much going on in the peripheral to properly come into focus. Aside from the case with Grace, IQ dabbles in other side projects as well as his dealings with Seb, the Rwandan criminal responsible for the death of his older brother. Any of these sub-plots had the potential of greater real estate and at least one instance achingly demanded more screen time. Mixed altogether, Wrecked becomes heavy with possibilities, slowing down its cause for that one righteous quest.

But only slightly.

“Wrecked” is a hip, cool cat of a crime tale stroking Ide as a worthy successor to Leonard’s offbeat tales. IQ’s mythology works at its best when pitted intellectually against a foe while verbally sparring with the slick-tongued Dodson. Wrecked is pure mainlining of adrenaline. It misses out on those quiet beats where the story usually comes together deep in Isaiah’s thought stream.

Being the Sherlock Holmes of Long Beach comes with its share of responsibility, which makes for a great read. “Wrecked” is a worthy entry into a world where everyone needs some extra IQ.

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