Reggie

The Rumors are True

Revisado: 01-03-24

I read this book because I was a fan of these Patriots teams and I enjoy reveling in their success on occasion. I will now be reading every book by Jeff Benedict, regardless of subject. The stories are deeply researched; the sources have great information; his treatment of various figures is fair, compassionate, and unsparing. And by god this book is entertaining. It has everything you want and nothing you don't, which is an impressive feat given the depth of this dive into the Patriot's history. Does the first meeting of Bob and Myra Kraft need to be told in a book about sports? Yes, by god, it does. Because Benedict understood the impact that relationship, and indeed the circumstances of its initiation, had on the future success of the Patriots.

This is not a sports book, this is a book about the lives and journeys of some of the most successful, beloved, and reviled figures in sports. It illustrates the dynamic between all the actors: players; owners; coaches; media; wives and girlfriends. Given the heightened nature of their daily experience, one would expect the alien nature of that life to be interesting. But so often authors belabor already over-examined topics at the expense of pacing and story. Not Jeff Benedict. You will learn 5 new things about Deflate-gate in half the verbiage most authors expend telling you stuff you already know. This book is both thorough and economical.

I have zero interest in LaBron James or Tiger Woods, but I will read both of Jeff's books on those subjects, respectively. Why, because Jeff Benedict knows how to tell a great story. This guy is insanely good.

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Filled in the Gaps of Woman in Me

Revisado: 11-30-23

I listened to this podcast after listening to Britney's bio The Woman in Me and it filled in a lot of the gaps in Britney's story.

*Brief aside - I found Woman in Me to be a solid memoir; candid and forthcoming but insanely truncated. It could have, and should have, been so much longer, Even if Britney is not the most self-reflective person in the world it would have been good to hear more of the emotional journey from obscurity to super-stardom. She spends lots of time talking about the Mickey Mouse club but tosses away references to performing with Michael Jackson, and doesn't even mention Christina's part in the famous Madonna kiss (actually snubbing X-stina was kind of epic), but we don't get a real sense of those big mega-star interactions, which was a bummer.

Back to the podcast: it's an interesting dynamic because the hosts are all successful, talented professionals but also TOTAL fangirls, so it creates a unique experience for the listener. I'm not a Britney Spears fan per se, so liking her music is not requisite. But she is of my generation, her appeal is unmistakable I've always found her story fascinating. We are still waiting for a definitive, deep dive into what the hell is going on over there, Toxic sheds a lot of light for the neophyte like myself.

The production and reporting is fantastic. The hosts' commitment is total and infectious (if a little ahhh excessive, but I'm a fogey and I believe they wear that badge with honor) and they take a very methodical but fun look at a fascinating subject.

This podcast is a credit to the medium. Check it out.

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A Story that is Raw and Well-Told But Abridged

Revisado: 10-27-23

This book should be 50 hours, rather than 5. Britney seems willing to plunge the depths and tell her truth but everything feels deeply under-examined. She glosses over huge moments like singing with Micheal Jackson; never once mentions that Christina Aguilera was also on stage during the Madonna kiss and casually tosses off details like the such-and-such video was innovative, without telling the reader WHY it was innovative! It's a memoir for the social media crowd. Gotta keep moving!

The real value of this book is the section detailing her conservatorship. It is horrifying. Her father and family come off like monsters, jailors, and all-around ingrates. I recently read Unscripted, the story of Sumner Redstone's long decline and personal annexation by toxic people in his life. The story of Britney was equally baffling. How do seemingly powerful people wind up under the thumb of total psychos? Read and find out.

Whoever wrote this book did a nice job. It was almost certainly a ghostwriter. And Michelle Williams was great.

I can't flat-out recommend this book, but it was better than expected. This is a thoughtful piece of work, though clearly only an abridgement of what could have been something truly special.

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You Can Skip This

Revisado: 10-08-23

This feels like the book Michael Lewis did not want to write. It’s tough to tell if he has no real take on SBF or if he thinks SBF is a deeply flawed but likable guy who is about to spend 40 years in jail - so why pile on.

At the outset, ML goes back to the hits. The first part of the book is Liars Poker starring SBF and it doesn’t work. There are no fun catchphrases or fun, pseudonymous characters or fun youthful chicane. Just SBF being pretty good at math and games and pretty terrible at all the other stuff that comprise people. SBF has decided that whatever pieces of the human experience that he does not personally understand, he rejects as nonsense.

I actually appreciate that ML doesn’t discuss SBF being on the spectrum or a sociopath. He certainly describes behavior consistent with making a case for both but is perhaps above name calling. Though perhaps such names would bring into releif Sam’s stated toal of “effective altruism.” Might we take some time to recosile an apparent paradox? Not in this book. Those issues will be settled in a series of prison interviews.An opinion about SBF, that is.

We are left to draw our own conclusions about SBF but there is editorializing about John Ray. Lewis condescends to not set John Ray straight.

SBF is not innocent in the FTX collapse but lewis does make a compelling case for a not-guilty verdict. It’s not a convincing case, but it is compelling.

There is no real compelling case for reading this book. It is less than neophytes need to know about the whole SBF story and has precious few nuggets for wonks.

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This book mostly not about the making of the film

Revisado: 10-08-23

This book is about lots of things. Among those things you will find some scattered anecdotes about the making of A League of Their Own. Maybe 1/4 of this book is about the making of the film. But it’s mostly about other things. There are mini-bios of like, everyone, including people who are only tangentially involved with the movie. Do they provide a footing for deeper meaning to scenes later in the book? Not really. Do they feel like filler, keeping you from the stuff you really want to read about? Absolutely.

It’s one of those book where the author follows the research away from the subject: author goes to Evanston to research movie in place where movie is made; author learns little about movie but lots about Evanston; stuff about Evanston goes in book about movie. Does author add some literary flair to make the narrative side-trip worth the distraction? No.

There’s also random spots of snark disguised as feminist critique. It comes off as cheap and unsupported. Like, why doesn’t Lori Petty have a career after LoTO? Because she refused to conform to the standard model imposed by the Patriarchy. ‘nuff said!!

Well, no. If you want to say stuff like that you want to support your thesis. It is a very supportable thesis but go all or nothing. The half-measures are lame and strike discordant notes.

Potential reader/listener: this is not the book you're looking for.

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The installment when our heros get superpowers

Revisado: 09-23-23

The series’ conceit is that of a truth wrapped in the guise of fiction. In book 1 we have UFO lore grafted onto a potboiler plot that is at least smart enough to know that it’s stupid. In the second book, we have our returning cast of characters, again placed into nonsensical situations and stuff just kinda happens. It’s not really foreshadowed in the first book, but it’s also one of those novels where you can tell the whole time that it’s simply setting up the 3rd book.

This book does not expand upon or deepen anyone’s understanding of UFO lore, it pivots hard and becomes an Avengers movie. The plot is now this: there are giant forces at play and the fate of mankind lays in the balance. A chosen few persons are given superpowers and must combat the big bad. Find out what happens next...

At the end of Book 1, there is a paragraph about this series of books being part of an unparalleled feat of ambition; to finally reveal the big truth about the big goings on… Book 1 was fun. Book 2 reads like they didn’t actually have a plan for Book 2.

For the record: I have seen a UFO and captured footage. I know they’re real. I won't pretend to know what they are. It doesn’t appear that Tom Delong knows either. This is basically B- pulp. Keep expectations low and you'll be fine.

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Even Hugh Wanted Out

Revisado: 08-17-23

I’m reviewing the whole series here because book 1 will leave you wanting more, but buyer beware, the cupboards are bare.

Even Hugh Howey realized these books don’t really work. In book 3 the story is brought to such a rapid, convenient, unearned conclusion that you palpably sense his desire to get out of this world that makes no sense. The plot bears no scrutiny. The characters bear no scrutiny. Even the dialog bears no scrutiny. People in the military or emergency services have a different cadence and vocabulary than civilians. Not in this book. Language evolves over time. Not in this book. People change over time. And people change in this book, but that change is often unexplained. The end of the first book happens only after a pretty massive change from a character we meet only a few times. The character's change is plausible but totally unearned in the context of the book.

There are a few opportunities where genuinely scary ideas are broached but the implications are never really explored. It’s a bummer. These books had potential but it was never met.

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A Book for NASA Fans, if Not Avid Readers

Revisado: 06-05-23

Scott Kelly is an astronaut, not a writer. A little help from a pro scribe might have helped make this a more nuanced book and convey a deeper understanding of Kelly's time on the ISS.

The book is structured as colliding narratives, as we ping-pong from Scott's early life and career to his year on ISS. It's a nice way of giving readers what they want (the ISS stuff) and writing a more standard biography. Part of Kelly's message is anchored in the idea that anyone can be a success in life, even if they don't crush, academically early in life.

There is an antiquarian feel to the narrative. "Antiquarian" basically means the kind of name-and-dates storytelling that drives people away from high school history class. And good writing generally consists of showing rather than telling. There's lots of telling in this account.

As a lifelong NASA fan I enjoyed this book, but I wouldn't recommend it to my "reader" friends. It did answer some of my questions about the relationships between the international crew and the differences between the various space agencies. If you're a bit of a geek (as I am) you might find plenty to like in this book. But if you're look for a 'good read' or 'listen' as it were, this might not fit the bill.

Scott is not a writer and he's not a professional narrator. The recording quality is also on the low side, which isn't a huge deal, it just points the relatively low priority placed on the audiobook by all involved. Getting a good recording is not super hard.

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Pay no attention to the subtitle

Revisado: 04-30-23

This book probably works best as a companion piece to the Forbidden Stories consortium of articles about Pegasus. And a more accurate subtitle would be something like, How an unlikely cohort of publications, journalists tech nerds exposed one of the world’s most invasive spy tools.

It’s a book of personal stories and extraordinary bravery. It is an accounting of government duplicity and power-hungry despots, but those folks are also the usual suspects. There aren't a ton of genuine surprises in the accounting.

The authors also miss some really obvious motives amongst the users of Pegasus. The manifest intent is not necessarily the gathering of kompromat against journalists. Intelligence services are in the same business as journalists, they just report to a much smaller audience. Journalists are gathering intelligence. Intelligence services want the journalists’ intelligence, for their own reasons. It’s not shocking that journalists found spyware on their phones, it’s shocking that they were shocked. Every journalist should assume that every government is trying to steal their intel, every second of every day. The existence of this brand of software has always been a reasonable surmise.

The most interesting parts of the Pegasus story are not contained in this book. We wonder what happened inside NSO during the investigation. Did they spot signs of the journalists rooting out Pegasus? What was happening at Apple at this time? We get a couple of pages of canned statements from those entities and little else.

It’s not a bad book, but if you haven’t read the Pegasus stories it’s like watching a behind-the-scenes documentary about a movie you haven’t seen. There are compelling elements, but it’s a bit wanting for the uninitiated.

At least 2/3 of the Pegasus story is not found within the pages of this book. If someone ever gets inside info on Apple and NSO, THAT book will be a darn good read. This one isn't bad.

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Filler Until the Real Books Come Out

Revisado: 03-25-23

This is a series of reports kinda slung together, rather than a coherent narrative. There's a large audience of readers clambering to read inside accounts of the Pentagon program and hopefully, get some more inside details on what military and intelligence sources actually have. This book does some of that work, but it's mostly a rehash.

I'm a UFO agnostic (UFOs are real, but I tend to go with Occoms Razor on who is behind the crafts. Aliens and extra-dimensional critters might be behind the whole scene, or maybe some super-rich humans have tech that's way beyond what the rest of us are not looped in on. All things being equal, I go with super-rich dudes. But who the hell knows). But I loved reading about Skinwalker Ranch and Bigelow and all that jive. If you need a UFO fix a little more rooted in a traditional worldview (aka you don't believe that everything is a conspiracy) this book will do the job.

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