Hebern

Excellent Sports Book

Revisado: 01-24-25

In this book Darcy Frey follows a group of high school seniors and a talented freshman named Stephon Marbury at Lincoln high school in Coney Island through the 1991-92 school year. I missed this one when it came out 30 years ago, but it’s consistently on lists of all time best sports books. So when the 30th anniversary edition was released as an audio, I picked it up. It details a group of kids trying to use basketball to get out of poverty. It also shows how those around them are banking on these kids as there ticket out too. This is most glaring in the case of Marbury’s dad. With the entitlement that Marbury and his dad exhibited in only his freshman year of high school, it’s impossible to believe that Georgia Tech got him with only legal enticements. Cremins was quite the the salesman in his day, so maybe I’m wrong. Or maybe Cremins was such a good salesman because he sweetened the deals. Who knows. There definitely were minor violations by Jim Boehiem going on repeatedly in the book. It’s an enjoyable sports book. I see why it’s so highly regarded. JD Jackson reads it. He read the book I listened to on Magic Johnson last year. He seems to be a go to guy for basketball books and for good reason.

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A Classic

Revisado: 01-20-25

I reread One L this week in preparation for meeting the author. One L is Scott Turow’s nonfiction account of his first year of law school. It has been read by generations of aspiring law students. I first read it 36 years ago before my first year of law school. I then reread it just after completing my first year of law school. And now again this week. It’s a great book and very realistically portrays the first year of law school or at least what I experienced. I’ve recommended it to many over the years who were contemplating going to law school. I can say I got a little bit different out of the book each time I’ve read it based on the stage of my legal career. When I met Turow last night, I told him that I discussed One L and Presumed Innocent with Prof Lord in my personal interview at Campbell Law. I also asked him if he ever rereads it like watching old home movies. He confirmed that he has reread it many times. I really enjoyed the reread and I’m very thankful that I don’t have to actually go through my first year again.

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A modern twist on a classic

Revisado: 12-22-24

From Thanksgiving until Christmas each year I only listen to Christmas books. I don’t really like the Hallmark type, so my options are a little more limited. This was by far the best Christmas book that I’ve listened to this year and probably for several years. It’s a modern take on my favorite Christmas book of all time, A Christmas Carol. The premise of the book is that what happened to Scrooge was a fictionalized version of what happens to one person every year. In this book it’s happening to Ellie Printh. Like Scrooge, she’s visited by 4 ghosts on Christmas Eve (most forget Marley when counting), but her story is different than Scrooge’s. I can’t recommend this one enough.

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Interesting stories, but lack of focus

Revisado: 10-07-24

I subscribe to The Washington Post. Every Sunday they have an entire section of book reviews of new books. I read the section each week and as a result sometimes buy books that I might not have otherwise bought. This was one such pick. It received an excellent review about a month ago. It does have some interesting stories in it, but it struggles to stay on topic. Some of the more interesting stories have absolutely nothing to do with the topic of the book. It does do a good job of explaining the phenomenon of hair collecting. I was slightly aware of this before reading it, but at one time people didn’t collect autographs or selfies with celebrities. They would ask for locks of hair. It was such a big deal that Washington in his will directed that certain people be given some of his hair. When Lincoln died it seemed everyone was clipping a little. When JFK passed, in her final private viewing Jackie asked for scissors to snip hair to keep. It’s was a short book. The stories were interesting even if some did stray from the topic at hand. Like with most political books, there was a lean. This one leaned right, but not enough that it was distracting. I enjoyed the book.

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A complicated legacy

Revisado: 07-09-24

After a visit to Monticello and with it being 4th of July week, it was a good time to do a biography of Thomas Jefferson. Slavery looms over his legacy probably more than any other Founding Father. Jefferson was probably our smartest President. He was the author of The Declaration of Independence and a huge contributor to virtually everything to do with the formation of our country. He was also key in greatly expanding the country by virtue of the Louisiana Purchase. We, as Americans, owe a debt of gratitude to Jefferson for all those things, but….and it’s a HUGE but, his legacy on slavery means that I can’t hold Jefferson the man in the same high regard that I hold Jefferson the founding father. I still appreciate his contributions to the country, admire his brain, but find him to be a bad person. My simplistic way of looking at it is I can still see Michael Jackson as a musical genius, enjoy listening to his music, but at the same time see him as a child molester who I would have nothing to do with on a personal level.

Jefferson politically advocated for the end of slavery, although he felt blacks and whites could never live together if both were free. However, he definitely didn’t lead by example. He continued to own slaves his entire life. This is bad enough, but his relationship with Sally Hemings is even worse. Hemings was his slave AND HALF SISTER OF HIS WIFE. At some point after the death of his wife, Jefferson began a sexual relationship with Hemings. It can be argued whether this relationship was consensual, but really can a relationship between owner and property ever be truly consensual? This relationship produced children who then worked as slaves at Monticello serving Jefferson and his “Caucasian”family. These slave children of Jefferson were 7/8 Caucasian themselves and according to many accounts looked very much like Jefferson. In his will he gave them their freedom and they would all but one live as Caucasians for the remainder of their lives after being freed. So Jefferson was not only a slave owner, he subjected his own children to it. And even worse had his slave children serve his “Caucasian” family. It’s all really twisted and left me with no respect for him as a person.

Going back to the political, Jefferson’s greatest fear for the country was that we would go back toward a monarchy. He would have been appalled and disappointed by the recent Supreme Court decision that holds that in many respects a President is not bound by the same laws as the rest of us.

I enjoyed the book. The late Edward Herman was the reader and did his always excellent job with it.

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Norton represented all the big names in golf

Revisado: 04-24-24

Hughes Norton was a sports agent. For years he headed up the golf division at Mark McCormack’s company, IMG. McCormack started the company in the 1960s. His first three clients were Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. At the time they were the top 3 players in the world. Norton began with the company in the early days and would remain with them until the mid 1990s. In that time he would go from representing Palmer to Greg Norman to Tiger Woods as well as most of the game’s other top stars.

This is a very interesting book if you are into golf or money. It has inside information about the good and the bad of all the players. It’s widely reported that Tiger is a great player but not that good of a person. From this book it sounds like Norman falls into the same category. It is obvious that Norton can’t stand Norman as a person. One thing that was very interesting, but concerning at the same time was the amount of financial details he tells about each player. As a lawyer, I’m used to not revealing that to anyone about my clients. Norton is not a lawyer and evidently felt no obligation to keep such things confidential. On a few things Norton is not very self aware and makes himself sound worse than he intends, even though it is supposed to be a warts and all book. Overall, I’d highly recommend it to golfers.

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Grisham’s worst

Revisado: 04-12-24

In 1991, The Firm was John Grisham’s first bestseller. I was in law school and the vast majority of the law students read it. Mitch McDeere became a favorite character of a generation of lawyers. For 30 plus years Grisham resisted bringing McDeere back or writing a sequel. This book is the sequel and it’s awful. And that’s such a disappointment. It’s not just the implausibility of so much of it, but that is part, it just isn’t either character driven or plot driven. On top of that for the audio, Grisham abandons my favorite narrator, Michael Beck. It was a real struggle to get through for me.

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Rex puts it ALL out there

Revisado: 03-20-24

This tells the story of Rex Chapman’s life as basketball superstar, pain Rx addict and compulsive gambler and finally internet sensation. Chapman reads it himself and comes off as brutally honest. Things came easy for him because he was really good at basketball. At Kentucky it was obvious that the NCAA rules didn’t apply. He literally took a pay cut when he went to the NBA early. But, things coming easy was a double edged sword. It also allowed him to get deeper and deeper in trouble before having to actually face the consequences for his actions. He went from making millions in the NBA to finally hitting rock bottom and living in his car. He didn’t use recreational drugs in the NBA, but was injury prone and eventually got addicted to opioids as a result after his playing days ended.

It’s a VERY interesting book with many funny stories. One in particular was just an observation. One of his best friends in the NBA early on was Dell Curry. He said that both he and Dell were really good players, but it’s ironic looking back that when they were riding around the best player in the car was the infant in the car seat, Steph.

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The Definitive Book on Magic

Revisado: 03-04-24

This was an excellent comprehensive biography of Magic Johnson. I had previously listened to Lazenby’s biography of Michael Jordan, which was also excellent. He makes a good case for the argument that Magic should be considered one of the best players of all time. He also well documents Magic’s rivalry with Larry Bird that later developed into a deep friendship. He attempts to show the good and the bad of Magic, but you can tell that the author deep down really likes Magic and gives excuses for some of his behavior and minimizes others including his very reckless sexual behavior that resulted in his HIV infection. He did do a good job of covering that aspect of Magic’s life. I do think that was when a lot of Americans learned the difference between HIV and AIDS. Even though the book is very long for a sports biography, it could have used a little more detail on Magic the businessman. Magic is currently worth around $600 million, but only a small percentage of that comes from his playing days and endorsements. The vast majority is from his business deals and investments since he retired from playing. He has been VERY successful in his business ventures since retiring. I always enjoy good sports books and this one is definitely in that category.

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I learned a lot things about a lot of things

Revisado: 09-24-23

This is probably the most interesting book I’ve listened to this year. I really didn’t know that much about Musk prior to this book except for his unhinged tweets. So I definitely was not a fan coming into it, but wanted to learn more about him. I still don’t like him after listening to it, but I do think I understand him better now and in some ways respect the things he’s accomplished. Isaacson several times compares Musk in the book to Steve Jobs, who was the subject of a previous Isaacson biography. Both are visionary in certain ways and both are asses on a personal level.

Musk basically let Isaacson shadow him for two years. So the book does go through his early years, but is much heavier on the last two so the whole Twitter purchase is laid out in detail. Isaacson at the end of the book says something to the effect of yes, Musk is crazy, but don’t you have to be a little crazy to think you can change the world? And Musk really thinks he can. And maybe he’s right. He is self made as the richest man on earth.

He’s very demanding. He fires people constantly. He has no loyalty to any employee. He is only loyal to that person’s most recent results. He constantly sets deadlines for employees that can’t be reached, but by trying to reach them they do exceed what would be normal expectations. He’d be a nightmare to work for.

He’s self diagnosed with Asperger’s, but oddly employees say he can switch it off when in certain meetings which raises the question of whether it’s Asperger’s or just being an ass.

He also thinks the rules don’t apply to him. This includes safety issues with his cars, privacy issues in his cars (if you have a Tesla he’s likely watching you more than you know via the car’s cameras) or even launching rockets in weather conditions when it wasn’t cleared.

He’s addicted to risk, but sometimes that risk endangers others. I’d be very hesitant to be a first adopter of any of his products as a result.

His ultimate goal is to colonize Mars. As impractical as that sounds, after listening to this book I’m not sure I’d bet against him. However, as a side bet I’m sure some of the first attempts would kill some people. He even says a lot of lives were lost settling America. The same with his attempts to insert a computer chip in human brains.

His biggest fear is AI and after hearing his thoughts those thoughts seem justified.

The author and those close to him think he went off the rails with the whole Twitter thing. It does seem to be outside his area of expertise, but given his track record I’ll withhold judgement for now to see what he makes of it.

Ultimately, from the book I see less Steve Jobs and more Sheldon Cooper. If Sheldon was raised by a verbally abusive father and developed a real mean streak as a result. Yes, he’s weird. But, he’s also probably the smartest person in the room. And maybe like Jobs, it does sometimes take an ass to accomplish things that not only others can’t do, but also don’t try because they don’t even know to try.

As for the reader, he read so slow that I sped it up to 1.25 so it would sound normal to me. As a side benefit this made a 20 hour book into a 15 hour one.

Overall, I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

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