52 Novels

Every time I think about The Sunday Salon, Deb Hamel’s terrific group of reader blogs, I’m reminded of the bit in the movie Dances With Wolves when Timmons is driving John Dunbar out to his new post.

Along the way Timmons and Dunbar come across a picked-clean human carcass — presumably that of a post-war pioneer — with a broken arrow in its skull.

Timmons, never missing a thing, says, “I bet someone back east is askin, ‘Now why don’t he write?’”

Not that I’m a significant member of the group (I’m not), but my blog’s listed near the top of the list at The Sunday Salon. Again… it’s not because I’m anyone special. We’re presented alphabetically and those of us with numbers at the beginning of our blogs were put first.

“What does this have to do with anything,” you ask.

Fair question. It has everything to do with the fact that I get a decent amount of traffic from The Sunday Salon — if for no other reason than this joint’s third from the top of the list. As a result, I often wonder if I’m disappointing people who get here from there because there’s, you know, no salon-ness hap’nin when they walk in the 5 to-the 2.

Then again, I also wonder if I’m an arrogant prick for wondering that in the first place.

In any case, a member of a forum I help moderate recently asked the community for non-fiction recommendations.

Despite what you see here — fiction, fiction, and more fiction — I also read a lot of non-fiction over the course of the year. I don’t count those books in the 52 novels because, well, they’re not novels. I suppose if I wanted to pad the resume here, I could include them.

Alas, 52books dot com was already taken and there ain’t no way I’m gonna make the owner an offer for it.

Anyway… here’re a few recent non-fic reads:

THE HARDEST (WORKING) MAN IN SHOW BUSINESS

I picked this up more out of a desire to read Eric Spitznagel’s words than because of any overarching interest in porn. (Disclaimer: I’m a dude and I like porn about the same as the next guy.)

The fact is, Ron Jeremy’s a fascinating guy who’s led an intriguing life. He was a serious actor who stumbled in to porn. He’s legendary in the adult entertainment industry as much for his, you know, as he is for his tireless work ethic and networking. He’s as famous for the brand called “Ron Jeremy” as he is for the on-screen product.

Quite literally, Wayne Gretzgy is the Ron Jeremy of hockey.

Sadly, I didn’t care for this book as much as I’d hoped. It got to be more of the same after the first few chapters: “One time on the set of (movie title), I was (doing some sex act) with the beautiful (female porn star’s name), and (something humorous/serious/endearing) happened.

I will admit, though, that the stories about his family were often rather touching… and the reason I finished reading this one.

STEROID NATION

I really wanted to like this book… and I did like some of it.

But what left me feeling cheated was the way the author, ESPN The Magazine’s Shaun Assael, cobbled together the narrative. We got short vignettes of concurrent history and it made it difficult for me to understand the context. And as soon as I thought I was getting to meat of the vignette, it stopped and moved on to the next.

There’re better ways to tell concurrent histories — see any of Stephen Ambrose’s fine World War II books, for example.

Again, there was good stuff in the book: the changing political priorities and how they affect enforcement policies, how the International Olympic Committee used steroid testing as window dressing for many years, and how many, at the time, virtually unknown players — from Dan Duchaine to Patrick Arnold to Bill Phillips — were instrumental to bringing the drugs into the mainstream.

Still, what I didn’t know seemed far less than what I did know. Combine that with the format and it left me disappointed. Take that for what it’s worth… if you’re not so hip to steroid history, this’ll probably be an enlightening read.

Of course, this isn’t the limit to my non-fic reads in 2008. I’ve also read a number of books as novel-related research: finding missing people, con games, guns, the psychology of killing, and so on. I’ve also been learning a lot about modern American gangs — not for this book, but for maybe the next book. My current non-fic read is THE COMPLETE PERSEPOLIS… and it’s fantastic.

So how ’bout you… what non-fiction have you been reading? Drop a comment and let’s talk books about real people, places and things.