52 Weeks, 52 Books

Holy smokes, this is a late one. Week 8 is supposed to come out later today and I’m just posting Week 7. Remember one thing when I initially started the quest, my goal was to average a book a week and end with 52 books read in December. I finished Doctor Dealer, my Week 7 entry, in time. I’m just extremely tardy on reviewing the book. I ended up going home to visit the family this weekend, an idea that wasn’t finalized until late Friday/early Saturday. From there, I planned to write this review, but then decided to play Nintendo Wii all weekend. I’m trying to figure out if it’s cool that I’m sore from playing Wii bowling and baseball. Actually I’m not, I know it totally is… but I digress.

Outside of baseball and history, my favorite genre is probably true crime. And why not? If you can enjoy a great fiction thriller by John Grisham or David Baldacci, then it is even ten times easier to enjoy as thrilling a story that is true! Dealer covers the rise and fall of Larry Lavin, arguably the most powerful cocaine dealer ever based in the Northeast. I trusted author Mark Bowden from the last true crime book of his I read, Killing Pablo. Frankly, if you’re a true crime fan and you’re not reading Bowden’s works, then you really aren’t that much of a true crime fan.

His brilliance continues with Lavin’s twisted tale. You see, Lavin isn’t your typical cocaine kingpin. He is an Ivy League graduate turned dentist. From his early days as an amateur pot dealer, it was clear that Lavin craved the rush of dealing and his actions bore out that craving as he continued to push for more and more. Eventually, he was running a multi-million dollar drug dealing empire. He didn’t carry any kingpin qualities in that he wasn’t out to kill, maim or even slightly hurt anyone. He was just peddling his wares and making money hand over fist. The lure of the story is the constant urge to see what Lavin will do next. I think when marijuana was labeled a gateway drug, Lavin’s story is what they had in mind.

There isn’t really a suspense factor of how the entire story turns out because the prologue offers that resolution before things even get going, but how the story unfolds is interesting and dynamic enough to hold the readers attention throughout. It is hard not to think about Blow at times while reading Dealer, which is the true story of George Jung and his continued poor judgment that eventually led to his downfall as well.

Just another terrific offering from Bowden that has me searching for the rest of his works to throw into the mix over the next 10 months. I apologize to those looking for this much sooner, but there will be times when the review gets out a little later than expected. The overarching goal is to have 52 reviews up by December 31st, 2007 and that will happen.

I did finish the Week 7 book a few days ago, I’ve just been extremely tardy with the review. The book in question was Doctor Dealer by Mark Bowden detailed the rise and fall of drug dealer extraordinaire, Larry Lavin. I’ll offer more thoughts and a rating later tonight when I get home from work.

I know, all one of my loyal readers is anxiously awaiting the week 6 review set to drop tomorrow evening. “Set to drop?” Apparently, I’m referring to book reviews as if they are gangsta rap albums now. I’ve already made it known how much I dislike my new 1-10 PM schedule at work, but I like significantly less when it becomes 11-10 with two hours of bullcrap overtime built in. And the overtime isn’t because of some mad rush to buy computers from the public, but rather it was instituted as a punishment because our site isn’t taking enough calls in the eight shifts. This actually serves to piss me off even more because I’m one of the fastest on the entire floor. Granted, there are times that I’m even out of the expected range and thus going too fast, but never am I part of the current problem and yet I must suffer!!

My bank account is going to suffer sometime very soon as well. I recently trekked to the local Hollywood Video with my friend to pick up some movies. We picked a couple out and went to pay. Now, I was fully expecting a little tab from a few overdue movies I had kept sometime back. It turns out I kept the three classics (which are like $0.22 cents to rent) for 46 DAYS longer than I was allowed amassing a ghastly $90.00 late fee!!!!!! I should’ve just kept the movies! Needless to say, I returned the most recently rented movies a day ahead of time.

This week is very special to dorks like myself. No, it has nothing to do with Valentine’s Day (because I’m a dork, remember?), but rather the day after. On February 15th, pitchers and catchers begin reporting for Spring Training starting the mad dash to the end of March when I head to Florida for a week to watch my beloved Detroit Tigers get ready to defend their American League title!!! I’m so lame.

Until tomorrow…

A.J. Jacobs’ humble quest to become the smartest person in the world is a hilarious romp through the Encyclopaedia Britannica laced with witty anecdotes and piles of obscure factoids. Broken up into 24 sections, one for each letter and then one more for X, Y and Z, Jacobs covers a remarkable range of topics often relating them to his life. The book’s style was very conducive to taking quick bites here and there while on breaks at work or while filling idle moments around the apartment.

Though I’m only through five books, I have a feeling this will end up as one of my favorite’s overall. First off, I’m something of a know-it-all myself. No, I don’t know everything, but I definitely try to and I have no problem acting like I do from time to time. Aside from his complete lack of sports knowledge, I relate to Jacobs on a lot of levels. His sarcastic wit, his intolerance for stupidity and his spiteful asides when he is one-upped by his sister’s brothers always brought a familiar smile to my face.

One of the funniest staples throughout the book is Jacobs’ constant attempts to unleash his newfound knowledge on unsuspecting friends and family (and strangers for that matter). Funnier still is how many times I have caught myself emulating that trait in recent days as I attempt to wedge the knowledge gleaned from the book into everyday conversation. Take for example the reaction I received the other day from a group of co-workers when I noted that eggplant’s name comes from the egg-shaped white variety as opposed to any meaningful relation to eggs themselves. The comments ranged from, “I don’t believe you because I simply cannot tell if you’re being serious,” to “Crack! I think he’s on crack!!!” Knowledge is a curse.

Furthemore, Know It All is the first book I’ve read during that quest that I can confidently recommend to anyone. The previous four books are pretty genre-oriented and without some level of passion for that particular topic, you’d be bored to tears by page eight in most cases. However, anyone with the slightest interest in reading will enjoy this book and will likely laugh out loud (or LOL for you Instant Messengers out there) time and time again.

For its widespread appeal, outstanding writing style and abundance of pointed wit, I give Know It All the first 5-star rating of the quest. Obviously, I hope to make 5-star ratings as plentiful as Paris Hilton’s collection of STDs, but I refuse to hand them out willy-nilly. I’m trying to figure out what is worse about the previous sentence: the fact that I used willy-nilly or the fact that I thought about using willy-nilly, noted how ridiculous it looked when it was typed out and still used it!

Apologies once again to my loyal legions (in this case, legions means about two to two and a half) readers who were left without a book review on Tuesday and wondering if I had bailed on the quest after less than a month. Soon enough I’ll be used to this wretched new schedule.

For those lingering around last night looking for the Week 5 review and to those that have emailed me, it’s coming. I’m adapting to a new (horrible) schedule that has me getting home from work anywhere between 10:30-11:00 PM! When I get home tonight, I will review the latest entry for your viewing pleasure.

For awhile, the Super Bowl has been as much about the commercials as it has been the game. However, the tide has shifted back to the attention focusing on the game because these past few sets of commercials have absolutely sucked. There were a couple of chuckle-worthy bits sprinkled throughout the ads, but the expectation is for some gut-busting hilarity and it just hasn’t been there. I don’t know what is worse, the fans having to suffer through the painful attempts at humor or the companies wasting millions of dollars on ads that fall flat.

I cannot wait to see this movie after checking out the preview. Judd Apatow brought us 40-Year Old Virgin:

(Caution: contains vulgar language as it is an international trailer, so it’s not work appropriate)

I’m only in the 5th week of 52, but I have to say, this is fun. It’s most certainly not going to be easy, but I like the idea of the challenge that this quest presents. My bank account might not appreciate my resolution nearly as much. I spend entirely too much time and money at both Amazon.com and Borders Bookstore here in Austin. It won’t be too much longer until I have enough books to cover the entire year, but there no doubt in my mind that that will not stop me from continuing to buy books. I rationalize the purchases by telling myself that I can be picky at times and may not want to be locked into a particular set of books to choose from each week. I have toyed with the idea of posting randomness daily in between the book reviews, but I don’t know. No one cares about my stupid thoughts that I’d want to share such as the above!