Dobrindts Dot Com

I read all kinds of books except for maybe romance novels. Nothing against them, especially if they have good "romance" in them if you know what I mean, but I just never tried to read one. I'll go through slice of life books, biographies, history, military, horror, science fiction, sports, comedy, you name it. It's not very often that I'll get through a quarter of the book and give up, but it's happened. I find that if getting through a book is work, like reading a text book in college was for me, I'll give up. Some times I'll give up for the time being because maybe my attention span is not in the right place, say for example I have a lot on my mind for work and reading a history book is not as entertaining as a Tom Clancy book, and then pick it up later. One of the best books I have read in years fell into this category. I'll explain later.

Anyway, I love to read. The rare occasions that Patti is out for the night or away, and the kids are in bed, I'll sit in my living room without the TV on and read, enjoying the strange silence of my house. I would say that on average for every really good book I read, at least in my opinion, I'll read 2 fairly bad books. A lot of the recent Tom Clancy has been crap. I read a few Mario Puzzo books that kind of stunk. But lately I have had a string of really good books. Here they are with some not so good ones I have read as well.

- Flags of Our Fathers

This is a fairly well know book by the son of one of the soldiers who is in the famous photo of Iwo Jima. It is the most reproduced photo in history. It shows 6 guys raising a flag after the Marines stormed Iwo Jima in World War 2. I am fascinated by WW2 military history. Not just the battles but the forces that drove industrialized countries into something as terrible as war. My father was in the military, his father was in the Navy during WW2, my father’s uncles were all in WW2 and one even won the Congressional Medal of Honor, dieing in the process. My uncle on my mother’s side was in Vietnam. I come from a long line of proud military people that unfortunately ended with me. It was just not prevalent when I was getting out of high school. I regret it a little now but nothing to do about. Either way, I love watching shows and reading about the second great war. I remember once my father saying to me “pray that you never have to experience the horrors of war”. I met a WW2 vet last year while picking up some spare bricks from someone and he said “the war was terrible, living in foxholes like animals, I still have medical problems from it”. If you want to clearly understand the horrors of war, on all sides of the Pacific campaign, the US, Japan, Russia, China, read this book. It is very hard to read because of the graphic nature of it, but it’s amazing to read what young men did after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. It might sound hokey but it made me proud of our military history to read this book.

By the way this was the book I was referring to when I said I put it down because the timing was not right. I started it but could not concentrate because of some reason I don’t remember. I picked up a Dan Brown book instead. Later, after reading Fly Boys, I picked it up again and could not put it down. Just the way I work.

- Fly Boys

This is another book by James Bradley, the author of Flags of Our Fathers. This book was more descriptive when detailing how the Japanese behaved during WW2. I would not recommend this if you have a rosy picture of how the US and Japan acted during the war. Awful and terrible things were done by both sides and this book should be a reminder that during war, men act on what they think will be the best long term answer even if it has short term consequences. This book taught me about Japanese history and culture. It explains why the Japanese soldiers did what they did during the war. George Bush senior was a “Fly Boy” conducing bombing raids over the Japanese islands but he was just a small piece to this brave group of men. Both books by James Bradley are a lesson in the horrors of war but both made me feel proud of my grandfather and all like him who served our country during World War 2.

- The Wreck of the Batavia

I am on the fence with this book. It is about the Dutch India Spice Company during the 1600s. The company had a fleet of ships that would sail the treacherous route from Europe to India for the spice trade. This ship, the Batavia, wrecked off the coast of Australia and this book describes the Lord of the Flies behavior that follows. I read about the book in a Wall Street Journal article and was fascinated. But the actual pages about the wreck are less than 100, with large font on each page. I think I finished the book in one sitting. After the story the author includes his diary pages from when he was a deck hand on a French fishing ship in the 60s. That was kind of cool. I liked the book but I felt a little empty because the lack of detail about the wreck.

- The Godfather

I am a huge Godfather fan. I own all three movies on DVD and tape. Although I have seen GF 1 and GF 2 dozens of times, I always stop on it when I come across the movies while channel surfing. I am not sure why I never read the book, so one day I picked it up. If you are a fan of the Godfather, READ THIS BOOK. It is incredible. He goes on for pages and pages about the Frank Sinatra character. There is this young woman who Sonny had an affair with that is a big part of the book, with this bizarre medical condition that is described in embarrassing detail. It was a great book and I only wish he wrote one for the Godfather 2. I ended up buying another book by him that was terrible. A mafia book, which I thought “How can you go wrong with the mafia”, but you can. Either way, read this book, it’s good.

- Kite Runner

A friend suggested reading this. It reads like a chronicle of a young Afghanistan man but its pure fiction. Still, while reading the book I couldn’t help but feel that much of what the author was describing was based in fact, either his own or someone else. It was a very nice book, kind of wrenching and heartwarming at the same time. A page turner that is not full of hollow stories like Tom Clancy, Stephen King or Dean Koontz.

- The Cell

Speaking of Stephen King. When I was in my teens and early twenties I was a huge Stephen King fan. I read the unabridged version of The Stand 3 times. At one time I had read everything by Stephen King and couldn’t wait for the next. Then he started moving away from what I like about him, his ability to get into detail on characters and stick to pure horror, and I lost intereste. There was one book he wrote about these bubbles that would appear on the top of people, it was awful. Just terrible. So I stopped reading his stuff. I think it’s been at least 6 or 7 years since I read anything of his. Then the other day my mother sent me a book she got for free called The Cell by Stephen King. It has a picture on the front of a cell phone and blood. So I dug in. Why not? Overall the book was good. It was zombie end of the world stuff that centered around a pulse that was sent through cell phones. It had some huge holes but was a page turner, a quality that makes almost any book good. Even the crappy cheap courtroom suspense books by John Grisham are great because they are page turners. When I read those books I know I will not become a better person, will not enrich myself, will not build my intellect, but that’s ok. I do that by watching Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV. Speaking of page turners, I love Dan Brown. Angels and Demons and The DaVinci Code were great. But even his other stuff was good, Digital Fortress and the other one that is popular I can’t remember that name of it. Something about Frozen or Ice or something. I like his stuff because while I know it’s not factual, it is grounded in facts. It’s something that my imagination could run with and believe is true.

- Xombie

I am a huge zombie movie and zombie theme fan. I would create an amusement park based on zombies if I thought people would come. So Patti, my darling wife ever so thoughtful, saw a booked called Xombie, with an X instead of a Z, how cleaver. She thought I would like it so she picked it up for me. My first thought was to dismiss it as some stupid end of the world knock-off but then I thought “That is what every single zombie movie every made is like”. They are all knock-offs of…what?...I don’t know. I am sure there is the original zombie movie that started it all. Maybe the original Night of the Living Dead but I doubt it. There is probably some strange French silent film from the 20s that started the theme. Who cares? So I started the book with a little apprehension but to be honest it turned out ok. I am going to describe some critical parts of the book now so if you want to read it and be totally surprised STOP READING NOW and skip to the next book. Last warning! I am going to reveal things! About this masterpiece called Xombie! Right now! Going to reveal! NOW! The concept is that women were affected first, hence the X chromosome. And there is a group of government workers who were working on a submarine in Rhode Island who end up getting on the sub and taking off, thus saving themselves from the zombies. They end up heading to Iceland because that is where the end of the world place to be is. It’s some kind of meeting place for people who will restart the world. The strange thing is that the zombies were created on purpose, and for a reason. And that the zombies could actually be a functioning part of our society. Which reminded me of Sean of the Dead and this UCLA Film School short I saw once about zombies who just wanted to be treated as equals in a human society. So the book ended up being kind of interesting which made me make a mental note to buy more zombie books to get more detail around how they became zombies, something ALWAYS overlooked in zombie movies.

- Freakonomics

I read Freakonomics a couple of months ago. It was ok, kind of boring, but informative. One interesting thing I found.

“In a given year, there is one drowning of a child for every 11,000 residential pools in the US. With 6 million pools, this means that roughly 550 children under the age of 10 drown each year. Meanwhile, there is 1 child killed by a gun for every 1 million plus guns. In a country with an estimated 200 million guns, this means that roughly 175 children under ten die each year from guns. The likelihood of death by pool is 1 in 11,000 versus death by gun which is 1 in 1 million plus. “

Now, I am not making light of crimes with guns. Terrible. And people don’t use pools to rob liquor stores to supplement their welfare check so they can buy better quality crack. But for anyone who wants to ban or restrict individuals owning guns on the basis that they are a danger to kids is misinformed. As is typical with most activists, they don’t have all the facts and rant and rave based on principle, not based on reason. I do it. We all do it. To be fair, this is a misleading and almost irreverent comparison. I bet more kids are killed doing normal kid activities, like riding a bike or climbing a tree, than are killed by guns. It’s because they are exposed more to these unsupervised activities than playing with guns.

Either way, this is an interesting business book. There is an author, a professional writer, and a young hotshot economist who looks at economics through a different lens. It’s very interesting the correlations he makes (drop in crime due to Roe verse Wade). I would recommend it, it’s an easy read and interesting.