Conquered Words: June/July

This is my monthly post where I tell you what I have read and (ever so briefly) what I thought about each work. If you haven't read these books, then read this blog and pretend that you did!

Well, as promised, I have combined my reading of the last two months to produce this opus. While this may seem like a decent amount, most of the reading was completed just over the last week of July while I was on my honeymoon.

I got married, you see, and that takes a lot out of a man (and a woman, might I add). However, now the wedding is over and I'm back to just one full time job. With the wedding details off of my plate, my new wife and I ventured to Cancun, Mexico where pretty much all we did was sit in beach beds on white sand, read, and play in the bright blue ocean. It was truly the most relaxing week I've ever had. I've never slept so much in my life.

Ali and I are fierce readers and I was able to conquer two books and a New Yorker just while in Mexico. Here's what I've read over the past two months.

1) Columbine by Dave Cullen (Twelve, 464 pages). Perhaps one of the most uniquely written investigative books out there. Cullen's voice is as haunting as it is tender and comforting. He's written for Salon and the New York Times in the past, but is considered the leading voice in the Columbine incident that occurred in April 1999. For the past 10 years, Cullen has been interviewing people, reviewing police records, and just hanging around Littleton in order to accomplish this stack of a book. His tome is extremely thorough, but also shockingly entertaining and well paced. The book is fast and there's no way to quit once you start it. It was simply excellent not only for its dedication to the truth (which is why I love good journalism), but also for its totally honest portrayal of high school youth, specifically the shooters, Eric and Dylan, who the reader feels like they know well after completing the book. I loved the dispelling of the myths behind the shooting as well as his picture of what it means to be a high school kid at the turn of the century. Cullen is bold, but also very honoring to the victims, parents, and suspects behind it all. Now that this is over, a book he spent a decade on, I'm extremely curious what he will do next. He is versed in American suburban life (another theme in Columbine) as well as modern Evangelical Christianity in America. I hope he continues in the investigative track he's on because the guy is dang good at it.

2) My Losing Season by Pat Conroy (Bantam Books, 402 pages). Basketball is my game. But after reading this book it's way more Conroy's game than my own. I've never read better descriptions of basketball. Not even Bill Simmons could capture what Conroy has in this autobiographical piece. Conroy tells of his time playing basketball in high school and runs one season by us over 300 or so pages. The detail he goes into is helpful at the beginning, but gets tiring after a while. This is a book I needed to read, but should have over a whole year. To appreciate this book, you need to not only know basketball, but know the type of people who play basketball and love it, despite their physical limitations. Conroy was never that good, and I appreciated this book because neither am I, but he knew how to articulate it all. Underlying this story is a story about an abusive father, something Conroy unabashedly has written about for years. In My Losing Season, there is not only a story of loving a game, but a story about desiring approval.

3) The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns (Thomas Nelson, 320 pages). Are you a Christian in America? Please read this book. I'm giving away a lot more this next year and have a way better vision for mission trips and service because of this. Richard Sterns is a baller who knows what's what. He was a corporate man who now is the CEO of World Vision, certainly the most productive and courageous non-profits on the planet. They do more things better than most of the huge non-profits and, in my opinion, are way more bold about their visions for the earth. Sterns' book is a reflection on life as a Christian in America and just what is going on in the world. But he's never distant. His writing is close to home and he never sets a picture to high for you to see.

4) Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (Penguin, 192). I read one Steinbeck each summer and I'm very happy I read this one. What a unique book and at the same time, how classically Steinbeck. He is absolutely my favorite writer and this book set in central California, is great because it is entirely a character-focused book. There is such little plot it is astonishing. And yet, my goodness, it's awesome. And funny, which is somewhat new for Steinbeck. The books centers around this little, immoral community called Cannery Row. It's so small that you not only know everyone there, but by the end of the book you know the layout of the town. In his signature way, Steinbeck is also increasingly nostalgic and wise. He is the king of the omniscient, omnipotent storyteller who hovers above the lives and souls of his characters. Steinbeck crafts a fictitious, yet realistic group of characters and you feel the enormous joy of community along with the alarming loneliness felt within that.

5) How to be Good by Nick Hornby (Riverhead Trade, 320 pages). I almost quit this book after 150 pages but by 200 I was unable to stop. Hornby is a writer I've always enjoyed and I've never taken longer than a week on one of his books. He writes with pop and his novels are always filled with dialogue. He is quick and his humor pushes you through the pages. High Fidelity and About a Boy (which are both great movies) are two books I've read by him and adored. His voice is unmistakable and, as I've said before, is our generation's best voice of romance in the 21st century. This work in particular fell a bit short to me simply because Hornby was too quick with his character development that his wacky characters (like the faith healer or homeless teen) became distractions that were far too strange for the genre. The moments that were gold were classic Hornby: lengthy self-reflective paragraphs that almost do too much work for the character. I almost quit 200 pages in, but I had nothing else to read. Luckily I didn't quit, because right after the last third of the book picked up and I was glued, finishing the final 100 pages somewhere between Houston and Portland on my flight home.