Jeffrey Pratt

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I have a New Years Resolution to read more books--at least one per month. I'm currently one month behind.

Pure Drivel by Steve Martin: a collection of New Yorker essays that pretty much are all about the non-sequitur. Probably 75% of of them were laugh-out-loud funny and the other 25% were over my head. Steve Martin is way smarter than me.

Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure by Jerry Kaplan: anyone planning to start their own business should read this book. The company in question failed miserably at the "get big fast" strategy of most startups who are trying to grab market share before larger competitors (AKA Microsoft) can sneak in. Some Amazon reviewers complain that Kaplan babbles a bit at times but I don't think that detracts from the story. Also fun was the fact that the book examined a bygone era now replaced with Web 2.0 and the similarities between the valley in the early '90's and now are striking. Do they never learn?

Rules For Renegades by Christine Comaford-Lynch: mostly mindless drivel. Books like this remind me that with the right agent and editor, anyone (myself included--sigh) could write a book. I'm going to guess that most of the people who buy this book are interested more in the author's descriptions of her liaisons with Bill Gates and Larry Ellison than any self-help or management advice. Sex sells. But mostly, the author comes off as someone who read "The Secret" and believes she can get herself anything she wants through sheer force of will. Those types of people exist, I'm sure, but I think they are born, not trained.

A Year In The Merde

[Nov. 22nd, 2006|07:30 pm]

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A semi-fictional memoir of a British businessman who moves to Paris to start a chain of tea rooms for his new French employer. He is greatly annoyed by France at first (to the reader's great amusement). Slowly but surely, he becomes ingratiated into the Parisian culture. It is a very funny and easy read, but definitely not too serious. I won't go out of my way to read the sequels. Apparently, it was a "must-read" in Paris when it was released, which I suppose is similar to the Borat phenomenon in the USA right now.

Post Office

[Aug. 23rd, 2006|07:18 pm]

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You'll never hear "feel-good book" and "Charles Bukowski" in the same sentence except in sarcasm, I'd wager. I really enjoyed "Post Office". The plot (such as it is) involves the life and times of a postal clerk in 1960's Los Angeles. The conflict (such as it is) revolves around the protagonist's desire to drink, have sex, gamble and sleep (roughly in that order) and his need to have a job to support those activities. There is very little else in his life, and as a result, this memoir is pure and clear.

I've often thought about writing a book about my Albertsons experiences but I've always gotten hung up on plot ideas (or actually, the total lack thereof). This book is a good reminder/inspiration that you can do a lot just by getting the basics down on paper. If there really is a story there, it will emerge on its own.

It's Not About The Bike

[Jun. 30th, 2006|07:21 am]

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I'm probably one of the last people on earth to read Lance Armstrong's ghost-written autobiography "It's Not About The Bike". When it was published, he had only (only!) won two Tours. Hah!

The book is an easy read. I breezed through it in about three hours while simultaneously watching a baseball game. Armstrong discusses his youth, cancer, family, and of course, cycling career. He doesn't go into detail about anything except for his cancer treatment and his description of intravitreal fertilization. Those looking for training tips or strategy secrets will be disappointed. This is a cancer book, not a racing book.

Armstrong's story is inspiring except for one detail: I don't believe for one minute that he has never used banned performance-enhancing drugs as he vehemently claims. There is simply no way for a human being to perform as he performed for seven consecutive years without a little help from Dr. Science. Simply look at the news today regarding Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich, top-rated contenders who withdrew from the Tour de France under doping allegations. These guys aren't even close to doing what Armstrong did, but they're all in the same group of elite endurance athletes. Armstrong had to have some help.

It is an interesting dilemma. One can believe Lance's story and be inspired. Or, one can not believe him (like me) and still laud him for the good he has done with his foundation and using his name for cancer research. I can't help but wonder if the doping allegations are a non-issue. If a major breakthrough is made in cancer treatment as a result of Lance Armstrong, perhaps those seven Tour de France wins were a good thing, whether they were steroid-enhanced or not.

The Cold Six Thousand

[Jan. 10th, 2006|07:18 pm]

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I bought my copy of "The Cold Six Thousand" on October 15, 2004 at an English language boookstore in Paris. I finished it--all 700 pages of it--on January 9, 2006. In between, I read it on airplanes because of its short, stacatto language: it took trips. It went to multiple continents. It took breaks. It was an tough read.

In the book, the author (James Ellroy) spins a bizarro web around the latter half of the 1960's. It begins with a hitman arriving in Dallas to kill a pimp for a $6000 bounty, and then proceeds to blast through Vietnam, Cuba, Howard Hughes, RFK, MLK, J. Edgar Hoover and various other cultural significants in a vast exploration of idealism and corruption. The plot weaves around like the very conspiracy theories it mocks, and reminds the reader in the end that--conspiracy or no--it doesn't make a damned bit of difference if you know the truth or not.