A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

Books

Notes from my noodle: May 20

A couple of years ago, I did a blog post about Zander Hollander.

Earlier this year, I got a comment on the post from his nephew, who also gave me the e-mail address of his wife Phyllis. I had planned to e-mail, but didn’t really know how to approach it as Zander’s nephew had noted his uncles wasn’t in great health.

Autographed book.

Recently, a freelance writer happened upon my blog, hoping to find some info about Zander. He is working on a piece about Zander, so he’s looking for all he can get.

That made me remember the e-mail to Phyllis.

I wrote to Phyllis to see if I should forward her e-mail address and such to the writer. I also mentioned meeting them when they came to my town as part of the local book fair. She remembered, which was quite cool.

I’m going to be, in the next week or so, calling Phyllis. I’ll write a little more on the blog after that, to update my post from 2011.

With all of this, however, I went digging for some books by Zander in hopes of finding a signed one. Turns out, I have two signed books. These are very cool to have.

I love signed books and they are ones I really like to keep. So having these two is a bit of a thrill.

Check out the post linked above for the full story.

****

As much as I hate to say it, I guess I have to start working.

I’ve pointed this out on the blog before, but I’m a dreamer. So I’d be lying if I said I didn’t dream big when I purchased my Powerball ticket for the $600 million jackpot.

No winner for me.

Though there was a slight disappointment when I heard the ticket was sold in Florida, it’s also reality. Think about how many tickets were sold for that lotto. Imagine the odds of winning. I only buy one ticket, so my odds are even greater.

It still would have been cool though.

Have you ever read the stories about people who win a massive lotto and are broke in a couple of years? I can assure you that wouldn’t have been me. Many of those stories repeat themselves — the person gives away money, is silly with his spending etc.

No chance for me.

I’m not going to lie — if I won $600 million, I would have tried to spend a million in a week or so. House/land, cars, some other things. All frivolous  Why? Because I could.

After that? Back to being smart with it. Invest it. Pay off bills for myself, family and close friends. Set up some college funds for certain youngsters. Set up a charitable foundation.

Then, have it set up so I get paid weekly. A certain amount. That way, I don’t just go spending money for the sake of spending it.

Alas, that won’t happen.

So when this new summer job of mine starts in a few weeks, I’ll be heading there. And I’m OK with that.

Though $600 million would have been sweet.

****

For the past week or so, I’ve been out finding spots to place geocaches in my area. I am hosting an event this upcoming Sunday and I wanted to have some new caches available.

You can find some interesting things while doing this.

Old ball caught in a bush.

Whether it’s piles of trash, makeshift memorials, the beauty of nature, or whatever else, you never know what you’ll find.

When inspecting at a local field, an old baseball was found.

This isn’t rare. I’ve come across old baseballs many times. And they often make for good photos.

But this one was different. It wasn’t just a ball in the middle of an old field or something. It was stuck. In a bush. We didn’t remove it as we thought it seemed cool an had its place.

It also looked like it had been there for a while.

Just another interesting find while out and about with geocaching.

****

That will do it for this edition of Notes from my noodle. I’ll be back with another edition of this shortly has I have a few more things to randomly share!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Book Review: The Facebook Diet

I’ve found myself quite behind in book reviews, so I’m going to try and catch up a little bit over the coming weeks.

A bit back, I got the book The Facebook Diet through NetGalley. Now, realize this is an e-book version, so that’s what I was looking at. I have no doubt this book would be better as a regular book because it’s filled with comics and I think color would do it better.

Still, the e-version doesn’t take away from the content.

Basically, the book, which is authored by Gemini Adams, is one to show how you might be addicted to the wonderful world of Facebook.

From the description:

A humorous gift book that takes a tongue-in-cheek look at our love of social media through a series of 50 hilarious cartoons that complete the question “You Know You’re a Facebook Addict When…?” by identifying the more idiotic, embarrassing and cringe-worthy behaviors of our social networking excess.

It’s a fun book and if you’re up for a chuckle, it’s worthy of reading. In the end, it’s also worth noting that having a sense of humor is important with a book like this.

Anyway, on with the review.

The Good

This is a fun little read and one can do it quickly. It didn’t take me too long to get through it and I got some good chuckles. The comics are pretty solid, and, there’s a lot of truths in this book.

I’d be shocked, if you have Facebook, if you didn’t look at some of these and say “Hey, that’s me!”

If you take this book for what it is, it’s worth reading. It’s a humor book that you might read more than once, or leaf through down the line to look at some of the more funny things.

The Bad

I don’t think there’s really too many bad things with this one. I don’t think it’s an over-the-top “must read,” but there’s nothing really negative about it. I had some issues with formatting on my Kindle, but keep in mind that the edition I was reading was an advanced copy, digital, and probably not finalized. Therefore, I wouldn’t hold it against the book.

Overall

I liked it. It was funny. It was quick. And in the end, I was left with a smile. That’s all I expect when I read a book like this. I’m not expecting Pulitzer Prize stuff, I want to laugh. And I did. If you are on Facebook and have a sense of humor, this is worth a read.

Rating

Rating books like these are hard to rate. While I laughed and didn’t find any notable errors, it’s not something I can give a 5-star rating to. It’s hard to even give it four stars because it’s not a gripping book — it’s a fun one. So I’d give it a 3.5 and say to take that rating with a grain of salt and realize I truly enjoyed the book, would recommend it to people with a funny bone and thought it was a nice read. But considering it took me like two hours to leaf through it and it’s something for a laugh, I have a hard time going over that.

Fundraiser: I am, again, trying to raise money for the Relay For Life. If you donate to me — a minimum of $5– you will be entered to win a super-sweet quilted lap quilt or pillow. Click here for all the information!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Book Review: Just A Minor Perspective

With baseball season getting ready to go, I thought this month would be good to read this shorter book I’ve wanted to check out. It’s the story of one man’s first season in the minor leagues.

And being he played for the Phillies, it was even better. Eric Pettis takes us through that rocky year of playing for the Williamsport Crosscutters in Just a Minor Perspective: Through the eyes of a minor league rookie.

Besides the reasons mentioned above, one of the reasons I wanted to read this is because I covered a team in the New York-Penn League for six years. It makes me wish Pettis had played for Williamsport a couple of years ago as I may have had the chance to see him play. Not only that, maybe the team I covered would have made the book.

Alas, that team moved in 2009.

Though a quick read, the book had its ups and downs, kind of like one’s minor league career. There’s no actual true copy of the book as it’s on the Kindle. It didn’t take me long — a few days — to get through it. Amazon’s website lists it as 97 pages.

I don’t think this is a middle-ground book, however. By that I mean, if you aren’t a baseball fan, you might not enjoy it. There’s not a lot of non-baseball things and Pettis often gets caught up in terminology, which for a baseball junkie like me is great, but for others might be a turnoff.

That being said, if you are a fan of human nature and seeing what life can be in other walks of life, this can do a decent job at telling you about life on the road in the minor leagues. Though being a beat writer for a team wasn’t a travel position (I think I went to 3-4 away games, maybe, in six years), I heard many stories about life on the road, through managers, players and even the guy who drove the team’s bus. Pettis gives people a look inside that world. It’s not all cakes and ice cream on the road as a minor leaguer. Long and boring bus rides are status quo. Crampy locker rooms and bad hotels can often be normal. It’s not glamorous, that’s for sure.

Still, there are negatives to this book. I’ll touch more upon them later, but one major one to me is Pettis changing names. Books like these have been written before and names are used. Ballplayers are public figures. Names can be used. And should be used. I found, at times, scratching my head over this. He notes there are a couple whose names are not changed, but unless you Google each person, you don’t know. As a Phillies fan, I found that highly disappointing as being able to know who some of the people were would make it better.

Anyway, on with the review.

The Good

This book is about baseball. That gets a pretty big thumbs up from me right off the bat. It’s also about the minor leagues, so another thumbs up.

Pettis can be quite descriptive at times. I felt like I got to know his host family and house. Some of the clubhouses he takes you into, you can almost feel like you are there. The views from the dugout and such. The bus rides. He paints an interesting picture of the game and some of the people he has encountered along the way.

I think one of the best parts of this book is the story is about one of the lowest levels of minor league ball. Conditions, usually, improve on your way up the chain. So knowing what it’s like on one of the bottom rungs is excellent.

And, because of some things, the size isn’t bad. If this were to be more of a bookstore-type book, I think it would need to be added to. some of the negatives, which I’ll get to in a moment, would have to be cleaned up, too. But this book has potential to be even bigger given the subject and given America’s love of baseball.

I also like how Pettis paints himself. He doesn’t make it like he’s a goody goody. He shows he has a not-so-great side and is humbled by somethings. Going from Division I college ball to low-level minor league can be shocking and I think Pettis shows how he reacted to it. Basically, he shows he has flaws like anybody else and I like the honesty.

The Bad

A couple of things stand out. First is the re-naming of people. I won’t lie when I say that absolutely annoyed me. As a Phillies fan, I wanted to know who the people are. Of course I probably could have done some research to give a pretty good educated guess, but this wasn’t my research project. It was a book for me to enjoy. I won’t lie that this took away some of the enjoyment.

Pettis also gets repetitive at times. By the end of the book, I really understood that he worked hard. He mentions cliches early in the book, yet sprinkles them throughout the book. Realizing that baseball is full of cliches, I get it. But after a while, it got boring.

There were also times I was left wondering. Though Pettis got descriptive about certain things, other times he was vague. And that’s hard in a book like this. If one is going to cram so much into a book, it needs to be balanced. There were times I couldn’t put the book down. Other times I couldn’t wait until it was done. It was usually when he breezed through things.

I would have liked to have seen more about him. More of his emotion. It seemed like when he touched on emotion, it started quickly and felt guarded. Maybe a couple more “me” stories about him dealing with life.

Finally, as expected with any self-published book (and I expect when I finally do it one day, I’ll have it too…), there were several typos and misspelled things that likely would have been caught with a good proof reader. It wasn’t so bad where I would go nuts, but I notice these things and think it should be mentioned in the review.

Overall

In the end, it was a quick and worthwhile read. You get a look into the life of a minor leaguer. It sounds like he was often looked down upon because of his draft spot (which can quite often be true), but he still has a successful, but short, run in the minors. It’s a shame, too, because Pettis seems like the kind of guy who would be worth cheering for. For you baseball nuts, I’d definitely recommend it.

Rating

I’d have to go middle of the road with this ones. The good and the bad even out, with neither really making the book slide one way or the other. I’d give it 3 out of 5 stars and if it was ever updated and lengthened, I’d read it again and see how it came out.

Artwork (For The Artful Readers Club)

This book is also one I’m reading for The Artful Readers Club. In this club, we read one book per month and also have to so some sort of a piece of art to go with it. For the second straight month, I went with an advertisement. I wanted to use a hiking shelter, but I couldn’t find any in my archived. I thought I had some. Instead, I just went with a trail photo.

Apologies for last month as I dropped the ball in visiting sites. Fear not, I plan on, within the week, visiting for last month AND this month. The link doesn’t work, but I’ll go through those who commented on mine and also those who commented on Darcy’s and try and find last month’s book review.

For the Artful Readers Club

Winner of last month’s book giveaway

I dropped the ball on this one, too! It was supposed to be given away after two weeks or so! Alas, it’s never too late. So I put everybody’s name in the Random.org generator and the winner is Paul Myers. Drop me an e-mail, Paul, and I’ll get the book out to you ASAP!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Book Review: Sheltered

(Note: I am in two challenges this month, so this is running a little earlier than I normally would publish a post. My 30 minus 2 Challenge post will be published early in the afternoon.) 

In 2011, I did a series of stories about people who had hiked the Appalachian Trail. It truly is amazing to hear people speak about their experiences.

One of the people I wrote about was Emily Harper, a Pennsylvania teenager hiking more than 2,100 miles on her own. It’s pretty amazing to hear about something like this. Late in 2012, she e-mailed me and let me know she wrote a book about her experiences and was curious if I wanted to read and review it.

Of course!

Sheltered

She sent me two copies — one for me to read and review and the other to give away. So if you’re interested in winning this autographed book, see the bottom of this post for the details.

With all that in mind, this is an honest review of the book, which takes you along the Appalachian Trail through her eyes. Her details are quite strong, he writing is conversational and, the one thing I truly loved, she didn’t hold anything back. It’s a colorful tale of her time along the trail, off the trail, her experiences and the people she met and hiked with.

It’s not perfect by any means. It’s a self-published book and it has some errors throughout. I’ll touch more on those later. While it’s true that I probably gave a little leeway here because of what she accomplished at her age, I’m still a writer and reader first — and I had to put myself in each of those shoes throughout. The price seems a little on the high side at $15.50 for paperback (on Amazon) and $5.99 for the Kindle version (on Amazon). If you are an Amazon Prime member, you an borrow the Kindle version for free, which is a good thing.

Still, as somebody who claims he will eventually write a book or three, I know the dedication and time needed and understand what she went through. But there are a lot of basic things in the book that made me cringe a little, which sometimes makes it hard to continue, no matter how good the stories are.

In the end, I’m glad I got the chance to read it, especially knowing I had written about her before. This is probably a good read for younger women thinking about tackling this hike by themselves as Harper is really straight forward with things and shows you what it’s like for a woman on the trail.  Now, I’ll get a little more in-depth on my likes and dislikes.

The Good

There’s something to be said about not holding back any punches. Harper definitely doesn’t and that’s refreshing.

She’s candid about people she hiked with and met. She offers up her attitude on different things. She flaunts that hiking as a female can often be way better than being a guy. And she also shows a softer side in situations.

I liked that.

Many hiking books I’ve read don’t show that. They show you the eyes of the hike, introduce you to some people and make it sound pretty good. There’s no doubt that Harper’s hike wasn’t perfect. In fact, if you read the book, there might be times where you’ll say something out loud, wondering what she was thinking. Or that you didn’t like how she acted. I know I did. But I liked that. Because she didn’t paint herself as an angel. She also didn’t paint anyone else as being perfect.

Harper had some interesting hiking partners. From the ones she started off with and eventually was left behind by, to the ones she truly seemed to care about and wonder about what happened with them. She paints a picture in the reader’s mind of these people. She lets you develop your own thoughts. I like that.

The other thing I did like is this book is more like a journal. And, as somebody who read her online trail journal during her hike, it was nice to see that style in her book.

It’s personal, but can be impersonal at times. It’s written in a style that isn’t literary. Many people may not like this style. I don’t mind it with this book. It has to have a certain flavor for me to enjoy a style like this and I can dig it here. It’s almost like she handed me an old leather-bound book, handwritten for her long journey.

That, however, tends to lead into something that isn’t liked by most…

The Bad

Spelling. Grammar.

If one is to expect people to spend money on a book, the author needs to do everything in his or her power to make sure the book is clean in regard to spelling and grammar. I respect the self-publishing route. I’m not snobby like some who think self-publishing is a bad thing. In the modern day, some people need to go that route to get books published. And I’ve found many, many books I’ve truly enjoyed through authors who took that route.

That doesn’t, however, excuse one from doing everything in his or her power to make sure things are right.

There were a lot of mistakes in this book. I had started writing them down and finally stopped after a while. It was frustrating at times. Though I got through the book relatively quickly, there were moments I had to put the book down because I couldn’t accept the issues. I always went back, though, as the story was good.

The major errors includes punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.

A few examples including misspelling of things such as Willy Wonka, which was spelled Wanka. Or not capitalizing “Subway.” There were places where words needed hyphens, or needed to follow the right tense — one spot said “… but made my arms ached.” There was a chapter, too, where she spoke about some hiking friends and spelled the name of one person two ways.

Some people might be able to overlook issues like this, but I couldn’t. It was hard at times. A few things like this is one thing, but having it littered throughout makes one wonder if it was ever proofed or edited. If not, it could use a good edit and then maybe put out “a second edition” to update things a bit. Having two or three people — ones who aren’t afraid to tell the truth — edit a book before hitting the publish button can be worth their weight in gold.

I also would have liked a little more explanation at times, such as telling the reader what “root ball” is, besides it being a game some hikers played during their time on the trail.

Rating

Taking everything into account, I’m not going to lie that this was an extremely hard book to rate. There were so many good things, but then the issues with grammar and spelling really took the wind out of my sails.

I just didn’t know.

The reality is, I’d probably split this one down the middle. In other words, I’d give it a 2.5 or so. But that’s not based on the content. So, with that in mind, I’d bump it to a 3 out of 5 and would be more than willing to go a bit higher if a second edition came out with a bunch of edits. The 3 is worth is on content and style alone. But I couldn’t go more with knowing the issues with common things, some of which probably could have been avoided with a slow spell/grammar check in Word.

Artwork (For The Artful Readers Club)

This book is also one I’m reading for The Artful Readers Club. In this club, we read one book per month and also have to so some sort of a piece of art to go with it. For the second straight month, I went with an advertisement. I wanted to use a hiking shelter, but I couldn’t find any in my archived. I thought I had some. Instead, I just went with a trail photo.

For the Artful Readers Club.

Book Giveaway

I have a signed edition of this book that I’ll be giving away. So for the next two weeks, I’ll accept entries. Just drop a comment down below and you’re automatically entered in the drawing. Note that the book will be shipped via media mail to the winner.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Book Review: One Shot at Forever

I’m a sucker for a good baseball book.

I hadn’t heard of “One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season” by Chris Ballard before stumbling across it on Amazon. The Kindle price was but $2.24 (it’s since gone up to $2.99, but still a very fair price), so I thought it would be a good way to start the 2013 reading campaign.

One Shot at Forever

This is more of a historical baseball book as it goes back to remember a small-school baseball teambased in Illinois. They have old uniforms and a unique coach who does things quite a bit differently. This coach — the English teacher at the school who has zero experience in coaching — leads his squad to the Illinois state final. This is back in a time when there were no divisions. Macon is still the smallest school to reach the state final.

The team took on the spirit of its coach — long hair, peace symbols on their hats and a carefree outlook that seemed balanced enough to win over a town.

Ballard is a senior writer at Sports Illustrated, so he tells a wonderful story from beginning to end, including catching up with many of these players in the present time.

The Good

This is a great story. If you like feel-good stories, especially in sports, this is a fine read. This shows that all in sports isn’t bad and it brings you back to a glory day when high school sports were serious, but at the same time, it wasn’t as crazy as it is today. Games were serious back then, but society today puts high school sports on a whole different level.

Ballard does a wonderful job of developing all the people in this story, which is tough, considering you have a full team, a coach, his eventual wife, school administration, members of the media and some parents. That’s a lot of people. For the most part, I was able to keep track of who is who throughout, though not always. It was really easy to cheer for certain people and, at the same time, have a bit of a dislike for others.

The book also helps the reader related to the team. Even those who grew up and live in large urban areas should be able to feel the emotion of this town and area and the support of the team. One think to keep in mind is this is the early 1970s, so a different time. Though everybody will be able to relate and see what this type of atmosphere was like, I know I got a bit more out of it because I grew up in a small town and understand the thought process and how people will live for the days of a great high school team to show pride in the town.

The Bad

At times, it was tough when some of the players were being mentioned. Though the big ones were pretty easy to follow with, sometimes one of the more secondary players was mentioned and it would make me stop for a moment. I think that’s the tough part with a book like this because there are so many people who need to be in it. This isn’t fictional, so one can’t just eliminate some in situations. To tell the story, these players need to be in the story.

This is a tough “bad,” per say, but books like this need a few photos. When dealing with historical items like this, I know I like to see what people look like, or anything else to help my mind paint a picture of the town, the field, the players and all that. Ballard does a wonderful job of describing everything, but having a section in the book with images would have helped. If it’s in the print version, I can’t comment. But I didn’t see any photos, outside of the cover photos in the Kindle edition.

Overall thoughts

I truly enjoyed this book. I didn’t take too long to read it as it moved quickly, kept my attention and made me want to keep going. And it really is an underdog story. If you are a sports fan and like something like Hoosiers, you’ll like this book. It’s the same sort of thing — the David vs. Goliath. I won’t give away the ending of this book, but it doesn’t matter what the end result is. It’s well worth the read and I would encourage anybody who likes books about real life, sports, overcoming odds or the little guy to give it a go.

Rating

This is a strong book and one I’d highly recommend to many people. In the end, though not fully perfect, I’d give this book a strong 4/5 and consider a little higher if I gave it a little bit of a longer thought.

Artwork (For The Artful Readers Club)

This book is also one I’m reading for The Artful Readers Club. In this club, we read one book per month and also have to so some sort of a piece of art to go with it. For this one, I decided to take an old baseball photo I took and make an “advertisement” for the book. It’s not great, but I hope people enjoy!

Artful Readers Club artwork.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!