Tag Archives: reading

Top-shelf Books from 2015

by Woody

STRAW_CoverWoody’s new book STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter is available for Pre-Order HERE NOW! In time for the holidays!

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Turning the Pages Through 2015

Good things, sometimes, must come to an end. After doing an annual column for the past six years recommending some of my favorite books, I was of the mind to end the tradition – or at least take a hiatus.

The short reason was that my reading list was too short on this trip around the sun. My yearly goal is to read 52 books, but I fell far shy of averaging one a week in 2015. My tally to date, in fact, is only 29. Writing a new book, it seems, interferes greatly with reading them.

Catching up with Drew Daywalt, author of "The Day the Crayons Quit" and "The Day the Crayons Came Home."

Catching up with Drew Daywalt, author of “The Day the Crayons Quit” and “The Day the Crayons Came Home.”

But I changed my mind the other day when I was in a bookstore picking up a copy of “The Day the Crayons Came Home” as a gift. A woman recognized me – and also said I was much taller in person than my column picture suggests, although I have no idea how a tiny mug shot can suggest height one way or the other – and asked when I was going to share my annual book recommendations.

When I answered I was passing on the book column this year, she begged me to reconsider. I did. Here goes.

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 I will begin with none other than “The Day the Crayons Came Home” by my friend and Oak Park resident, Drew Daywalt. (Which means I am also recommending Drew’s debut children’s book, “The Day the Crayons Quit.”)

As with the best of children’s literature, one need not be a kid to enjoy these two mega-award winners – the first is even being made into a big-budget movie. So pick up a copy of each for a child you know – but read them yourself first!

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Another surprise recommendation is a YA – Young Adult – novel.

“All the Bright Places” is also written by a friend of mine, Jennifer Niven, and has won a wheelbarrow full of 2015 honors – and is also being made into a movie, starring Elle Flanning.

Despite being YA, “All the Bright Places” is dark and gritty and mysterious enough to captivate OA – Older Adult – readers.

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After reading John L. Parker’s newest novel, “Racing the Rain,” I felt compelled to re-read the other two books in the trilogy about Quenton Cassidy: “Once a Runner” and “Again To Carthage.”

“Racing the Rain” is the prequel to “Once a Runner,” which was originally published in paperback in 1978 in such limited numbers that its cult following caused tattered copies to sell for $200 and higher on eBay until it was finally reprinted in hardcover in 2010.

Reading the entire story in chronological order – “Again to Carthage” was the second to come out, but is the finale – enriched all three.

By the way, one need not be a runner to enjoy Parker’s storytelling because Cassidy’s running quest is a metaphor for the journey of life.

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“The Yosemite” by John Muir. Enough said.

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David McCullough again makes my top shelf, as the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner does pretty much any year he comes out with a new historical gem, this time with “The Wright Brothers.”

The most obvious, accurate and shortest blurb to describe this latest effort is: “ ‘The Wright Brothers’ soars!”

My enjoyment of this text was enriched by seeing McCullough give a talk in Santa Barbara about the Wright Brothers.

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Similarly, I read “I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban” after seeing the Nobel Peace Prize’s youngest-ever winner – at age 17 – speak at the Arlington Theatre this summer.

Rest assured, her story is equally inspiring on the written page as over a microphone.

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After beginning this column with a couple friends, it seems fitting to end with one more.

Recommended to me by my pal Clint Garman, who as a pastor and owner of Garman’s Restaurant & Irish Pub in Santa Paula is an expert on both topics covered in the pages, “The Search for God and Guinness: A Biography of the Beer that Changed the World” by Stephen Mansfield was as enjoyably rich in education as a pint of “the good stuff” is rich in flavor.

Cheers! And happy reading in 2016.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden&Me_cover_PRCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Column: My 2013 Reading List

by Woody

‘So many books, so little time’ in 2013

 

“I guess there are never enough books,” the great author John Steinbeck once said while the late musician Frank Zappa offered this contrary observation: “So many books, so little time.”

 

I think they both hit the mark. Indeed, because I was so busy this past year writing my own contribution for the world’s endlessly expanding bookshelf – “Wooden & Me” – I found there was far too little time to reach my annual reading goal of 52 books.CaliforniosCover

 

From the 44 books I have read thus far in 2013, here is a short stack of high recommendations.

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“The Art of Fielding: A Novel” by Chad Harbach. This is not a sports novel, it is simply a terrific novel with a backdrop that happens to be a baseball diamond. Imagine Rocky Balboa as a scrawny shortstop at a tiny college suddenly destined for greatness in the Big Leagues – although underdog Henry Skrimshander’s gift could be music or painting or any other passion. Add in love and death, second chances and friendships, and a series of roller-coaster story lines and you have a one-hit shutout that keeps you on the edge of your seat until the final out – or throwing error.

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In 2012, I recommended “The Grapes of Wrath” and “East of Eden.” This year I went on a full-out John Steinbeck spree with “Cannery Row”, “Sweet Thursday”, “Tortilla Flat”, “The Winter of Our Discontent” and “Cup of Gold.” I recommend all five, and highly, although I think “Sweet Thursday” is my favorite of the handful.

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Jeff McElroy, a gifted author from Ventura County whose awards include first place in the national Writer’s Digest Short Story Contest, has long admired Steinbeck’s work and the influence is on display in “Californios: A Collection of Stories” that features powerful and gritty, yet elegant, storytelling that the master himself would have surely enjoyed.

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            Were I picking only three books to endorse this year, “The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics” byDaniel James Brown would without question make the podium – and perhaps atop in the gold-medal position. This inspirational true story is the eight-oar crew racing equivalent of the track-and-field standard “Chariots of Fire.”

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            On the topic of battling long odds, “David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants” by Malcolm Gladwell is a flat-out winner from start to finish.

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“One Summer: America, 1927” by Bill Bryson is a historical tapestry weaving together a wide range of people and events, although my favorite piece of yarn is Charles Lindbergh’s quest to become the first man to fly nonstop across the Atlantic.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald was on my reading list twice this year with “The Great Gatsby” which stands the test of time and “This Side of Paradise” which I wish I had left on the bookshelf to gather dust.

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            Speaking of paradise, Ventura author Ken McAlpine gets my nod of admiration for the third consecutive year. Previously, I enjoyed his nonfiction travel narratives “Islands Apart” and “Off-Season” and then his foray into fiction with “Fog” and “Together We Jump.” Now I recommend his new collection of personal essays titled “West Is Eden: Reflections On This Gift Called Life.” While it is thin on pages at 74, it is deep in emotion and enlightenment. McAlpine says, “Life’s little moments aren’t little at all” – nor is this small book little.

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Another paradise-themed book, though thicker at 440 pages, that beautifully examines the gifts of life – and nature – is “Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir” by Linnie Marsh Wolfe.

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Lastly, the first book I read in 2013 definitely merits mention: “The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates” by Wes Moore. “Our roots help to determine our routes” is a line from this book that features one Wes Moore who had roots trying to grow on cracked pavement and fed by drugs and negative role models while the other Wes Moore – the author and Rhodes Scholar – had a network of strong nurturing roots reaching deep into hearty soil, albeit inner-city soil, that refused to let the gale winds he encountered topple him.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME is available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

Book Review: “The Ghost Runner”

by Woody

“THE GHOST RUNNER: The Tragedy of the Man They Couldn’t Stop” by Bill Jones (352 paperback.) FLASH REVIEW: I think non-runners will appreciate the tragic life story of John Tarrant, who had a boardinghouse childhood more grim than Dickens would dream up and made all the worse in his teens by the death of his mother shortly after WWII. I KNOW that runners, especially marathoners, will have a hard time putting this book down (though reading while simultaneously shaking one’s head in sympathetic anger can be a challenge). This is the journey of a steel-legged and iron-willed English runner sentenced to fight amateur athletic brass for decades. As a result he must illegally race in the shadows without a bib number all because he earned a few pounds in his hardscrabble youth as a boxer and thus was deemed a “professional” in running. Denied any chance at his Olympic dreams, The Ghost Runner, as he becomes famously known in the newspapers and sporting world, wears disguises before jumping into marathons and 24-hour ultras at the last second last at the starting lines. In the process he becomes an inspiring legend through victory and heartbreaking defeat, the latter often due to his stubbornness and refusal to pace himself rather than always bolting to the lead from the start. Perhaps the most amazing thing about the entire tale is that it has taken so long to be told. RATING: 4 Stars out of 5 for marathoners; 3 Stars for non-runners.