Although nicknamed 'Old Reliable' in his prime...

27.

Beyond the Shadow of the Senators by Brad Snyder - A history of Negro League baseball in Washington, DC. It reads more like a biography of player Buck Leonard and journalist Sam Lacy. Nice to read about all the work done in the press to integrate baseball long before the 1947 occurence, but the book comes up a little short, almost like doctoral thesis.

He had one of the quickest bats I've ever seen , and was a dead-pull hitter who feasted on fastballs.

28.

Heroes of the Negro Leagues by Mark Chiarello & Jack Morelli - I wanted to read this book after a friend grabbed the last one on a recent visit to a used book store. So I had to order one new. It is a repackaging of a collection of watercolour trading cards with beautiful art and short bios of 60 Negro League players, like Cool Papa Bell, Satchel Page and Josh Gibson. Fun read.

When I die they'll bury the blues with me. But the blues will never die.

It took me almost a year, but I finally finished Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American Twentieth Century, a very dense biography of my favourite bluesman.

I wish I had taken the opportunity to see him when I was in Montreal in the 2000, but I couldn't afford the price of admission. And on this the tenth anniversary of his death, that regret is more so.

It is a very good book, painting a complex picture of a remarkable musician and stellar man. Charting his entire career from the 40's through the dark times in the 70's and 80's to his rediscovery in the 90's, it was a remarkable story.

Boom, Boom, Boom, indeed.

The following spring, on the day of its unveiling in Boston Common, when it was discovered that someone had scrawled obscene words on the statue...

29.

Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny – After catching an old episode of Prisoner’s of Gravity, I was intrigued on reading Zelazny’s post-apocalyptic tale of the last Hell’s Angel’s suicide mission of crossing Damnation Alley from LA to Boston with a cargo of needed medicine. It isn’t hard to tell it was one of the quickest written novels in Zelazny’s career, but it is fun.

It began as just another evening of fantasy gaming.

Years ago, in 1983 or 84, I was a bookish round boy who lived too much of his life in games, TV and imagination. One day, on a family trip to Bowring's department store I caught sight of a fantasy novel by Joel Rosenberg. Entitled The Sleeping Dragon, the cover intrigued me and the blurb on the back spoke to me like no other work of 'adult fiction' had to date. I asked my mother or father, not sure which, if I could get it. They said no as it was too close to my birthday.

Come Christmas morning, opening my presents in my stocking, I found the paperback I coveted so much in the bookstore.

I devoured that book. Probably being too young, some of the violence and themes disturbed me, kept me awake. But I loved it. I wanted to be these characters, to live this adventure.

As the years went by, the author wrote more adventures in the series and I read most of them, probably ending in the 90's when his direction differed from mine. But I always kept them in mind, rereading The Sleeping Dragon on more than one occasion and searching out all of them to give my nephew as present.

This week, this book came to me again. I wasn't sure why, but I felt the need to reread it, now being in my late thirties. Had it changed? I know I had.

It held up, being simpler, shorter and more hokey than I remember, but I still enjoyed it.

It made me reminisce. Nostalgia being a powerful force, I looked up the author on the web and read some sad news. He had passed away suddenly, only days within me having the whim to pick up the novel and read it again.

So, Joel, Mr. Rosenberg, where ever you are I want to say thanks. Thanks for teaching the value of humanity to a 10 yr old me.

Hiding, concealment, lying: that was not his temperament.

30.

King of the World by David Remnick – More Ali. Remnick’s biography of Ali, Patterson and Liston during the early professional days of Ali’s career is exceptional. Critical and well researched, it truly paints a picture of Ali as the boy and the man.

It dropped on the floor and sounded exactly like a pound of steel hitting a plywood board covered with linoleum.

31.

Persuader by Lee Child – Vacation book! And No. 7 in the Jack Reacher series. And I thought the last one was good. Persuader grabs you from the get go when Reacher mistakenly kills a cop during a kidnap attempt and the adrenaline just doesn’t let up.