Hero of the Underground--#55 finished

This is former NE football player Jason Peter's story.  Mostly his story of his severe drug addiction with stuff from his playing days mixed in.  A shocking and good read that gives a very good idea how drugs can mess up someone's life.  Starting with pain pills that he took to sleep and then wake up and get through a practice or a game.  Then from what sounds like boredom when outside of football, he gets into recreational drugs.  Then after his career ended early from injuries and again bored and no clue what to do with life, he turns to drugs.  A couple of detox trips where he immediately goes back into drugs and even into harder stuff after hearing stories at these places.  Still doing pain pills, cocaine, crack, heroin and mixing them, even some meth since nothing else was there towards the end.

While the book is shocking, I have a really hard time feeling sorry for him, the writer.  He has all the money he should ever need and is a smart person and just pisses it away.  Our prisons are full of people that were on drugs to a much lessor extent than he was, maybe he is lucky but that doesn't mean I will like or respect him.  I hope for his sake his life is good still and no relapses but relapsing will be something he will probably fight the rest of his life.

I have posted it on PBS, there is 1 copy a head of it so I would think it will move at some point.  Still reading The End of Mr Y, getting closer there and a Far Place To Go--or something like that.  I also have Zone One, I think that is the title, a zombie book I think but I am only a very few pages into it so far.

Secret Girl--#54 finished

This is a tragic and very moving book.  A true story of a well to do family in Baltimore area that has twin girls with one of the twins having hydrocephalus, water on the brain.  This was in the early '60s I believe and just a few years short of the medical improvements for the child.  The family made the decision to have the little girl institutionalized.  The original thought was the girl would at most live a year.  The institutionalizing is upsetting but this was a different time and the mother was a little unstable, okay.  What followed though was an almost total disregard for this child Annie.  The book is written by an older sister that didn't find out until around 12 or 13 that she had a sister in an institution.

Again this is a well to do family, in one passage the author talks about the research she did into where Annie was living.  When Annie was around 4, she had outgrown the newborn and infant care house and needed to be moved.  The family applied for a spot at a state institution but would only pay what they were paying at the infant house.  While the family and director were sending letters back and forth, the mother, father & the oldest--the author--took a trip to Italy & Europe for a couple weeks.  This is a family where on the mother(and maybe both sides) that can trace back to the earliest Americans--a real blue blooded family.  The mother almost never visited her child and the father only rarely--about once a year--all while they were only minutes away.  Again upsetting but family wants to distance themselves--really upsetting but in their shoes and all, but when the state asked about sending Annie into foster care for her benefit on not being in an institution and into a more socially appropriate setting--they refused.

After reading these parts of the book, I am really trying my best to not judge the parents.  I certainly don't want to presume hell but that almost seems the case.  Purgatory would be a blessing.  I keep reminding myself that people are complex beyond even our comprehending them and this book only touches on a silver of the lives of the parents so balancing could appear elsewhere in their life--I can only hope for their sake that is the case.

Anyway, the oldest sister was successful in many ways but also screwed up in as many--an alcoholic to the point where it nearly ruined her life.  The author doesn't come out and say it but it seems as though Annie in a way was almost part of the reason she was able to be sober for many years.  Again people are complex and Holly or Brucie as she was also called, was quitting as a lawyer to become a writer, was divorcing her husband and father of their 2 sons and it sounds like it was a bitter divorce as well as she was trying to connect with Annie.  Lots going on and all that.  In the epilogue she mentions one of her sons dying tragically in Africa at age 11 and she became a drunk all over again.  This was also at a time when Annie's health was dropping and eventually Annie died.  A sad sad ending to the story.  This book is a real lesson I think for people to see that all people must be respected.  It had to be a very difficult book for the author to research her sister's life and observe through the research the almost monstrous actions of her parents.

This is a well traveled PBS book, I am the 6th owner and have already posted it.  It is the only copy on the system so I expect it will be moving soon.  I gave some thought to keeping it but again figured that this book was too moving to keep--let it be spread out to others.

Stuff White People Like--#53 finished

This is one of those books that started as a blog and got enough attention that it became a book.  A great story but does read basically like a blog entry.  Funny stuff here, lots of observations about weird habits of white people.  The author is British or partially or something, he does really explain in the book but maybe on the blog--I didn't check that far into it.  It seems to be about a generation behind me, so I can laugh at it but I also realize that if someone did this 10 to 15 years ago, I would probably be nailed.  Still some stuff here that I fit but the test at the end my white person % was pretty low.

A friend at work had picked up this book and liked it and passed it along.  I will be returning it to him.  This one does have like 50 WL for it on PBS but this one won't be going there.  I snuck it in in time to be done for Sept too on the last day.

In My Time--#52 finished

This is Dick Cheney's memoir.  It seems that sometimes I am one of the few Dick Cheney fans out there.  I really enjoyed him at the 2 VP debates he did and his politics while conservative were also tough and steady.  As the VP has was very much tied down to what President wanted and to me it seems he would have made quite a few different decisions that President Bush made.  Of course Cheney's loyalty to those around him would not let him express that in this book.  He did take shots at Condi Rice & Colin Powell but that was after explaining he truly respected them but disagreed with some of their decisions.  Well maybe a little harsher than that.  I do want to read now President Bush's book that I have that goes over some his major decisions as President but that might have to wait a month or so--that would probably be too much politics right away.

From reading this memoir I respect Cheney even more.  It really shows how his experience came to bear in the Bush Presidency and how Cheney was an important piece of the President.  I really liked this book.  For the most part he did not take many shots at President Obama but did point out the differences as well as how President Obama has had to backtrack on issues that he campaigned on.

All in all liked the book and not sure at this point if it will be a keeper or not.  Right now leaning toward keeper.

Swag--#51 finished

Well, it certainly took long enough for me to finish my next book.  This is a 1970s, book about a couple guys who decide to become robbers.  I mean the book is in the 1970s but also it was written in the '70s.  A good read, a different time different mindsets, kind of interesting.  Really not much here other than a Elmore Leonard book, only 2nd one I have read and both were pretty good.  I will have to keep looking for his books.

I am still working on the Dick Cheney book, In My Time, I am just around 100 pages to go.  I hope to have it finished by the end of the month.  I am also still reading The End of Mr. Y, it is taking longer and slower than I had hoped.  I am past 100 pages but still under 150 I think.  Reading in Sept has been very sporadic and it shows with only having 3 finished and all smaller books too.

The Color of Night--#50 finished

This a very dark book about a woman that seems to be part of a hippie scene like the Mansons that she somehow after killings gets away and sort of disappears.  She has a female lover that she then recognizes in a 9/11 scene on TV and contacts her.  Eventually she travels to meet her in NY city where her lover has become part of the establishment but is dying of cancer.  Throw in screwed up childhood with sex scenes with her older brother as well as knife play and killing animals, well this is a really screwed up life.  It is dark, it is ugly, this person and her actions have not really changed or developed, she is screwed up and scary as she was as a teenager.  Her brother went to Vietnam and came back even more screwed up and eventually killed his family and died in a police standoff before he had a chance to burn down the house he was in.  There is really not a redeeming person in this book.

I have a very hard time likely this book.  I don't like the writer's style of jumbling back and forth and never really getting to a point.  The characters are tough and you are not supposed to like them but for those reasons I can't really like this book either.

Well, I will post it at some point on PBS & mail it off, there are 6 WL for it.  Still reading the Dick Cheney book and The End of Mr Y.  I also started a 1970s action book Swag.  Not sure if I will get into a 4th book yet or not.

People Who Live at the End of Dirt Roads--#49 finished

A short story book.  It is all old time sappy stuff about how life was so much better in small towns & in farms.  While some of it is sort of true it is surrounded by all the sappy stuff that it is just sort of mindless drivel.  I had higher hopes for this book but oh well.

I will be posting it on PBS at some point, but not tonight--it is too late & I am going to bed.