This Midpoint Review for 2014 Interrupted by WORLD CUP CHAMPIONSHIP EDITION REVIEW

I could watch it over and over again.  I'm overdue for my mid-year review, so I'll say a few words about each book I've read so far.  Why not start with the two soccer books I've read in the first half of 2014?  I see no reason why I should leave those until the end. 

I remember watching the 1990 World Cup final between West Germany and Argentina with my dad.  My family has deep German roots and dad supported Germany.  I have followed Germany ever since that game.  I've suffered with that team, but I've enjoyed following them for so long.  I wrote about how the 2006 World Cup loss to Italy may have been my worst sports moment here.  USA is number one, but Germany is 1(b) (maybe even 1(a)(i)).  The point is, I love the German team, so this was a phenomenal World Cup and I'm still loving the win.

(Once again, * denotes a top-five candidate as of the midpoint)

FUSSBALL BUECHER

The first soccer book I read in 2014 was Brilliant Orange, by David Winner.  I have already posted about this book  here.  There are only so many ways I can reiterate how thoroughly the Dutch embrace failure, but they won't stop giving examples.  As a post-script to my earlier post, I present two new bits of data that made me chuckle.

First, the Netherlands released the design of a coin to go into circulation featuring Robbin Van Persie's goal against Spain.  They chose to immortalize it forever... BEFORE THE SEMI-FINAL MATCH! The press conference before their game with Argentina involved quotes about that goal and the team's strategy for beating Spain because the coin basically put that issue in front of them. Van Persie, ever embracing Holland's weak gag-reflex, had to admit it was a beautiful goal.  I texted Dave then and there that they were in trouble. If you read my post or this book it should be pretty obvious that only the Netherlands can find a way to discuss a glory from weeks before while preparing to play for a place in the finals.  The Dutch team is ridiculous and it's systematic.  

Second, their coach, Louis van Gaal, had two (TWO!) players refuse to take the first penalty kick against Argentina even though a coin had issued and Arjen Robben (Olympic-level diver) was on the team (if that comes off as an accusation of cowardice directed at the Dutch Greg Louganis... well, it is).  The coach used the word "refuse."  So,  Van Gaal asked a defender to take the all-important first penalty kick because he "had a good game."  The defender did have a great game (in defense), but Argentina trotted out Lionel Messi (the best player in the world and a man ineligible to play for Holland if only because he WOULD NEVER REFUSE... Sorry, I lost my composure there for a minute... they are really ridiculous).  It's really just amazing.  Van Gaal invoked the shame of 2000 when he then referred to penalty kicks as dependent on luck (if you think starting PKs with a defender is a good idea, sure, I guess).  Do I even need to mention that Messi nailed his and the defender missed?  So, Mr. Winner should be adding his new postscript soon, and I can't wait to read it.

Tor!, by Uli Hesse, on the other hand, is a history of German soccer, so I got to read about winning.   Now, THAT was a fun read during World Cup. 

It brought back so many memories of the teams I followed between 1990 and 2002 (the book was published in 2003).  I learned how soccer started in the country, how both world wars interrupted play and impacted their national team, and about the Bundesliga and its unique formation in a nation that shunned professionalism in its sports stars.

I learned that Germany was among the last nations to allow professionalism in sports in any way.  That was just fascinating because we just take it for granted that people make money playing sports.  Yet, somehow, Germany clung to an idea of amateurism that reached deep into the 1960s.  Don't get me wrong, loopholes essentially led to payment, but it was a mess until they finally succumbed to reality.  The 1954 World Cup Championship team was made up of amateurs against professionals.  Speaking of 1954, it was really interesting to read about how much that victory meant to the nation in the aftermath of WWII.  The feeling was described as one that made them "matter" again.

I ate this book up.  The rivalries (sorry, not the Dutch), the legendary games (against Italy in the "Match of the Century" in 1970), the shameful 1982 team (both because of Schumacher's borderline murder of Frenchman Battiston and the intentional result to keep Algeria out), and everything about Franz Beckenbauer.  I learned about how rigid and crazy the East German leagues were and how difficult "integration" was for those players.

No one made a coin for the 2014 team before the trophy was won, and so they get to make one now that won't inspire a nation to facepalm.   



*The Game, by Ken Dryden, was not a soccer book, but it was a great sports book.  Plus, it included Ken Dryden using England as an example of a nation that started as a dominant originator to caution Canada about the rising Soviet Union and United States.  He basically pleaded with his nation not to become in hockey what England has become in football.  That was funny.

Ken Dryden's book is considered one of the all-time greats and it deserves that reputation.  What a fantastic book.  Very cerebral. Very well written.  A real treat for anyone at all interested in hockey.  His description of the instinctual parts of the game were fantastic.  He described fighting "age," but the biggest obstacle was actually developing new interests while aging and maturing.  In short, hockey becomes less important, so the drive goes before the legs do.  Just a great book.  

ALREADY WROTE ABOUT

A Killing Art, by Alex Gillis. I enjoyed this book and wrote about it here.

Bleak House, by Charles Dickens.  I did not enjoy this one and wrote about it here.

I wrote about Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, by Patton Oswalt, Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline,  Six Amendments, by John Paul Stevens, Snuff, by Chuck Palahniuk, and *Going Solo, by Roald Dahl here.

I wrote about *Rant, by Chuck Palahniuk, here.

I reviewed The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, here.

I finished the Last Lion series with *The Last Lion #3: Defender of the Realm, by William Manchester and Paul Reid  here.

EVERYTHING ELSE

*Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut.  I have a ton to say about this.  It will likely have its own blog post soon.  This was my first experience reading Kurt Vonnegut.

My favorite quote from the book was on page 181: "Beware the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."

The hopes of people for a "perfect" country get placed on one island, which made for fantastic illustration of human insanity.  I really loved and focused on that element.  The idea of "the Hook," where law-breakers hang when they break laws, illustrated so much about how simple people think everything can/should be before they think hard about things.  Yet, we create world-destroying weapons and carry it in a thermos.  

I have much more to say about this one, and I will in a separate post.


Not Taco Bell Material, Adam Corolla.  I read it because his last book made me laugh and I have been on a mission to read unread books on my Kindle.  I read it to pad stats and get a cheap laugh. It provided both.

Taekwon-Do, by Gen. Choi Hong Hi.  I read the entire textbook and got some pretty great pointers. The art boils down to physics and making your body utilize physics.  It's a blast. The old 70s era photos were fantastic as well.  My favorite photos are the ones illustrating "couch attacks" where one guy kicks another guy in the face while they sit on a peg-legged paisley couch.  In one other photo, a guy has double knit and a butterfly collar. 

Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, by David Lipsky.  This is an old interview with David Foster Wallace that was stretched out into a book.  The author justifies his badgering over drug questions as "journalism" when he really just came off as a dick.  It is also an illustration of why things end up on a cutting-room floor.  It was interesting because DFW is interesting, but ultimately it was not a very satisfying picture of the man (he is, afterall, giving an interview).  There is still a movie in the works, and I am certain there is no way I will like it.  In fact, I'm already so bent out of shape over it that the movie has no shot.  Depictions of our favorites in life always fall short of what that person is to us individually.  So, I just hope it doesn't suck in a certain way when it is released in theaters.  That's the best I can do.

Shop Class As Soulcraft, by Matthew B. Crawford, was a fun read about how we have essentially hidden many blue collar jobs under the guise of white collar.  It was a good philosophical look at work and the value of working with your hands.

Schottenfreude, by Ben Schott.  Fun and crazy German compound nouns!  One that the Dutch could use was Boesewichstduckmaeusrigkeit (Cowardice in the face of malevolence).  Watzmannwahn (the impulse to take impetuous risks when tantalizingly close to your goal) also works.  It was a fun read.

Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown.  I just finished this one and will let my thoughts settle.  After all, I have to have something to write about for the final run for 2014, right? Suffice it to say, this book will tug at anyone's guilt strings.

Cheers for the second-half book run to come!  And congratulations to the new Weltmeister!