History, Michael Moore Style

Rivethead by Ben Hamper
I like books about how cars are made.  This would fall into that category, and it is interesting.  It's also written by someone who thinks the world owes him something and who thoroughly fails to understand that he's not entitled to a good paying job on an assembly line.  It is art as history, or art as biography; either way, it's only for the hardcore lover of automotive history.  It is also, perhaps, a sad commentary on why the American automotive industry fell into decline.
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Dining on Jurassic Carnivores

Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman
Before I read this book, I didn't know there were writers like Chuck Klosterman.  In this book he delves into matters I have always wondered about yet never expected would be explained so thoroughly and philosophically.  For instance, why was Ralph Sampson, the UVA/Houston Rockets member of the "Twin Towers" so hated?  Why did Garth Brooks become Chris Gaines?  How is AC/DC like ABBA?  If you are interested in just about everything, and always asking "why?" about things few other rational beings care about, Klosterman's writing will be right up your alley.
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"Tragic Hero"

Grizzly Man by Werner Herzog (DVD)
Treadwell lived with grizzlies in Alaska for parts of 13 summers with no means of protection.  And though he was no hero, at least not in the way we usually think about heroes, I think it would be fair to consider him a "tragic hero."  Dictionary.com defines as a tragic hero as a "character who makes an error of judgment or has a fatal flaw that, combined with fate and external forces, brings on a tragedy."  Treadwell would have been a psychologist's dream, since reveling in potential imminent death on a daily basis surely cannot be considered rational behavior.  Still, he was incredibly brave and seemed to truly care for the wild creatures that were his subjects. While I had laughed and snickered about the "guy who was eaten by grizzlies" before I ever saw this film, I was touched by it and slightly ashamed.  No, I don't think Treadwell was really helping the bears.  Yes, I think he was crazy.  Yet, due to my own soft-hearted feelings toward living creatures, I feel some kinship with Treadwell and am sorry he could not have channeled his love for animals in a more useful direction.  While he was clearly troubled, Treadwell was not the joke I had made him out to be.
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"The Rule About Bears is their Unpredictability"...anonymous

Night of the Grizzlies by Jack Olsen
This book details the first two grizzly related deaths in Glacier National Park, both on the same night in 1967.  Written by acclaimed journalist Jack Olsen, it's is a fascinating insight into the National Park Service's understanding of the grizzly threat to man over 40 years ago.  Before these killings, one would have been forgiven for thinking that grizzlies were a potential nuisance to man rather than a danger.  While it's heavier on background than action, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It's still a relatively popular read, and it led me to Grizzly Man.  While Grizzly Man has been and will be, no doubt, easily parodied, it is a deeply moving story for anyone who loves animals.
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Air Jordan

Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made by David Halberstam
A good overview of Michael Jordan's basketball career, up through his second retirement in 2008.  Halberstam is an excellent historian (see, for instance, The Reckoning).  Maybe that's why this book struck a bit of a discordant note with me; it reads like a book about sports written by a historian.  There's a distance or lack of intimate feel for the small details of the game.  Too, like many sports books, it includes too many locker room- type quotes; frankly "we're so *%$#@! great" just doesn't come across as well in the written word as it might in the verbal heat of the battle.  Another quibble I have is that the book is not written in a linear fashion.  There is a lot of back and forth, past to present.  While useful at times, it feels like a gimmick.  A book on the Bulls' last season, Blood on the Horns, while not nearly so comprehensive, is a much more enjoyable read.
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Dad's Half-Track

Roller is being welded to the bumper.

Dust Bowl

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan

Stunning.  I had no idea the Dust Bowl was this brutal.  It's hard to fathom what those who stayed and lived through it endured.  I highly recommend this book.  As the Cleveland Plain Dealer puts it, the book "haunts a reader from the first pages."
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Amazon Selling More E-books

Traditional new book sales on Amazon now trail the sale of e-books.

An Automotive Atrocity

Six Men Who Built the Modern Auto Industry by Richard A. Johnson

The author of this book is the Managing Editor of Automotive News.  His subjects are Henry Ford II, Soichiro Honda, Lee Iacocca, Bob Lutz, Ferdinand Piech, and Eberhard von Kuenheim.  While the book contains a lot of information that could have been interesting if dealt with properly, it's a mess in its finished form.  Rambling and redundant, Six Men clearly lacked professional editing.  I've seldom struggled this much to finish a book.
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Try to Avoid the Shuffling Folks with Sightless Eyes

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

As of May 2011, the paperback version of the book, published in 2007, remains an Amazon top seller with a sales rank of 306.  According the the Dallas Morning News, the book is "probably the most topical and literate scare since Orson Welles's War of the Worlds radio broadcast."  The authentic feel generated by the oral history format makes it easy to slip into the mindset of history researcher.
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Interesting Sale

This first edition of Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama sold for $850.  Only 7,500 copies were released, most to libraries. This was an ex-library copy in good condition.