I was motivated to read BACK IN SHAPE: A BACK OWNER’S MANUAL by my own back pain issues (in my case caused mostly by my own waistline largess). The concept is a good one. A guide to how your back works, what can go wrong with it and how to maintain it. The first half of the book is excellent detailing the myths and modern strategies of caring for the back. The Manual’s strategy is to exercise the back whenever possible—even while you are in pain—and it makes a compelling argument. To their credit the author does not down play the often nebulous nature of back pain. Any given pain can have a myriad of causes but generally our pain relates to muscle strain—improper use of our dilapidated out of shape backs—so strengthening our backs as soon as possible is the goal. At about the half way point, the book details some exercises for strengthening your back. Fairly well illustrated, and there is a nice variety of exercises but this is where the book begins to decline. Despite the very good set up, the exercises are presented in a rather sloppy manner. As a bunch they are just plopped into the book. Would have appreciated an outline of how to group exercises, repetitions recommended, etc. From this point on, the book feels like a draft of a book about backs. There is interesting info but it is all just dumped onto the page and often repeating info from the first half. In fact, there are more exercises in the second half but many or most of them were the same as in the first half. The second half feels like a failed first draft of the first half. Over all a valuable tool and I am succeeding in using what it has taught me about strengthening my back but not what it could have been.

The first techno thriller. I love to read about history, and this is history in infinite detail. Part seafaring adventure part whaling training manual, I devoured page after doomed page as Ahab and the crew are at odds with each other and the sea constantly tempting and taunting a fate that none of them but Ahab want to face. Shifting back and forth between the gradual clenching of fates teeth about the crew and the detailed depictions of the whaling trade kept me enthralled the whole time.

A must read for any Dodger fan interested in the team’s history. A should read for anyone who loves baseball. And an ought to read for any one who just loves good stories. Mostly bite sized, entertaining anecdotes from Carl Erskine’s tenure with Dem Bums the Brooklyn Dodgers, the batting average for entertainment is quite high. I give it an extra star as a Dodger fan but they really are well edited entertaining stories.

Everything we take for granted started somewhere as a new idea. Then that idea was followed by people discussing its merits. Today we are awash in images from movies—and an ocean of content discussing movies on levels from the sublime to the ludicrous is constantly available for a swim. When movies were new, they came and went quickly and often just completely vanished with little regard for their meaning and value. This book is an early attempt to stand in the flow of movies heading towards oblivion and declare that movies are not only an art form but that they should be preserved. The text is slim but enlightening—a new language under construction to discuss film as art. Any new language borrows from old ones and both dance and painting factor appropriately into how the author discusses film. Much of the book is dedicated to preserving actual images from the movies themselves—since the author seemed to have little hope that the movies themselves might be recirculated somehow. The images are magnificent in quality of choice and presentation. Can’t imagine a lot of books from the 1920’s have photo plates of this quality. Definitely worth a look for a glance into the history of movies and film criticism. Rating as an artifact *****.

Bought as a gift for a friend, hoped the title might make them laugh -- but thought it wise to read it first. Surprised how much I appreciated it. It makes good points in good time. Short chapters breezily written offering a template for bouncing back from sudden termination. Amusing but not a joke, cuts the fat off the usual self help book where often the same point is made six different ways just to pad out pages. Well done, sir.