Read from December 2009 till February 2010.

Open is Andre Agassi‘s autobiography.  The book was ghost-written by J.R. Moehringer but the material was provided through a series of recorded interviews with Andre.  I cannot talk about this book without explaining how it relates to me.

I have followed Andre Agassi since I was seven years old and first learned to play tennis.  Andre was a childhood idol of mine.  Him, and David Duchovny (yes I was a huge X-Files fan) were my childhood idols.  Both for different reasons.  Andre for his baseline game that rebelled from traditional tennis.  David for being a Princeton alumni (basketball “scholarship”) and Yale doctoral candidate prior to joining Hollywood – essentially being a highly educated actor.  And yet, as an adult, only Andre Agassi remains as an idol.  And for a very different reason: his commitment to philanthropy and dedication to the “process vs the outcome” philosophy in tennis and in life.

I was familiar with much of Andre’s childhood and his upbringing.  I was also familiar with his career since turning professional through his retirement.  But reading these same events told through his eyes provided a dimension to my understanding of him that did not exist before.

Just as publicly we all watched Andre’s tennis mature, Open sheds light on how Andre himself matured through his career.  I will never forget some of his classic matches, but this book recounts them from his perspective, which just cannot be beaten.  Hopefully I will be able to buy a collector’s edition to the matches described in Open simply because they are so well detailed in the book that I want to see those matches again.

Many other book reviews exist for this story so I don’t need to try to repeat them.  I simply want to remember how much this story meant to me.  It is so rare that a childhood idol can remain one in adulthood. Watching today’s tennis stars and seeing how they have all been influenced by Andre makes his legacy even longer.  He truly straddled three generations of tennis players and with his return of serve and ground-stroke precision changed how the game is played.

Quite simply, Open is more than an autobiography.  It doubles as a self-help book through the eyes of one of America’s most public athletes – to help identify what is important in life and how to choose what you want out of it.

I also recommend watching his final goodbye to tennis and his introduction to his wife to the Tennis Hall of Fame.  Both are embedded below:

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• Agassi serves up honesty in memoir (boston.com)
• Fascinating Story, but Who Wrote It? (online.wsj.com)
• How Agassi Served Up Another Winner (cbsnews.com)
• Andre Agassi on love, hate, life and tennis (cnn.com)
• Open, An Autobiography by Andre Agassi (gothamgal.com)

Read from September 2009 to November 2009

My Revolutions by Hari Kunzru is a fictional story of one man coming to terms with his rebellious coming-of-age in London in the 1960s. The book is truly historical fiction, with historical accuracy for the events described. However, since I have not studied that part of European history I wasn’t familiar with it.

Overall the writing is easy to follow and the story unfolds reasonably quickly. The narrative is told through a series of flashbacks which work reasonably well. I found the story enjoyable and learned a bit about the undercurrents of revolution in the 1960s in London. A valuable read for Kunzru fans.

Read more about it here.

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• Looking back on New Labour: Hari Kunzru (guardian.co.uk)
• A Year in Reading: Hari Kunzru (themillions.com)

Pisani documents her travels and entrance into the world of “sex and drugs” as she puts it to find out about the spread of HIV through the late 1990s.  The story moves quickly and her writing style is enjoyable.  Her perspective is pragmatic and how she writes about “whipping up” the case for HIV to get funding from the rich countries and the difficulties in getting accurate results in developing countries.  There is lots of content mixed in with great stories about the sex habits in Indonesia, Singapore, among other places.

Enjoyable read considering I know nothing about epidemialogy.  Hope to get it again from the library soon and finish it off.

Read more about it and buy it from here. Find out more from Pisani’s site as well: http://www.wisdomofwhores.com.

This is my first Koontz novel and I think he writes for a different age group.  I realized I am a fan of classic science fiction – Koontz’s type of science fiction/thriller writing is bothersome to me.  I am under the impression his audience is teenage boys or something like that with the one-sided narrative and outlandish themes.

There is little to no science in Koontz’s characters.  The main character being light-phobic is okay, but the overall story was entirely too long (for no good reason).  The last few discs were a chore to complete.

Unless you like Koontz already I would avoid this book, and I am reasonably sure I will avoid Koontz from now on for sci-fi/fiction.

Read more about it and buy it from here.

This is an old story but well written and classic Crichton.  This is his first fictional novel, based in the 1960s (when it was written) and since it is about the controversial topic of abortion Crichton chose to write it under a pseudonym.  The story boils down to a murder mystery about a girl who was getting an illegal abortion in a Boston hospital.  The main character’s job is to find out what really happened and free the doctor who is being setup for the death.  Subtle social commentary as the doctor being setup is Chinese and everyone in the hospital knows he performs abortions on the side.

Well worth the read, read more about it and buy it here.

This is a fun story by Danielle Steel regarding how an old house is an important part of a 30-something lawyer’s life.  It isn’t as romantic or sappy as I had worried.  The story is quick to listen and has enough fun in it to keep things interesting.  A little cheesy but it is expected for this type of story.

Read more about it and buy it from here.

This book is a giant waste of time.  I didn’t realize it was a book written after a movie was made with the same name.  I thought it was the book the movie was based on – but it isn’t – it is written based on the movie.  So this was a terrible purchase and a joke of a read.

Please avoid it unless you really want to read a book written like a movie – about a movie. Not even worth an image / Amazon link.

I read this back in March 2003 (see here) – but didn’t really remember the story.  So I thought I would reread it.  On a reread it was a decent story, nothing overwhelming and not quite as good as Palahniuk or Robbins, but good nonetheless.

If you like Palahniuk or Robbins then check this out, otherwise it can be skipped.

Read more about it or buy it from here.

This is my second Lewis book, though it is his first.  It is a great story of his first career as a stock broker in the 1980s.  It showcases some of the problems with the profession while talking about some of the merits of it as well.  I enjoyed reading this book since it shares the same writing style as “Moneyball”.  Lewis makes a topic that I am not particularly interested in come alive through the stories he tells of his experience.

This is a fun read, especially since the country is heading into a recession.

Read more about it and buy it from here.

This collection of short stories from Lahiri was not at the same quality as “The Namesake”.  Each short story does a great job of developing the characters involved but does not do an equally good job of actually concluding the story.  Many of the stories feel incomplete considering the depth of each character.  Part of this might be my fault since most of the short stories I have read are sci-fi so that is where my expectations are being set from.

If you want to read about Indian/American characters adjusting to various parts of living in the US then this audio book is worth listening to.

Read more and buy it from here.