Clockwork

Clockwork is a short story/childrens book by Phillip Pullman, the author of the "His Dark Materials" series, however it pre-dates all but the first. I read it in one night, and I'm not a fast reader.

It's a story with two or three intertwining plots that sort of interconnect in an interesting way. It begins with a story teller presenting a story he hasn't finished. In the middle, one of the characters enters the tavern, and we begin to learn the 'story' is actually 'reality', and he hasn't finished it because it's not played out yet.

We jump back to fill in some of the plot, return to the future, and bounce around. I really enjoyed it. I'm not sure I'd read it to my daughter (she's currently 5), but when she's a little older, she might like it.

Moneyball

I loved Moneyball. It completely changes how you look at the game of baseball. In a nutshell, it talks about Billy Beane's revolutionary approach to evaluating players, not on RBIs or batting average, but basically ON BASE PERCENTAGE. He is able then to aquire player everyone else ignores dirt cheap, and put together a rather respectable team.

Sure there's a lot of controversy over his methods. Sure, they must be taken in moderation, because I DO think they overlook the mental part of the game. However, if you're spending $40 million on payroll, and winning as many games as a team with a $140 million payroll, you MUST be doing something right.

The argument about never winning a pennant or World Series I think falls short. Billy is playing the odds, just like the casino. Over the long haul (186 games), his strategy works great. However, over the course of a 5 or 7 game series, the random swings of fortune take over.

If you like baseball, you'll love this book.

The Revolving Boy

Stacey read this when she was younger, and found it at the library. When she was done, I read it.

It was a quick Sci-Fi novel about a boy who somehow is aligned with a distant planet that is broadcasting signals to earth (although he doesn't know what is is aligned to). No matter where he is, how he is turned, or what he does, he knows the direction of things, and can find the signal.

It's not quite logically consistent. Why does knowing the direction of a radio signal give you the ability to know how to point to Taiwan through the Earth?

What bugged me most was how the novel was unresolved. At the end, they figure out why he is leaning that way, and what the signal is (it's a signal from a distant planet), but they don't actually make any contact.

I just felt it didn't wrap things up nicely. It felt unfinished, like there should be an entire part III that dealt with making contact.

But it was still kind of fun - definitely an interesting idea even if there are unresolved pieces.