Paul Newman: A Life
by Shawn Levy, 2009

Paul Newman was a Phi Tau at Ohio University, which I why I initially got interested in his career (I was a Phi Tau at CWRU). Newman started a summer camp for diseased and disabled kids called the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, which spread to many different camps across the country and globe in what is now called the SeriousFun Network. Whenever Phi Tau held a philanthropy event at CWRU, our donation went to these camps. Many of our brothers also volunteered at the camps during the summers.

Besides being interested in his philanthropic efforts (including tasty Newman’s Own creations), I am also a fan of some of Newman’s movies, including The Sting (one of my favorite movies), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Cool Hand Luke, Road to Perdition, and Cars. I’ve seen a few others, but those are my favorite Newman movies. Tim Pennings, who invited me to my first internship, at Hope College, introduced me to The Sting at an intern event.

It was somewhat interesting to hear about Newman’s movie career, auto racing, philanthropy, political efforts, and family, but I realized (again) that I’m not really a biography person. I like the Wikipedia version or Spark Notes versions of people’s lives, not hearing about the nitty gritty. If you are a biography person, however, and enjoy Paul Newman movies, he does have a fascinating life and this would probably be a good book to read.

I listened to this book on tape. At the beginning, whenever “Newman” was said, I heard a Jerry Seinfeld voice in my head screaming his version of “Newman!”.

Master and Commander
by Patrick O’Brian, 1969

I listened to this one on tape over the course of about a year. Every time I finally got it checked out from the library, someone would reserve it and I wouldn’t be able to renew. (I was probably doing the same thing to the other guy that was trying to finish it.) So… one or two CD’s at a time, I guess, since my commute is a whopping 8-12 minutes. (I eventually got tired of the process and burned the last few CD’s. Don’t tell anyone.)

Really cool book about naval warfare in the Napoleonic-age (early 1800’s). Covers looting, fighting, “taking prizes”, and blowing stuff up from the personal perspective of the captain and surgeon on one smaller ship. What I liked the most was that the book doesn’t spell every little detail out. A lot is left to the reader to imagine or fill in. Well-written and fairly fast-paced. I was able to pick the book back up in the middle after a few months off and remember what was going on. Recommended, though I doubt I’ll be reading all 19 sequels.

Gatefather
by Orson Scott Card, 2015

The final installment in the Mithermages trilogy. Continues storylines from the previous book, The Gate Thief. Checks in at almost 400 pages, though I read it in about a day. Could have lost 50-100 pages of excessive dialogue with some tidying editing. The storyline about the high schoolers is particularly long-winded and somewhat superfluous in this book. I get that the main character is supposed to still be a 17 year old, but trying to ground him to other high school friends in the midst of the chaos and power swirling around his world doesn’t work very well.

With about 20 pages to go, I was worried that this was going to need a 4th book to wrap up the various storylines, but it finally does bring it all to a conclusion. Worth reading if you’ve started the trilogy.