Mystic crystal revelation, and the mind's true liberation...So Sagsy, how's that personal goal of reading 50 books in 2006 workin' out for you?
The Toronto Star's Chris Young is doing a book review week, which is a good swift kic... er, prompt to give an update on where I stand with My Neal Pollack-inspired New Year's resolution.
It was made before this renewed commitment to blogging, but as of this writing, the tally is at 41. No, smart-ass, not all of them were about sports, and so what if about a third of that total is sports books? Besides, any Canuck who would read a book about a long-dead ballplayer (Clemente by David Maraniss) while live-blogging Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final is clearly a different type of sports nerd.
Now, No. 41, finished last night, was Damien Cox's collaboration with New Jersey Devils goalie Martin Brodeur, Brodeur: Beyond the Crease. It's a can't-miss good seller -- top hockey columnist at Canada's largest paper teams up to write a book with a legendary NHL netminder whose story really hasn't been told what's loosely known as "English Canada."
First off, a major mea culpa goes out to Cox, Brodeur and publisher John Wiley & Sons Canada (full disclosure: I interviewed a V-P at that house for an article that ran in September's Quill & Quire) for not feeling fully satisfied by the end. It's a pretty good read and it seems like Cox tapped into Brodeur's natural gift for observation, so overall it paints a pretty good picture of day-to-day life in the contemporary NHL, which really hasn't been done. There were some issues -- repeated information, tiny errors that slipped past during the copy-editing (Zach Parise's alma mater is called the "University of Dakota") -- that will ideally get corrected if the book comes out in paperback. There's enough good stuff in Brodeur that the goalie(s) in your life should like it.
There were some other good books I've read recently, and I will share those later on. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.
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