Inverting the Pyramid

Title: Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics
Author: Jonathan Wilson
Genre: Sports (Non-fiction)
Pages: 384
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Wilson covers the history of soccer (football!) tactics from its beginnings up to the present day.  From the very first matches on up nearly until WWII, most soccer teams employed only 2 defenders and had 5 forwards.  Since that time, the pyramid has inverted, so that today we see 4 defenders and only 1 or 2 forwards.  Wilson talks about the matches, coaches, and players who were involved in that evolution, describing how ideas bounced around the globe until we came to the point we are at today.
Thoughts: You have to really love soccer to like this book, but if you like soccer you should totally read it.  It's changed the way that I watch games, actually, as I have a much better idea of the role each player is supposed to play and how they came to play those roles.  Also, I thought it was really interesting how he described the way that different ideas were exported around the world.  This idea of exporting and importing ideas I think is really at the basis of how businesses (including soccer teams) around the world stay competitive.  So I loved that aspect as well.
Disclaimer: None.
Note: A huge thanks to Kati and Joe for getting me this book for Christmas 15 months ago!  The fact that it took me 15 months to read it is simply due to the fact that I mostly listen to books, and didn't have a chance to read a real, physical copy until I rode on so many airplanes and sat in a lot of airports over the past few weeks.  Anyway, many thanks!

Rocket Boys

Title: Rocket Boys
Author: Homer Hickam, Jr.
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 368
Rating (out of 5 stars): *****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Homer Hickam,  a 14-year-old boy in Coalwood, West Virginia, decides in 1957 that he's going to learn to build rockets so that he can someday get out of his small coal-mining town and join the team in Cape Canaveral.  He and his group of friends start learning how to build rockets from scratch and come of age in the process.
Thoughts: This is the best book I've read in the past few months, easily.  Maybe I'm just a sucker for coming-of-age stories, but I really enjoyed this book a lot.  I love that it's a true story, and it had just enough humor, tension, interesting facts, and difficulties to keep me hooked all the way through.  This is the kind of book that I really want my boys to read when they are teenagers; it's all about pushing through difficulties and finding a way to make things work when things don't go your way.  All in all, just a great book.  Also, the movie October Sky was based on the book, so if you've seen that and liked it, you'll love the book.
Disclaimer: Some teenage romance, but nothing too descriptive.

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Title: Thinking, Fast and Slow
Author: Daniel Kahneman
Genre: Popular Science (non-fiction)
Pages: 512
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel-Prize winning psychologist, boils down decades of psychological research into how humans think and make decisions into a single volume.  In it, he describes the differences between fast and slow thinking, the biases that result from fast thinking, and ways that our surroundings and experiences can alter our decision-making in surprising ways.
Thoughts: This was a spectacular book if you like psychology and/or economics.  It basically covers all of behavioral economics in a very readable format, with clear examples but enough technical detail as well.  I liked it enough that I bought a print copy of it for reference.  However, keep in mind that it does kind of read like a reference book a little bit; it got to be a bit tiresome to read straight through, I thought.  Still, an amazing book from one of the best thinkers in the past 50 years.
Disclaimer: None.

This I Believe

Title: This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women
Editors: Jay Allison & Dan Gediman
Genre: Philosophy
Pages: 320
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Over the past several years, NPR has aired a feature called This I Believe in which individuals from all walks of life write and record personal belief statements.  Each statement is around 3 1/2 minutes long (about 400 words), and is typically focused on one personal belief or one story that has changed their views on life.  This book is a collection of those recordings, with about half of them coming from more famous people and the other half being culled from individuals who have submitted their "This I Believe" states to NPR directly.
Thoughts: I really liked this book a lot.  It was fascinating to listen to what people would choose to say given only 400 words to write a personal belief statement.  I found myself constantly thinking in my head, "What would I write?"  In fact, I've committed myself to writing one (I've started, but it's really hard!), and it's been a really healthy thing for me to try to do.  Nearly every segment made me think hard about whether I believe the same thing, or why my beliefs differ from others'.  If you're going to read this book, I have two recommendations.  First, listen to it on audiobook.  They have the authors each read their own statements, and I really liked having each person's own voice behind the statements.  Second, don't listen to it all straight through.  I found that with one belief statement coming right after the next, I didn't have enough time to think about what the last person had said, and sometimes I'd find myself thinking about the last statement while the next one was going on.  It'd be better to listen to one or two, then take a break, I think.
Disclaimer: None.