The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Title: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Author: Victor Hugo
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 577
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: The classic tale of Frolo, Esmeralda, and Quasimodo.  Except, the real novel is pretty different from the Disney movie.
Thoughts: Like most 19th century fiction, this book has an excellent plot combined with pages and pages of pretty boring description (of Paris, the cathedral, the costumes of actors in a sideshow, etc.).  So, it takes a little patience to get into the book.  But, for the most part I really enjoyed the novel, and I continue to view Victor Hugo as a pure genius of a story writer.  In this novel, the way he shows how the prejudices of the various characters leads to their downfall is really pretty amazing.  Also, I liked the ending of the real novel better than the Disney movie (although I can see why Disney needed to adapt the story for kids...).
Disclaimer: None.

Scorecasting

Title: Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports are Played and Games are Won
Authors: Tobias Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim
Genre: Popular Science
Pages: 288
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: The Freakonomics of sports.  Moskowitz and Wertheim dive into data on every major sport to investigate things like: Does defense win championships? Where does home field advantage come from? Does loss aversion result in more losses?  And so forth.
Thoughts: I enjoyed this book, and if you're a sports fan and like numbers you should definitely read it.  I especially enjoyed the section on home field advantage, as it's something that I've wondered about for a long time.  My only complaint is that the whole "why everything you thought was true is wrong" is way overplayed, in my opinion.  Clearly, telling us that things we think are true really are wrong is a good way to catch attention and sell books.  I just think it was a bit overbearing in this book.  That being said, as an economist and numbers guys, I can't complain about the analysis nor the conclusions, and found nearly every chapter interesting.
Disclaimer: None.

The Boys in the Boat

Title: The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
Author: Daniel James Brown
Genre: History
Pages: 404
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Jesse Owens is the most famous American from the 1936 Olympics, but this book tells the story of 9 working-class boys from the University of Washington who competed in the 8-oar crew race in Berlin.  Most the book tells their back story, detailing the tough conditions of the depression, and how they came together as a team to beat the odds.
Thoughts: If you liked Unbroken or Seabiscuit, then you would like this book.  It's very much in that same flavor, and it's extremely well-written.  I love that it told a story I had never heard before, and I especially liked the sections that detailed how 8-men crew teams have to flow together perfectly as one group to achieve any sort of success.  Also, the backgrounds of some of the boys was simultaneously appalling and fascinating.  My only complaint with the book is that it felt a bit formulaic, as many sports tales can be.  But other than that, it was great.
Disclaimer: None.

The Light Between Oceans

Title: The Light Between Oceans
Author: M. L. Stedman
Genre: Modern Fiction
Pages: 345
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: A couple that lives on a lighthouse off the coast of western Australia find a boat washed up onshore.  In the boat, there is a dead man and a healthy baby.  It just so happens that the couple have recently had a miscarriage and they feel that this baby is a gift from God, so they raise her as their own daughter, keeping it a secret that she wasn't their baby at the first.
Thoughts: This book surprised me.  I was expecting a romantic love story, I think.  But it turns out to be more about honesty, morality, the love of a parent for a child, and the love a couple shares through hardship.  I really enjoyed the story quite a bit.  It was hard to put down, but also thought-provoking.  I'd recommend it.  Also, the reader on the audiobook was fantastic.
Disclaimer:  None, which is very rare for a modern book!

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Title: The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Author: Mohsin Hamid
Genre: Modern Fiction
Pages: 191
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Changez is a young Pakistani man who recently graduated from Princeton and got a job at a finance firm in New York City.  He attempts to find his way as a Pakistani-American, and does well until 9/11 and attitudes toward him change.  The novel details an immigrant version of finding the American Dream, while attempting to remain Pakistani at the same time.
Thoughts: I enjoyed this book for the most part, but I can't honestly say that I've thought much about it since I read it.  It's fairly well-written and easy to read, but I never found it very gripping or engaging.  The ending is quite ambiguous and is meant to be thought-provoking, but I just found it kind of abrupt and odd.  Overall I'm glad I read it, but I don't give it too high of a recommendation.
Disclaimer: There is one somewhat explicit scene with his girlfriend and a few swear words.

Boys Adrift

Title: Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men
Author: Leonard Sax
Genre: Nonfiction - parenting/popular science
Pages: 288
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Leonard Sax, a Ph.D., M.D., and practicing psychologist, lays out his view that there is an epidemic of boys and young men being unmotivated.  He attributes the downward trend to five factors: video games, teaching methods, prescription drugs, environmental toxins, and devaluation of masculinity.  He lays out each issue, and also provides practical solutions to help overcome some of these problems.
Thoughts: As the father of 4 boys, I figured this would be worthwhile to read.  It definitely was.  What I really liked about this book is that it didn't feel like it had an agenda to push.  These are simply the things that the author feels are going wrong for boys today, and his ideas to fix them.  I wish I was able to better evaluate for myself some of his claims, but all of them seem reasonable and really not overly extreme or out of line.  There are definitely things I'll take away that will make me a better parent and youth leader from this book.
Disclaimer: None.

Dad is Fat

Title: Dad is Fat
Author: Jim Gaffigan
Genre: Humor
Pages: 288
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Humor from Jim Gaffigan about being a dad of 5 kids in New York.
Thoughts: What can I say?  This book is basically like reading a Jim Gaffigan stand-up routine.  So, if you like him, you'll like the book.  Especially if you have kids.  As a father of four, I found myself relating to basically every single chapter, and laughing out loud often.  Which was bad because I read this between the hours of 11:30 and 4:00am as I rocked my newborn.  The one thing I didn't love about the book is that it seems like he is basically complaining about being a parent the entire time.  It's funny complaining, but if I read too much of it at once it kind of got on my nerves.  So take it in small pieces.
Disclaimer: None.

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

Title: The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League
Author: Jeff Hobbs
Genre: Biography
Pages: 432
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Robert Peace was born in the projects close to Newark, NJ.  His mother's sacrifices, combined with his innate brilliance, helped him get into private schools and eventually into Yale.  This book is essentially his biography, from his birth until his untimely death.
Thoughts: I've been telling everyone that I run into that they should read this book.  I'm still mulling it over in my head, trying to think through what I've learned from it - what went so right and so wrong in this person's life?  It might be that this book hit home for me personally because we lived near Newark in New Jersey, and then went from there to the Ivy League, so I can at least understand a bit the culture shock between the two.  But I think anyone would benefit from reading this book.  My favorite aspect is that it doesn't have a moral.  It simply tells the story and you, the reader, have to disentangle the personal, familial, cultural, racial, and societal forces that helped Robert Peace but ultimately undid him.  Read it.
Disclaimer:  A fair amount of swearing in this one, and lots of drugs.  Some references to sex, but it is quite clean in that regard.  But given the subject matter, this was a surprisingly clean book.