Book 33: Dick Vermeil: Whistle in His Mouth, Heart on His Sleeve

Dick Vermeil: Whistle in His Mouth, Heart on His Sleeve was a disappointing book by Gordon Forbes. I really wanted to like it. It’s talking about some of the golden years of the Philadelphia Eagles and one of the best coaches that entered the NFL. I’m a die-hard bleeding green Eagles fan that will watch every game even if that means I’m awake at 2 AM to do so and yet this book failed for me. It was too much about the Eagles and not enough about Dick. If only I was told this was a Philadelphia Eagles history book, I would have given this a rave review.

The biggest fault that I have with this book is the nature of how it’s sold. If it was sold as a Philadelphia Eagles book during the Dick Vermeil age, I would have loved it. But it was suppose to be a Dick Vermeil biography. It only talked briefly about his time outside of the reign with the Eagles. He did some great things with UCLA, the Rams and Chiefs. I really wanted to know more about his growth as a coach. Especially how his coaching compared with his UCLA days and his Eagles days, but I quite frankly I still don’t know enough about his UCLA days to really do that.

Plus at times, the stories got a little repetitive. I would have liked to see more variety between stories. See how his heart came out a little bit more. You got the work aspect to Vermeil and that he is sincere but not the why he’s so likable. But I think some of this is due to the fact that this is an unauthorized biography. He could only go to some people and draw on the old public records. If he could sit down with Vermeil and more of his friends, I’m sure it would be even richer.

You could see how Vermeil really lived by the belief if you work hard, good things will follow. Long hours and long days will help create good solutions. It’s an idea that I believe myself. It was great to see how the stories I’ve seen in movies like Invincible were true. It’s how I want my Philadelphia coaches to be. Working hard pretty much all day and all night long, creating that perfect game plan and getting the Eagles/Flyers to play at their very peak.

I also really like Gordon Forbe’s writing style. You can tell he’s a Philadelphia Inquirer sports writer. He GETS the team and the fan mentality and he is able to weave it into a good read. It’s a quick book and very enjoyable.

One of my favorite aspects of the book is in the epilogue. I really liked seeing the off-season conditioning guide. I think I got more of Dick Vermeil’s personality in this guide. It’s so detailed an it’s smartly written. It’s one of those real gems and you got to see how the little things of conditioning are really in there. The need to balance out the aerobic/rest/flexibilty/nutrition/and strength are so important and it’s there. Plus you got to see how it’s broken out for the different types of players. As a person interested in fitness and sports, I LOVED this. It’s a guide that could still work today.

Another thing I like about this book is the idea of Dick Vermeil’s burnout. It not only showed how it happened but it also did the unthinkable, question if a coach could really burn out. Few coaches burn out at least in those terms. Some will take some time out or just fizzle out but not many will say they couldn’t hack it anymore. There are some coaches that coach for years on end and only leave the vocation due to retirement or being fired due to lack of performance. It’s a good discussion to have in a book. But I do believe that coaches can and do burn out but few have the courage to call it such.

I learned SO MUCH about the Eagles. I hate to say it, but I don’t have the history aspect to the Philadelphia Eagles other then the stats and knowing the really big names. It’s hard to know about a team you never see play (since you weren’t born when it happened). I didn’t realize how many times and how close Joe Paw nearly left Penn State. To see the record about Paterno’s interview and near hire with the Eagles was really cool to see since JoePaw is the face of Penn State football. Plus I learned about the problems of ownership and coaches.

I enjoyed Dick Vermeil: Whistle in His Mouth, Heart on His Sleeve. It had so much history and good stuff in it. But it fails as a biography. I wanted to know more about his life and his tenures outside of the Philadelphia Eagles. It would have been a longer book but it would have been better for it.

Book 32: Black Bird Volume 3

So I am now through my collection of Black Bird books after completing Kanoko Sakurakoji's third volume (there are 9 volumes in the works/available but I only bought the first 3). I really enjoyed this book. It was just a fun read.

One of the things that I enjoyed most about this book was the fact it pulled together ideas from the book. It was nice to see how there was a coliation of forces attempting to break up Kyo and Misao. It didn't seem natural to see them to just give up on killing or marrying Misao. So to see them back again in a failed attempt was great.

Plus I really liked how you see Misao realizing both her feelings and the fact that by giving into her love with Kyo, she could be changing her life forever. Some of the changes are good since she could really just hang out with her friends after school without worrying about demons making her look like a klutz. Plus I like how you see her adjusting to things since love isn't always instant, the attraction is but not the love since that's deeper. Plus marrying the head Tengu would definately change everything. Her fears about if she can still hang out with friends and her family or is she will be pulled away forever.

There are some great insights into the secondary characters to the series. I really like that. It makes you want to know more and their back stories.

I can't wait to see what happens next. Now I just have to wait until I can get the other books in the series. Hopefully it's fairly soon.

Book 31: Black Bird Volume Two

Black Bird Volume 2 was another great book by Kanoko Sakurakoji. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Although it went in a slightly different direction then I was thinking it would.

This book had everything I loved about the first Black Bird book. There are layers to it. The story itself, the Japanese Culture and idea of love. It is such a good story line. I just want to find out what happens to Kyo and Misao.

I expected to see Misao fall more in love with Kyo as she got to know him more again. But I wasn’t expecting to see so many new characters in this volume. There are the eight vassals that are there to help support Kyo. This includes Kyo’s older brother who Kyo beat to become heir. Needless to say it was unsurprising to see Kyo to tell Misao to stay away from him and she was lured into a trap. Plus it was fun to see Misao’s dad. He seems like fun who cares for his daughter big time and may know that Kyo is a demon.

Plus I’m enjoying the way the book just has a nice feel to it. The graphics are beautiful and strong. It’s got that darkness I am drawn too yet it is so light and fun at the same time. It’s a tough balance to do and this book/series makes it effortless.

One of the things I didn’t like was how the previous attackers/lusters of Misao seemed to drop out of the book completely. Instead it became the threat of Sojo and Misao’s attempt to understand what it would mean to be Kyo’s bride.

Book 30: Black Bird Volume One

So today I decided to feed the kid in me. I've been craving more superhero/fantasy/comic book feeling after getting hooked onto Young Justice and watching lots of old Batman Beyond and Justice League; plus reading After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn. So it was time to go into my manga pile. I decided to pick up the Black Bird Volume 1 by Kanoko Sakurakoji. The other books in the pile, I'm saving for really special occassions since I want to savor the Matsuri Hino books and use the Alice in the Country of Hearts as a way to help with writer's block if I get stuck. But let me tell you, I'm glad I picked up Black Bird tonight. It was sooo good.

One of the things I love about manga is how they have these great plotlines that I just don't see in the normal books. There are all these curses and demons and yet everything has a realistic setting (at least the ones I'm drawn too) where the characters still have to go to school. In the case of Black Bird, Misao is a special human who can give a demong long life if they drink her blood, eternal youth if they eat her flesh, and a clan strength if they marry her. So needless to say Misao doesn't have it easy especially since she can only see most of the demons (Kyo and Shuhei are the exceptions since they take on human forms).

One of the things I really like about this book is how it made me want to dive into the Japanese folklore even more. Before tonight, I didn't know what a tengu was or that there is a shire dedicated to them in Osaka (and I'm marking that on my to do list when I go to Japan now that I know). Plus I love how I know now the Japanese equivelent for the werewolf-a Kitsune. The glossary helped me to learn the basics but then I went to the internet for some extra information.

Then there is something I really enjoy that can be hard for a writer to pull off- the juxposition of love/hate. Misao is drawn to Kyo and hates him at the same time. Well hate is a strong word, but she definately doesn't want to marry a demon but there is a part of her who loves him. Plus Kyo and Shuhei basically get turned on by her presence due to her intoxicating blood. So there are some funny scenes when all of a sudden Kyo will try to grab her breasts or feel her up after a really dramatic scene.


The major downside is that this book was a serialized manga (in my favorite but now disappeared magazine called Shojo Beat). So there is repetition at the first two panels of every section to help catch you up in case you missed a piece. But when you read all five chapters in the one sitting, it just gets repetitive where the reader goes, I know. But it's a neccessary evil due to the serialized nature of the manga.

The other downside, I want to read Volume Two as well. Thankfully I have that and volume three in my apartment, after that I have to save up for new books or hope that friends will share/gift this manga to me. So off for tonight.

Book 29: Journey from the Land of No

Journey from the Land of No by Roya Hakakian was an interesting look at what it is like to grow up during the Iranian Revolution. Plus this book has another layer to it, it’s also what it was like to be Jewish during Iran where the tolerance and acceptance of Jews changed drastically.

Lately, I’ve been intrigued by the Iranian Revolution and Iran. A lot of it comes from my education and the fact Iran is such a closed off society. So we get bits and pieces of information. Roya makes a great point in her book, “They come, I had decided, in two kinds: the misinformed, who think of Iran as a backward nation of Arabs, veiled and turbaned, living the periphery of oases and fairly represented by a government of mullahs; and the misguided, who believed the shah’s regime was a puppet government run by the CIA, and who think that Ayatollah Khomeini and his clerical cabal are an authentic, homegrown answer to unwarranted U.S. meddling.” So I try to read all these different memoirs to learn more about Iranian life even if in a single person’s experience. It at least gives me a better look at what life is like in Iran but I still have to decipher what is truth, exaggeration and if they got colored in their need/want to leave Iran. At least I’ve read so much, that I don’t believe fall into another Ms. Hakakian’s categories.

Roya’s story was really quite interesting to me. I didn’t realize how high the Jewish population was once in Iran. The idea of an Islamic dress code and an Islamic nation, it’s easy to forget how other religions get lost in the shuffle. Plus I loved seeing how ready she was to embrace the Revolution since it would help to create a Utopian society. But then slowly she was realizing that the Revolution wasn’t all it was meant to be. It didn’t solve the poor economy or the censorship bans; the two things the Revolution was suppose to solve.

Plus I loved how you can get into the child’s mind and really into a teenager’s mind how to accept things. You see how she shunned away the idea of being a genius since it helped to take her brother away from her. Her family thought it would be safer for him to study in America while he grew up some without having his revolutionary views get him into trouble.

Plus one of the cool things for me. She started and ended her book with maps of Tehran. One from 1978 and one from 1984 where she marked ten buildings and the names of the street. You can see how much changed in a short period of time.

Book 28: Wolfsbane and Mistletoe

So one of the great finds of the Borders’ Going Out of Business Sale has been the collection of short stories called Wolfsbane and Mistletoe. This book has an impressive list of writers from the urban vampire/werewolf world: Charlaine Harris, Patricia Briggs, Keri Arthur and my personal favorite Carrie Vaughn.

I’ve seriously been wanting this book for a while now. Basically since it was published in 2008 although I never purchased it since it can be hard to find short story collections at a book store and I get distracted by other books that I have to have first even when I’m online . The premise alone was really fun: werewolves and Christmas stories. Then take the caliber of writers, it makes for a delicious story.

Sometimes being so excited for a book can lead to a let down. Fortunately that didn’t happen. It was a very fun anthology. Only one story I kinda liked. Nothing was bad. And several of the stories were downright delightful.

One of my favorite stories didn’t come from my usual suspects. Instead it came from “The Haire of the Beast” by Donna Andrews. This is just a great story where a brother and sister look into a grimoiry to that has a spell to transform a person into a werewolf. Then she use the spell in a set of brownies as a test since some of the ingredients could prove to be a bit toxic. Unfortunately her brother steals a bite and is well transformed into a Lhasa Apso since well wolfs hair is a little tough to find on short notice. I loved this story. It was just fun. Plus I liked how it took a different approach into how people became a werewolf.

Don’t get me wrong I still really loved the Kitty story. But it was a Kitty story. Something I just gobble up and love. But in the short story, you don’t get see one of my favorite parts of the Kitty novels, what it’s like to be a wolf. So that richness was missing for me.

But I would recommend this book to those who love the genre. There are some great additions to the genre as well as just good stories. Besides seeing the spell for werewolf transformation, I liked how there was a SA (Shapeshifters Anonymous) and the idea that werewolves came into being as a miracle of God at the birth of Jesus. It was just fun reading.

Book 27: The Wilder Shores of Love.

The Wilder Shores of Love by Lesley Blanch was a look into the lives of Isabel Burton, Jane Digby, Aimee Dubucq de Rivery, and Isabelle Eberhardt. This book didn’t live up to my expectations in many ways.

I was drawn to this book for a couple reasons. First the idea of showing how four women in the turn of the century turned away from European lives to live in the Orient and trade it for something more torrid. Second, this book has been in print since the 1950s, so I figured it had to be good to maintain circulation but at the same time I thought I would be able a good way to see how another generation thought of love and exotic travels.

The first profile was just painful for me to read. I found it dry and more importantly, I just couldn’t connect to Isabel Burton in general. She just gave up everything for a man who didn’t seem to really care for her.

The other profiles got progressively better. But after reading a 100pages of trying to get through the first part of the book, I was just about ready to give up. But each profile got better and better. I could connect to the different women more and more or at least interested in them.

One of the things I wasn’t expecting was to be unfamiliar with places as well as the names. Things seemed to have changed so much that the places became more abstract then it should have. I have my guesses about places and general vicinity but I wish I still had the one Atlas book my dad gave me. Then I could really know the places that were being mentioned.

One of my favorite things was seeing a horoscope casted for Isabelle Eberhardt at the very end of the book. This was cool for a few different things. First it was a blind reading where the astrologist was given very little information about her life (date of birth, place of birth, Mrs. E). Then came out a horoscope that really seemed to line up with high points of her life.

I will have to say it was interesting how the book seemed to profile different kinds of women in general. The kind of woman who will give up everything to chase after a man, the one who tried to find love and kept trying, the one who will manipulate the situation to her advantage, and the one who doesn’t care about convention. That was interesting to see how you could seem similar ideas a hundred years later although it felt like their characters were more isolated then they are today.

Compared to what I’ve been reading, this wasn’t an easy read. I’m glad I read it but at the same time, I was glad to take a brief pause to read the new Carrie Vaughn book.