Agent Palmer

Deconstructing Sammy: Music, Money, and Madness by Matt Birkbeck could very well be one of the saddest books I have read in recent memory, which includes some books on WWII.

There are a lot of things in play in this book… “Adored by millions, Sammy Davis Jr. was considered an entertainment icon and a national treasure. But despite lifetime earnings that topped $50 million, Sammy died in 1990 near bankruptcy.

There is something unique about Of a Fire on the Moon by Norman Mailer. Is it that it’s immensely rich with poetry in prose telling one of the great triumphs of modern engineering? Is it that Mailer looks for the lurking evil of the Moon or that he’s not sure if the moon shot itself was the work of the devil?

Could it be the dark humour, the deciphering of the three men who undertook the journey and those organizations and people who helped get them there? Or the curious platitudes on science versus engineering?

There are two reasons I picked up Confessions of a Baseball Purist by Jon Miller with Mark Hyman. One, Jon Miller was the voice of the Baltimore Orioles during my formative years listening to games on the radio and two, he really knows his stuff.

The book originally released in 1998 and the updated edition from 2000 may appear dated, but it is not antiquated at all. In fact, more of his observations are proven out than those that aren’t in the 18 years since this text has last been touched.