The Gospel Coalition

As I promised yesterday, here is the second part of the roundup of the titles that are on the list of bestsellers as of January 1. I’ve read most of these, though there are a couple that I’ll be finishing up this week.

What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell. In this book, his fourth, Gladwell deviates just slightly from what he has done in his previous three bestsellers. Here he simply shares some of his best or favorite or most highly-regarded columns from over the years. Like the other books, this one made a fast-track to the bestseller list and has remained there now for 10 weeks.

Outliers by Malcom Gladwell. Speaking of Gladwell, here he is again with book #3, Outliers. This one has remained on the bestseller list for 58 weeks now. Incredible. As I mentioned in my review, I certainly wouldn’t mind taking home just one of Gladwell’s royalty checks. They must be something to behold. In Outliers he does what he does so well, drawing together strange and unusual facts and building them into a fascinating whole. Though it may not be his best, Outliers is still a great read.

The Imperial Cruise by James Bradley. So you liked Flags of Our Fathers, did you? And maybe you liked Flyboys too? The success of those two books is the only possible explanation for this dog being on the bestseller list. Here Bradley engages in some incredibly bold anti-Americanism in his attempt to piece together a history of American involvement in Asia as it pertained to the background of the Second World War. I will soon write a review of this one but for now suffice it to say that Bradley’s biases are so clear that he very quickly loses all credibility. This is a truly bad book.

A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity by Bill O’Reilly. This is Bill O’Reilly’s memoir, sort of. It is not a true memoir. Instead he looks to past events and shows how these led him to become who and what he is today–a social conservative who despises injustice. He sees himself as a crusader against whatever is unfair or unjust in the world and in A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity he shows how such a sense of justice was instilled in him from a very young age. Again, I will provide a review of this one soon.

When the Game Was Ours by Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. This book looks at one of sports most interesting and most important rivalries–that of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, the men who revitalized basketball. Players who hated each other during their years on the court (and who were relentlessly driven by each other), in their years after basketball Bird and Johnson found kinship and even friendship. Here they write about their long rivalry and life after the game. Quite an interesting book (as basketball tales go), I will have a review of this one soon enough as well.

The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons. I am hard-pressed to think of a sport I enjoy less than basketball. And yet, just my luck, there are two basketball books on the list of bestsellers. When the Game Was Ours was interesting enough since it was predominantly biographical–it is never too terribly hard to read stories of people’s lives. The Book of Basketball, on the other hand, is a history of the game from one of its greatest fans. It is really long (700+ pages) and really dry, at least for someone who has no love for the game. I continue to make my way through it.

Last Words by George Carlin. I know little about Carlin (beyond that he was a comedian) and have not yet read his book. I hope to do so this week.

Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin. The first, but surely not the last book on the recent financial meltdown, Sorkin’s book attempts to be both first to the shelves and exhaustive. While it was the first, I doubt it will prove to be truly exhaustive as facts continue to present themselves. Still, it is an interesting read that provides plenty of great information about the crisis that continues to unfold around us.

And that’s that–the fifteen titles that started the year on the New York Times list of bestsellers. Reviews, reflections and more will follow next week.