Book Review - The Complete Book of the Olympics 2008 Edition

Only two days before completing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer I finished another book that has been a long time coming - The Complete Book of the Olympics 2008 Edition. I bough this for myself in April last year. Considering that there was a total of 1179 pages to read you can understand why it's taken so long to complete.

This is a book for nerds and statisticians alike. Is there a difference? As the book cover aludes - it is a treasure trove of lore, drama and anecdotes including the top eight finishers in every summer Olympic event from 1896 to 2004. Rules and scoring for events is there too. What an absolute wealth of information. When it comes down to the swimming events I felt like I was reminiscing about old times by reading the last 20 or 30 years worth of events. The names of the competitors and their deeds were so familiar. Perhaps the best part of the book were the anecdotes. So many athletes entered politics or were busted for drug running (I don't think anybody had a spiked shoe in both camps). There's the gymnast who broke her back and was carted off in a wheelchair, the Hungarian pistol shooter who lost his hand when a grenade exploded so he taught himself to shoot with the other hand and won the gold medal, the growing number of state-sponsored drug cheats and the fact that during the Great Depression an American athlete could win a gold medal in front of 60,000 people in his hometown but still have to walk home from the stadium as no-one on the street recognised him. Everything the Stats Man, another nickname I had, could ever want.

If you, like me, enjoy facts and figures you will love this book. One thing that I did find annoying was the constant misspelling of names, even within the same section, that went on. A decent proofreader required before the next edition goes to press. But a wonderful piece of work nevertheless.

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The Complete Book of the Olympics 2008 Edition

Book Review - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

When I was but a little tacker I received a book from my Great Grandma for Christmas. It was Mark Twain's unabridged version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. That was back in 1982. Late last year I began to read it. I thought that it would be a good idea to read it as a bedtime story to my son. One chapter a night, in general, it was. There have been a few lapses in the reading but we finished it last night.

I know, I know. It is one of the classics but why has it taken so long for me to get around to reading one of the all time classics? Well, I guess I wasn't inclined to read it when I was younger. There were too many computer games and sports to be played. If I read anything they generally consisted of Tintin, Asterix, computer and cricket magazines. Books included atlases and other reference material such as knowledge and encyclopedia. I quite enjoyed the dictionary too. Perhaps you can understand why I had the nickname "Cuboid" at one stage. I was more square than a square.

Back to the book. As it was written in 1876 there is a lot of language not in common use these days. And the words used were very non-prosaic. At times there was too much effort placed in making the description. I felt that it went over the top trying to set the scene. That said, the story itself is uplifting and insightful about the adventures of a boy and his friends. I had no difficulty imagining what the movie should look like. Glad we've finished it. My boy thought that the story was "pretty interesting". Maybe that had a lot to do with the fact he didn't have to the do the reading but also because it appealed to his sense of boyhood. It certainly captured his attention and no matter how tired he was he was listened. And I tested him to make sure he was paying attention. As the words were unusual it gave me a bit of work explaining the words and concepts associated with them so he got more out of it than by just reading to himself and glossing over what he didn't immediately understand. Great if you can make the time for your child to do that too.

I'd certainly recommend the book although reading it aloud was difficult at times. Perhaps I could purchase an ebook from my friend at Your Success eBooks for improvement in reading aloud.

Mark Twain's unabridged version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.