Lift and Read Book Club, Issue 18

Fiction: "The Forgotten Man" by Robert Crais (finished)

This is the 10th (and my 10th) book of the Elvis Cole and Joe Pike series. I love this series and these books. They're short, fast paced, well written shoot 'em up mystery stories. If you like the idea of cool, punchy Private Investigators, you'll like these books. I can't recommend the series enough. They're funny and intense all at once.

"The Forgotten Man" is probably top 2 or 3 so far for me in this series, which means I'd call it a "must read." Fantastically entertaining.

Now Reading: "Independent People" by Halldor Laxness

Last year at this time, I was reading another popular Halldor Laxness book – one called, "World Light." It was good. Now I'm reading "Independent People," which seems to be his most popular book. People absolutely rave about it. So far, I'm enjoying it. In fact, it's got me wondering if I should sell everything, move out on some land in the hills, and dedicate my time to sheep farming (kidding...but, early on, the book does a good job selling the simple life of being outdoors, doing physical labor/activity, and focusing on having enough but not stressing about greedily accumulating more money than is needed to live said simple life).

Without giving anything away, the general story – so far – is about a very stubborn, proud sheep farmer who is given his own land after 18 years of working for another sheep farmer. It takes him 12 additional years of working on his new land, accumulating sheep, to pay off what he owes for the land he was given. So, if doing the math, it takes him 30 years to finally really be independent – something he thinks is most important in the world. Being independent, relying on nobody, and owing nobody any favors.

The problem is that the land he was given is rumored to be haunted from some 150+ years ago. But Bjartur (the protagonist) refuses to believe in any of the haunting stuff while also refusing to show respect for the ghosts that haunt it. He's too independent for that and will bend the knee for anybody – least of all some fictional devil. People around him die, his farm goes through times of serious trial, but he remains steadfast in being "independent" – some may say obnoxiously so – and refuses to allow people to pity him, talk about the legitimacy of the haunted rumors, and never gives the supposed ghosts anything other than outright, direct disrespect. His family suffers. He suffers. The farm and sheep suffer. But he remains steadfast.

Obviously there's numerous important details that I'm leaving out, but that's a general summary from what I've gathered, about 4/5ths of the way through the book.

It's an older Icelandic book and I'd rate it as a challenging, but worthwhile read. It's definitely not going to reward anyone's need for fast dopamine. But, if you can be patient, read slowly, and remain focused, it's very rewarding.

I like these older classics even though they seem challenging and complex, but I've grown to realize many of my peers won't stick it out long enough to enjoy it. I wouldn't – yet – call it a must read. But, I'm enjoying it.

Physical Culture Book: "C-Mass" by Paul Wade 

This is the third and final Paul Wade book I'm reading before I move onto other books in this personal "calisthenics literature" series that I'm doing out of my own self interest.

For the first time, I actually am kind of enjoying a "Paul Wade" book.

I mean, the prose is still dreadful.  (Filled with cringe writing style/voice that's just pathetic and over compensating for the fictional author's fictional background – constantly calling the reader, "sonny," "boy," "kid,"  etc). This phoney author, "Wade," really leans into his wannabe cool, ex-convict, hardcore persona by cursing a lot more – unnaturally so – during this book than his previous books. In fact, he has an entire segment called "it's not 'abs,' it's 'midsection,' bitch." Really, Paul? Really? 

He goes on to comment about modern fitness advice towards abdominal training, saying, do the opposite – sorry, he actually says, "do the f***ing (yes, asterisks are used) opposite." This particular chapter begins with, "in order to separate myself from this garbage, I'm going to keep my abs advice as short and sharp as possible."

...well, so much for all that "it's not abs it's midsection" talk, CoAcH Wade.

3 painfully long (textbook thick) pages later and he finally wraps up the ab section, essentially drowning on and on about the following 4 pieces of advice:

1. Do hanging leg raises

2. Do hanging rotational work 

3. Brace your abs during ab work

4. Don't do crunches 

The first 3 points I agree with. The 3rd is painfully obvious. The 4th takeaway I – and most other sensible trainers and trainees, alike – disagree with. I think crunches are great. Crunches are a perfectly suitable and effective way to build strong, well developed abs because they train one of the 3 abdominal/midsection functions in isolation. Crunches train flexion, as do hanging leg raises, by the way. The other 2 main functions of the midsection are rotation and anti-rotation, for those wondering. But, Paul doesn't discuss that, which is okay.

Anyway, it's obvious that Dragon Door created this phoney Paul Wade character to deal with the fact that Pavel Tsatsouline was leaving the company and creating StrongFirst, so this was how dragon door created similar, but different, calisthenics programming to compete with what Pavel and StrongFirst were putting out.

The writing and prose aside, the programming and the "10 Commandments of Calisthenics Mass" are actually very agreeable. He still confuses the squat as being a sufficient hamstring builder, though, which gives me aneurysms every time. But overall, this was a decent book. By far the best from Paul Wade. I wouldn't recommend paying full price for it, as it seems like he gets paid mostly for how many words he writes in these text books. I'm convinced all of his books could easily have been written in 50-80 pages, but we all have quotas to hit, I suppose. Heck, I used to add a bunch of fluff to all my school essays to hit the specific page or word count, as well. 

Nonfiction: "Unhinged Habits," by Jonathan Goodman 

I've read a lot of Jon Goodman's books. He was probably the first guy to create books and strategies for personal trainers online, along with writing some general personal training business books that were really great. He started the niche of developing the business of personal training for personal trainers (a smart move considering how many personal trainers struggle to make sufficient income without burning out).

He's a simplifier and always has focused on stripping away rather than adding more. Making customer service, training clients, acquiring clients, and succeeding in fitness, business, or writing simple. I like that.

Like many former personal trainers that hit it big online during the early days of social media, he's recently (the last 5-10 years) moved into general personal development. This most recent book of his seems to be more of his same old mantra  – stripping away and doing less to get more. I like it. He's always an enjoyable read.