High school students aren’t the only ones assigned to read during summer vacation;  their instructors have to do the same. It would be hypocritical for those of us charged with teaching the importance of literacy to fail to use those abilities ourselves. The equivalent would be my preaching the importance of physical fitness to my students, and then spending the summer on the couch smoking cigarettes and guzzling Mountain Dew.

So what did I read this summer?

A friend who knows I’m too cheap to pay $28.95 for a new book bought me a copy of K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches, and it’s a masterpiece; I loved it. Author Tyler Kepner writes like someone who thinks he’s got the best job in the world, and maybe he does. He’s clearly figured out that while keeping score is important in baseball, what makes America’s nominal national pastime and its history special are the individuals who people it. Mr. Kepner’s impeccably researched labor of love involved doing hundreds of interviews, and those listed in the index include the following wide variety of individuals who I encountered myself during 14 years as minor league radio announcer/publicist: Bob Uecker, Ty Van Burkleo, Johnny Podres, Jerry Reuss, Hank Aaron, Larry Anderson, Josh Booty, A. J. Burnett, Guy Conti, Pat Dobson, Dan Duquette, Orel Hershiser, Jay Howell, Bo Jackson, Al Jackson, Tommy John, Aaron Boone, Fergie Jenkins, Calvin Maduro, Don Mincher, Jim Bouton, Phil Niekro, Gaylord Perry, Mike Piazza, John Roseboro, Mariano Rivera, Aaron Sele, Tom Seaver, Brent Strom, Luis Tiant, Jim Thome, Dave Wallace, Frank Viola, and Billy Williams. (Okay; his Billy Williams  is the Hall of Fame Chicago Cub outfielder; mine was a career minor leaguer who got 10 plate appearances for the ’69 Seattle Pilots, but you get the idea.) What makes K even more unique: it doesn’t contain a single reference to Yogi Berra, making it quite possibly the only baseball book written in the past forty years with that distinction.

I really wanted to read The Big Tiny, by Dee Williams, when it came out five years ago, but refused to pay $26.95 to do so. But for $6 dollars at a flea market? Sold! The Big Tiny is an inspiring memoir by a dedicated environmentalist who doesn’t just talk the talk when it comes to living more simply; she walks the walk. After being blindsided by an unanticipated and utterly illogical heart condition at age 41, Ms. Williams dedicated herself to downsizing her life to what really mattered, and the centerpiece was the tiny house (84 square feet) she herself constructed, using virtually all repurposed materials. While she’s clearly an exceptionally determined person, throughout her narrative Ms. Williams doesn’t attempt to conceal her innermost feelings; it turns out this remarkable woman has the same sorts of fears, doubts, and insecurities the rest of us do. But she is, when all is said and done, just as ordinary and extraordinary as the rest of us. Anyone would love having her live next door, or for that matter in their backyard, since she has the ability to relocate her humble abode, which is constructed atop a tiny trailer, to just about anywhere.

The third book I finished recently, comedian Amy Schumer’s The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, really spoke to me, and not just because I absorbed it via the town library’s audiobook edition at a price even I didn’t even object to. I found myself alternately admiring the author for her openness and her willingness to share important, real-life messages with her readers, and wondering how someone could be so shallow, self-centered and entitled. Ms. Schumer is a skilled storyteller whose topics randomly meander from telling (mostly self-deprecating) jokes, revealing some of her life’s most sensitive and impactful moments, and discussing serious subject matter that should make anyone and everyone reflect thoughtfully. There are several vital messages in The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo; that they got through to a male reader nearly twice the author’s age gives testimony to how powerful they are. I’d like to recommend this book to young female readers, but if I did so I’d lose my teaching job, since a significant portion of the book’s subject matter is sexually explicit enough to curl even Larry Flynt’s hair. I’ve never seen Ms. Schumer perform (live or on any video screen), and while she’s unquestionably talented, determined, and courageous, what’s even clearer is that most of her act is aimed at audiences composed primarily of people other than males in their early 60s.

All that reading has made my mind sharper than ever. Now if only I can remember what I did with my cigarettes, and that two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew!

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