Solid ESPN Writing by Van Valkenburg & Winegardner

There were two excellent pieces of writing from the latest issue of ESPN The Magazine.

Very much related to the theme of LSU vs Alabama, "One Game, One Game" focus of the issue was a story by Mark Winegardner on LSU fan Garrison Stamp and Bama supporter Brian Downing. Piece was titled "Last Time They Met" and recounts the stupid move while drunk by Downing and the consequences of it. Story is thoroughly reported by Winegardner and the whole story is just a shame.

Other piece of note from this issue was "At the heart of Torrey Smith" by Kevin Van Valkenburg. There's a lot to Smith's story with his rise to a team leader as a second year wideout with the Ravens and his brother's death earlier this year the night before a game and Van Valkenburg writes it exceptionally well and inspires a lot of respect for both the player and his coach John Harbaugh.

Feature stories by Heckert and Veselka

Two excellent feature stories I've seen recently were from Justin Heckert and Vanessa Veselka respectively.

Published in the November issue of GQ was "The Truck Stop Killer" by Veselka, an account of her trying to find out if convicted serial killer Robert Ben Rhoades is the same person who picked her up as a teenage runaway hitchhiker in 1985. Pretty chilling piece that brings to mind "The Vanishing" by Bob Friel for Outside earlier this year.

As the latest New York Times Magazine cover story, Heckert provided "The Hazards of Growing Up Painlessly" on Georgia middle schooler Ashlyn Blocker. It's an absolutely riveting piece on Blocker as part of the rare subset of people who don't feel pain and what this means for their lives. Heckert a few months ago wrote "How to Build an American Car" for Esquire and this story on Blocker is another really solid piece of writing.

Excellent features on Oregon running backs

Separated a couple of months apart were two profiles written on Oregon running backs.

From the September 24 issue of Sports Illustrated, Lee Jenkins wrote "Can't Touch Dat" on De'Anthony Thomas and posted recently to the CBS Sports website was "For Barner family, name Kenjon evokes both triumph and tragedy" by Dennis Dodd.

Thomas was definitely the more heralded back (who also plays as a wideout, kick returner and possibly defender due to injuries) going into the year, but Kenjon Barner was the guy who ran for 321 yards in a win against USC.

Excellent writing from both pieces on two people with interesting life stories and likely future careers in the NFL.

Writers & what they write - Gisondi, Hemphill, Montgomery and Michelson

There's been a few pieces lately that stood out to me either on or illustrative about the process of writing.

In terms of actually on writing was first a post from the website of Journalism professor Joe Gisondi. Titled "Are you really ready to be a journalist?" it gets into some specific things to think about for someone considering the field. The second piece of note on writing was by southern writer Paul Hemphill who passed away in 2009. Originally printed in Southern Voices Magazine, "Quitting the Paper" is a remarkable essay that's posted by Alex Belth to his website Alex Belth's Bronx Banter. Hemphill writes a well done tale of making a decision to leave his columnist job to write books and free-lance features... and then stepping forward with that choice.

The other two stories to mention here were excellent newspaper and magazine pieces respectively, but what struck me was what had to go into each piece as well as the background of one of the writers.

For the Tampa Bay Times, Ben Montgomery did "Recounting the deadly hazing that destroyed FAMU band's reputation" and it's compelling writing with an incredible amount of detail, and had a postscript that brought to mind Gisondi and his mention of open-record laws.. "This story was reported based on 2,300 pages of depositions, investigative reports, crime scene photographs and audio recordings made public by state attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit of Florida."

Last piece to note was "Tunnel Vision" for Outside Magazine. Written by Megan Michelson, it's her first person account of an avalanche that claimed the lives of three expert skiers in February 2012. The writing is excellent, but it was both amazing for me to think of Michelson actually being in that group of skiers and interesting to read a bit of her career path. She's mentioned in Outside to be an ESPN editor living in Lake Tahoe (so obviously not in the corporate office) and her website also describes her as a freelance writer and links to past magazine stories done. Just interesting (and kind of inspirational) the careers some people carve out for themselves.

"Elsewhere" by Richard Russo

Elsewhere by Richard Russo is an interesting memoir from the writer of notable works of fiction like Straight Man (which I read and enjoyed) and the Pulitzer Prize winning Empire Falls.

It's a different book than I expected in that while it's Russo's life story, really it's more about he as an only child and his mother as a single mom. What's remarkable in the book was the depths of care that Russo put into helping his mom starting out when she travelled cross-country with him to college and then through the following decades as Russo would have her living nearby. Additionally, a fascinating detail that comes out late in the book was Russo realizing through his daughter's diagnosis of obsessive compulsive disorder that his same disease may very well have afflicted his mom throughout her life.

In terms of being a story about growing up and relationship with parents, the book made me think about two other memoirs of the same ilk, The Longest Trip Home by John Grogan and 'Tis by Frank McCourt. Of the two, I enjoyed the Grogan book much more and comparing 'Tis to Elsewhere for me shows a pretty negative depiction of McCourt as a son to his aging mother. Actually, McCourt didn't seem a great son to his mother regardless of who compared against, but especially against someone like Russo who gave of himself so much for so many years. Russo doesn't necessarily portray himself as a perfect son, but he simply seemed to follow the maxim that you don't turn your back on someone, even if it would be the much easier thing to do. 

Additionally of interest from Elsewhere and playing a major role in the book's narrative was Russo's hometown of Gloversville, NY. It's fascinating to read of a factory town and what happens there as the factory slows down and then goes away (while actually causing physical harm to the people it did employ back in the day).

Elsewhere might not hold the attention of some with it simply being about a guy and his mother, but it was an interesting read... and reviewed many other places, including for the Washington Post by Marie Arena.

Feature stories by Rehagen, Martel & Manteuffel

There's three great pieces of writing I came across a week or so ago from a few random sources thanks to the wonder that is links via twitter.

For The Washingtonian, Rachel Manteuffel wrote "The Things They Leave Behind: Artifacts From the Vietnam Veterans Memorial", a remarkable piece that's touching in it's own right, and downright tragic when coupled with the accompanying pictures of objects left.

Additionally, Ned Martel did "Holocaust survivor tailors an American success story" in the Washington Post. It's a very cool story of someone dedicated to perfecting his craft in the person of D.C. tailor Martin Greenfield.

Finally, "This Land Is My Land" was published for Atlanta Magazine by Tony Rehagen. I first heard of Rehagen in July of this year with his piece "Daddy Blues" and this latest effort is a fascinating tale that features the subtitle "In the high country of North Georgia, an old bootlegger and a gun merchant feuded for years over a quarter-mile property line. It ended in the worst possible way."

Sports Writing by Wayne Drehs, Alex Belth & Eli Saslow

There's a few pieces of sports writing I've seen lately that stood out as outstanding and which haven't previously been noted here.

Most recent was by Eli Saslow for the recent issue of ESPN the Magazine with "The ascent from deuce-8". On the University of Louisville basketball player Peyton Silva, it's a well written portrait of someone who's gone through incredibly trying life experiences and appears to not only be making it through, but carrying his family as well.

Also for ESPN was an Outside the Lines web feature "Goalie Chris Seitz's biggest save" about a decision made by the FC Dallas backup goalkeeper. The Wayne Drehs written piece details how Seitz put his career on hold and risked his own health to become a bone marrow donor for a complete stranger. It's heart-tugging content and really just brings out such admiration for Seitz and his actions.

Finally, another excellent sports story of late was for the Glenn Stout (he of The Best American Sports Writing books) edited SB Nation Longform blog. "The Two Rogers" was written by Alex Belth and is on his interactions with famed writers Roger Angell and Roger Khan. Along with that in the story is the thread of Belth's father and their relationship and the resulting story was one of those that has a lot going on, but weaves together into a compelling (especially for someone interested in writing) and personal narrative.

Interesting pieces on writers - by Boris Kachka and James Andrew Miller

There were two tremendously interesting pieces I've seen in the past few days that dealt with writers and work they've produced.

For New York Magazine, Boris Kachka wrote "Proust Wasn’t a Neuroscientist. Neither was Jonah Lehrer" on the former superstar writer and it's a fascinating view into someone's downfall. Lehrer initially got himself in trouble with news that he was recycling his old blog posts into new magazine articles, but then  deeper problems when questions arose about sources referenced and veracity of his claims.

It's a fascinating read about someone working in the the same cognitive science area as Malcolm Gladwell and the Freakonomics guys, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. I've enjoyed tremendously work from Gladwell, Levitt and Dubner, but can also see how someone writing in this realm of squishy science could potentially use liberties in supporting stories to tell and points to make. Unfortunately for Lehrer, he took it too far... with an additional supporting anecdote from the Kachka piece being how Lehrer was becoming less of a writer and more of a speaker and insight guy with an entertaining story.

The other piece on writers and writing to note here was "A Problem of Churchillian Proportions" by James Andrew Miller for the New York Times. Miller along with Tom Shales wrote the tremendously entertaining Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN and in this piece he examines the circumstances around the upcoming book The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965. As detailed by Miller, William Manchester wrote two volumes on Churchill and then realized he wasn't going to be able to finish the third book and would need a co-writer. Manchester developed a friendship with newspaper writer Paul Reid and after he was contracted to co-write the book, Reid found himself taking over upon Manchester's death in 2004.

Miller relates in his Times piece how at that point, Bill Phillips came in as editor of the book and helped Reid work through the writing process over the next six years. It's really a fantastically interesting view into the impact a great editor can have on writing.

Excellent Storm Aftermath Writing - by Von Drehle, Schaer, Kleinfield and Powell

Three recent pieces out of Hurricane Sandy stood out to me as exceptional, each with a completely different approach, and one from 13 years ago.

This older piece was from current Time Magazine writer David Von Drehle and on his experience in Charleston, SC during Hurricane Hugo. The story was titled "Shaken Survivors Witness Pure Fury" for the Miami Herald and it was recently reprinted in "The Master of Disaster" by Jack Shafer for Slate. Von Drehle is an excellent writer and his work in this piece absolutely riveting.

In terms of writing about the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and some if it's victims, N.R. Kleinfield and Michael Powell wrote the heartbreaking "In Storm Deaths, Mystery, Fate and Bad Timing" for the New York Times.

Finally, The Paris Review blog featured a Robin Beth Schaer piece "Falling Overboard". Schaer is a published writer and she wrote here an account of being one of the crew rescued after the Tall Ship Bounty sunk and claimed the lives of the Captain as well as another crewmember.

Excellent Sports Writing - by Chris Ballard, Jeff Passan & Chris Jones

There's been two pieces of great sports writing I've come across lately that also brought to mind solid work from years past.

Story I've thought about the most was "Mourning Glory" for the October 22 issue of Sports Illustrated. Written by Chris Ballard, it's on a Maryland high school baseball coach, team and how they responded to tragedy. There's also a remarkable connection to Nick Adenhart who died three years ago after pitching his first start of the year for the Los Angeles Angels. This connection for me helped give the story an appropriate balance between inspiration and devestating loss and I found myself wondering whether Ballard had in mind these things while writing. Regardless of what he thought about during the process, the piece he finished with was just excellent.

The topic is of course completely different, but an additional Ballard story I've read recently was his 2008 SI feature “The Birds”, a tremendously entertaining “fear & loathing-like” look at homing pigeon racing in Las Vegas.

Another recent piece of writing that stood out as outstanding was “Bonded by failure, Barry Zito, Tim Lincecum give Giants right stuff in Game 1 of World Series.” Written by Jeff Passan for Yahoo Sports, it’s great stuff on the two pitchers.

Zito is one of my favorite athletes and his recent success (after thus far not meeting the expectations of his contract) has brought up mention on the World Wide Super Tubes of a 2002 Zito profile “He Came from Outer Space”, Chris Jones’ first published work in Esquire.

Writers on Writing - Rose, Conn, Travis & Jones

There's been a few things I've come across lately that fall within the subject of writing that I love to prattle on about.

The oldest piece was "NEW SOUTH JOURNALISM: The Sometimes-Picayune" by Chris Rose. It's written for Oxford American Magazine by the former (left in 2009) New Orleans Times-Picayune reporter and has some really cool anecdotes from him about getting hired and working at the paper. Not incidental to the story was the Times-Picayune several months ago laying off half it's newsroom staff in advance of a move away from daily publishing.

More recently of interest were two pieces that were both well done and which approached the subject of writing from very different angles. For Grantland, Jordan Conn wrote "Jeremy Tyler: No Longer a Symbol, Now Just a Pro" on the 21 year-old Golden State Warrior. In the piece, Conn wrote about Tyler's past and how people would try to use both his talents and narrative story for their benefit (Conn included). Extremely interesting stuff that brought to mind an anecdote on Andre Agassi being upset with tennis broadcaster Bud Collins characterizing Agassi's career path as being "from punk to paragon." Basic idea from both Agassi and Conn is around this propensity towards assigning narratives around others that may or may not fit.

The second recent piece was written by Clay Travis for his college-football leaning website Outkick the Coverage. Travis previously wrote the fascinating "2011 Belonged To Twitter, So Does the Future of Sports Media" and this recent piece deals in the same topic. "Bleacher Report vs. Grantland: The Spectrum of Online Sports Media" compares two different sites and the importance of great writers (and associated compensation for them) to each. Interesting and logical ideas put forth by Travis that make me think of both Drew Magary writing about doing a novel because it pays better than writing sports for the web and the hockey bloggers I've known who had fairly significant online readership and gave it up. Not that I know their reasons for walking away from sports blogging the same as my own, but when I stopped my hockey blogging (to a small audience), I simply didn't feel the writing I was doing that different than could be done by anyone and wasn't worth the effort.

Final thing to note here that traffics in the subject of writing was the podcast "Episode 10: Chris Jones (Live in Romania)". Done for Longform and The Atavist, it's about an hour-long interview with the Esquire and ESPN writer and while I had seen in print already much of what Jones covered, it was especially interesting to hear him talk about some of the depression he's dealt with and wrote about in the November 2011 issue of Esquire.

Solid Sports Writing - on FC Barcelona, Oakland A's & Chris Kluwe

Three different excellent pieces of sports writing to note here... with a couple being a few weeks old and one just a few days.

The recent piece was "The Punter Makes His Point" for the New York Times by Tony Gervino. Well done profile of Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, now best known for his brilliant and profane takedown of a bigoted Maryland politician posted to Deadspin.

Going back a few weeks were two pieces for Sports Illustrated, one on the website and one for the magazine. The shorter website piece was from Tom Verducci with "A's historic run to AL West title reminds us why we love this game" on... well, that. It's certainly true that as an A's fan I had more interest in the story than many, but it really was excellent writing that gets at what makes baseball such a captivating game to be a fan of.

The magazine feature piece also included this element of "writing about what makes something special" with Grant Wahl doing "The World's Team", a solid piece with the subtitle "FC Barcelona is more than a club, more than a champion and more than Lionel Messi-it is the embodiment of a sporting ideal that has made it beloved across the globe."

Fast Company Features - on Pinterest, Windows 8, Uniqlo and Coursera

After not reading Fast Company for a few months, I went through three issues recently and found several features that stood out.

The Aug issue had "Cheap, Chic, And Made For All: How Uniqlo Plans To Take Over Casual Fashion" with Jeff Chu writing on the fast-growing Japan-based casual apparel retailer. Very interesting company that recently opened it's first West Coast store in San Francisco and next week is launching it's US online store.

The Sept edition of FC had a piece on a topic of interest in "How Coursera, A Free Online Education Service, Will School Us All." Written by Anya Kamenetz, it's an excellent look at the company teaching hundreds of thousands online, for free. Fascinating topic that I've previously linked to pieces about under the tag online education.

The Oct issue focused on Design and included "Can Ben Silbermann Turn Pinterest Into The World’s Greatest Shopfront?" by Max Chafkin and "Windows 8: The Boldest, Biggest Redesign In Microsoft’s History" from Austin Carr. Interesting pieces both on a new company and an established coporation doing something different.

Outside Magazine on Bill McKibben & Texas Monthly on Kermit Oliver

Two excellent pieces of profile writing to note here... one interesting in the work being done by someone and the other for both the work and manner it's being done.

In terms of a feature on someone doing something important towards a greater good, last month's Outside Magazine had "Boilover" on writer and climate-change activist Bill McKibben. Written by Rowan Jacobsen, it's a thorough look at someone perhaps tilting at windmills, but doing so because he believes the efforts of his organization 350.org are important.

The second in-depth profile to mention here doesn't center around as important a topic as climate change and C02 in the atmosphere, but was fascinating in the person featured. For Texas Monthly, "Portrait of the Artist as a Postman" was by Jason Sheeler on Kermit Oliver, the Waco, TX postal employee who also designs heavily in-demand scarves for French fashion brand Hermes. Absolutely remarkable piece on someone with amazing events in their life (particularly the horrifying story of his son being executed by the state of Texas) and who does his craft in a way that works for him.

Businessweek writing - on Facebook, Apple, Pandora & EcoATM

There were a few Businessweek pieces from the past few issues that stood out as being on interesting companies... with a couple of the stories being fairly short and a couple well written in-depth looks.

The features were from the recent issue with Facebook on the cover and Ashlee Vance wrote a solid lead story with "Facebook: The Making of 1 Billion Users." Fascinating content that delves into the engineering at the company and features interesting revelations such as Facebook basically launching a new site version with tweaks each and every day.

The Opening Remarks piece from the same issue was also terribly interesting with Brad Stone, Adam Satariano, and Peter Burrows writing "Mapping a Path Out of Steve Jobs's Shadow" on Apple.

Finally, the two smaller pieces of interest were "Apple Radio Might Put Pandora in Play" about online music and "EcoATM, the Automated iPhone Pawn Shop" on the mall kiosk company offering money for no longer needed cell phones with $175 "the average going rate for a slightly damaged iPhone 4 or 4S."

"Sutton" by J.R. Moehringer

I wanted to love Sutton, J.R. Moehringer's first novel, but after reading it, found myself somewhat disappointed.

I've been a fan of Moehringer's writing from first reading the Andre Agassi biography Open he co-wrote. Since then, there was one of my favorite books, The Tender Bar, his memoir leading up to a writing career and various excellent magazine pieces like "Yesterday's News" from a few years back for the Denver magazine 5280.

I heard about Sutton from a Military.com announcement early last year and while the writing in the book certainly had some moments of brilliance from Moehringer, I wasn't that into the narrative of Sutton's post-prison conversations with with a photographer and reporter getting his story. More importantly, though, I found the ending (well, the climactic scene just prior to the ending) to be confusing as to what was going on and not terribly satisfying.

After finishing the book, I went and looked for reviews online and the first two I found at least somewhat shared my view with an Entertainment weekly review by Karen Valby and then one for the New York Times by Dwight Garner. All in all, I still think Moehringer a great writer and he took on an interesting subject, just perhaps the techniques Moehringer used in writing a novel detracted from the reading experience for me.

Great Sports Writing by Dana O'Neil & Sam Page

Two really exceptional pieces of writing I came across today... both dealing with sports figures and each telling a compelling story way beyond what would be seen in a box score.

For ESPN, Dana O'Neil wrote "Chris Mooney's immeasurable impact" which delved into the Richmond Spiders NCAA men's basketball coach and how he helped a team student manager. Just excellent heartwarming storytelling provided by O'Neil.

The second piece actually stood out even more to me in that it (while not necessarily having the same feel good gravitas) featured the writer, Sam Page, telling a personal tale in relation to a famous athlete (and fellow Nashville private high school alum), R.A. Dickey. Super interesting piece posted to Deadspin that was titled "What The Best Pitcher In Baseball Taught Me About Prep School, Socrates, And The Art Of Not Selling Out."

Compelling Writing from Lake, Gethard, Knapp and Kluwe

There's been some excellent writing from a few different sources to note here.

For Sports Illustrated last month, Thomas Lake wrote "The Boy They Couldn't Kill". It's a remarkable piece that features the subtitle "Thirteen years ago, NFL receiver Rae Carruth conspired to kill his pregnant girlfriend and their unborn son. The child has not only survived but thrived—thanks to the unwavering love of his grandmother." Additionally of interest from Lake was his "Inside Story" about writing the feature.

On the Tumblr blog of writer and public access talk-show host Chris Gethard was a public response he wrote to a depressed fan. Really thoughtful and compelling writing from Gethard.  

Finally, Gwen Knapp wrote for the site Sports on Earth "Flipping the Script" about Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo and his support for gay rights including same-sex marriage. Excellent piece from Knapp which also references Vikings punter Chris Kluwe's brillilant and profane takedown of a bigoted Maryland politician posted to Deadspin.

ESPN Writing - by Keown, Jones and McGee

There were a few pieces of writing that stood out from both a recent and several months back edition of ESPN the Magazine.

From the Oct 1 ESPN Age Issue was "The Master" by Tim Keown on Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer. Interesting and well written piece on someone playing (and playing well through most all of his just completed season) under huge public scrutiny with a huge contract in his home state.

Also from this issue of ESPN the Mag was the Chris Jones back page column "Boot It" on the suggestion from Tampa Bay Bucs football coach Greg Schiano to eliminate the kickoff in an effort to curb major injuries in the game. Was a pretty compelling case put forth with the Jones piece including the statistic that "In college football, 1 in 5 injuries during kickoffs is a concussion; during other phases of play, it's 1 out of 14."

From the July 23 Body Issue of ESPN was a feature "120,000 ways to die" on BASE jumper Felix Baumgartner. Written by Ryan McGee, the story is very timely now with Baumgartner planning for a Monday Oct 8 skydive from 23 miles above the earth.

My New Book - 111 Books Reviewed

Yep, I wrote another book... 111 Books Reviewed.

After I at the end of March finished the project to put 3 ½ years of blog posts into book form, I considered what would come next with my writing.

I felt there was something additional that could be done with past work and came up with a few posts trying to distil out the most interesting things written on the subjects of Writing and Business, but then started thinking about the Book Reviews category from my first book. Work done there struck me as less a compilation of blog ramblings and more actual writing for others. In short, something that could be turn from a pet project into a commercial venture with the offering of a book reviews book. Incorporating reviews that made it into my first book as well as those posted to the blog in the past six months, there was close to 130 reviews that could be worked with. Each was then significantly cleaned up to be less blog post-like (removing both references like “just finished reading” and “link to blog post here” and made sure book title and author at the beginning of review with book name in italics).

Of the reviews done, 111 of them were deemed to be interesting enough (interesting of course an extremely arbitrary assignation) to make it into the book and each book assigned a one, two or three star rating and then put into the category sections below, with reviews in each sorted newest to oldest:

 6 books reviewed: Nonfiction – Writing                                   
12 books reviewed: Nonfiction – Personal improvement / Work 
10 books reviewed: Nonfiction – Adventure / Danger               
18 books reviewed: Nonfiction – Sports                                 
 6 books reviewed: Nonfiction – Comedy                                 
11 books reviewed: Nonfiction – Business                               
 7 books reviewed: Nonfiction – History                                   
 5 books reviewed: Nonfiction – Parenting / Family                   
26 books reviewed: Nonfiction – Everything else                       
10 books reviewed: Fiction                                                     

While I was working on the actual content, I had the idea in mind of making the book available cheaply on the Kindle (or Kindle app)… again, that commercial offering thing. The Kindle Direct Publishing site links to a Building Your Book for Kindle PDF guide and from here I found information on using Microsoft Word Headings to build the Table of Contents and specific things around Kindle formatting like how to create a front cover (with the public domain image from the site WPClipart).

After submission of the Kindle book files to Amazon, I then realized the web exclusivity requirement of the KDP Select Amazon program I enrolled in (largely for the purpose of being able to offer the Kindle book for free for five days) meant I had to take down the blog post book reviews the book content based on (was an easy step to select all Book Review tagged blog posts and revert them to draft). After the book content was completed for the Kindle, it wasn’t much additional work to create a paperback version on CreateSpace (as I did for my first book) so went ahead and did that even though the primary intent was to publish this one electronically.

Similar to the first book, the creating of this book was more of an editing of past work project than original writing, but means I’ve now both got another book published and one that’s a more defined offering which can be purchased through Amazon for $.99 (and free for five days every three months). I’m pretty happy with that.

Excellent Pieces by Gladwell, Heckert & Lewis

There were three solid (and lengthy) feature stories that stood out from recent issues of some of the bigger national general interest magazines.

For Vanity Fair, Michael Lewis provided "Obama’s Way" an in-depth look at the President and how it is to hold the office. Tremendously interesting content that shows someone well aware of the gravitas of their position.

By another best-selling author was Malcolm Gladwell's "In Plain View" in The New Yorker. Compelling piece on not only Jerry Sandusky, but that expands farther with the subtitle "how child molesters get away with it." While it's true that each case of evil deviance not the same, Gladwell does an excellent job showing commonalities and steps taken towards the crime.

The third piece was by someone not nearly as well known, but outstanding writing nonetheless. "How to Build an American Car" was written by Justin Heckert for Esquire Magazine and centers around the Cadillac ATS, Esquire's 2012 Car of the Year. It's an interesting subject and Heckert does a really good job of showing the individual effort that's gone into creating and producing the vehicle.

Great Sports Writing - by MacGregor, Wetzel & Tomlinson

Three pieces of sports writing recently that struck me as particular compelling work from three different sources.

For ESPN, Jeff MacGregor wrote the column "Waiting for Goodell" on the NFL commissioner and his role in relation to the referee lockout. Brilliant writing based on work by Samuel Beckett... and done prior to the Monday Night Football fiasco in Seattle.

The other two pieces were much longer feature profiles done really well. "Dabo Swinney travels long road to restore Clemson to prominence" was done by Dan Wetzel for Yahoo Sports and chronicles Swinney's incredibly trying childhood and how it's guided his efforts as a head coach.

Final story to mention was a riveting piece by Tommy Tomlinson posted last week to Sports on Earth. "Minus One" is on Tulane safety Devon Walker who suffered a broken neck playing earlier this season and is portrayed in glowing terms by Tomlinson.

"Triburbia" by Karl Taro Greenfeld

Triburbia by Karl Taro Greenfeld is a fictional slice-of-life work from a guy who I’ve previously found to have written great non-fiction for various magazines.

I had high hopes for the book based on Greenfeld and found myself captivated by his descriptions of many characters in the book and was looking forward while reading to seeing how everyone would come together.

The web of relationships between everyone was interesting to see develop, but issue I had is things never really seemed to come together in any conclusion. Basically, it struck me as really good character based fiction, but lacking in an additional compelling plot.

That said, there were great characters in the book and I agree with Jay McInerney who in his New York Times review of Triburbia wrote of Greenfeld's excellent description of Cooper, the 4th grade despot.

Writers on Writing - Stout, Jones, Gutkind, Boo, Streitfeld

There’s been quite a few solid pieces I've come across lately that deal in the subject of writers and their writing.

A profile of someone knee deep in the writing industry was "Glenn Stout Lives Way Up There" for The Classical. Really interesting piece on a guy who’s taken a fairly meandering path in his writing (including his now 20 plus years as series editor of the excellent Best American Sports Writing books).

In terms of some of the nuts and bolts around producing great narrative non-fiction were three different pieces. For Guernica Magazine, there was “Reporting Poverty:Emily Brennan interviews Katherine Boo”. Really interesting content from the journalist who wrote her first book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, out of time spent with people in the slums of Mumbai. Additionally, posted to the site Gangry is a Q&A with Esquire and ESPN writer Chris Jones on both his own writing and journalism in general. It was solid stuff from Jones that brings to mind some of his past dishing on writing. Third piece around producing narrative non-fiction was by Lee Gutkind, author of the recently published You Can't Make This Stuff Up: The Complete Guide to Writing Creative Nonfiction--from Memoir to Literary Journalism and Everything in Between”. Posted to the New York Times website was Gutkind’s interesting piece “The Yellow Test” about the importance of writing scenes when producing compelling non-fiction.

Finally, a couple of other interesting things I came across lately were mention of a writing conference and another New York Times piece. The conference is East Meets West: A Gathering of Literary Journalists in mid-November at Cal Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and New York Times piece was written by David Streitfeld. Titled “The Best Book Reviews Money Can Buy”, it’s on the practice of writers paying for reviews (not surprising that these purchased reviews tend to be positive) to sites like Amazon.

Businessweek Features: on Elon Musk, Distributed Work & College Tuition Grants

Three different Businessweek features stood out lately as being on particularly interesting topics.

In particular, the latest cover story of "Elon Musk, the 21st Century Industrialist" by Ashlee Vance was a solid piece of writing on a compelling guy.

From the same issue was a feature by Brad Stone titled "My Life as a TaskRabbit" on the new "distributed workforce" with people bidding on one-time odd jobs needed done by others. As Stone details, the industry and it's players including TaskRabbit, Postmates and Cherry utilizes technology such as smart phones to systematize what began with Craig's List odd job postings.

Finally, a prior issue of Businessweek contained "The Debt-Free College Degree" by Melba Newsome. It was an interesting look at the much in the news escalating cost of higher education and how places like Davidson College are moving towards need-based grants and away from student loans.

"Alaskan Travels" by Edward Hoagland

Alaskan Travels by Edward Hoagland was written as a sort of travelogue of the time Hoagland spent in the Alaska some 30 years ago while in his early 50s and had at times hard to follow writing, but that was on a topic of interest.

In the book, Hoagland recounts stories of both time spent in Anchorage as well as off the beaten path in other areas of the state. From interviews conducted in Anchorage, Hoagland recounts the stories of business leaders and developers such as Bob Penny, Bob Uchitel, Larry Carr and Pete Zamarello.

Outside of the state's (by far) largest city is where the majority of the book is focused, though, with Hoagland and his travelling companion health care professional going to some of the more remote areas where she would diagnose, catalog and care for tuberculosis. It’s noted in the book that were some 100 cases of TB statewide, but with the remoteness of the places they travelled to, Hoagland’s companion often because the default general care provider and the two of them as white people were very much minorities in many places visited.

It was interesting reading of people Hoagland came across living their lives different than most (at least different than most living in a City environment) and his depiction of the changes in lives and culture pretty compelling. In many areas jobs and industry hadn’t really come, but what had were the trappings of modern life in the form of television and alcohol. For younger villagers, this exposure to modern life was oftentimes causing them to go away from subsistence living and Hoagland had an interesting anecdote of older Eskimos often being the buyers at fur sales because the young people don't deal with that sort of thing anymore.

Definitely some interesting content in the book, but some of the areas were not so compelling and the difficulty I had following certain sections made me think favorably back on some of the other books I’ve read on Alaska and enjoyed more… with fiction efforts being Journey by James Michener and Call of the Wild by Jack London and an excellent nonfiction book Looking for Alaska by Peter Jenkins.

Outside Magazine Pieces by Bruce Barcott and Tom Vanderbilt & Nat Geo story by Michael Finkel

There were two piece of writing that stood out from the September issue of Outside Magazine... with one of them finally now posted online with the October issue having been published.

Larger of the two stories was "The Devil on Paradise Road" by Bruce Barcott and it featured the heading "It started as a bluebird New Year's Day in Mount Rainier National Park. But when a gunman murdered a ranger and then fled back into the park's frozen backcountry, every climber, skier, and camper became a suspect—and a potential victim." Extremely captivating writing reminiscent of the Bob Friel story "The Vanishing" from Outside earlier this year.

The other piece from this Sept edition of outside was also solid writing, but first caught my attention more for the writer himself than the subject. Tom Vanderbilt, author of the excellent surprise bestseller, Traffic (which I reviewed back in 2008) wrote "Born in the USA" on the business trend towards manufacturing being done in the U.S., otherwise known as insourcing.

Not from Outside, but on the same type of "living different than most" topic Outside frequently writes on was another piece of really good writing to note here. For the August issue of National Geographic, Michael Finkel did "Tibet’s Golden 'Worm'" on the caterpillar fungus known as yartsa (or "worms") found only in the high mountains of Tibet and sought after in Asian cultures for it's supposed healing qualities. Terribly interesting subject described well by Finkel.

Danger of Football Pieces by Melissa Segura, Gregg Doyel & Patrick Hruby

There were three recent pieces on the danger of football that were each excellent and made me think of past solid writing I've linked to on the harm that can come from the sport.

First of the pieces to mention was the cover article from last week's Sports Illustrated, "The Other Half Of The Story" by Melissa Segura. Riveting content on the damage caused by football as seen through the partners/caretakers of three ex-players, Jim McMahon, Dave Kocourek and Ray Easterling.

Second was a story I just came across tonight, "Tulsa doctor stays calm in scary situation, thanks to emergency training" by Gregg Doyel for CBS Sports. About the lifesaving care administered on the field last weekend to Tulane football player Devon Walker, it's profound stuff on a calamity all too possible to occur on the field.

Additinally there was the simply titled "Game Over" by Patrick Hruby. Written for Sports on Earth, the recently launched joint venture between USA Today and MLB Advanced Media, it's well reasoned prose on why Hruby can't enjoy football anymore and won't be watching this fall.

It's not surprising to read of this being Hruby's feeling given past pieces from him I've linked to such as "Did Football Kill Austin Trenum?" and "End Game: Brain Trauma And The Future Of Youth Football In America", but he's not the only writer to do excellent work on the subject. The two pieces that come to mind which I've noted in the past are from J.R. Moehringer with "Football is dead. Long live football" and "The Boy Who Died of Football" from Thomas Lake.

Just a tough subject... there's certainly a lot of different ways that people can get hurt and a lot of sports that can cause harm, but football seems to stand perhaps with only boxing or MMA for company as sports that each and every play involve potentially concussive events.

Mark Singer on marathon fraud & writer discussion of it

There was a fascinating piece in The New Yorker last month followed by an equally compelling writer discussion of the story, it's merits and shortcomings.

Piece itself was "Marathon Man" by Mark Singer and features the writer framing and pursuing the question "Is Kip Litton a Marathon Fraud?" in relation to his claims of marathon exploits. Similar to the story my last blog post about, Litton's history as chronicled by Singer traffics in the unbelievable, but also includes Litton being resolute about his claims in the face of all evidence against them... really to the point of making one question whether he delusional.

It was a tremendously interesting piece by Singer that brings the reader forward with a vested interest in finding the truth about Litton, his actions and motivations.

To this point, I heard of the piece from a Twitter link to Gangrey, a writing site by Tampa Times writer Ben Montgomery. The site often features writers discussing pieces of note and in this case, Sports Illustrated writer Thomas Lake posted on "Marathon Man" and launched a back and forth dialogue with Wright Thompson from ESPN as well as other writers I admire. Very thought out and understandable points of view from all the comments posted and excellent reading for those interested in the writing process.

"Life of Pi" by Yann Martel

Recently heard of the film and saw the movie trailer for Life of Pi, coming out late November and directed by Ang Lee.



Based on the Yann Martel book Life of Pi, it hopefully will tell as compelling and fantastic story as in the 2002 bestseller. Was just a very cool work of fiction that afterwards leaves someone thinking back on the events and will be very interesting to see how it translates to film.

Businessweek Writing - Greenfeld on ESPN / Stone on Marissa Mayer / Bennett on Social+Capital VC Fund

Three excellent features from Businessweek to highlight here...

The most recent issue included "ESPN: Everywhere Sports Profit Network" by the excellent Karl Taro Greenfeld, whose writing first came across and posted on some 3 1/2 year ago. I've since linked to a few Greenfeld features for BW over the last year or two and just like the other work, this ESPN piece is thorough and interesting. In many ways, it reminded me of the James Andrew Miller & Tom Shales book Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN that I read and reviewed last year. Just remarkable to read in Greenfeld's story of the growth at ESPN with "headcount doubling in the last 7 years to 12,000 employees worldwide" and think of how influentation the company was already back in the last 90's when we we would discuss it in business school.

The two other Businessweek features to note in this post were from a few months back with "Yahoo: Help Us, Marissa Mayer. You're Our Only Hope" by Brad Stone and "Social+Capital, the League of Extraordinarily Rich Gentlemen" by Drake Bennett.

Stone is similar to Greenfeld in that I like and look forward to his writing and he provides a fairly short and interesting look at the former Google exec and now Yahoo CEO.

In the Bennett story, he profiles the Venture Capital Fund led by former Facebooker Chamath Palihapitiya and backed in part by Silicon Valley heavyweights Kevin Rose and Peter Thiel. Solid piece on an interesting fund build on the idea of backing companies trying to accomplishing something good... and yep, in reference to the title of Bennett's piece, the fund backers and leaders have done very well in past ventures.

"The Hunger Games" Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

After reading the first two books and most of the third back in late May, finally finished Mockingjay, the third book in Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy.



The Hunger Games books are in the same Young Adult fiction category as the Twilight novels by Stephenie Meyer and while I agree with Stephen King's assessment of The Hunger Games as being being more well written, it did seem the books from Collins followed a similar downward path as those from Meyer.

The later Twilight books often had a theme of overall weepiness and "can't live if living is without you" and in a similar fashion, the first Hunger Games book seemed the best and the second and especially third just had too many scenes where it hard to follow exactly what was going on. Fast paced can certainly be a good thing in writing, but just too many confusing spots particularly in Mockingjay as the third book.

I saw The Hunger Games movie first, enjoyed it quite a bit and then thought excellent the book it was based on. The second book Catching Fire still seemed fairly solid and then I just didn't care for Mockingjay very much.

Solid Writing from Sports Illustrated on Baseball & ESPN on Football

There's four excellent pieces of sports writing to note here with two from ESPN the Magazine and two from Sports Illustrated.

The ESPN features came from the September 3 NFL Preview issue and both dealt extremely well with the important and much discussed idea of the negatives of the game weighed against the positives. The lead story was a J.R. Moehringer essay "Football is dead. Long live football" that featured the subtitle "Concussions, lawsuits, death -- but fans are still cheering" followed by 120 points to consider about America's most popular sport.

Additionally, David Fleming wrote the piece "Neither saint nor sinner" that looks at Cleveland Browns linebacker Scott Fujita and the suspension the NFL gave him from the Bountygate scandal while he was a New Orleans Saint. Tremendously interesting story that similar to the Moehringer piece delves into the good as well as dark side of pro football.

Switching to a different sport, two Sports Illustrated pieces a few months apart shared for me the common bond of being very good writing about baseball superstars. The recent August 27 issue had Angels 21 year old outfield Mike Trout on the cover and the story within was "Kid Dynamite" by Tom Verducci. It was an well written piece and brought to mind past pieces I've linked to on phenoms Bryce Harper, Stephen Strasburg and Trevor Bauer.

Going a while back in time, but also on a baseball superstar was the June 11 SI cover story "The Curse Of Bigness" by S.L. Price on Josh Hamilton. The piece featured the same type of great in-depth writing that Price seems to always provide and showed a fascinating portrait of Hamilton. Some of the stories told showed character tendencies towards the dramatic and attention craving and that certainly doesn't make Hamilton a bad guy, but does seem to tie into his past drug and alcohol addictions and the possibility (certainly not the guarantee, but possibility) of future struggles.

Great Tennis Writing from John Jeremiah Sullivan & S.L. Price

There was an excellent profile of Venus and Serena Williams recently that brought to mind another solid piece of writing following Serena's Wimbledon championship last month.

The recent story was the remarkable "Venus and Serena Against the World" by John Jeremiah Sullivan for the New York Times and piece last month on the Sports Illustrated website "Emotion and all, Williams breaks through for fifth Wimbledon" by S.L. Price.

Two exemplary writers who did revealing work under entirely different circumstances, Sullivan as a feature profile and Price a shorter match recap that he still managed to put a lot of heft into. Both highly recommended.

Sports Illustrated Writing: from Layden, Jenkins & Wertheim

There's been a few cases of Sports Illustrated writing lately that stood out as excellent and can be linked to (an additional solid story from the recent issue should be online in about a week).

From the August 20 College Football preview issue was a profile of USC quarterback Matt Barkley as well as a piece on a horrific injury and the two University of Georgia baseball players involved.

The Barkley piece is titled "Trophy Life" and in it, Lee Jenkins writes a thorough look at the Heisman Trophy contender. Striking from the feature was the friendship detailed between the USC signal caller and a man 70 years his elder, Olympic athlete and Japanese POW Louie Zamperini. It's an odd connection, but Barkley being close to the awe-inspiring subject of one of my favorite books of the year, Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken, seems reason to like him.

The other piece of note from this Aug 20 issue was "Why Ask Why?" from Jon Wertheim. It's a powerful story on Zach Cone and Jonathan Taylor and the paralyzing injury suffered by Taylor after they collided going for an outfield fly ball. Wertheim reveals in the story a remarkable resiliency from Taylor... as well another UGA baseball player paralyzed not long before.

Final SI piece to note here was from the website rather than the magazine. Following on the heels of my blog post a few weeks back on great Olympic writing was a story featuring two of my two favorite story lines out of the London Games. From Tim Layden, "In a Games filled with memorable moments, few resonate like Bolt" covers of course the accomplishments of the great sprinter, but also the double gold by U.K. distance runner Mo Farah (who had been featured in one of the earlier pieces of excellent writing noted). Excellent writing from Layden on two amazing athletes.

"Jacques Plante: The Man Who Changed the Face of Hockey" by Todd Denault

Jacques Plante: The Man Who Changed the Face of Hockey was a book that I wanted to enjoy more than I actually did. Written by Todd Denault, it's a biography of the Hall of Famer best known for becoming the first NHL goalie to wear a mask.



While I was drawn to the subject, the book itself didn't really hold my interest as it struck me as too much of a collection of "this happened and then that happened" event recaps. It definitely seemed to be extremely well reported (especially for a first book from Denault), but I found it lacked the heart of other hockey writing, like by Jack Falla, that I enjoyed quite a bit. Interesting to me, this criticism I had of the book was also said (down to the Falla book comparison) in a review I came across online... with that review having a more positive impression.

Things may potentially have changed later in the book as I set it aside a third of the way through, but just not enough human drama to compel me to keep going.

College Football Pieces by Rick Bragg, Wright Thompson & Kevin Van Valkenburg for ESPN

Three features from the Aug 20 ESPN the Magazine College Football preview stood out to me as excellent.

Lengthiest was the profile "Urban Meyer will be home for dinner" on the Ohio State head coach. It's an excellent piece by Wright Thompson that delves into whether Meyer will be able to coach at the level he's accustomed to while avoiding the deterioration in health and loss of family time that plagued him at Florida. It's definitely a question with an unknown outcome and Thompson frames it exceptionally well (with a Thompson interview about the piece here).

Also from this issue was another another excellent profile revealing internal conflict. From Kevin Van Valkenburg, "Who's afraid of the Honey Badger?" is on Tyrann Mathieu, the now dismissed from the team Heisman trophy finalist for LSU. It's fascinating to know that Van Valkenburg wrote this piece questioning whether Mathieu's story "the beginning of a cautionary tale?" prior to him getting booted from the Tigers.

Final story that stood out was from Rick Bragg with "Down here: To understand football's place in the South, you first have to see it from the inside." Reminiscent of the Warren St. John book Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Road Trip into the Heart of Fan Mania, it shows (for better or worse) just how much college football matters to people in SEC country.

Writers on Writing - from Thompson, Whitehead & Stout

I've come across a few different pieces lately that feature some really solid content by writers on how they do (or have done) their work. Most recent was insight from Wright Thompson of ESPN via an interview he did with Brandon Sneed titled "Can Urban Meyer Really Make It Home For Dinner? Wright Thompson On Profiling The Man Who Can't Quit Coaching." Sneed is a freelance writer who has published in a number of major magazines and I've linked a number of times to his website... particularly when like is the case here it's to interviews he does with writers dishing on their craft. It's excellent stuff from Thompson, with two of most interesting things being the description of how much work he puts in to his writing and the importance of caring about your subject and what you write (which brought to mind a similar perspective from Anne Lamott).

Also of interest in the craft of writing category was a recent New York Times piece "How to Write" by Colson Whitehead. With 10 (well, 11 sort of) rules for writing, it's insightful content from the acclaimed novelist.

Finally, it's a different angle on the topic, but another excellent piece I've seen of late on writing was by Glenn Stout, series editor of the Best American Sports Writing books. On his blog "Verbplow: Where I Turn Words Over" Stout posted "How I became a writer: a true story." Super fascinating missive by a guy who sought out and then seized an opportunity.

Favorite Olympic Writing So Far

There's quite possibly been better pieces that have been and are still to be written on the London Olympics, but a few have stood out to me so far for the subject covered and/or excellence of prose.

In the category of post-event recap writing was Bruce Arthur for Toronto's National Post newspaper with "Canada delivers something worth remembering in Olympic soccer loss to U.S." Really great work done quickly.

With an insightful and important take from the Olympics was the Jen Floyd Engel column "Games of the Girls? Not really" for Fox Sports.

Finally, two additional pieces that stood out were "Painful, Poignant Memories of 1992" by Joe Posnanski for the site Sports on Earth and "Olympics 2012: Rupp follows good friend Farah to podium in 10K" by Pat Graham in the Washington Times. Both were short works of writing that covered tremendously cool events on the track.

Two great pieces on light and dark side of football - by Wright Thompson & Patrick Hruby

There's two pieces of writing I've seen lately that take completely different approaches to looking at football and which seem equally well done and true.

With the view of football as a fan experience is "Pulled Pork & Pigskin: a Love Letter to Southern Football" by Wright Thompson for ESPN. The piece is from 2007 and covers all that's great about college football, particularly in the states that care about it the most. The pageantry, the fan devotion, the gameday traditions... all chronicled by Thompson in a way that reminds me of Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird (which I reviewed the other day) urging a writing approach of reverence to the subject.

Not necessarily exactly on the flip side, but with an approach looking at the player rather than fan experience was a recent Patrick Hruby feature for The Washingtonian. "Did Football Kill Austin Trenum?" is on the impact of concussions in the sport and tells the at times gut-wrenching piece of a Virginia high school player. Hruby often writes of the darker side of sports (with the most recent piece I've linked to being on the business of sports) and it's solid writing he provides on Trenum, the dangers of concussions and things any parent of a concussed young athlete should be aware of.

Again, both very different pieces, but both excellent in their own right.

"Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott

In the oldie but goodie category is Anne Lamott's 1995 Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life about... both of those things.



I head about the book from author Chris Guillebeau who recommended Bird by Bird for anyone wanting to write better and found myself drawn to not only Lamott's views on writing but also her take on the world. I like interesting contradictions in people and Lamott comes across as religious (with her citing C.S. Lewis and his Surprised by Joy as an influence), profane, funny and with good insight. One thing that particularly stuck with me was how she seems to see the world with reverence and have that come across in her writing. At the same time that she write with wonder, though, she very much writes her world, with all it's warts.

In terms of the more nuts and bolts advice she gives around writing, the biggest notion that stands out is a writer writes. It's appointment work that requires putting in the time and good writing something that often can come when you just keep writing and then gleam the good out of the bad. The eloquent (and memorable) phrase used by Lamott is "shitty first drafts." Not to cause injury patting myself on the back, but this idea very much reminds me of the process of writing college English papers way back when... actually, just prior to the original publican of Bird by Bird.

Lamott also notes that if stuck on what to write about, someone should narrow down as much as possible (with the idea of "writing through a one inch frame") and just start describing. She recommends giving yourself short assignments about things as random as school lunches from childhood and people interacted with. The point is to just get started... with the Bird by Bird title coming from Lamott's father telling her brother how to get a report on birds done.

Just a very cool book that strikes me as a kind of (extremely honest, warts and all) love letter about writing by someone who has also taught classes on the subject. She also references the writer as a chronicler of events who stands apart and takes notes as things occur (or just occur to them) and the benefit of writing groups for people who take on this at times solitary pursuit.

Whether someone writes for a living, hopes to, or just loves to write, Lamott notes the reward for a writer in daily work done with devotion and commitment. It's not so important what's written and especially not important what the work starts out being (again, "shitty first drafts"), just to sit down, write... and then repeat the process.

Penn State Crimes, Moral Failures & Journalism Part 2 - on Joe Paterno & Freeh report

After the Penn State scandal first broke and now convicted child rapist Jerry Sandusky was indicted, I did the blog post "Penn State Crimes, Moral Failures & Journalism" linking to a few pieces of great writing on the horrific subject. It's now been a few weeks since the Freeh report came out putting a large amount of blame on late coach Joe Paterno for knowingly covering up Sandusky's crimes and especially in the few days after the report published, there was some new remarkable writing done that's very much worth linking to.

The first two pieces that come to mind were by preeminent sports writers on how they were deceived by Sandusky. Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post wrote "Joe Paterno, at the end, showed more interest in his legacy than Jerry Sandusky’s victims" and Rick Reilly "The sins of the father" for ESPN. Both were very well written and an additional column that stood out at the time was "The Deadspin Five-Point Plan To Rescue Penn State Football" by Drew Magary for Deadspin. Magary generally writes very funny stuff and his piece was both caustic as well as seemingly spot-on.

In line with my blog post idea of preserving some of the best writing on the subject were two posts I came across by others. On his personal tumbler site, LA Times writer Baxter Holmes did "Round-up of fine sentences, part 36 (feat. pieces written about Penn State/Joe Paterno)" and Wired Magazine contributing editor Jason Fagone published "The 5 best and 5 worst sentences written about Penn State in the aftermath of the Freeh Report" on his blog. Both noted some excellent work and Fagone's piece especially stood out with his analysis of the writing he found notable.

Finally, it's another approach altogether, but I thought excellent a recent ESPN The Magazine back page column by Chris Jones. Titled "Statue of limitations" it looks at the now mothballed statue of Paterno and the craftsman who built it. It was an interesting story idea and very well written work.

"Start Something That Matters" by Blake Mycoskie

In his book Start Something That Matters, TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie provides a solid business book by guy who appears to genuinely believe in helping others.

TOMS is known for it's One for One practice of giving away a pair of shoe (often via Shoe Drops to needy children) for each pair ordered and Mycoskie in the book provides an interesting tale of his background and thoughts about succeeding in business while also doing good.

He began starting companies at 19 and TOMS came out of a trip to Argentina in which Mycoskie saw both huge numbers of children without shoes and a local shoe that he felt could be adapted and sold in the US. The combination of this philanthropic goal with the intent of a for-profit shoe company turned into what the company is today.

In terms of content in the book, Mycoskie provides some solid ideas for success and references examples of their utilization both by himself and others. Method Products is noted as company which (just like TOMS) uses the power of an authentic story to build towards success and the casual dining chain Chipotle brought up as a company founded and run around simple ideas executed on well. Additionally, Charity: water is noted as being a philanthropic organization that's done great work in part due to it's incredibly open and transparent approach to where donations are spent.

Also noted as important by Mycoskie are the ideas of facing ones fears (with him referencing Tim Ferriss writing about worst case scenarios not being that bad) and the huge import of employee trust and morale. The idea from Mycoskie was that the better a company's employees feel about their jobs, the better business will be... which follows very much in line with the idea I've long felt that how employees treat customers is a reflection on how they're treated by management.

A couple of other things mentioned that Mycoskie didn't devote as many words to, but still seemed of import were writing down ideas as they come to you and living simply... with owning as little as possible. Both solid concepts within what was an excellent book by someone doing good work.