Book Nook Archives - Page 2 of 2

16Sep2024

The Cabin at the End of the World

Tom Knuppel Book Nook

This is a 2028 horror novel by Paul G Tremblay.

This book is about 7-year-old Wen and her two dads. She tells she is happy she has two dads as some kids think that is cool and some tease her on that fact. She just tunes them out.The family take a vacation to a cabin somewhere near the Canadian border. While there, Wen goes out to catch grasshoppers. Her dads told her to come get them if a stranger shows up, even though there are no cabins for two miles. Suddenly after being focused on the grasshoppers, the biggest man she has ever seen shows up. Wen hesitates and the bei guy, named Leonard , reassures her he is no harm and would love to help catch grasshoppers with her.

The two of them catch grasshoppers and she notices three more people coming and carrying what appears to be weapons that look like a scythe. Leonard assures her they all just want o talk to her dads. Wen is spooked and runs inside the house to get away. Here dads look out and lock the doors and windows and the strangers are knocking on the door to tlk with them about an a important issue.They wont let them and go for their gun. but, it is looked on the car outside

The strangers break in and on front the dads and ties them up. They say they mean no harm only want to talk. According to the strangers they four of them just met today and each had the same message come to them in their sleep and the dads are the only ones that can stop it. They tell them that the world will end if they don’t do it. they must sacrifice with death one of the fathers and they just decide.

There are television reports to confirm that mass destruction is happening all over the world and coming their way. The dad so NO. After many skirmishes and people getting hurt, the dads still won’t do it.

The book is apocalyptic in nature and somewhat weird. This book is good until the end when it goes very weak in the conclusion.

I give it 3 stars out of 5.

22May2024

Book Review- The Wizard of College Baseball

Tom Knuppel Book Nook

Brilliant and Fantastic. I am a solid baseball fan and fairly well versed in college baseball. I knew of Ron Fraser but that story just blew me away. That is the first words I think of in reading the book by David Brauer. It is a well researched book with plenty of stories about the life of and experience of Ron Fraser, former Head Baseball coach at Miami University.

Fraser was an innovator and an excellent motivator along with a top promotions person. When Fraser was hired at Miami with his experience being as the Head Coach of the Dutch National Team. The field was full of rocks, the team was bad, so bad they University was considering dropping the program but they hired Ron Fraser to take over the helm. He was basically in shock when he arrived to find a poor diamond, no scoreboard, no lights and most importantly no fan base.

Fraser became the PT Barnum of college baseball. He was always thinking of ways to advance the program. I a few years, he was the first to use bat girls, which were called Sugarcanes. He took pride in keeping them knowledgeable and dressed and manicured well. He wanted to reach families.
He had the first hat night in baseball. The list of his promotions is many. The book will get you in touch with many more.

Fraser made connections in the city that helped him put in lights and a scoreboard. That connection stayed with him throughout his time in Miami. The people and media began to take notice as this was now the place to be seen at in the Miami sports scene.

With this came media notice with games on the radio and later televised the Hurricanes games. This was not done anywhere else. A priority of Ron Fraser was family entertainment. He centered his promotions around getting the families to the games. He stated if the restrooms were clean, the food was good and the ballpark and the kids were having fun, then the moms would approve of their kids attending the games.

This is one of the best books I have read in many years. It is informative and delightful for this Central Illinois baseball fan. I have new respect for Hurricanes baseball.

I would like to thank the University of Nebraska Press for send the book to me in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The Author:

David Brauer is a communications, public relations, and marketing professional with more than two decades in the sports industry. His experience includes leadership in the NCAA Division 1 athletics and summer Collegiate baseball. A former college publicist at two Division 1 schools. he is a longtime college baseball aficionado and twenty plus year College World Series season ticket holder. He is a University of Illinois graduate, who currently lives in Mahomet, Illinois. with his wife and two children.

18Jul2022

Memory Man Series

Tom Knuppel Book Nook

Memory Man Series.

First: RECOMMENDATIONS for my next read?

I have completed the Memory Man series with the other four that followed. Although each book has similarities in its characteristics as to how they are laid out, they are all worthy of read. If you liked Memory Man, then these are good enough to grab ahold of.

Memory Man by David Baldacci is below.

If you like sports books, here is a link to over 100 of them I have completed for KnupSports.

24May202224May2022

Tom’s Library Shelf

Tom Knuppel Book Nook Amos Decker, David Baldacci, hyperthymesia, Memory Man

Tom’s Library Shelf

Tom’s Library Shelf has torn away from the sports books and went into more fiction books for awhile. I read about 80-90 sports books with most baseball for the past few years. They can be found HERE. So I started with a book by the popular author David Baldacci called “Memory Man“.

This is the first of six novels about Amos Decker. Decker was a good athlete in high school and particularly playing football. He went on to college and worked hard to play for his collegiate team and was okay at it as there are thousands of good players like him. He had the ambition to play in the NFL and got himself a few tryouts and he made a team.

On the first play of his first game, Decker got hit so hard, he got knocked out and broke both legs. He spent a considerable amount of time in the hospital recuperating. What he didn’t really know yet was the he suffered from hyperthymesia. This is an ability that allows people to remember nearly every event of their life with great precision. It became a blessing at times and a curse at time. His brain never rested or shut off. One good thing came out of this and that is he met his future wife who was a nurse and understood what he went through and was experiencing.

Since he couldn’t play football, he turned to being a police detective for the local police and with his perfect memory was really good at it for many years. One day after a tough case, he headed home. When he entered his living room, he found his brother-in-law dead on the floor. He stood and analyzed the scene with his perfect memory and then he thought of his wife. He rushed upstairs to the bedroom and found her dead in a weird position near the bed. He stood for a few seconds taking it all in. Suddenly he wondered about his daughter and rushed to her room and she wasn’t there. Back out in the hall he discovered the light on in the bathroom. He went in and his 8 yr old daughter was dead on the toilet with a belt on her to strap her on. He took in the scene and then just sat down and contemplated suicide. He called the police.

The police came and removed his gun so he didn’t kill himself. He couldn’t figure out in the following weeks and months who could have done it. The murders were left unsolved. Over the next few years he spiral out of control. He left the force and gained lots of weight and was in terrible condition. He became a Private Investigator to make some money as he lost his will to do anything and he became homeless and cared nothing about his welfare.

He had enough money to move into a Residence Inn and could eat their full breakfast everyday. One day his old partner came and had some news for him and that was the fact that a random guy came into the police station and confess to the murdering of Decker’s family.

Curiosity piqued. Decker wanted to visit the prisoner but knew they wouldn’t let him. He came up with a plan that when most were out for a special case he would go in and see people that never knew him and pretend to be a lawyer. That worked when there was a school shooting and all veteran police were out on that call. He got to see the guy and asked him a bunch of questions and decided the man didn’t do as he couldn’t give correct answers to some only Decker knew.

From here the intrigues starts. I am not going to give you the rest of the story but the school shooting and the murder of his family 20 years earlier are connected. This is a great book to read and easy to understand. I recommend this book.

-Tom

More to Come Soon