Summer is here and whether you’re traveling, tanning, or cooling off in your air-conditioned room, it’s the perfect time to get your reading on. Now that required reading is over, have some fun and buy (or download) a few books. Here are a few suggestions, old and new. 11/22/63 by Stephen King (Scribner) Stephen King is the king of thrills and has been since the 1970s. Hands down. But he’s more than just an author writing about monsters. Even his frightening novels have heart at the root of them. King tries something very different in 11/22/63 and it’s probably his finest work in decades. Although it’s reminiscent of another great novel of his, The Dead Zone, it’s new in that it deals with time travel, never an easy task for a writer. Jake Epping, a high school teacher finds a portal that takes him to 1958, with his main objective to prevent the assassination of JFK. King is brilliant in that he doesn’t get bogged down in political stances or conspiracy theories. Time travel always deals with similar themes, such as the butterfly effect, but King is able to reinvigorate these themes. Plus, his love for the 1960s is quite evident and makes the reader want to time travel as well. A mini-series premiered on Hulu this year and it’s quite good. But the book is vastly superior. Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin (HarperCollins) This may be a few years old, but with this year’s election as vital, unpredictable and sometimes comical as any in recent memory, it’s interesting to brush up and learn even more about another election that is compelling in its own right, the one that took place in 2008. History and allegations were made. Foolish things were said. It had all the makings of a sporting event. Whether or not every account of what happened is true, it’s fun to go behind the scenes and learn how each candidate handles adversity and triumph and what they really think about their peers and certain regions of the countries. Regardless of what side you’re on, there’s information out there for everyone to enjoy. There was a sequel released, Double Down, about the 2012 election, but this is where the fun is. Imagine what a third book would be like if it’s based on this year’s election! The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports by Jeff Passan (HarperCollins) It’s the summertime, so you’ll see a whole lot of baseball books released. Many of them will be of high quality. However, you’d be hard pressed to find a better or more important release. Author Jeff Passan delves into a very sensitive subject in the game, pitchers and their sudden fragility. MLB teams know that to win championships, you need solid starting pitchers and relievers. So they’ll take a gamble and give a top ace hundreds of millions of dollars over a long period of time. That’s a lot to invest on one player. What makes this book so interesting is it explains just how insane it is for a franchise to take such a risk. Whether it’s because they throw harder at a younger age, or a different workout regimen compared to the old days, pitchers are tearing their ulnar collateral ligament, an injury that once upon a time would end careers. Thanks to a medical procedure called Tommy John Surgery, the UCL can get reconstructed. This book, which is well researched, attempts to understand why it continues to happen so often and what can be done to solve a problem that is just increasing and threatening the careers of the game’s best. COOL SUMMER READS BY JAIME DEJESUS
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