I told BrianS I would pick up the book day post.  The wife and kids are out of town for the weekend so I figured I could fit this in between cleaning the garage, raking leaves, trimming bushes, trimming trees, etc.

I recently finished "Paterno" by Joe Posnanski.  I'm not a big college football fan.  I'm not a big non-fiction fan.  I am a big Posnanski fan although I was disappointed in both of his first two books.  This book had an uphill battle to win me over.

I wasn't really sure how this Paterno book would go.  Poz works best when he is telling feel-good stories and I think he made it pretty apparent that he was a Paterno fan-boy.  He didn't sign up to write this kind of story.

Despite the challenges, Poz did a great job with this book.  It starts out a little slow with Paterno's Brooklyn upbringing.  But that focus on his upbringing, and the emphasis on doing something special, helps us not only to understand his achievements but also his shortcomings.

In the end, I didn't feel hatred towards Paterno.  I felt disappointed.  I felt he was deeply flawed.  I also felt that he did really want to do good things with his life.  Somewhere along the line, I think Coach Paterno took over and Joe Paterno no longer existed.  The best line in the book was this one - "It is hard for any man, even a plainspoken Brooklyn kid determined never to lose his bearings, to hold on to what matters when people start to see him as a saint."

So, what are you reading?