Hi reader, welcome back to the TOA book of the year countdown! Let's get through a couple more today.
The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van der Kolk (March)
TOA Review: in progress (likely spring 2022)
I put the reading review for this one on hold a few months ago because I opened with a story that, although not the most serious incident in the history of my life, gave me a small perspective into the trauma described in this memorable work. (The reading review will come out once I figure out the best way to put this story into print.)
The Body Keeps the Score felt to me like a thorough introduction to vast, important topic of trauma, but the book never wandered into the dangerous territory of making me feel like an armchair expert for the fact of reading a few pages on the matter. I suspect the author never quite committed to a target audience for this book - it was either for therapists or for me, and I'm still not sure. This lack of clarity helped the end result from my perspective, bringing in a level of detail that helped me understand the stakes of this work. I would assume certain stories and details would be too much for anyone who is suffering from some of the trauma described in this book (it also doesn't help that the author writes at times from an arm's length away, creating a likely unintentional but serious effect of coldness or lack of empathy for some of the victims).
Parting thought: You can’t help someone with their trauma story unless you put your own voyeurism on hold. There is a difference between someone’s healing process and your desire to hear a story.
Thirty-One Nil by James Montague (March)
TOA Review: April 2021
A fitting inclusion on this list - 2022 is a World Cup Year. Montague's book is some combination of soccer journalism, geopolitical commentary, and travel diary. It's an odd concept that probably does not require replication, but from my perspective this makes it all the easier to recommend to any soccer fan. It covers the 2014 qualification cycle, which may cause some readers to feel Thirty-One Nil is slightly outdated, but for me I think this will hold up as well as other higher profile soccer books such as The Damned Utd or Fever Pitch (I plan to test this hypothesis by rereading all three books this year).
Parting thought: I actually didn't track notes as I read this the first time (another reason to reread it, I suppose). I think having gotten through the soccer aspects from the initial read will make it easier for me to focus more attention on some of the other stories, such as the protests in Brazil during the Confederations Cup, which have less to do with the drama and fascination of working through a World Cup qualifying cycle.
Parting thought #2: Actually, a similar book restricted to CONCACAF qualifying would make for spectacular reading.
