I first learned about this book from The Leopard Lopate show on WNYC.  It took me nearly six months to get around to reading it, and boy was it worth it.  Zack has a contagious passion for the sport, a great sense of humor and shares his encyclopedic, but never boring, breadth of knowledge about baseball rules and strategies and oddities.  I am interested anything that is shared with passion, but its even better when it inspires my own, semi-dormant passions.  Highly recommended to anybody with even a slight interest in baseball.

Combined with the news that the mets signed Johan Santana, and I’m getting very excited about this season.

Boston Phoenix author Brett Milano has a great collection of stories of conversations with record nerds all attempting to justify that they aren’t the biggest nerds. In some ways, his inability to break the stereotype of record collectors as single, balding middle-age men doesn’t make me too hopeful for the future. Although it does remind me to make sure I put in enough effort to make my relationship with my wonderful girlfriend work… but first I have to find some out of print 45s of the perfect love song…

Vinyl Junkies, at Amazon.

By Simon Rich, recent Harvard grad/ Lampoon Editor.

It’s brilliant and funny. And you’ll read it in less than an hour.

I also picked up a great book that I guess I just needed the right impetus to read. Paul Arden’s, It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be. I’ve come to believe there exist certain experiences that you can’t really appreciate until you are ready. Reading this book was one of them. A tidy collection of inspiration, its not preachy nor over-marketed (here’s looking at you Seth Godin) If anybody wants my copy, I’d be more than happy to pass it along for inspiration.