Reading These Books Will Make You More Attractive, 2 Inches Taller AND A Better Dancer

Rather than get on my high horse about a new video game or TV show or movie, I like to promote reading whenever I can. More books in your brain = smarter, better you. And here are my 5 favorites from 2009:

5) "Last Words" by George Carlin with Tony Hendra (Free Press)

For the last 15 years of his life, George Carlin and longtime friend/fellow humorist deluxe

Tony Hendra sat down and documented his life, literally from conception to their last day.

From page one paragraph one, it's the kind of relentlessly engaging read we would expect.

I've been a huge fan of George's work since the AM/FM lp that (a) really made comedy as hip

as all the rock music at the time and (b) poked fun at his DJ days without disowning the

medium in which I was just cutting my teeth (and still do, to some degree). I had the

pleasure of interviewing GC years ago in Louisville. When I told him I was trying to do a

bit of my own stand-up around town he couldn't have been more supportive and helpful.

He left us with so many, many funny and thoughtful moments--and much, much too soon.

4) "The Machine: A Hot Team, A Legendary Season and a Heart-Stopping World Series: The

Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds" by Joe Posnanski (William Morrow)

I'm proof you don't have to be a Reds fan to enjoy this great baseball read. Because they

weren't in the fishbowl of New York, their swagger wasn't was well known as other bigger-

market teams. But make no mistake, these guys walked it and talked it like no one else.

3) "Gridiron Gauntlet: The Story of the Men Who Integrated Pro Football, in Their Own

Words" by Andy Piascik (Taylor Trade Publishing)

The NFL, like Major League Baseball, has an ugly and unfortunate past regarding its

African-American athletes. The New York Giants began league play in 1925 but had no

black players until 1948. George Halas refused to sign a black player to the Bears for their

first 32 seasons. The Steelers were all-white from 1933 to 1952. The book's first-person

accounts from some of those courageous players are riveting and often beyond belief.

2) "The Book Of Genesis: Illustrated" by R. Crumb (Norton)

Come clean--you had a Keep On Truckin' sticker, patch or poster at the turn of the 70's, now

didn't you? Or a copy of "Cheap Thrills" by Big Brother and The Holding Company because

you dug the album art, for one. Or you saw "Fritz The Cat" a dozen times. You can thank R.

Crumb for all those creative gems as well as this, the most sacred book of the Old

Testament. Some of the drawings are quite graphic, as the subject matter dictates, but

without question this is one of the most visually intriguing reads you'll ever find--IF you

grew up with the Bible. If you didn't? It's still worth the time.

1) "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: The Illustrated Edition--An Indian History of the

American West" by Dee Brown (Sterling Innovation)

Clearly one of the most important American history books ever written. And this newly

illustrated edition, with some of the most remarkable photography of the era, makes the case

even stronger, if that was possible. There weren't enough words to describe the outrage I felt

years ago when I first read this, and still aren't. What the American government executed upon

its native people was nothing short of what is euphemistically now called "ethnic cleansing."

Or a holocaust, take your pick. Try and imagine invaders taking your house, your property,

your children, your culture....then forcing you to march in, say, heavy snow hundreds of

miles to your new, desolate "home". Pretty crystal-clear now who the real savages were. I'm

reminded of an old newspaper cartoon where an English settler is talking to a couple of

native Americans, asking "What did you call this place before we got here?" One replies

"OURS."