It's not about the bike: My journey back to life by Lance Armstrong

It's not about the bike: My journey back to life is one of those books that you have to read while forgetting certain aspects of real life. I had to either be on Lance Armstrong side or consider him a phony and simply dismiss the book. Since I am crazy about bikes, I still think Lance is really awesome (with or without the EPO).

As the title says: it's not about the bike, well... it kind of is, but the author tries to explain his fight with testicular cancer and his wife's process of having a baby in vitro. If you manage to differentiate the entire controversy of doping, you'll find this book as a serious lecture from a man who managed to survive one of the most horrifying diseases of our modern lives.

Before arguing that he had the money to pay for his medical interventions, you should know that he begged his sponsors to cover part of his insurance and he had sold his car and other valuables in order to pay for his treatment. Yes, he had the money and the luck, but he also mentions that when he was down nobody wanted to support him ( as in certain sponsors).

It's a book about family; be it the actual blood family, the family from work or the family you try to make. I had seen another face of the biker. He might be a champion, or a cheater, but in the end he's just another man who is trying to survive in this world. This book just shows that life can be cut short and we still have to fight through all the crap in order to survive.

Other unusual stories by Ovid S. Crohmalniceanu

Another month has passed and I had only managed to read one book. I blame this on my workplace due to the fact that I have to work extra hours in order to finish some projects that were overdue; not because of me, thank you very much. So extra hours and fatigue have taken their toll on me and my ability to read a book. Without further ado, I bring to you "Other unusual stories" by a Romanian author. 

The book reminded me a bit of "The Twilight Zone". Short stories with a bit of an unexpected ending. Since the book was in Romanian, I shall try to translate the name of each story so that you might get a whiff of the action: Letters from Arcadia, The Hermeneuts, The 10 Lost Tribes, Too Much Intelligence is Bad, The Interview, In Cold Blood, The Crisis of Imagination, Why is the Sky Blue, The Loneliness of the Long Race Runner, The Alternative. 10 Sci-Fi stories about the future of man kind will keep you interested and longing for more. 

Since I am an engineer by profession, I must admit that some of the principles related in the book were familiar to me and I must admit that I had sensed the author's engineering background, given the fact that we come from the same polytechnics university. The stories are very well thought out and they show rigorous research for each of them, be it quantum physics, engineering research, religion or philosophy. 

Each of these stories starts a bit abruptly and after a few of them you'll find yourself avidly reading so that you can discover how each story ends. They are not your average and predictable literature and they do give you a bit of a chuckle if you're a nerd. All in all it was a good read. I recommend this book if you manage to find it in English or Romanian.