Reading List

Must.  Stop.  Buying.  Books. This is getting ridiculous.  Here, in no particular order, is what is presently on my book shelf, waiting to be read: 1959 – The Year Everything Changed (Fred Kaplan) The Land Where the Blues Began (Alan Lomax) Rhythm-a-ning; Jazz Tradition and Innovation (Gary Giddins) The Great Influenza (John Barry) Fiasco (Thomas Ricks) Cobra II (Michael Gordon) …

Feeling Stupid?

I am. Having read a rave review in Gary Giddins’s excellent book Natural Selection, I bought a copy of Grown Up All Wrong by Robert Christgau, who is the senior music critic at the Village Voice.  This is a collection of some of his pieces over the past several years.  I am thoroughly enjoying it, although I am not familiar …

Distractions and Prevarications, Part 6

Well, duh. Actually I’ve only read the first five of these – trying in vain to keep up with my eight year-old, who ripped through the entire series in two months.  The last one was something like 870 pages long.  Oh, the relief when it was over.

That Old Cape Magic

I got my hands on the new Richard Russo yesterday.  Blogging activities may fall off for the next few days. (It strikes me now that this should have been filed under the “Distractions and Prevarications” series.)

Sexism in the Publishing Industry

Good to see that sexism and gender-bias in the publishing industry are alive and well.  Consider the evidence.  First came the slightly odd but charming DANGEROUS BOOK FOR BOYS, which reminded me of an old book that I adored when I was young called, if memory serves, “The Big Weekend Book”, which was a thick, dusty hardback with a mottled …