Very good.

Finally read this over the weekend, finished it in 2 days. I really enjoyed it and I can see why so many people talk about it being one of the best music biographies they've read.

very fun read. Dude had such amazing access to a scene/city full of pure music gold

Read the majority Friday night and then mopped up the remainder this morning. Loved it but as a huge Crowes guy it left me angry and sad and full of "what might have been." Well-written with a ton of tales to tell, I highly recommend it for anyone with interest in the band. And in what will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with them, the brothers Robinson are world-class pieces of work. They may even come off worse than you thought going in, and that takes some doing

whatwouldcooleydo? wrote:

Read the majority Friday night and then mopped up the remainder this morning. Loved it but as a huge Crowes guy it left me angry and sad and full of "what might have been." Well-written with a ton of tales to tell, I highly recommend it for anyone with interest in the band. And in what will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with them, the brothers Robinson are world-class pieces of work. They may even come off worse than you thought going in, and that takes some doing

You pretty much nailed my thoughts on the book. I read it over 2 days as well, and as a huge Crowes fan, I was also kinda pissed at how the Robinsons pretty much self-sabotaged the band anytime they got some momentum. From the outside looking in, I always assumed Chris was the main person at fault for much of their issues, but Rich is as bad, if not worse, in his own way. The way he treated Jimmy Page, after he pretty much rejuvenated their career, was appalling. Overall, one of my favorite music books I've read in a long time, I highly recommend it.

Having enjoyed Paris By the Book (see above), I sought out Liam Callanan's first novel, The Cloud Atlas.* In terms of stylistic development it would have been slightly more interesting to read the books in order but they're totally different other than being written by the same person so the order doesn't really matter. This one is based on the little known yet true fact that near the end of WWII, the Japanese released a large number of balloons w/ explosives attached, leaving it to the wind and chance as to where they might land and what damage they might do. The program and the specific events caused by landings in various and sometimes surprising parts of the US (Wyoming, Michigan, etc) were censored by the US govt for many years. W/ that as a backdrop, Callanan spins a fine tale of Alaska, war, love, death, mysticism & mysteries and more. Worth your time.

* NB: There is apparently another novel called Cloud Atlas (no "the") which is very different and sometimes confused w/ this one so if you look for it, be guided by the author's name.

Booker T. Jones is a legend and he doesn't owe me a thing but his new memoir is a bit of a rough read. If you read it it will help if you are a serious musician because there is PLENTY of music theory. I'm only a campfire guitar player so I have no idea what is going on during a lot of this thing.
Other than that, it's fairly enjoyable.

Finally getting started on NK Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy.

Prince - the beautiful one's
Read this in pretty much no time at all. In short, it captured prince well

But beyond that Idk. I'm not one to bicker about the morals of posthumous releases (I miss him but his dumb ass dying with no will is his own fault!) but it's hard to read this thing and not come away wishing it had either been properly finished or completely abandoned. The ten pages he actually wrote are interesting but stop short of the period where his career takes off, and the lengthy intro from the guy handpicked to help him put it all together provides a neat non-musical perspective on the man himself. It's not a stretch to think the way prince tackled those first pages, combined with the great time and care Dan was willing to devote to the project, could have been as unique a memoir as prince was an artist. Instead it's ten pages padded out to a 300 page scrapbook mostly narrated by prince quotes from decades old press pieces

There are some cool ass photos and his handwritten lyric sheets are gorgeous, so it's an easy book to enjoy, but if you're a big fan it's best not to expect much because truthfully it isnt here

Lee Child has been mailing in his Jack Reacher books for a while now, but the last couple showed encouraging signs that maybe he was starting to care again. Now comes the latest installment, Blue Moon.

What a piece of outright trash, and not in a good way. Preposterous, pathetic, unjustifiable on any level except that Child is good at momentum so one keeps turning pages. But nothing about the premise, the story, the characters, the circumstances or the specific plot twists makes any sense or provides even that slim thread of possibility that would allow the reader to suspend disbelief. Feh.

beantownbubba wrote:Lee Child has been mailing in his Jack Reacher books for a while now, but the last couple showed encouraging signs that maybe he was starting to care again. Now comes the latest installment, Blue Moon.

What a piece of outright trash, and not in a good way. Preposterous, pathetic, unjustifiable on any level except that Child is good at momentum so one keeps turning pages. But nothing about the premise, the story, the characters, the circumstances or the specific plot twists makes any sense or provides even that slim thread of possibility that would allow the reader to suspend disbelief. Feh.

I've never read Lee Child, but that is the seem criticism I've had of Dan Brown since I read The Da Vinci Code. I just don't understand why the hack is so popular.

Flea wrote:I've never read Lee Child, but that is the seem criticism I've had of Dan Brown since I read The Da Vinci Code. I just don't understand why the hack is so popular.

Agree. I can't speak completely knowledgeably because I've stopped reading his stuff but he seems to be a perfect example of a one trick pony - he had one excellent idea which he executed well but he's had nothing to offer since then.

Luckily I followed up the Lee Child disaster with Jeffery Deaver's The Never Game. I like but don't love Deaver (except for a few of the Rhyme books which are excellent) but he is dependably solid and this was a dependably solid enjoyable effort if the reader overlooks one major flaw.* Deaver introduces a new presumably recurring central character who I think will be fun to follow. I think it's time he learned how to spell his name correctly, though

*The bad guy's motive is somewhere between obscure and non-existent.

Started this a couple weeks ago and quickly stalled when I realized the whole thing was gonna be framed as a conversation between Morris and "prince". Not necessarily a terrible idea, since it immediately confronts the elephant in the room that is princes looming presence through Morris's story and the reason most people would pick up this book, but it was really cringey in execution.

Jumped back in today and ended up reading about 200 of it's 205 pages in one go. Ultimately not a bad book, but definitely far from a great one. It did shine some interesting light on prince, much of it in a negative way but still without the feeling of settling scores that often bogs these memoirs down. Prince was complicated! There's no use pretending otherwise!

It's at its worst when the fake conversation flows quickly in snappy back and forth retorts, sometimes for entire pages, but when Morris gave himself room to narrate uninterrupted for a longer stretch, it wasn't as grating when he eventually did have "prince" interject. Can't quite say he pulled off whatever his ultimate goal was with the gimmick but it didn't totally sink the book either. not sure id recommend it but die hard prince fans would probably get something out of it if they can get past the cringey bits. glad I at least finished it.

Never got around to reading this one when it came out, but has been on my perennial to-read list and my wife got a copy in at her store, so I borrowed it.



Highly recommended for anyone who (a) has a love affair with music, (b) had a girl- (or boy-) friend and a tape deck, or (c) has fond memories of making The Perfect Mixtape before the advent of downloads and online playlists.

Flea wrote:Finally getting started on NK Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy.

Really good stuff

Bouncing between a couple currently:

and

Absolutely polar opposites in genres and life paths.

how is the glass one? love his work and feel like id like to read his thoughts but if its super heavy on theory it might not be for me

Shakespeare wrote:how is the glass one? love his work and feel like id like to read his thoughts but if its super heavy on theory it might not be for me

Nah, it's super down to earth. Easy reading.

John A Arkansawyer wrote:Spoiler Alert: The Plots of Forthcoming Jack Reacher Books Revealed!

Yikes! Now that is one serious spoiler. I almost wish I hadn't clicked on it.

Jack Reacher novels (the audiobooks from the library, actually) are one my guilty pleasures.

George wrote:

John A Arkansawyer wrote:Spoiler Alert: The Plots of Forthcoming Jack Reacher Books Revealed!

Yikes! Now that is one serious spoiler. I almost wish I hadn't clicked on it.

Jack Reacher novels (the audiobooks from the library, actually) are one my guilty pleasures.

For quite some time I would have argued that Reacher was just a pleasure, not a guilty one. Then came the long mailing it in decline. Then the next to last book offered some hope. But the latest one dashed all hopes perhaps permanently. Really disappointed, but can't argue w/ the linked comic. And btw, as long as we're on the subject, the Reacher movies aren't bad but Tom Cruise makes a terrible Reacher. I don't get that casting at all, other than having a marquee name (but even on that basis there are others).

Dead Wake is another in Erik Larson's lengthening list of first rate histories, this one about the sinking of the Lusitania. Highly recommended.

For some reason when I'm asked about my favorite mystery writers or series I never think of Ace Atkins and his Quinn Colson series. I don't know why not; they're excellent and always worth reading. The latest, The Shameless is one of the best in the series. Of possible interest to DBT fans, the books are set in a mythical county in north Mississippi so there's a lot of southern flavor and insight into southern, especially MS, politics and culture.

Great book. Having read Guralnicks book on Stax it was interesting to "hear" it one of the insiders, although maybe less than half the book focus on his time with Stax and the MGs. DBT also get a little spotlight towards the end. Turns out Booker wasn't aware og PH's relation to David Hood when they started making the album.

The Fall Of Wisconsin by Dan Kaufman. This book takes you through the process of the conservative takeover of Wisconsin politics.

Race Against Time by Jerry Mitchell. Mitchell is a reporter from Jackson,Mississippi who was a huge catalyst in getting some of Mississippi's Civil Rights era murders back into the courtroom after 20 plus years. He writes about how it happened in this book.

Highly recommend both of these.

^^^ Heard Mitchell interviewed on NPR. Very interesting stuff and it's on my list.
This is my current read and it is a must:



https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780807047415

I've got a good mind to go post about it on the original DBT FB page and then go sit across the street and watch the motherfucker burn.

Didn't have super high hopes for this and early on it was about as clunky and faux philosophical as I'd expected but once I got used to his prose it had a lot of charm. Could have been edited a bit better but maybe at the price of a fairly distinct voice. Enjoyed it overall!

Appreciated that it ended at the first rhcp show. I still like the band enough but idk if I need to read a chronicle of their career at this point in my life. Fleas childhood was unique though, and I was particularly interested in how he came to what he's known for through jazz, so focusing nearly this entire book on stuff like that was a pleasant surprise. I'll still read volume two if that's in the plans but I like the focus here, as opposed to the usual memoir move of trying to tell everything and clearly only really caring about certain periods.

He did a good job painting that late 70s sunset strip vibe, where seemingly every other person he associated with would become famous for something.


not sure i can really give this a fair review. started off really well (concerns a songwriter recovering from post-suicide attempt amnesia) but at a certain point started to feel more like a concept sketch than a narrative. droned on and on with very little to grab onto, and eventually i sat down determined to finish it even if it went straight into and out of my mind within seconds. mission accomplished but i wish it had lived up to its early potential

Full disclosure: I'm an absolute fan boy when it comes to John Le Carre. His latest, Agent Running in the Field is not a classic but it is, as always, a wonderful read, the kind where the reader can savor virtually every sentence while enjoying fully fleshed out characters and a carefully teased out interesting, twisted plot. The guy can just flat out write.

Anyone seen or read yet?

Cool Town reconstructs the musical hotbed that birthed R.E.M., The B-52s, and Neutral Milk Hotel

https://aux.avclub.com/cool-town-recons ... 1842366251

(sorry, don't recall how to post pics)

While you probably don't need to be Jewish to enjoy Unorthodox (see TV thread) you may well need to be from Brooklyn to enjoy Brooklyn by Thomas Campanella. Or maybe an urban history or city planning buff. Bottom line is that I'm not sure it's for the "general reader" w/ an interest in history. Which is too bad because I think the book is excellent and I enjoyed virtually every page even at its almost 500 page length. Many of the pictures were revelatory, too. The book appears to be impeccably researched/sourced and while it's not say, Barbara Tuchman, the prose is easy to read and well written. I thought I was reasonably conversant in Brooklyn history but it turns out that I knew next to nothing. If you're interested in any of the topics I mentioned I definitely highly recommend this one.