A tender rock and roll history capturing a place and time well. Much more rock and roll than Keef's bloated bio which, as was said, was surprisingly blah.



Powerfully written slice of the future... a later section is a 30 page powerpoint that I thought would be a gimmick, but actually made me cry.

This looks goog:





No Depression has a review here

Finished Black Postcards by Dean Wareham of Galaxie 500/Luna. I thought it was well written and as a fan enjoyable, detailed and fair and honest enough to point his own finger at himself sometimes. Pretty even keeled in temperament despite some leisurely use of ex and lines among other drugs early on. No RnR wild antics play out despite rather serious events that occur. Those dramas are dealt with in deliberate, introspective or analyzed fashion. If the book is an accurate measure of his persona it comes close as a match to his music, slightly cold, distant, smart and oddballish and overall revealing without sensational trips.

Just finished Colin Meloy's new book. Very Narnia/potter-esqe, except the protagonists are Pacific-Northwest-Hipster instead of British-schoolchild.

What's a good starting point for David Foster Wallace?

I bought, but never read Keef's book. I've read most or all of the goods Stones books.

I'm currently reading:



Good not great. Going to read the ESPN oral history after this. I keep telling myself I need to read more - usually when I'm headed home from Happy Hour.

I just finished The Keep by her - I thought it was fantastic.

I just finished this, and it's NOWHERE NEAR as good as it should have been. Pretty major disappointment.

Just about halfway through this. I had heard of it before, but did not realize the extent of the antisemetic language in this.
Fagin is rarely referred to by his name, it is inevitably "the Jew" or "the evil old Jew" or "the hooknosed Jew" or something like that. I understand that it was the times in England. And, by that measure I don't take offense (as an evil old Jew, myself). But the usage is so frequent that it's to the point of distraction.
Still a great story, but, wow.

Well, he is evil and he is a Jew...

Oh yes. But the way that he dwells on the Jew part.
Distracting.

Just finishing up this:



Would my high school chem teacher had been this cool, who know, I might've become a scientist.

A heads up for anyone with kids, cousins, nieces , nephews, grandkids - 2ish to 6ish, check out some books by Mo Willems if you have not come across them. He's got a series of his character Pigeon out like Don't Let The Pigeon Drive the Bus that's great fun. Also, recently we have been reading the Piggie and Elephant series and they are quite a laugh at least for this family.

This was one of many we've been checking out at the library.

borrowed all three of this trilogy...


just finished this:

More Ryu Murakami here.


Almost Transparent Blue

Disjointed tales of drugs and sex in mid 70s Japan near an American air force base. Not much in terms of plot so far, fairly random stuff. My least favorite of this fella's books so far but not horrible and pretty short with interesting descriptive scenes throughout.

last two books:



Gang Leader for a Day - Sudhir Venkatesh



Losing Mum and Pup - Christopher Buckley

Both easy and interesting reads, especially the first one.

Loving William Dalrymple's City Of Djims at the moment.

These next.



Looking for more travel writing recommendations. Worked my way through all the Theroux books.

Being a history of Walker Percy's family in America.

I just finished (listening to ) Role Models by John Waters. I enjoyed most of it, but I'm a big fan. The story of the woman who ran the bar for homeless people was phenomenal.

I've been on an OK run of (extremely) light reading.

I plowed through the ESPN book, and Bob, maybe your disappointment tempered my expectations. While I will admit it was less than revelatory on the salacious details - I want to know WHO was fuhin in them closets - I found the Stu Evey parts to be pretty much what I'd like my life to be like, and I did enjoy the business side of things. The other thing is - the book hits it's stride where ESPN hit it's stride - from 1988 to about 1995.

(Bloor and I tried to cut a pod on this that we lost, so I'm going to save some of the details for that)

It also led me directly into reading the MTV book, which is pretty much the exact same thing - it's more about the accidental/fumbling nature of inventing the cable industry than it is about music or sports, per se - but with the added advantage of all the videos they talk about being available on YouTube.

And now I'm reading Rob Sheffield's "Talking to Girls About Duran Duran" because I kinda like Ol Rob, and I'm 3/4 of the way through it after picking it up two days ago.

[quote="Senator LooGAR"]I found the Stu Evey parts to be pretty much what I'd like my life to be like[/quote]

clearly, evey was an OPEN MONSTER