Well we're into July now, the Canada Day long weekend's behind us, my brothers have left and gone back home leaving me to take the empties back for a refund. How else will I afford to buy more books? Got through 10 books in June bringing my year-to-date total to 59.
It was an interesting and somewhat eclectic month what with several novels, some stand-by private eye mysteries and a couple of books about the music industry. Here are the books...
Inferno - Dan Brown
And the Mountains Echoed - Khaled Hosseini
A Quiet Vendetta - R.J. Ellory
The Last Detective - Robert Crais
White Bicycles - Joe Boyd
The Forgotten Man - Robert Crais
Joyland - Stephen King
Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust - Ken Scott
City of Lies - R.J. Ellory
Running Blind - Lee Child
I was disappointed in Dan Brown's new book. It kind of plodded slowly along and we've seen this symbol stuff before. But And The Mountains Echoed was a delight. It's by the guy who wrote The Kite Runner. A good read, as was Stephen King's new work Joyland. King, however, is turning into a bit of a romantic lately although he maintains just enough suspense and scary stuff to keep you interested. While I'm on King, has anyone seen the Under The Dome TV series? I thought it was pretty good.
What can I say about the Robert Crais books featuring Elvis Cole that I haven't said before. Always a good, tightly written mystery, and always satisfying. I've read ten Cole books now. And R.J. Ellory has got to be my current favourite author. Each of his stand alone novels are most enjoyable.
But my highlight this week has to be the two music biz books I read. Joe Boyd wrote White Bicycles. Boyd started out rediscovering and promoting black southern R&B artists in the 60s. He then moved on to the Newport Jazz Festival and watched Dylan go electric. He moved to London, England and ran the UFO club where a little known group called Pink Floyd was the house band. From there he went on to produce such acts as Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention and Nick Drake. It was a fascinating read. And of course I went running to my CD collection and pulled out some of this stuff to listen to while I read. Interesting stuff to go back to.
Equally fascinating was Abby Road to Ziggy Stardust by Ken Scott who started out at Abby Road Studios as a tape librarian then engineered a couple of Beatles LPs and went on to engineer or produce work by such artists as David Bowie, George Harrison, Duran Duran, Elton John, Harry Nilsson, Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones. A tad on the technical side - after all he was a recording engineer - the book is nevertheless an interesting and informative read about music in the 60s and 70s.
And so those are the books I had my nose in in June. Well, most of them were e-books so I had to clean my iPad screen a lot.
How about you guys? Reading anything interesting these days? Got a favourite author or genre? Let me know. I'm up for your recommendations.
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