Bibliofile - January

2014 is off to a good start. I leafed through 8 books in January. Not bad.

Among the highlights this month was the first book I read, The Goldfinch. This is a fabulous coming of age story that sprawled over more than 900 pages on my e-reader. Sure it was a tad long but it really held my interest and when I rated it on Goodreads I give it 5/5.

Music played prominently this month with Americana by former Kinks founder and frontman Ray Davies and two books he actually recommended in his book - Dusty! Queen of the Postmods and Beatles vs Stones. I found Davies book interesting and entertaining although it practically skipped over the early days of the Kinks. The Dusty Springfield book was intriguing but I found it's style to take too much of an academic approach. I really enjoyed Beatles vs Stones where the author compares the groups via their musical output and cultural influence on both teenagers and their parents, not to mention each other.

I read some books from my favourite genre the hard-boiled detective novel. Of the three I read in January I have to say I enjoyed the Rankin novel the most in which he treats the reader to the latest adventures of John Rebus who comes out of retirement and works at a lower pay grade as he solves this most recent case.

Here are the books I got to in January...

The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Americana: The Kinks, The Road and the Perfect Riff - Ray Davies
Testament: Funny Badgers - Indigo Roth
The Devil's Home on Leave - Derek Raymond
Dusty! Queen of the Postmods - Annie J. Randall
Heaven's Prisoners - James Lee Burke
Saints of the Shadow Bible - Ian Rankin
Beatles vs Stones - John McMillian

Not sure how well I'll do in February. I'll be doing a little writing of my own as I join some other bloggers in a little something called 30 Minus 2 Days of Writing. We'll see how much writing I can fit in.

My Back Pages - November

I know, I know, I know I should have reported in before now. But sometimes real life just gets in the way. I attempted 5 books in November. I say attempted because I slapped a big DNF (did not finish) on Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. I just can't seem to get into this guy. It's the second or third of his I've given up on, Not so the other four, starting with a biography of Stephen Stills called Change Partners. This followed by a hilarious biography of the guy responsible for National Lampoon called A Stupid and Futile Gesture - How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon Changed Comedy Forever. I ended the month reading yet another biography, this one of the man behind Rolling Stone magazine,. It was called Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine. A fascinating read. So last month I hit the magic number 50 I'd imagined for myself back in January. If I roll this month into my yearly total I'm at 54 books. And I still hav...

The Polka Dot Door

A long time ago, when I was 22, my first child was born. That kid grew up on a little Canadian kid's show called Polka Dot Door, produced by the TV Ontario network. And Dad, more often than not, sat through those shows with his little one. Nine or so years later when a brother, and a year after that when a sister came along number one son was moving on to Knight Rider and The Dukes of Hazzard. But there was a nice overlap where his siblings picked up where he had left off with Polka Dot Door. And Dad was right there to welcome them. So you're looking at a Polka Dot Door veteran. The show began in 1971 and ran to 1993. I didn't watch the full run but I did get in my fair share. The formula was pretty simple. A young male and female host, which seemed to change every week, sang songs, told stories, made crafts and generally did their best stimulate little brains. The show opened as follows... Imagination Day! Oh boy! ...

30 Days of Photos III #4 Sour

Check out Ziva's Inferno for the rest of today's photos.

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