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.

30 Days of Photos III #4 Sour

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

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...

30 Days of Writing - Day #1 - Cheese

Well, here we go again folks. As if it weren't enough that I knocked myself out in April participating in 30 Days of Photos, now dear Nicky and Mike over at We Work For Cheese have corralled a bunch of us suckers into a 30 Days of Writing exercise. Yeah, I know. I must have stupid written backwards on my forehead. I don't know how they figured it out. They would have had to look in my mirror to realize it. Anyhoo, the first day's theme is - surprise, surprise - cheese. And here are the internet imbeciles Nicky and Mike managed to sucker into to this little exercise: Well, first off there's me! Once you've read my post you can visit: Mike and Nicky , Cheryl , If I Were God , Katherine , Laughing Mom , Linda M , Malisa , MikeWJ , Sandra , Leeuna and Still Unfinished . Okay, who cut the cheese? Well growing up in my house it was usually my mother. She prepared and served the food and the knife ...

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