Bibliofile - August 2015

This bibliophile added 6 books to his bibliofile in August and it was quite an eclectic collection beginning with an old favourite, Jack Reacher, in his tenth outing in The Hard Way. Jack's not a sleuth per se but a lonely, roving bit of a tragic figure who nevertheless involves himself in cases that need solving. I always enjoy these tales.

Harper Lee's Go Set A Watchman was an interesting and enjoyable read. It's a sequel to Go Kill a Mockingbird, steeped, surprisingly perhaps in southern racial overtones. The media hype around this novel was substantial so I had to see if it lived up to it. I must say I enjoyed the book much more than the hype.

A book with the unlikely title Follow The Music: The Life and High Times of Elektra Records in the Great Years of American Pop Culture fulfilled my monthly music hit. This was a fascinating account of how Jac Holzman started Elektra records as a folkie label which he then grew to be the label to go to for artists of the 60s and included such artists as The Doors among many other well known artists.

One of my favourite authors, Ireland's Ken Bruen, has another hit with Green Hell. Jack Taylor, a former cop, investigates crimes when he isn't drinking himself under the table. Despite his faults, Taylor is a likeable fellow and his exploits are fun to follow.

I sometimes am so backed up with books I forget how I came across them. This was true of the next two books, the first being Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. I liked parts of this book and other parts, meh. I guess you'd call this a coming of age novel but I found the main character to be an all-together unlikable guy. This was somewhat off-putting. Especially, not to give too much away, his so-called relationship with the dying girl.

Finally I read Imperium by Christian Kracht. I have no idea how this was recommended to me but I undertook it nevertheless. It's about a radical vegetarian nudist from Germany who travels to German New Guinea in the early 1900s to establish a coconut business and worship the sun. Hey, I said this month was eclectic.

Here's how I rated this month's reads:

The Hard Way (Jack Reacher #10) - Lee Child ****
Go Set A Watchman - Harper Lee - ****
Follow The Music: The Life and High Times of Elektra Records
in the Great Years of American Pop Culture - Gavan Davis ****
Green Hell (Jack Taylor #11) - Ken Bruen ****
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl - Jesse Andrews ***
Imperium - Christian Kracht ***

So as August ends I've read 48 books since January. That's a lot of pages, both electronic and paper.

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! You know what happens on Imagination D

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 Photos III #4 Sour

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

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