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My Back Pages - May


My God how time flies. It's already June and I'm way behind being on track for fifty books this year. I read four in May bringing my year-to-date total to 15. What were the four?

Well, I started the month with a quick read titled George Harrison Reconsidered. The title itself appealed to me because I always felt Harrison was the overlooked Beatle; that he had a lot of talent that people never spoke about or gave him credit for. My only problem with this book was that it was far too short. (3 stars)

Book two was The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood. Similar in feel to her recent MaddAddam Trilogy, the Guardian describes it as "a jubilant comedy of errors, bizarre bedroom farce. SF prison-break thriller, psychedelic 60s crime caper". Now I ask you how can you turn that down. I didn't and enjoyed it immensely. (4 stars)

My third book was Dropping The Needle - The Vinyl Dialogues Volume II. Not unlike volume one I found this disappointing. When you'e going behind the scenes in the making of rock albums I don't think a duo on Lawrence Welk or the 5th Dimension qualify. This book had its moments, but not enough of them. (3 stars)

I closed out the month with The Electric Mist with the Confederate Dead, the sixth in the Dave Robicheaux series. Robicheaux is a part-time rural Louisiana cop. True to the detective genre Robicheaux operates a little outside the box. If you like detective novels and are looking for a new one to follow I'd recommend this series. (4 stars)

I finished out the 7th season of The Sopranos in my binge watching this month. The 4 season Treme I just loved both for the music and the backstory of one New Orleans neighbourhood after Katrina.

And my wife and I watched the available two seasons of Grace and Frankie, on Netflix, a hilarious comedy with Jane Fonda, Lilly Tomlin, Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen. We loved it.

I bought a lot of music this month and I don't usually go into my listening pleasures here but I have to mention two I bought at the end of the month. The new Jayhawks, Paging Mr. Proust, is very nice...much like the old Jayhawks and fans will know what I mean.

But the best of all CDs was from the Skydiggers, a Canadian band, titled Here Without You. - The Songs of Gene Clark. Clark was a songwriter/singer with the Byrds before he had a moderately successful solo career. The title of this monthly post is a tip of the hat to the Byrds by the way. This CD is a lovely collection of stripped-down, but harmonically tight tunes. My favourite CD this year. And that's saying something because I buy a lot of CDs.

Anyway, that was my May when it comes to what I was reading, watching and listening to.

How about you? I'm always looking for recommendations.

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