My Back Pages - October

Well I hit my projected 50 books this year, and then some. Having read 46 by the end of September, another 10 during October brought me to 56 books read this year. And there's still November and December to take into account. It's been quite a year when it comes to me and the printed page.

October was as eclectic as ever with some music industry books, some old favourite detective tales and a little something new and different.

In the music category Pigs Might Fly, titled for a possible Pink Floyd reunion, was a great read. As was Bruce Springsteen's autobiography. This guy can really write and his story is full of great anecdotes. Also interesting but to a lesser extent were Apathy For The Devil by former British rock writer Nick Kent and Never Say No To A Rock Star by former record engineer Glenn Berger.

But I have to say the month was special in terms of returning to some of my favourite authors and a great collection of detective and investigative characters. Michael Connelly and his Harry Bosch, Jo Nesbo and his Harry Hole, James Lee Burke and his Dave Robicheaux and my all-time favourite Ken Bruen and his former Irish Guard officer Jack Taylor. All good reads and highly enjoyable.

I came across a huge disappointment this month in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. Stephenson wrote Eleveneves which I quite enjoyed. But this so-called postcyberpunk novel just didn't do it for me. Thirty per cent through it I caved and gave it a toss.

The surprise this month? A collection of short stories from my blogging buddy Michael Whiteman-Jones. Michael's from Colorado and he's pretty much stopped blogging to spend more time writing. His collection of stories is wonderful and witty. Not witty ha-ha, but witty smart. He captures the human condition, or conditions if you will, brilliantly and as if he's lived all these experiences himself. Michael shared these stories with me in an e-mail, but I think he should be sharing them with a wider audience. Perhaps he could post them one at a time on his blog site. If not, he should be making them available by publicly publishing them. Well done, Michael.

Here's the books I read in October and how I rated them.

Pigs Might Fly - Mark Blake ****
Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen *****
The Emerald Lie (Jack Taylor #12) - Ken Bruen *****
Apathy For The Devil - Nick Kent ***
The Crossing (Harry Bosch #20) - Michael Connelly ****
Police (Harry Hole #10) Jo Nesbo *****
Burning Angel (Dave Robicheaux #8) - James Lee Burke ****
The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson * (DNF)
Never Say No To A Rock Star - Glenn Berger ***
St Lucia's Day and Other Stories - Michael Whitman-Jones ****

In the land of television I continue to watch Madam Secretary, Designated Survivor and The Circus (about the American election). And I've started watching Westworld and Bull.

Musically this month I'm tuned to Van Morison's latest, what I call a very sublime CD and Leonard Cohen's latest. Cohen's 82 and this may be his last release of music. For that reason alone it's worth buying but the music itself is great. I purchased a lot of music in October but these two artists really stand out.

Let me know what you've been reading or watching or listening to lately. I'm always interested in exploring other folks' choices.

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! ...

Hello Goodbye

Today a bit of a reflective piece. Rather than being funny, this is about the funny. It's a day of mixed emotion at nonamedufus . You see, after several months of inactivity I've dropped a couple of former blogger buddies off my blog roll. I kept hanging on and hanging on hoping they'd return to active blogging but, alas, after waiting in one case five months I've decided to let them go. I'm going to miss - going to? I have been missing - Margo at the Screaming Me-Me . She was one funny lady. From time to time she and I would engage in a feud or two for several days at a time but it was all in fun both for us and, I think, for our readers. And we'd leave each other funny comments, poking fun at each other. I miss her friendship and our humorous exchanges. The other blogger I'm letting go is Chelle, The Offended Blogger . Chelle was a special lady. In addition to her own blog she created and managed Humor Bloggers Dot Com where humour bloggers like m...

The Dangling Conversation

There's a debate underway in my household between my wife and I. I say "underway" because it hasn't quite reached the "raging" stage. If you want raging, my wife (a Francophone) and I (an Anglophone) from time to time (usually in a weak moment of my own making) slip into our number one discussion around why we don't speak more French at home - ergo - when am I, a former public servant who learned French at the expense of our gracious taxpayers and was technically rated bilingual (even though I hardly used it), going to improve my use of Canada's other language? This one never gets resolved, hence it's ongoing nature. But the current debate is over a remark I casually made the other day. I'm no geek, but with a lot of time on my hands I surf the web, converse on Facebook and such and - I have to admit - "I'm nonamedufus and I'm a Twitterholic". In an epiphany-like moment I was struck by the apparent impact of social networkin...

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