Search Results for ""have you read this book""

This Must Be The Place For Talking Heads

Have you read this book? It’s called “This Must Be The Place: The Adventures of Talking Heads in the 20th Century“, written by David Bowman and published in 2001.

First off, I really like this band. A lot. Talking Heads took pop, punk, art, funk, and quirkiness and cooked up something unique and innovative, while at the same time catchy and infectious. No one else sounds like them. They pushed musical boundaries with nearly every song, but the music was so good it would be stuck in your head for weeks.

Now, on to this biography. The author has a casual style that is kind of fun but also can get kind of annoying. He refers to women as “chicks” (does anyone still do that?). And, while there are plenty of facts about the band and it’s members, there is also an obvious bias to his opinions. He gives a lot of time to the tensions between David and Tina, and places that as the reason the band quite working together. This may be true, there are quotes and insights from friends and others, but there could have been more contributions from the band members themselves. There are some nice photos in a center section, though I of course wanted more.


Shout: The Beatles In Their Generation

Shout!

Have you read this book? It’s by Philip Norman and I finished it recently. I’m a pretty big Beatles fan but I still learned a lot from this book. It starts with when they first met each other and goes chronologically through the breakup and a little after. It’s divided into sections of their career as a group: Wishing, Getting, Having, and Wasting.

The four of them are not saints and all of them did things they might want to take back, and of course the strain of their huge fame took a toll on their relationships within the group and also without. The author has some biases and opinions that are not hidden. As with most biographies, you can tell fact from opinion and disregard the opinion if you want to.  He does have an interesting writing style and the sheer amount of information makes it well worthwhile. There’s John the caustic but gifted one, Paul the sometimes sappy but melodic one, George the decent guitarist who comes into his own as the group begins to fall apart, and Ringo the good time guy who was everyone’s pal and had a fun ride. Is this the definitive book about the Beatles? Maybe not but it’s got a lot. Is it unbiased? Not all the time. Is it a fun and entertaining read with a LOT of great stuff about the fabs? Yes!


100 Best Beatles Songs

Have you read this book? It’s “100 Best Beatles Songs – A Passionate Fan’s Guide“.

I know. How can you possibly pick the top 100 songs by the greatest group ever? Well, the authors do it, and most of the picks are pretty good. One thing I really liked about the book, they devote about three full pages to each of the top 100 songs. That includes detailed notes about the recording of the songs and the different studio takes. Also, they detail “who played what instrument(s)” for each song. Some of those may surprise you. There are also trivia items about each song, which a true Beatles fan will find fascinating.

As for their rankings,


The Time Traveler’s Wife

Have you read this book? It’s “The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger. I finished it recently and enjoyed it. The blurb on the cover says it’s “a soaring celebration of the victory of love over time”. That’s a good short description. It’s a chronicle of a couple’s love against some very odd obstacles. Does love overcome all? Even for a man who time travels without any advance warning?

OK, it’s an unusual premise but it really works here. I recommend this book.

From Publisher’s Weekly:

This clever and inventive tale works on three levels: as an intriguing science fiction concept, a realistic character study and a touching love story. Henry De Tamble is a Chicago librarian with “Chrono Displacement” disorder; at random times, he suddenly disappears without warning and finds himself in the past or future, usually at a time or place of importance in his life. This leads to some wonderful paradoxes. From his point of view, he first met his wife, Clare, when he was 28 and she was 20. She ran up to him exclaiming that she’d known him all her life. He, however, had never seen her before. But when he reaches his 40s, already married to Clare, he suddenly finds himself time travelling to Clare’s childhood and meeting her as a 6-year-old. The book alternates between Henry and Clare’s points of view, and so does the narration.


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