Week 2 of Nonfiction November is hosted by Frances at The Volatile Rune. She asks: What are you looking for when you pick up a nonfiction book? Do you have a particular topic you’re attracted to? Do you have a particular writing style that works best? When you look at a nonfiction book, does the Read More
Tag: Music
Nonfiction November: My Year in NF
November is a busy themed month – I’m starting with Nonfiction (I’m never sure with it should be Non Fiction, Nonfiction or Non-Fiction!), but I shall go with all one word or NF… Week 1 (30th Oct – 3rd Nov) Your Year in Nonfiction: Celebrate your year of nonfiction. What books have you read? What were Read More
The Sound of Being Human by Jude Rogers
I’ve been a fan of Jude Roger’s writing for ages having followed her from music mags Q and Mojo to the much-missed The Word, where in all of which she was one of the few female voices. She’s also written for the Guardian and freelances, and has a substack column Stop, Look, Listen, which I Read More
The World of Ephemera: Learning Your Scales
You know I love ephemera, (see here for lots of posts on the subject). It’s amazing, the bits of paper you find, when rooting around for things. Today I found this: I bet you thought slide-rules were just used for maths! Actually most of you will never have come across a maths slide-rule. By the Read More
Wellcome Book Prize 10th Anniversary Blog Tour
I was delighted to be asked to take part in this blog tour, running ahead of the announcement of the 2019 Wellcome Book Prize longlist in February. This most unique of literary awards which “rewards exceptional works of literature that illuminate the many ways that health, medicine and illness touch our lives,” is ten years Read More
My August Shiny posts…
This month I wrote quite a few posts for Shiny New Books, here’s a summary of those I haven’t already mentioned: The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce Although a more conventionally plotted ‘will they ever get together’ type of romance than the bestselling The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, (see my review of that here), Read More
The Importance of Music to Girls
By Lavinia Greenlaw I adore books that cover musical memories from the 1970s and 1980s, the formative years of my teens and twenties. The 1970s in particular, despite all the horrors they’ve thrown up since, are my musical heartland. Lavinia Greenlaw is a poet and author and is just a couple of years younger than Read More
Meanwhile at Shiny…
White Tears by Hari Kunzru I loved Kunzru’s last novel Gods Without Men (reviewed here), so I was really keen to read his latest. White Tears is the story of two young white men who discover and appropriate an old blues song, which drives them to the edge. It’s very thought-provoking and made me examine Read More
A Talking Head talks about music
How Music Works by David Byrne This book was the highlight of my splurge of non-fiction reading in December. David Byrne, founder and idiosyncratic front man of Talking Heads – one of the best punky/art-rock bands there has ever been, friend and collaborator with Brian Eno and Robert Fripp amongst others, could never be expected Read More
Hot Rats, it’s Zappa …
This post was republished into my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive. The Real Frank Zappa Book by Frank Zappa. with Peter Occhiogrosso Not so much a memoir as an appealing opportunity to “say stuff in print about tangential subjects” this book is an absolute hoot. Forthright, and by turns and hilarious and serious, Read More
3 reviews from Jan 2011: Hornby, Jensen & Gaiman
Juliet Naked by Nick Hornby I don’t know how he does it, but there’s something about a Nick Hornby book that so hooks me, that I feel part of the story – I can always identify with some of the characters. Juliet Naked is the story of a lost rock star, a completist fan and his Read More
Russian echoes of Waiting for Godot
The Concert Ticket by Olga Grushin The story in this wonderful novel was inspired by a real event – that of the eighty year old Stravinsky returning to Russia in a ‘for one night only’ comeback concert; the queue for tickets started a whole year before. Set in an unnamed Russian city some time during the height Read More
I was a ’70s teenager!
As I’m currently reading a real chunkster with some way to go, I thought I’d post about music today. I was born in 1960 (I don’t feel that old mind!), so my teenage years spanned the whole of the ’70s. I can’t help but look back on the decade through rose-tinted glasses, and will forever Read More
John Martyn R.I.P.
Just heard that one of the greats of jazz-folk John Martyn has died. He was only 60 and was made an OBE in the New Years Honours just recently. I never got to see him live, and only really discovered his music in 1991 when he released The Apprentice as it featured Dave Gilmour, but Read More
Mummy, what’s your favourite song? …
… asked daughter Juliet, who since her Dad bought some noise cancelling headphones has been glued to the family iPod. Well, where to start? I couldn’t possibly choose just one song, so in time-honoured Desert Island Discs fashion will try to limit it to eight! Here they are, in no particular order: Everybody knows by Read More
A Musical Interlude
Tom Waits – one of music’s best-kept secrets… Republished into its original place in my blog’s timeline from the lost post archive. You may not know his name, but you’ll know his songs – Rod Stewart’s cover of Downtown Train or Springsteen’s Jersey Girl for instance. You may recall a distinctive looking actor in supporting Read More
Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd by Nick Mason
Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd by Nick Mason Nick Mason has been with Pink Floyd right from the beginning – through all the band’s incarnations and troubles. He makes a genial host in his biography of the band, yet he proves too easygoing and unconfrontational to give us much analysis of the Read More
