BOOKS THREAD

Took me 10 months to finish, but I got through the slog that is Bret Easton Ellis' "Glamorama," which at 482 pages is at least 182 pages too long, filled with inane bullshit. I had people ask me what the book was about when I'd be reading it out at the watering hole, and I couldn't come up with an answer, because Ellis spent 150 pages or so at the front of the book just masturbating all over the pages, dropping celebrity names, etc. Finally around page 400, you got to the fucking point. I went in an internet deep dive after finishing to see what others thought, and I was not alone in my frustrations. I like most of his stuff -- American Psycho and Rules of Attraction especially -- but this was tough to get through. Makes a lot of sense at the end, but I almost dropped it several times. But I'm a stubborn sonofabitch and needed to finish.

Onto Franz Nicolay's Band People, which I'd like to finish in the next five weeks so I can chat with him about it at Quinn's in Camden Town after the Saturday night Hold Steady Weekender show.

 

Being from Texas, I had heard Mike Cox's name for years, and this his his story of working for the Texas Department of Public Safety. He was a reporter before he became DPS spokesman, so he knows how the media works, and he talks about that in remembering how things went at the Branch Davidian standoff just outside Waco and in another standoff in West Texas that ended much more peacefully than did the Davidian thing.

He gets a bit preachy at the end, and the last chapter or so is a guide for public agency spokespeople and how they should do their work. A lot is outdated because this was published in 1998. I found it recently at a used book store here in town. Even with the preachy part, overall, I enjoyed it.

Joe Bob says check it out.

 

I really enjoyed this one. Claire St. Amant got her start as a reporter at some small papers in Dallas and then ended up working as a producer for CBS. True crime TV is a tough business, and it's the producers who are doing the grunt work on the ground before the star anchors fly in to do their on-camera thing. This is a great behind-the-scenes look at what those producers do.

St. Amant also has a true crime podcast - Final Days on Earth - that is worth your while.

Joe Bob says definitely check this out.

 

Excellent account of the development of the special intelligence relationship between the US and the UK which came to include Canada, Australia, and New Zealand during the Cold War. It could have been dry, but there are enough accounts of real world spy stories to make it quite entertaining. Bonus: It's up on Amazon for $1.99 today.

I hate to think how much the free exchange of intelligence and counter-espionage information has been curtailed since our last election.

 

David Bowie was an avid reader. This is his list of 100 books that changed his life.

David Bowie's Top 100 Must Read Books (100 books)

 

Just finished “The Name of This Band is REM” by Peter Ames Carlin. Entertaining read if you’re a fan of the band — and for my money, REM may be the best American band of all time. I learned a lot, as the band members typically gave up nothing in interviews during their careers. (They didn’t talk to the author, but were helpful as he put the book together.)

I've read a few rock star biographies/memoirs that left me thinking my musical hero was kind of an asshole. Not here.

 

I will have to check that out.

It’s funny, I will play some old REM albums like “Life’s Rich Pageant” and “Automatic for the People” quite a bit. But the other day I pulled out “Green” (which I own on vinyl) and gave it a spin for the first time in many years. It really holds up well … even that fun, upbeat untitled track at the end!

 

Same here. I have almost all of the Bill Berry era stuff on vinyl but always go to “Automatic” or “Reckoning.” I need to branch out more.

I also need to give the later stuff another shot. I pretty much got off the train after “New Adventures in Hi Fi.” (The one post-Berry song that has a special place in my heart: “Daysleeper,” which came out while I was working an overnight shift. The song perfect captured the abject misery of that year working that shift.)