Notes from a bibliophile

I love this man. Robert Greenberg just loves music - well, classical music. Don't ask him about popular music, but he will tell you some fascinating stuff about Bach, Beethoven, and other composers. It's hard not to get enthused about this type of music when you listen to his lectures, and if you are already a bit of a classical music enthusiast, it's just so much the better. He is really informative and funny. This was a free offering from Audible at Christmas. There was never a truer title of any book. I think the whole thing is 45 minutes long. And while he mentions in passing Jingle Bells and Mariah Carey (among others) he doesn't talk about them in the lecture. He does point out that popular music isn't his thing, but his idea of holiday music is not my idea of holiday music. The closest he gets is talking about the Hallelujah Chorus (and oddly enough, doesn't play the well-known part of) and the Nutcracker Suite (which is the first major work to use an i...

Audible will occasionally offer its members free books. I love free books with every fiber of my being, so I will always give these a try. I've met some real sucky stuff this way, but I've run across some good ones too, ones I never would have thought to try if it wasn't free. This was one of those free books that Audible gave away over Christmas. Honestly, I was mostly attracted by having Thorin Oakenshield read me a story, but I'm not averse to a Dickens novel either, so it seemed like a win-win. But imagine taking all the pathos from Dickens' Little Dorrit and cramming it into 4 chapters. This has got to be the single most depressing story I've ever read. This is why we have Prozac, people. It starts like most Dickens novels. The rich folk are telling the poor folk that they have no right to be born or marry or be happy, or they are telling them that they just need to leave everything up to their "father" or protector - in other words, the rich ...

My boss has started a book club and will pay us to read several business and self improvement books this year. HAHAHAHA! So this year you will see a lot of books that I would never normally read, but hey, I'm not one to turn my nose up at some extra moolah. So my first entree into this book club is Who Moved My Cheese? One reason I picked it is because I knew it was mercifully short. It was also the only one I could find at the library. It is a very easy read. I find it kind of odd that they actually had to make a kids version of this. The language is very simple, and it doesn't take a Mensa candidate to get the concepts the book presents. But while it's simplistic, or perhaps because of its simplicity, it is easy to apply to your life. I can actually see all the characters in the book in my last job at the now-defunct bookstore. I can see myself in how I react to change (generally badly, at first, at least). The simplistic sayings the character writes on the wall of th...

Elizabeth Gaskell is one of those Victorian novelists that most people don't read. They look at the "archaic" language of her novels, as well as those of Dickens, the Brontes, and Thackeray, and run in fright. Anyone who just looks at the surface of these novels and doesn't give them a chance is missing so much. They aren't necessarily stuffy. I mean they aren't 50 Shades of Grey, but thank God for that, really. They reflect the values of the era, the humor of the era, and the social issues of the era, essentially becoming eyewitness accounts of the time, even though they are fictions. My Lady Ludlow is the epitome of old school. She looks down on the education of the lower orders, strictly adheres to the social strata, and does not approve of any religion other than the Church of England. All of these issues come up in the novel, and Lady Ludlow's opinions are steadfast. Until they aren't. People aren't sure how to take her. This is how people t...

So here's everything I read this year, in order of most to least liked: 5 STAR BOOKS The Martian by Andy Weir The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins The Adventuress by Tasha Alexander The Empty Throne by Bernard Cornwell How to Listen to and Understand Great Music by Robert Greenberg William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope by Ian Doescher The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan Girl in the Dark by Anna Lyndsey I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith Rashomon & Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa History's Greatest Mysteries by Bill Price The Norse Myths by Kevin Crossley-Holland Mystery Inc by Joyce Carol Oates The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson Customs of the World by David Livermore 36 Books that Changed the World by The Great Courses 4 STAR BOOKS Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden Where They Found Her by Kimberly McCreight This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper Thunderball by Ian Fleming The Fate of Ten by Pittacus Lore ...

I hope everyone had a happy holiday season. I'd like to say that the reason I haven't posted anything in so long is because I was so consumed with spending time with family, but that isn't completely true. It was just one of those times when I just wasn't up to reading. I don't know what brings it on or what makes it end, but around the first I snapped out of it and finally finished this novel. This is the first Cormoran Strike novel I've actually read. The other two were audio books, but I really enjoyed them. This one took a really long time to grab me. I'm not sure whether to place the blame on the book or my reading malaise, though. I'm going to assume you've read the other two novels or at least a summary of them. To sum this one all up, Cormoran and Robin are sent a woman's dismembered leg. All of Strike's clients split. They were hard up before, so that makes it even worse. Robin's fiance Matthew gets more sullen and manipulati...