J's Pages

by Alan Lomax 

I've really got to start paying better attention to my reading list. I added this book months ago. And then promptly forgot why it piqued my interest, Was it reviewed in a blog post that I found interesting? Was it featured on the Library's website and I tagged it on a whim? Like I said, I forgot. But it was on my list. And then, after a summer of reading about history, and racism, and politics, and racism, and religion, and racism, I was in the mood to read something lightweight. Entertainment history is lightweight, isn't it? A little book about a musical genre should be just the thing, no? 

Uh, no. The history of blues music is not light-hearted. The book just dove into a deep pit of early 20th Century injustice. And racism. Mr. Lomax spent years recording the music and stories of musicians in the Mississippi Delta. For centuries that land has been worked by people who were oppressed and exploited. But while African Americans were treated like animals, they were anything but. Over the years, people have responded to the troubles of hard labor and injustice. Pulling music and dance from their native African cultures, mixing it with the instruments and music of their oppressors, and infusing it with passion and humor, they created not only a balm for a weary life, but also a new art form. Mr. Lomax gives examples of the situations and settings which birthed the songs of the blues. He draws on his own experience as a global folklorist to highlight the strains of African culture that permeate the music. It doesn't make for lightweight reading, but it certainly makes for interesting reading. My only regret is that the Library's copy of the book doesn't come with the companion CD. 

Check. It. Out! 
LibraryThing link

Labels: CheckItOut

// posted by John @ 8:49 PM 0 Comments

This 1942 Perry Mason mystery is pleasantly dated. One of the main characters is a young man who has studied chemistry and hopes to marry his sweetheart before heading off to war. He demonstrates a new chemical compound--detergent--which happens to point the finger of suspicion towards him when the inevitable murder happens. The plot is nicely convoluted and entertaining, and easily finished in an evening.

Check it out.
LibraryThing link

Labels: CheckItOut, ErleStanleyGardner, PerryMason

// posted by John @ 6:26 PM 0 Comments

by C.S. Lewis 

First read in March of 2001. 

on my shelf

Labels: CSLewis, OnMyShelf, OutoftheSilentPlanetTrilogy

// posted by John @ 6:19 PM 0 Comments

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. --Ecclesiastes 1:9 

While reading through this biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson, I felt very much like I've been living in a rerun. Or maybe "remake" might be e better metaphor. I mean, we still have a foreign boogey-man (-men?), but these days some Americans fear Muslim terrorists rather than Communist agitators. But rioting and protests over racism are, sadly, back in the news. 

I think this initial thought about the book goes to illustrate that Professor Woods did a good job of conveying the zeitgeist of the eras in which Johnson lived and worked. In LBJ, Johnson is portrayed as a forceful, egotistical man, but one with a definite sense of duty to his country and a compassion for all of his citizens. It covers his life from his family history in Texas, through his childhood and initial career as a teacher, to his final calling as a politician. The reader travels along that career as a secretary for Congressman Richard Kleberg, a state Director for the National Youth Administration under the New Deal, through his influential role as a senator, and to his somewhat marginalized role as Vice President. The death of John Kennedy thrust Johnson into the presidency, and the book details how he faced the challenges of carrying on the legacies of Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt in the Great Society programs, as well as the challenges of the quagmire that was the Vietnam War. Professor Woods is a good storyteller and gave me a definite appreciation of Johnson. (I may have to put this book on my shelf.) It also brought my own life into focus as I read how the president of my early childhood and his contemporaries in government shaped the society which I grew up thinking was "normal". 

LibraryThing link

Labels: OnMyShelf, PresidentialBioReadingList

// posted by John @ 6:04 PM 0 Comments