I really have to wonder what stories these Japanese illustrations are telling. First, someone in a caped costume meant to depict a skeletal ape menaces miniature children standing in teacups. Then, a cyclops lady with a flying, detachable head spews freezing breath at a stage magician and a teenage boy. Anyone have a clue?
You talkin’ to me?
Buried Alive by Myra Friedman William Morrow & Company, 1973 [Challenge # 12 : A book where music features prominently, or about musicians.] As a singer Janis Joplin is, unfortunately, something of a museum piece now. Her icon status has faded with the decades, unlike her contemporaries Aretha Franklin and Dolly Parton, both of whom …
Oopsie!
Uhhh… Casey Kasem was in this? Well, he was the voice of Shaggy in Scooby-Doo… B-movies have long been with us, but after the deregulation of the Hollywood production code in the 1960s, the gateway was open for all sorts of lurid, sensational content. Happily it also coincided with the counterculture, and the two produced …
Jet Age: The Comet, the 707, and the Race to Shrink the World by Sam Howe Verhovek Avery, 2010 [Challenge # 25: A book in which airplanes figure prominently.] Hubris and aviation have a long, intertwined history together. Overconfidence in a flight control system most likely caused the recent crashes of a Boeing 737 Max …
In Pharaoh’s Army by Tobias Wolff Vintage Books, 1995 [Challenge # 24: A book about war, on the lines or the home front, fiction or nonfiction.] For my War is Hell selection I originally chose A Delicate Truth by John le Carré, and was stoked to read it because I had recently enjoyed the 2016 …
The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison Ballantine Books, New York, 1967 [Challenge # 48: A high fantasy] The Worm Ouroboros is one of the great granddaddies of fantasy, sandwiched between Lord Dunsany, who was an influence, and J.R.R. Tolkien, who received its influence. As such, it’s a kind of a bridge, but one that …
Who I Am by Peter Townsend Harper Collins Publishers, Kindle edition, 2012 [For extra credit: A biography or autobiography about someone still alive.] I had planned to finish up my 2017 Reading Challenge with Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America’s Race to the Moon, by Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton, but it was stolen, along …