Tag: books
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Southern Discomfort
After seeing The Road to Psychedelia at the Black Angels gig, I felt compelled to dig into Janis Joplin a bit more. So I ripped my wife’s 3-CD boxed set Janis onto my iPod, and dusted off my copy of Myra Friedman’s book Buried Alive. I’d bought the book almost ten years ago during a spending spree at Tower Books (which also netted me Saucerful of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey, and U2: The Unforgettable Fire, both of which also remain unread) so it was probably a little overdue. Friedman worked for Janis’s record company (Columbia Records) as Janis’s publicity agent. She spent… Read more
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When The Music’s Over…lyrics ain’t poems
I just finished reading Danny Sugarman’s biography of Jim Morrisson, No-One Here Gets Out Alive. It’s quite a few years old, but Jim’s been dead since before the book was written (even so, this is the second edition), so I reasoned that I probably wasn’t missing much. I enjoy reading biographies and autobiographies of the artists I like – I find it gives me a better insight into their work, and I enjoy the music more as a result. But with this book, although I still enjoyed reading it, I wish I hadn’t read it at all, because I came… Read more
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Disowning Dumbing-down
I swore I’d never do this, but I’ve been suckered into reading ‘management’ self-improvement books. Last week I saw a copy of the ubiquitous Who Moved My Cheese? on a colleague’s desk, and scoffed at the ‘wacky’ title. “Well, have you read it?” he asked. Um, no. “Well, it’s about managing change. As you’re in Change Management, maybe you should give it a go.” Never one to resist a ‘challenge’ I borrowed the book and dutifully read it. And it’s alright… It doesn’t offer any great insights or points of view (how could it in a mere 100 pages of… Read more