by Paul Rees

I was a longtime fan of John Cougar followed by John Mellencamp. (Alas, Xopher HATES John Mellencamp, so it’s been kind of difficult for me to enjoy him in recent years; I’m always hearing negative opinions…)

I started reading this book and quickly developed a dislike to what I was learning about John Mellencamp as a person. Volatile, violent, reckless, mean, not nice, and maybe not even all that talented, just lucky…

I finished the book still thinking him volatile, violent, all those negative words. And not liking him. And yet… liking him at the same time.

But as you know, the one I REALLY like is Dylan…

John Mellencamp: “’I asked him, “Bob, how did you feel when people gave you shit about doing a Cadillac commercial?”  He looked at me and said, “Didn’t bother me.  Even when I was doing my greatest stuff they didn’t write nice things about me.  If I’m such a living legend, why in 1986 did Columbia want to drop me from the fucking label?”  Hearing Bob say that, you realize it’s a slugfest, because here’s the greatest songwriter of all time.  There’s no argument about that by the way, there’s nobody even comes close.  I was getting a lot of shit about that Chevy commercial, too.  And it was like Bob told me, “What the fuck do you care?”’”.

Miriam Sturm: “I can’t tell you how many emails we got before the first of those ballpark shows telling us, ‘You may not speak to Bob Dylan.  You may not look Bob Dylan in the eye.  Don’t approach Bob Dylan, or ask Bob Dylan at any opportunity to have a photo taken.’  I was like, ‘Jeez, what do you think I am, seven years old?’… I happened to walk smack into Dylan.  I actually looked into his eyes.  Oh, no, I was going to turn into a pillar of salt!  No, it wasn’t so awful, but he sure is grave, man.  There was no person behind the eyes I looked into.  It was very strange.  I guess he’s so used to having to cloister himself.”

Dylan giving a speech at the MusiCares event honoring him in 2015: “And like my friend John Mellencamp would sing – because John sang some truth today – one day you get sick and you don’t get better.”  Noting he was referencing the lyrics from “Longest Days,” Dylan concluded, “It’s one of the better songs of the last few years, actually.”  
“The only modern artist Dylan acknowledged as a songwriter in his speech was John,” says Rob Light… “I think more than any moment in John’s entire career that was the one for him.  It hit him in a way that to this day I’m not even sure he’s comprehended.”

John Sykes: “That’s not Rolling Stone magazine.  That’s not a reviewer in a local paper.  That’s Bob Dylan.  There is no greater validation for an artist born of the baby boom generation.  That is the ultimate seal of approval and it came when John had started making records for himself and not for everyone else.”

by J. R. R. Tolkien

(Re-read)

“‘I wish it need not have happened in my time’, said Frodo.
‘So do I,’ said Gandalf. ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.'”

“‘He deserves death.’
‘Deserves it! I daresay he does. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them?'”

“He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”

This book is a tremendous ode to love of nature… love of home… love of the agrarian… and a spirituality of the earth and beyond.

And an adventure story. This is at least my third read, and I think I saw the Peter Jackson movies twice. The movies have enhanced my ability to visualize the action scenes of the book – I’m not good following action, as a rule. But the memory of the movie’s depiction of Gandalf’s capture by the Balrog – his last words, “Fly, you fools!!” – made the scene live for me.

by Lionel Shriver

Lionel Shriver, you have really let me down. This book is really bad. The dialogue is horrible; the protagonist is an ugly character. From what I’d read, I thought this book was supposed to be “balanced.” It’s all nativism, and scheming scamming illegal immigrants. I appreciate your eagerness to take on the tough issues nobody wants to touch, but you’re apparently not always up to the task.

by Geraldine Brooks

I hate to be my usual negative self about this book, because it’s her tribute to her late husband. But it felt braggy. I couldn’t relate to these people’s jet-setting wealthy extroverted life. There, I said it.

by Lionel Shriver

I am a really big Lionel Shriver fan. I’ve liked some of her books more than others. But I love her for being a High Concept author. Here’s an alternative unfolding of history where it’s become verboten to believe that there are any differences in cognitive ability among anyone. Everyone is as smart as everyone else; it’s called the Mental Parity movement, and to say words like “dumb” or “stupid” is as unimaginable as our using the “n-word” is here and now.

You can almost buy that it’s possible. But things go so far in this alt-universe as to allow unqualified people to be tree surgeons and even people surgeons. Naturally, it doesn’t go well.

The protagonist of MANIA is Pearson, a woman with three kids; the older two are “smart”, whereas the younger one, Lucy, is definitely different. The older two were conceived via artificial insemination and have a father with a genius IQ. Lucy is the biological daughter of Pearson’s partner Wade. Wade’s wonderful and easy-going and a manual laborer, not a brainiac kind of guy; and Lucy, being an ordinary little girl, suffers for not being seriously taught anything in school because of the Mental Parity movement.

Pearson’s obvious favoring of the older kids and outright dislike of Lucy (“Lucy bored me”) was never resolved and hard to take. Look, saying that you kid is literally dumb, in a serious way, within her earshot, is Bad even in real life; it’s not a crazy Mental Parity thing to say so. Of course the kid hated her and the older siblings, and acted out.

And Wade never took issue with this? I never got any feeling of actual love among any of these family members, come to think of it.

There’s a lot more going on in the book. Worth reading.

by W. Somerset Maugham

This was kind of a silly book. Pity sex goes sour, and we have to dispose of a dead body. I didn’t like spending time with the main character, or any of the other characters either, living or dead. But I did want to see how it would turn out, and it was short and to the point; that should count for something.

by Charls M. Schulz

1957-1958 – this might be Peak Peanuts. I think it’s Peak Snoopy for sure. He’s still a dog.

If I keep reading every year in order, I may be able to pinpoint the exact moment Snoopy jumps the shark.

by Walter M. Miller Jr.

“We are the centuries… We bury your dead and their reputations. We bury you. We are the centuries.”

This is a classic (1960) post-nuclear-apocalyptic tale that takes the long, long view.

I’m still trying to figure out the ending.

by Erik Larson

Not really my kind of book (a book club pick). It was hard to follow without zoning out. By page 422, I’m like, “Bomb the fort already!!!”

The indignation of the South at Lincoln’s election & the North’s attitude towards slavery and southerners “way of life”, and their sense of “honor”, reminds me of MAGA folks today. They feel looked down on.

by Pamela Smith Hill

Pamela Hill Smith is both a true scholar and a true fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder; here she provides a book-by-book critique of Wilder’s skill as a novelist for kids & young adults (& young adults at heart).

Thoughts:
– Was surprised to learn that the book CADDIE WOODLAWN came out contemporaneously with the Little House series. I hated CADDIE WOODLAWN when I was young! You’d think, being a Little House Nut, I’d devour everything similar about the time period; but to me, Little House was the bible. Little House was HOW IT WAS. Any different experiences were just – “all wrong”, the way Laura felt about her daughter’s novelization of her family’s struggles.

– I didn’t share Hill’s satisfaction with the Little House ending when I was an 11-year-old finishing up the series. I never warmed to Almanzo. I didn’t feel he was good enough for our Laura. When he was first driving her home from the teaching gig, she explicitly didn’t want to go out with him. Then she only started going sledding with him because she was jealous of everyone else out having fun. I never got the sense of her falling in love with him; it just seemed she ended up with him because he was around.

I combined this with a re-reading of The First Four Years, which, I agree with Hill, should never have been marketed as part of the ‘Little House’ series. I’m glad it was published; it’s just different and not part of the set.