The Return

Review: How Music Works David Byrne 2017 Three Rivers Press The back cover lists several adjectives---brilliantly original, fascinating, extraordinary, dazzling, essential, and absorbing---to describe this book.    I think that pretty well covers most of the endorsements and reviews that are out there already.     I liked the cover and that’s pretty much why I picked the book, that and I am interested in music.   The author’s name rang no bells for me.   As I read through the endorsements I discovered that I probably had seen or heard some of his music.   My kids both knew not only his name, but some of his music.   I must’ve been listening to another sort of music at the time.   However, all that has been corrected now. I read the book as presented, but as the author mentioned early on, it could be read in any order.   Each chapter is a unique entity of its own.   There’s some of Byrne’s persona...

Review: So, Anyway... John Cleese Three Rivers Press 2014 The Monty Python guy, right?   That’s all I knew of John Cleese.   There’s more, of course.   And I thoroughly enjoyed reading his telling of it.   So, Anyway lives up to the endorsements on the cover and I totally agree Michael Ian Black’s opinion of Cleese as “an amiable, slightly loony uncle.” (back cover)   I have grown quite fond of the John Cleese I met in his book.    The book takes some time to read as Cleese allows only the lean, fat free to remain in his narratives.   I didn’t want to miss anything he had to say, and if I did try to skim a page or two I had to back up to catch up.   The wit he drops into the text every so often made it worth the while.   His teaching moments that are scattered throughout the book were intriguing and if I ever were to attempt to write comedy they would be most helpful.   What works, why it works, how to make it w...