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"... sittin' on the Right Side of the Blues"
by Bernie Pearl with Bruce Krell
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 I am reviewing this autobiography by the respected Los Angeles-area bluesman, Bernie Pearl, for the next issue of Living Blues magazine; I'll summarize once the review is published.. |
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"c/o Postmaster"
by Corporal Thomas R. St. George
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 I don't even recall where I found this, but it's a compilation of a series of illustrated dispatches an American G.I. sent to the San Francisco Chronicle in the early days of World War II. The Chronicle not only ran them, but apparently turned them into a regular column. The author was an American soldier, originally in training stateside when he begins recording his observations of a civilian suddenly in the Army. His unit is then deployed to Australia, and this was where his columns really began to find their voice – and rough-hewn eye for detail in his drawings as well. The culture clash with the Aussies (particularly those Australians who had seen combat in the European or Asian theaters and returned home wounded) was mostly friendly – just two countries separated by a common language. The book (and presumably columns) end rather abruptly when the author is sent into a combat zone. It was a charming look at a pivotal era in U.S. history, and once I was finished I was gratified to learn that the author survived combat and the war, came home, married and had a family, living until 2014. |
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"The Beatles: The History Behind Each Album"
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 A Christimas present from my daughter, this was a surprisingly fun and informative read. My daughter knows her father is a recovering Beatles junkie (we have every Beatles album still on vinyl, and all their films on DVD or LaserDisc). AND I've read other histories of the band, and didn't expect much from this book. But ... the unnamed authors have done a top-notch job of combing through old interviews, other books, and who knows what else (the sources are not annotated, and there is no bibliography) to bring to light previously unknown – or at least underknown – details and trivia about the recording sessions for each album. |
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