"The Haight: Love, Rock, and Revolution – The Photography of Jim Marshall" by Joel Selvin

Quick Book Review: “The Haight: Love, Rock, and Revolution – The Photography of Jim Marshall” by Joel Selvin

Not surprisingly, I loved this book.  I love photography, and I’ve been enthralled by the Haight-Ashbury era and the music coming out of that scene for years.  Jim Marshall was a spectacular photographer who not only took iconic photos of musicians (he’s the guy responsible for the photo of Hendrix setting his guitar ablaze at Monterey Pop, Johnny Cash famously…

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"New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography" by Grant Scott

Quick Book Review: “New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography” by Grant Scott

The role of photography in the world today has gotten tougher to assess, given that everybody has a camera with them at all times.  The author argues that photography should be reassessed, and be thought of as a visual “language”.  To do this, we need to discard the pre-conceived notion that successful photography is defined by a single successful image…

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"Listen Up! Recording Music with Bob Dylan, Neil Young, U2, REM, The Tragically Hip, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Waits" by Mark Howard

Quick Book Review: “Listen Up! Recording Music with Bob Dylan, Neil Young, U2, REM, The Tragically Hip, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Waits” by Mark Howard

Mark Howard is a Canadian record producer who has worked with a lot of bands over the years.  I was hoping for some cool stories about the artists he’s worked with, and the book has them, but not nearly enough pages are devoted to this.  Instead, you get a lot of detailed jargon about recording equipment, as well as endless…

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"Good Morning, Monster: Five Heroic Journeys to Emotional Recovery" by Catherine Gildiner

Quick Book Review: “Good Morning, Monster: Five Heroic Journeys to Emotional Recovery” by Catherine Gildiner

This is a pretty intense book.  Catherine Gildiner is a (now retired) psychotherapist from Canada.  She has treated thousands of patients over the years, but five of them stand out in particular.  These are patients who have suffered terrible, horrific childhood trauma, both psychological and physical, and manage to survive and overcome it through the use of varying coping mechanisms. …

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"Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth" by Avi Loeb

Quick Book Review: “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” by Avi Loeb

In the fall of 2017, an object was discovered zipping through our solar system at an unusual speed. It was studied extensively, but no one could figure out exactly what it was. One thing was for certain, however: the object came from outside our solar system.  Named “Oumuamua”, (a Hawaiian word for “a messenger from afar arriving first”), this was…

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"Feest" by Ed van der Elsken

Quick Book Review: “Feest” by Ed van der Elsken

Ed Van der Elsken is one of the Netherlands’ most famous photographers.  In late 2019, the Rijksmuseum and the Netherlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam acquired Van der Elsken’s entire photographic legacy.  Among the many obscure and forgotten photographs was the design for a photobook called feest (feast). It was compiled by Van der Elsken himself. He created a ‘dummy’ book around 1960, but…

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"The Inner Life of Cats: The Science and Secrets of Our Mysterious Feline Companions" by Thomas McNamee

Quick Book Review: “The Inner Life of Cats: The Science and Secrets of Our Mysterious Feline Companions” by Thomas McNamee

As a cat veterinarian, I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to diagnose and treat the many physical ailments, and address the myriad physical issues, that afflict cats. As for their mental state, that’s always been a challenge and a mystery, and I was hoping this book would give me a little more wisdom in this area.  It turned…

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"Unnatural Causes: The Life and Many Deaths of Britain’s Top Forensic Pathologist" by Dr. Richard Shepherd

Quick Book Review: “Unnatural Causes: The Life and Many Deaths of Britain’s Top Forensic Pathologist” by Dr. Richard Shepherd

This is my kind of book: a perfect blend of science and memoir.  Richard Shepherd chronicles his journey to becoming the UK’s most accomplished forensic pathologist.  His explanations of how you can determine the time, cause, and circumstances of a person’s death are fascinating, and the cases he describes and court trials in which he’s testified as an expert witness…

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"Mess: One Man’s Struggle to Clean Up His House and His Act" by Barry Yourgrau

Quick Book Review: “Mess: One Man’s Struggle to Clean Up His House and His Act” by Barry Yourgrau

I stumbled upon a used copy of this paperback at The Strand.  It looked amusing and intriguing, so I grabbed it.  Turned out to be only mildly intriguing, and even less amusing, and, in many instances, was kinda annoying.  The author, a New York writer/artist/bohemian, admits he has a problem with “clutter”, and at his girlfriend’s urging (i.e., ultimatums), he…

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"Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents" by Isabel Wilkerson

Quick Book Review: “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson

This book received an enormous amount of praise and acclaim and it had been on my reading list for a while.  Well, it certainly deserves the accolades.  Race certainly colors nearly every aspect of American society.  But beyond race, there is another system that is even more powerful, a caste system that we don’t openly speak about, but that strongly…

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