Brock Clarke–An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England (2007)

SOUNDTRACK: MARILLION-Fugazi (1984).
Ah, the delights of Marillion. My best friend in high school, Al, got me into Marillion. And he started me off with this record. As such, I can’t imagine how I could realistically critique it. I must have listened to this thing hundreds of times at this point. I also got into the [...]

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Eoin Colfer–The Legend of Spud Murphy (2004) & The Legend of Captain Crow’s Teeth (2006)

SOUNDTRACK: THE KINKS are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968).
This record seems to be a very important record in the history of British pop rock and in the history of The Kinks. I feel that I had always heard about it in practically hushed tones (much like the hushed tones of the record), and yet [...]

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Terry Pratchett–Making Money Contest

On the website for the new Terry Pratchett book Making Money, there is a contest to “Take and post a photograph of your copy of Making Money — or any Discworld book(s) — in a creative way.” So, here’s my entry. And no, I haven’t read it yet! But I can’t [...]

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What I learned…(14) [Judging a book by its title]

I was walking past the New Books shelf in our library last week and saw a book called An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England by Brock Clarke. What a great great title! How could I resist? Now, I know you should never judge a book by its cover (but [...]

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Buzz Cola & Reese’s Peanut Butter and Banana Creme Limited Edition Elvis Cups

Buzz Cola was a tie-in to the Simpsons Movie. I love the Simpsons, and although I gave up on trying to keep up with their merchandising machine (geez, how could ANYONE keep up with that?) I figured I could take a stab at a fun, cheap item). But, when I saw these at [...]

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Cory Doctorow–”Scroogled” (Radar, October 2007)

SOUNDTRACK: PINK FLOYD-Atom Heart Mother (1970).
I decided it was time to review an old album, just to mix it up with all the new stuff I’ve been listening to lately. And, so I went deep into the well, and pulled out Atom Heart Mother. Back in high school, we used to sit around and profoundly [...]

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Alice Munro–”Fiction” (Harper’s, August 2007)

SOUNDTRACK: BJORK-Volta (2007).
Okay, so Bjork is from Mars. Volta is her newest album. I’ve been a fan of Bjork since the Sugarcubes, way back when. I’ve also really enjoyed her solo recordings. I used to get all of her singles and videos and things, but in recent years she seems to have released a new [...]

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Jasper Fforde–First Among Sequels [Book 5] (2007)

SOUNDTRACK: TORI AMOS-American Girl Posse (2007).
I had been pretty down on Tori records since Scarlett’s Walk, which I felt was kind of blah. The Beekeeper followed and it didn’t do that much for me either. So, I was basically not that excited when this latest record came out. I probably would have gotten it eventually, [...]

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Jancee Dunn–But Enough About Me: How a Small-Town Girl Went from Shag Carpet to the Red Carpet OR But Enough About Me: A Jersey Girl’s Unlikely Adventures Among the Absurdly Famous [prepub] (2006)

SOUNDTRACK: RUSH-Snakes and Arrows (2007).

I’ve been a Rush fan since Moving Pictures, back in 1980. Some of my 8th grade classmates had made a parody of the song “Tom Sawyer” called “Father Sawyer,” (hilarious Catholic school humor!) and I thought it was funny, and that’s how I learned about Rush. In high school, my best [...]

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Terry Pratchett–Wintersmith (2006)

SOUNDTRACK: INVERSE ROOM: Pieces for the Left Hand (2005).
Inverse Room is the musical alter ego of J. Robert Lennon, author of The Funnies, Mailman, and other works. A few years ago he wrote a collection of short stories called Pieces for the Left Hand. The book is only available in England as far [...]

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