WHAT WE KEEP by Elizabeth Berg

 Finished Mo 11/2/26 This was one of the books that I got after Janny's passing. This was one of her favorite authors, and I agree.

This is the story of a marriage breakup through the eyes of two sisters, ages 12 and 13. Their mom is the star of the show, but we never learn of the real reasons until the sisters and their mother meet thirty five years later. I totally enjoyed the writing and the storyline.

Plot Premise from Google: 

"The novel follows Ginny Young as she flies to California for a tense, long-delayed reunion with her mother and estranged sister, Sharla, 35 years after their mother walked out on the family. During the flight, Ginny reflects back on the pivotal summer she turned 12 years old, trying to re-evaluate her childhood memories through an adult lens."

I want to read more by Elizabeth Berg and I might even ask Joe if I can take a few more of her novels from Janny's collection. I wonder if Whitney & Melissa have read any of Berg's books? 

JACK BRUCE: COMPOSING HIMSELF by Harry Shapiro

 Finished Fr 10/29/26 and I bought the book on Kindle.

I had always thought that Eric Clapton was the premier musical force in the group, Cream, but I can now see that it was really Jack Bruce who was steering the ship. Cream was only together for three years, yet they changed the face of rock forever.  It's disgraceful that Pete Brown and Jack Bruce didn't pay Clapton and Baker for royalties on the Cream classics that Bruce claimed as his. Bruce and Baker were Jazz Giants, and Clapton was more of a Blues guitar prodigy. He had none of the composition skills of Bruce or even Ginger Baker. Consider Baker's albums with Bill Frisell.

From anitmusic.com:

"Bruce has had an incredibly long and varied career but he'll probably always be best known for his work with short-lived power-trio Cream. The bass-player's team-up with drummer Ginger Baker and guitar god Eric Clapton yielded some of the most memorable heavy rock songs of the mid-'60s including FM radio mainstays like "I Feel Free," "Sunshine of Your Love" and "White Room." This authorized biography, after the obligatory chapters on Bruce's childhood, picks up a little before the Cream days, when Bruce was playing in the Graham Bond Organization. Baker was also in Bond's band and while he and Bruce respected each other's musical talent, they rarely got along and Shapiro details here how the pair's constant fighting nearly led to a van crash and how things escalated at one point to where a knife was pulled. Aside from a few lines about Baker overdosing on heroin there isn't much juicy story-telling in the Graham Bond era; mostly Shapiro focuses on how Bruce dealt with his early breaks and more mundane situations. You might expect the action to pick up during the Cream years but it really doesn't; there's an amusing tale of how Bruce unknowingly gobbled acid-drenched popcorn but even a first meeting with Jimi Hendrix is only given a few lines. Perhaps, as is intimated in later portions of the book, details of this era are understandably a little cloudy in Bruce's mind. At least half of the book is about what Bruce did after Cream imploded, and here the narrative is much more interesting as there's lots of quirky commentary from luminaries of the rock, jazz and blues worlds. The book comes current through the recent Cream reunion where once again Bruce and Baker picked up their squabbling like not a day had gone by. Fans looking for an expose about Cream need to look elsewhere; those who want to read about the career of one of rock's gutsiest and most-respected players of all time will love Composing Himself."

After reading the book I've been finding so many other artists and groups that Bruce helped to make great.

The book was a great read and it made me appreciate his artistry even more. 

EASILY SLIP INTO ANOTHER WORLD: A LIFE IN MUSIC by Henry Threadgill {Brent Hayes Edwards, co-author}

Finished Th 10/22/26 

I got this on Kindle and was shocked at the depth of this man's knowledge of music.

Also, has some of the best coverage of what it was like to be a soldier in Vietnam during the war.

The Draft: 4 years if you wait to get drafted; 2 years if you volunteer; 3 years if you enter as a 'professional' and Threadgill entered as a 'musician'. He wrote a composition that insulted a high ranking official and he was sent to the battlefront. 

From freejazzblog.org:

"The most important reason for this is that Threadgill (with Edwards) is an amazingly good storyteller—the type of storyteller who could tell a story about anything and have you in the palm of their hand. Every music bio has that section at the beginning about ancestors and childhood. I suppose it’s necessary, but it almost always leaves me impatient. (“Okay, okay, Bach’s dad was a bagpiper. Can we get to the Cantatas?”) Threadgill, from the first sentence, draws you in with stories of Peyton Robinson, his great-grandfather. Each story has that urgency of “So there I was …” (even if Threadgill wasn’t actually there). It’s a superpower, this kind of storytelling, to use words to leave you desperate to know, “What happens next? How’s it going to end?”

Incidents of neighborhood racism in Threadgill’s late ‘50s/early ‘60s Chicago leave us angry and uneasy. Brief encounters with Sun Ra and his band leave us envious. The section on his time in Vietnam is genuinely harrowing, edge-of-your-seat stuff. I can imagine the movie made from just that chapter. When he returns to Chicago afterwards, Threadgill pursues different relationships, educational opportunities, friendships, and musical experiments.

He is of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), but, because of his time away, not enmeshed in it. He takes us through the formation and story of Air, the Sextett, Zooid, etc. Certain relationships stuck out to me, I’m not always sure why—such as that with guitarist Brandon Ross. It’s not prominent in terms of the word count given to it, but it feels meaningful.

As we watch him assemble and disassemble different ensembles over time, looking for his sound (not THE ONE sound, but the sound he needs at that moment), you can see his fascination with the mixture of timbres (something I heard Threadgill comment on in the ‘90s). Whether it’s a phalanx of basses, or the stringreedbrass mixture of the Sextet, or the accordion on Song Out of My Trees, you can see his fascination with the sounds of instruments and their players, and their place in his writing. For example, he’s had a bunch of cellists and a bunch of tuba players over the years, but I can always tell when it’s a Threadgill cello or a Threadgill tuba.

In the way of great storytellers, the language here is nonviolent, never engaging in the gossip of so much music-oriented writing. It also never seems to gloss over things that someone like Ellington would in his autobiography. He talks about the drugs, racism, and divorces because they happened. They were part of the context. But I never feel as if I’m a voyeur. It’s an extraordinary balance he achieves.

Easily Slip Into Another World doesn’t bring us up to the minute, but it gets pretty darn close. He talks of his relationship with Pi Recordings and its blessings. It wasn’t his Pulitzer that made Threadgill into an elder statesman of “this kind of music,” but it helped. The story of his relationship with the Indian state of Goa—first missing a chance to play there, then playing there, then getting lost in the jungle and … nevermind, I won’t spoil it—is one of the most beautiful and endearing of the book.

I suppose Threadgill is right, and the book doesn’t provide transparency in the sense of answers about his music—although his explanation of the Zooid approach to harmony is wonderful “inside baseball”—but it does help you approach the music with good questions. My experience of this book (as important as my evaluation or analysis) was one of rapt enjoyment, and also fascination. I know it’s the second time I’ve used that word, but it’s genuinely true that one quality of great music to me is that it is fascinating. Among all its other qualities, Henry Threadgill’s music is fascinating to me. This book is fascinating. The two fascinations amplify each other."

OIL! by Upton Sinclair

 I bought this on Kindle ($9.00) after watching the film 'THERE WILL BE BLOOD' by Paul Thomas Anderson. Guardian voted this film The Best Film of The 21st Century. It's a brilliant film, but only the very basic themes of the book.

The book is actually a semi-fictional account of the Teapot Dome Scandal of the early 1920's under the Harding administration. 

Link to a site about the novel:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n01/edmund-gordon/how-to-hate-oil

It was a long novel and very engaging. I loved it and the novel had a sly, almost humorous tone.

If the choice is between Predatory Capitalism and Socialism, then Socialism is the way to go. The corruption that is inherent in Capitalism will cause social and economic damage and the poor will suffer.

It is remarkable that the Warren Harding administration and the Trump Years are so very similar. Privatize everything in sight and then drain off profits to you and your friends. "Free Market" means that the government has no oversight and you are motivated only by what delivers the most profit. If you want to sell cigarettes to seven year olds that's just fine...A.H. Dory. Although the novel highlights the excesses of Evangelicals in the radio era, the message is the same as today.... "I love Jesus, and Jesus loves me, and fuck you".

The relationship between the father and son is completely different from the movie. 

The novel is a look at the differences between Capitalism and Socialism, but the movie highlights Evangelical Christianity and Free Market Capitalism. 

Paul Thomas Anderson's film is a completely different slant than Sinclair's novel. I loved both works and it's kind of eye opening to realize that one hundred years ago these economic theories (Capitalism vs. Socialism) were butting heads, just like they still are today...and Free Market Capitalism is only getting stronger. 

DO WITH ME WHAT YOU WILL Joyce Carol Oates

 Finished Mo 9/28/26

This was one of my ancient harbacks that I had never read. It doesn't even have a 'date purchased', however it was on the lamp bookcase in the living room and turned out to be one of my favorite reads in a long time.

It's a profile of a young woman who struggles to become more than a bit player in other peoples' lives. The book has many unforgettable characters and probably one of the vilest examples of 'motherhood' ever written. 

Many storylines that weave in and out of the novel. Although, the ending was a little weak. It's really only a few words telling us that the couple 'are happy ever after'. Did Elena really find her assertiveness and would Love last?

From 'themodernovel.org':

"Aah, the parents! As in her previous novels, Oates has the two main characters carry the burden of their parents. Elena Ross is kidnapped from her mother by her divorced father when she is seven. She withdraws into herself and, when she is finally rescued, can barely speak. While growing up, her mother does, indeed, do with her what she wills, finally marrying her off, when she is seventeen, to a successful criminal lawyer, Marvin Howe. At the end of the first section, about Elena’s growing up, she is in some sort of trance, staring at a statue. Everything has come to rest, in perfection it comes to rest, permanent. Then a hand touches her.

The second part is about Jack Morrissey. He too has parental issues, as his father murders a rich man but he is defended by Marvin Howe and gets off on temporary insanity. This inspires Jack to become a lawyer himself, though he does not become a successful criminal lawyer like Howe but rather works to help the poor and weak, working for the American Civil Liberties Union. He meets and marries Rachel but, at the end we realise that his is the hand that has touched Elena.

The third part is, of course, the love affair between Jack and Elena. She is awakened out of her twenty year trance but is scared by the feelings she now has. She flees from him and returns to Howe. The final part, however, has Jack and Elena getting back together, leaving their respective spouses, and gaining one of Oates’ little victories as they now have the life they want. It sounds mawkish but, in the hands of such an accomplished writer as Oates, it works, both as regards the legal background (which plays a bigger part than I have mentioned here) and the relationship issues. It may be less violent and less harrowing for the reader than some of its predecessors but it is just as readable."

KAHAWA by Donald E. Westlake

Finished We 9/16/26

This is one of my 'discarded' books that I bought at the library book sale in January of 2003. I don't think that I had read it before. This was one of the books that I was reading during Janny's final sickness. 

It's about a group of corrupt individuals who conspire to steal a train full of coffee beans from the Ugandan tyrant, Idi Amin. It reminded me a little bit of Westlake's 'DROWNED HOPES'. 

 From AI Mode:

"The word kahawa means "coffee" in Swahili. Set in 1977, the story follows an unlikely alliance of international financiers, American mercenaries, and ousted Asian businessmen who conspire to hijack a Ugandan train carrying $6 million worth of coffee. Their goal is to steal the cargo out from under the nose of the brutal dictator Idi Amin, who needs the hard currency to keep his regime afloat."

"A Dense, Masterful Balance: Reviewers note that the book functions like an exquisite balancing act. It seamlessly blends a highly intricate, fast-moving heist plot with a deeply researched, rich background of Uganda and Kenya."

CRY TO HEAVEN by Anne Rice

 I bought this book at the paperback book sale on Sa 1/9/10- {temps below zero}

From flyinginkpot.com:

"From start till end, we are immersed in the world of Venice and Constaninople (present day Istanbul), as the book chronicles the life journey of Tonio, a perfect societal product poised and groomed to take over the world that lies before his feet. Tragedy, however, strikes when his estranged elder brother returns after his father’s sudden death and wants to usurp the position of heir. The plot thickens like any other opera tale and before we know it, Tonio has been, well, ‘cut’.

Rice weaves a rather rich (albeit at times predictive) narrative that spans not only time but place, as we travel through 18th century Europe. What truly sets this novel apart is the ability of Rice to truly immerse the reader into the world and mind of the castrati. It is clear that an immense amount of research has gone into the making of the book, from the vivid portrayals of the eunuchs, to the weaving and intertwining of the 18th century artistic and musical world.

 The rest of the novel focuses on Tonio’s successes as a singer, and his mental nightmares that plague him for much of his life. His fear and want for revenge on his brother, his struggle to be a ‘real’ man, are the bones of the novel.

That Rice gives a very professional account of how Tonio learns to sing, and how she describe his voice and technique, is of no surprise as she reveals in the afterword, that she relied on W.J. Henderson’s “Early History of Singing” as a guide. Also, records such as “Baroque Venice: Music of Gabrieli, Bassano, Monteverdi” by Decca (1972) and Alessandro Scarlatti’s “The Garden of Love” recorded on the Deutsche Grammophon label (1964) did inspire a few scenes in the book.

A note here must be mentioned about the gore and sexual bits of the novel. In true Anne Rice style, there are truly gory scenes worthy of any R(A) rating, and explicit sex scenes (both hetero- and homosexual in nature) that litter throughout the book. There are times when it does seem understandable and appropriate that those have been inserted, but there are times when they seemed a tad excessive. Reader, you have been forewarned.

Cry to Heaven is definitely different from most of Rice’s work, but I dare say, is one of her best so far. Perhaps it is her writing, which is simple yet captivating, or the setting and place of the novel. Or it could be the subject of castrati and their magical voices. Whatever the reason though, Cry to Heaven is definitely a good read for those interested in a glimpse of the 18th century musical and art world, or for those who just simply want a good read."

My Take On The Novel: I didn't really follow the details of the plotline and it was more like a long and detailed sexual fever dream. I liked it.