..........................

PAUL "BLOWFISH" LOVELL

Cities of the Plain     Marcel Proust    1920     The best there is.
Lord Weary's Castle/The Mills of the Kavanaughts     Robert Lowell    1945/51 I liked it but heavy handed on the religion.
Bel Canto     Ann Patchett    2001   Novel. Did not like it at all.
Life Studies/For the Union Dead  Robert Lowell  1960  Poetry. Good.
Printer's Devil    Stona Fitch    2004  Novel about a dystopian world. (Stona used to be in Scruffy the Cat)
Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll    Peter Guralnick   2015   Amazingly great.
St Mark's is Dead    Ada Calhoun    2015    The history of the NYC street.
The First Eagle     Tony Hillerman    1998    Mystery novel.
The Two Worlds of Marcel Proust  Harold Marsh  1948  Excellent analysis. Lots of clarifications.
The Peaceful Silence of the Silent Mind  Lama Yoshe 2004  Short book on Buddhism/meditation.

Hugger Mugger  Robert B. Parker 2000    Spenser novel.
The Complete Poems 1927 - 1979  Elizabeth Bishop 1983  Very good.
Andy Warhol: The Complete Commissioned Record Covers  Paul Marechal 2008   He did about 50. I never knew.
X  Sue Grafton  2015   Two more books left in this long running series.
In Search of Schrodinger's Cat  John Gribbin  1984   The fascinating paradoxes of the quantum world - made easy (as possible) .
Contentment, a Way to True Happiness  Johnson/Ruhl  1999    Rules on how to live the calm Zen life. Good.
Genius: the Live and Science of Richard Feynman   James Gleicck  1994   Loved the science and the captivating Feynman personality.
All Yesterdays Parties   Eddy Clinton Heytin  2005 Reviews of the Velvet Underground 1966-71. Interesting for how it shows the development of rock criticism as much as the VU.
The Dream Songs   John Berryman  1965   Includes 77 Dream Songs, History, His Dream, His Rest. I loved the style. I didn't get a lot of the content. It eluded me.
Rockin': the Rockabilly Scene   Andrew Shaylor   2011   Mostly photo book.

There Goes Gravity   Lisa Robinson  2014 Tales of her rock life, disappointing.
Selected Poems Delmore Swartz 1959 Lou Reed's favorite. I thought it had a few good ones.
Selected Poems Randall Jarrell  Various     Good.
The Wounded Surgeon Adam Kirsch 2005 Helpful explication of 6 poets: Lowell, Bishop, Berryman, Jarrell, Scwartz and Plath .
The Twelve Chairs Ilf & Petrov 1928 Satiric farce, lampoons Russian types.
The Movie Book   Various 2016    Review of major movies of all time.
West of Jesus   Steven Ketler   2006 Patchwork of ideas/philosophy strung together with surfer attitude .
Catch 22 Joseph Heller 1961   Not as mind bending as when I read it in the sixties.
Selected Poems William Carlos Williams    1962 Didn't capture me.
Lost in Shangri La Mitchell Zuchoff   2011 True story of WWII rescue mission in New Guinea.

The Comedians Kliph Nesteroff 2015 History of American comedy. Good.
New Theories of Everything John D/ Barrow 2007 Astronomy, excellent.
Holbrook/Middleton/Wevill Same 1963 Three English poets. Liked Holbrook the best.
The Beatles: A Hard Day's Write Steve Turner 2009 The stories behind every song.
The Speaker of Mandarin Ruth Rendell 1983 Inspector Wexford mystery.
Stay Illusion! : The Hamlet Doctrine Critchley/Webster 2013 Deep analysis (maybe over analysis) of Hamlet. Great way to wallow in the play without rereading it.
Bauhaus Frank Whiford 1984 Good overview of school/movement.
Nothing Feels Good: Punk rock, teenagers and emo Andy Greenwald 2003 The story of Emo.
Don't All Thank Me At Once: The Last Pop Genius of Scott Miller Brett Milano 2016 Cult songwriter of Game theory and the Loud Family
The Best of S.J. Perlman SJ Perlman 1947 Very funny. New Yorker articles. They are light, but dated and not PC.

Urban Spacemen and Wayfaring Strangers . Richie Unterberger 2000 Music bios. Good.
Who I Am Pete Townshend 2012 Loved the Who tales and the look into the rock star life.
Nana Emile Zola 1898 Classic. Reread for me.
The Art of the Novel. Milan Kundera 1986 Illuminating ideas from a deep thinker.
The Birth of Western Philosophy: Plato and Aristotle Aryeh Kosman 2004  Audio book.
What Are You Looking At? Will Gompertz 2014 Review of art movements since impressionism.
Ten Little New Yorkers    Kinky Freidman   2005 Mystery novel.
Sweet Dreams Are Made of This Dave Stewart 2016 Bio of Eurythmics founder.
The Company She Kept Archie Mayor 2015 Mystery with Brattleboro, VT backdrop.
Have Mercy Wolfman Jack/Laursen 1995 Autobiography of the DJ.

Black Eyed Blonde   Black a/k/a Banville  2015   Mystery a la Chandler.
Twelfth Night   Shakespeare  1601   Classic.
Younger Than That Now   Bob Dylan  2004   Collection of Bob Dylan interviews 1964-97. Does one ever get a handle on this guy?
The Club Dumas   Arturo Durez-Reverte   1993  Mystery novel that Roman Polanski based his movie The Ninth Gate.
My Struggle   Karl Ove Knausgaard  2012    Autobiographical novel, much acclaimed. I was not captivated like other readers have but still it was good.
The Universal Tone   Carlos Santana  2014   Autobiography. I like the tales of San Fran in the sixties.
A Sport and a Pastime   Kayes Salter   1967     Split feelings with this novel.
Rough Weather     Robert B. Parker    2008     Spenser novel.
The Best of 2.13.61 Publications    Ed Henry Rollins  1998   Writings by Iggy Pop, Jeffery Lee Pierce, Nick Zedd, M. Gira, Alan Vega etc.
The Big Contemporary American Poets     Ed by Mark Strand    1969     Very good, poets after 1940.

Poet's Choice     Ed by Engle/Langland    1962     100 Poets pick a favorite poem they wrote.
The Grouchy Grammarian    Thomas Parrish    2002     Common mistakes in English.
Ministry     Al Jourgensen   2013     Absolutely insane goings on.
Bicycle Diaries   David Byrne  2009   Mostly a travelogue with commentaries on subjects that interest him. Good.
Knocking on Heaven's Door    Lisa Randall    2011     About the Large Hadron Collider and a lot more.
The Village John Strausbaugh   2013    History of Greenwich Village. Early exciting times that fall off to nothing after 1980.
Monsieurs Proust's Library    Anka Muhlstein    2012    Connection between what Proust read and what he wrote. Very good.
Jimi Hendrix: The Man, The Music, The Truth     Sharon Lawrence   2004    I felt I finally got the whole story in context .
And Another Thing    Eoin Colfer    2009     Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide continued with new author. Close enough for me.
Baudolino    Umberto Eco   2000     Story spun from myths and history of Europe in the 1200's.

A Little Yellow Dog    Walter Mosley    1996     An Easy Rawlins mystery.
David Hockney Biography 1937-75     Christopher Simon Sykes 2011 Very readable and good balance between art and life.
River Out of Eden   Richard Dawkins  1995   Clear explanations of Darwinian science.
The Judas Goat    Robert B. Parker   1978   Early Spenser novel.
Collected Poems of Weldon Kees    Ed D. Justice   1955   Downer poetry. Kees committed suicide.
Third Rail    Rory Flynn  2014   Pseudonym of Stona Finch. Boston backdrop.
City on Fire    Garth Risk Hallberg 2015 Much talked about book. NYC is like a character. I found it interesting but not compelling .
The Art Book    Phaidon 1994 500 color plates of 500 artists with short informative text.
Rebels Wit Attitude: Subversive Rock Humorists     Iain Ellis   2008   Obvious choices. Not much extra insight.
The Tempest    Shakespeare 1600 Not a fave.

Elvis Has Left the Building: Death of the King and the Rise of Punk    Dylan Jones 2014 Not much punk, just a book about Elvis.
Book of Evidence    John Banville 2012 Novel - did not like. It was not believable or involving.
Guillaume Apollinaire and the Cubist Life    Cecily Mackworth 1963 Great. Puts you right in the middle of Paris and the great artists bursting with creativity. Apollinaire had a dynamic personality and was central to the era.
Sheltering Sky   Paul Bowles 1949 Very good. Intense.
Young Frankenstein: The Making of the Movie    Mel Brooks 2016 All fluff.

Short stories/plays or books I didn't give full attention to.

Instant Gratification   Christopher Lapp 2010 The Art of the mobile phone camera.
A Hard Day's Night    Ray Morton 2011   Music on film.
A Treasury of Contemporary Houses   Architectural Record Mag  1954 Photo book.
Whistler at the Hunterian Art Gallery   Illustrated Guide 1990
Art at the Riksdag Building 1990 Swedish art .
Turner John Rothenstein 1962 Profile
Radio Head John Osborne 2009 Reviewing British Radio today.
Icons - Design of the 20th Century Charlotte, Peter Fiell.
De Capo Best Music Writing Letham, Bresnick 2002 Short story.
Cliffsnotes to Nana Emile Zola

Elebnis Der Gegenwart Albert Schug 1969 Modern Art.
The Place Within Ed by Jodi Daynard Writings about the American countryside.
Bossypants Tina Fey 2011 Bio.
The Pursuit of Signs    Johnathan Culler     1981    Semiotics , Literature and Deconstruction
The Creative World of Mozart    Paul Lang    1963
The Sound of the City    Charlie Gillett 1996 Summary of R'n'R .
The Ethics of Ambiguity    Simone de Beauvoir 1948
Green Day Revealed Ian Shirley 2011 Photo book.
Paul Verlaine    Paul Verlaine  1870 Women and Lovers with illustrations.
Charles Baudelaire    Charles Baudelaire   1860 To A Courtesan with illustrations.