Category: Paper Chase

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Peter Ames Carlin – The Name Of This Band Is R.E.M.

Posted on by Michael

After writing about such musical artists as Paul McCartney and Paul Simon, experienced rock and roll author Peter Ames Carlin turned his attention to R.E.M. for the biography, The Name Of This Band IS R.E.M. released in late 2024.  Covering the band’s history from childhood to their first concert in an old converted church in Athens GA and later onto superstardom.  The band had a quick rise in the music world from bar band to capturing Rolling Stone magazine’s album of the year in 1983 for their first release, Murmur.  They stayed at indie label IRS Records through the mid-80s before switching to Warner Brothers Records. The band was soon on a collision course with rock supremacy as albums such as Out Of Time and Automatic For The People topped the charts around the world.

Throughout the book, Carlin emphasis what a great bunch of guys the band is even as they navigate the murky world of the music business and fame.  A few casualties appear along the way including their former manager Jefferson Holt who has been virtually erased from their story. Other stories include those around them that tried to get R.E.M. to go for a more commercial sound or at least produce a video that MTV would actually show as they steadily accumulated album sales. The band also grappled with fickle early fans who were not happy as Michael Stipe’s singing voice could actually be heard above the music and not lost in an ocean of mumbles as they moved away from some of their more underground music philosophies.  While the members of R.E.M. did not participate in the book, they did not block Carlin from interviewing various friends and associates.  It’s a fascinating account of one America’s truly great rock and roll bands.  

9/10

Posted in Paper Chase

George R. R. Martin – A Dance With Dragons

Posted on by Michael

The last to be published in the A Song Of Ice and Fire series, George R. R. Martin’s fifth book of the series, A Dance With Dragons was a best seller upon release in 2011. At over 1,000 pages, the book is a brick and picks up the stories of Jon Snow at the wall, Dany Targaryen and her dragons, Tyrion Lannister travelling to reach her, Ramsay Bolton continuing his diabolically evil ways, and Stannis Baratheon marching south to try and claim the kingdom.…. Among several other plotlines.  

It’s a dense book with much detail.  It’s another awe-inspiring display of fantasy writing that creates not just one new world but several.  With many plotlines going at ones, the book changes focus with every chapter.  Like the other books, readers can lose track of one storyline while visiting several others. This was particularly true when reading about Jon Snow and his seemingly endless cast of characters.

When the book is good, it’s amazing particularly the clever words of Tyrion and the far too short supply of Arya Stark moments, a favourite character. Fans still await the last two books in the series to close out the characters that have thrilled both book and TV audiences.

8/10

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Herta Muller – the fox was ever the hunter

Posted on by Michael

the fox was ever the hunter by Nobel Prize winner Herta Muller is set in Romania where Muller is from during the reign of Nicolae Ceausescu. The book focuses on a group of friends and how they go about their daily lives. It is not written in straightforward manner and is instead quite poetic and beautiful. 

However, that style also makes the story a bit hard to follow. While reading, I’m not certain I would have been able to say exactly what is going on in the story but even with that, it never failed to hold my attention and keep reading. This was another find through the Winnipeg Henderson library that is a always a welcome resource into other worlds than the usual internet reading lists.

6/10

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Charles Duhigg – supercommunicators

Posted on by Michael

supercommunicators is Charles Duhigg’s deep dive study into why some people are able to quickly build connections with others through conversations. The book focuses on three main types of conversation questions that must be answered to understand what is trying to be accomplished – “What’s this really about?”, “How do we feel?”, and “Who are we?”.  Duhigg uses examples from business, law enforcement, medicine, entertainment, etc to show real life examples including a lengthy analysis on the inner workings of Netflix. 

supercommunicators as a whole is interesting and brought up a few ideas that I was able to quickly adopt into real life conversations.  Ex) What kind of conversation is this?  On the downside, the book does feel a bit long and unlike his book The Power of Habit, was not as quickly read.

7.5/10

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Cal Newport – Slow Productivity

Posted on by Michael

Over the last several years, writer Cal Newport has become a very popular figure in the productivity/business world.  His seminal book, Deep Work, is an essential read for knowledge workers. His latest book, Slow Productivity, came out in the late winter of 2024.  With a subtitle of “The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout”, the book’s three main tenets that are written about extensively are Do Fewer Things – Work at a Natural Pace – Obsess Over Quality.

This is a very important topic for office workers who are in a constant state of busyness to the point of burnout. Several of the ideas presented by Newport in the book are quite good.  An example is estimating the amount of time a project will take to give others a realistic idea of when it will be complete. This along with keeping a running list of upcoming projects will help you and others see where you are spending your time.  Other ideas do not seem as fleshed out and seemed rushed.  Better than the book, listening to Newport’s appearance on the Art of Manliness podcast may be all that a curious person would need on this topic.

7/10