Author: ekkarn

Orphan X – Gregg Hurwitz – Book 9 of 2016

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Gregg Hurwitz – New Evan Smoak series is off to a great start with Orphan X ****

Gregg Hurwitz is one of those authors whose books I read sporadically and when I  do read one of his books, after I finish it I usually say “Can You Tell me Edward, why you don’t read every Hurwitz book when it comes out?? To which I answer simply no – which is better than omitting I am a fool!! So when I recently saw that Hurwitz had started a new series and the first book Orphan X would be released soon, I knew I’d be a fool again not to read it!! Having just finished it the other day – I can say I am thankful I am not an old fool and bring on book 2 of the Evan Smoak series!!

In Evan Smoak Gregg Hurwitz has created a fantastic new character Evan is a…..

…. man with skills, resources, and a personal mission to help those with nowhere else to turn. He’s also a man with a dangerous past. Chosen as a child, he was raised and trained as part of the off-the-books black box Orphan program, designed to create the perfect deniable intelligence assets—i.e. assassins. He was Orphan X……

But after many assassinations and other operations Evan broke with the program and went off the radar, when he was asked to kill another Orphan, Evan became that Nowhere Man helping those who can’t help themselves. In Orphan X, soon after saving a young girl and her sister  from an evil cop Evan attempts to  help another woman Katrin, who has a mob hit team out to eliminate her. Evan soon discovers that he, and not Katrin is the hit team’s target. He is now faced with the task of beating a hit team composed of operatives who are as good as he is!!

From then on the action is fast and furious and the pages flew by. Here’s what author Tess Gerritsen writes about the book……

“Orphan X is the most gripping, high-octane thriller I’ve read in a long, long time. Hang onto your seat because Gregg Hurwitz will take you on a dizzying ride you’ll not soon forget

The first book that I read by Gregg Hurwitz was The Kill Clause, which featured  U.S. Marshals Service operative Tim Rackley. That series was composed of four books of which I read the first two. I told you I sporadically read Hurwitz books. Actually, the third book in that series Troubleshooter has been on my TBR shelves forever!! The point is that these books were great and I was disappointed when the series ended even though I hadn’t  read all the books. It also may be a reason that I didn’t read any of Hurwitz’s stand alone books until 2007! Foolish me!

 Bottom line: I will not miss the next installment of the Evan Smoak series and you shouldn’t either! In addition, I promise to read more of Gregg Hurwitz’s stand alone novels, and maybe even go back and read those last two Tim Rackley novels and you should join me!!

Links for the Further Exploration of the Novels of Gregg Hurwitz

Author’s Website
Author’s Blog
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Amazon

In this short video Gregg Hurwitz talks about writing Orphan X

Thoughts About Mindfulness and Mystical Morning..

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Lead to New Directions for My Blogs and a Mystical Morning Commute!

The other morning while meditating my mind turned toward my blog and I thought of my blog in relationship to my body mind and spirit. Much of what I try to do during the day is directed at one of those three aspects of life. Whether it’s trying to enrich and keep my mind sharp by reading, exercising and eating right to help my body and meditating and listening to New Age music to lift my spirit, the actions I take revolve around these aspects of life. Anyway what I am going to try for a while is to keep this blog oriented toward the rejuvenation, and revitalization of my mind, body and spirit,

As part of this shift, the music discussions on this site will be mostly about New Age music and maybe some jazz. But knowing that my musical explorations of other genres including Americana, blues and progressive rock won’t stop, I will be discussing those explorations at FreeWheelin’ Music Safari!

Now with the above thoughts swirling around in my head I visited some new sites like MindBodyGreen and BodyMindSpirit Guide both of which I believe I will be visiting more often in the future. I also visited a site that I have visited often in the past Tiny Buddha. While I was at Tiny Buddha the following post caught my eye……..

30 Simple Mindfulness Practices to Help You Focus and Be Present

I thought the article presented some  good practices to help become more mindful. As a result of reading this post I decided that this morning I would do two things. First, I was going to listen to some New Age music on my way to work and secondly, I was going to try to be more aware of my surroundings. So as I was driving, I was attempting to view things as if it was the first time I saw them, rather than the six hundredth million time!! I must say that it made for a pretty interesting trip and I don’t think it’s too bad around here!!

The music that I listened to was the album, Mystical Morning by German composer and keyboardist Uwe Gronau. I have had this album in my music rotation since its release back in October of 2015 and I like it more and more every time I listen to it! Here is a little background about Uwe from his biography at his website…….

Gronau was born and raised in the Rhineland in northwest Germany, and grew up in Dusseldorf and Bocholt (where he currently resides) which is only a couple of miles from the Dutch border. “In the ‘70s and ‘80s the Netherlands were more involved in the evolution of jazz, pop, rock and soul than Germany, so I profited from this situation and heard much great music.” Uwe began playing piano at age six and grew up immersed in music as the son of a choir-leader, orchestra-conductor, music-school teacher and piano instructor.
In his early years Uwe studied classical music, but soon became passionate about jazz and rock artists such as Brian Auger, Keith Emerson, Patrick Moraz and Refugee, and Joe Zawinul and Weather Report. As Gronau got older, his musical tastes expanded to include Supertramp, Jethro Tull, Gilbert ‘O Sullivan, Keith Jarrett, Sting, Peter Gabriel and Dream Theater. When Uwe was 14 he began to play in a series of bands and built a reputation in the area for his musicianship and professionalism. One thing that always set Gronau apart from many other musicians is that from the beginning and continuing to today, Gronau has always played original material and has never covered compositions by others. In college, Gronau majored in music, German and theater-science. Read More
The music on Mystical Morning is varied and always interesting. A review of the album at CDBaby says it better than I can…..
This German keyboardist explores all that and more on his Mystical Morning album which he says is “positive, celebratory music that is like sunshine pouring onto a new day.” He specially has a ball playing his Hammond B-3 organ, most noteworthy on his tribute to Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake & Palmer (“Letter to Emerson”), a fast-paced piece bubbling with energy. That organ shows up several other places including the most prog-rock tune, “Over the Bridge,” which has a full-bodied arrangement featuring lots of varied sounds including synth, acoustic guitar and horns. These pieces are balanced with some softer piano-dominated numbers including two versions of the piano and acoustic-guitar “Shy” (one with drums and one without). In fact about half of the 15 tunes are rocking (with drums or forceful percussion) and the other half are fairly soft which keeps it interesting. Gronau has always been known for making music that keeps the listener guessing and fascinated as to where he will head next. He somehow captures the spirit of the great rock albums of the Seventies and Eighties, but with modern sound exploration that is fresh and invigorating.  Read Full Review
My favorite track is the aforementioned “Letter to Emerson”, but this morning ” A Day in Sri Lanka” and the title track “Mystical Morning” fit the mood of the morning! Mystical Morning is Uwe Gronau’s sixth full album and while I have not explored his full back catalog I have listened to and written about hos release Thoughts of Tomorrow and you can read what I wrote about that album here.
So with the help of the music of Uwe Gronau and a little mindfulness it was a Mystical Morning!!!
Here is the title track from Mystical Morning

The Death Relic – Chris Kuzneski

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The Death Relic by Chris Kuzneski helps me pleasantly procrastinate! 

So yesterday morning I was all set to write a nice post about how it was the first day that I had done my Kundalini, Weights and Band morning exercise routine in about a month. I was going to writing about how I made it through the routine with a minimal amount of coughing and even was able to end with a nice 15 minute meditation. Then I’d write how I was able to make a nice strawberry, blueberry, banana smoothie and sit down and read with no grandchildren to babysit! The reading part was what did me in The Death Relic  by Chris Kuzneski took over and wouldn’t let me breakaway. Even though the pages were flying by time was still marching on, and I was not writing!! I finished just before lunch and I still hadn’t written anything….I’d done some laundry and the dishes, but no writing!! Then it was afternoon and I rationalized that I shouldn’t really write about the morning now! Before I knew it, it was four o’clock and time to go pickup up Oliver at the sitters and take him to his mommy, who works in Cherry Hill.  Bottom line was that I had successfully put off writing all day and I continued to procrastinate all night until it was time to turn in. So while I am not going to write any more about the exercising or meditation from yesterday morning, I will tell you a little about The Death Relic.

The Death Relic (Book 8 of 2016) ****

The Death Relic is book seven in the Jonathan Payne and David Jones series from Chris Kuzneski and it’s a good one! Well all three of the ones that I’ve read so far a have been excellent!! I love the way that Kuzneski always blends history into his novels. In this adventure the reader learns a little about the Spanish conquistadors and the Mayan and Aztec civilizations. and is treated to a modern-day mystery!

The action starts when Maria Pelati an Italian archaeologist whose specialty is early Christianity is offer a job with a famous archaeologist who has made a recent find in Mexico. Soon after meeting her new employer Terence Hamilton he is kidnapped from the hotel where Maria is staying. When Maria returns to her room see finds that it has been vandalized and her passport has been stolen. Frightened and alone she turns to old friends Payne and Jones for help. Jonathan and David are soon on their way to rescue the fair Maria and if things go well maybe David can rekindle his hot romance with Maria!! But soon the question becomes who kidnapped Terrence and why?  Searching the back of Terrence’s car they find, various Mayan artifacts and a crate full of weapons, including AK-47s! Stuck between them is an envelope with a diary telling of the destruction of the Mayan’s world by  the Spanish!! But the question is how does it all tie together??

Bottom line: The Death Relic is a strong four-star book for me. I love the characters of Jonathan Payne and David Jones but of which are vividly drawn. Maria Pelati is a character who Payne and Jones have met before in the book The Sign of the Cross (Book #2 of the series) and many loose ends tied up from that book are wrapped up in The Death Relic. You don’t really need to read The Sign of the Cross to enjoy The Death Relic. I had read  the book, but it has been so many years since I had read it that I only have vague memories of the book, but Kuzneski does a good job of filling the reader in on what happened. Anyway, the book and the series comes highly recommended so – check it out!! As for me I have not yet read The Plantation book one in the series so yesterday I bought the e-book at Amazon for $4.99 – how could I pass it up!!

Author Lisa Gardner pretty much sums up the way I feel about Chris Kuzneski’s books….

“Chris Kuzneski has mastered the art of the quest novel, bringing to life lost treasures, exotic locales,and fresh conspiracies”

 

Preparation for the Next Life, by Atticus Lish

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Preparation for the Next Life – Atticus Lish (****)

 

One of the Reading Challenges that I created for 2016 was to read more literature the goal I set was 24 books. The challenge includes books classified as general fiction, along with classics that I should have read, New York Time Bestsellers and Award-Winning books.   Since there are four subcategories I made it six books for each subcategory!  Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish is the seventh book I’ve finished in 2016 and it’s the first in the subcategory of award-winning books. The book won the 2015 Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction. In addition to that award the book was also among the ….

New York Times Best of 2014
Wall Street Journal’s Best of 2014
Vanity Fair’s Best of 2014
Publishers Weekly’s Best of 2014
BuzzFeed’s Best of 2014

Needless to say, it is a damn good book. Christopher Kennedy author Ennui Prophet provides a much better summary of the book than I can…..

An illegal Chinese immigrant meets a broken American warrior, and the great love story of the 21st century begins. The intersection of their paths seems inevitable, irrevocable. Their story: tender, violent, terrible, and beautiful. Atticus Lish’s prose, lyrical and taut, sentences as exact and indisputable as chemical formulas, is trance-like, evangelical in its ability to convert and convince its reader. Preparation for the Next Life is that rare novel that grabs you by the shirt and slaps you hard in the face. Look, it says. It isn’t pretty. Turn away at your own risk. In case you haven’t noticed, the American Dream has become a nightmare. Atticus Lish has your wake up call. He has created a new prototype of the hero, and her journey provides us with a devastating perspective on the “promised land” of the post 9/11 U.S., where being detained is a rite of passage and the banality of violence is simply part of the pre-apocalyptic landscape. 

Yes the story of Zou Lei and Brad Skinner was at times horrifying. In Zou Lei’s case it was a WAS a wake up call to read about the way that illegal immigrants to our great nation have to live and the private hell that many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans live in. Neither life is a bed of roses but somehow these two found love and with it hope for a new beginning. But the more you read of Zou Lei’s troubles to become a legal citizen and Skinner’s deteriorating mental condition you know that new beginning may just not happen!

Bottom Line: If you like typical love stories then this book is not for you because as the New York Times says Preparation for the Next Life  is “perhaps the finest and most unsentimental love story of the new decade”.  I kept hoping that love was going to conquer all and our two heroes would live happily ever after, but the new nightmarish American Dream got in the way. But if you want a glimpse into the worlds of illegal immigrants and veterans suffering from PTSD, you will be hard pressed to find a better book. Frankly, I wouldn’t wish there lives on anyone and you have to admire anyone who can survive the ordeal of living in the poorest sections of 21st century New York City.

Review for the Further Exploration of Preparation of the Next Life by Atticus Lish

New York Times: Preparation for the Next Life, by Atticus Lish

The Guardian: Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish review – a debut of unsettling power

A Sunday Music and Reading Challenge Update!

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A Busy Week – A Trip to Princeton Record Exchange, Two Books Finished and Books added to my Reading Challenges!

Last week was a busy one. My wife has been sick all week, most likely the result of kissing sick babies! Anyway I worked my two weekday and weekend shifts at Target, but since Oliver’s momma was home recovering from thyroid surgery I only babysat  on Friday!

On Wednesday afternoon, Nick and I went to The Princeton Record Exchange, where I bought ten new albums! I have listened to several of them since then and they have all been really good! I wrote a post the other night about five of the albums and will be writing soon about the other five. On Friday three of the albums were the soundtrack for my commute to Paulsboro. They were The Wallace Roney Quintet, the Mack Avenue Super Band Live at Detroit Jazz and the latest release from Ben Paterson For Once in My Life. All three were great. I particularly like the Ben Paterson album its an organ trio album!

So what else has been happening!

I have finished two books in 2016 The first was Linda Fairstein‘s Entombed. This 2005 release is book #7 in Fairstein’s Alexandra Cooper series. It is the first Alex Cooper book I’ve read but it won’t be my last! The book fits into two reading challenges. First its author is obviously a women and secondly it was on a TBR shelf!! The second, which I actually finished this morning was David Guterson’s The Other. I hope to write about them later today or tomorrow.

So to stay on pace to reach my goal of 60 books I need to finish three more books this month. I am almost 40% through In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam by Robert McNamara.and almost half finished Boost Your Brain: The New Art and Science Behind Enhanced Brain Performance by Majid Fotuhi, M.D. Ph.D. Both have been highly enlightening!

The other night as I was looking for new books to read I thought about the Body Farm Series from Jefferson Bass It seems that I’m always reading a new Bill Brockton book in the early months of the year, at least over the last several years. I did a search at the library and found that a new book titled The Breaking Point had been released back in June of 2015. So I requested it at the library and picked it up on Tuesday!

After that I was looking at award winning books and found Preparation for the Next Life  by Atticus Lish which won the Pen/Faukner Award for Fiction so I requested that book also and picked IT up on Friday!

Finally, I spotted an article at Philly.com Report: DASH Diet Best Overall Eating Plan…..

TUESDAY, Jan. 5, 2016 (HealthDay News) — For the sixth year in a row, a panel of health experts has named the heart-healthy DASH diet the best overall eating plan, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2016 Best Diets ranking.

The DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet was designed to lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels by limiting fats, red meat and sugar in favor of healthy grains, poultry, low-fat dairy and nuts, the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute says.

“Our rankings put hard numbers on the belief that no one diet is ideal for everybody, but the best food plans overall are sustainable,” Angela Haupt, senior health editor at U.S. News & World Report, said in a news release from the media company.Read more

Hmm, lowers blood pressure and cholesterol levels sounds good to me…..so it was off to the main branch of my library system to find The Dash Diet for Hypertension: Lower Your Blood Pressure in 14 Days – without Drugs by Thomas Moore,M.D. There are also several ebooks with recipes and eating plans for the diet that are cheap on Amazon that I will be exploring!!

So these are the five books that I will be reading for my reading challenges over the next several weeks……

Currently Reading Reading Challenge From
In Retrospect – Robert McNamara Nonfiction Library
Boost Your Brain – Majid Fotuhi Nonfiction Ebook
Preparation for the Next Life – Atticus Lish Award-Winners Library
The Breaking Point – Jefferson Bass RGranddad’s Mysteries Library
The Dash Diet – Thomas Moore Nonfiction Library

Hopefully, I can finish three books before the end of the month! Wish Me Luck!……

P.S, Oh, and two nights this week and one afternoon I did a new yoga sequence “New Beginnings” that I found in this month’s Yoga Journal (A subscription to Yoga Journal was a Christmas gift from my wife). For most of the week I have felt really good! Today I feel a little funky but hopefully. I can avoid catching the virus that my wife and daughter caught!!

Reading Challenges for 2016

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Renaissance Granddad’s 2016 Reading Challenges!

Well last year was the first time that I set a goals for both the overall number of books that I was going to read in the year and the types of books. I signed up for three reading challenges: Cloak and Dagger, Historical Fiction, and Nonfiction and created one of my own Science Fiction. While I kept track of the number of books I had read for each challenges I never posted at the websites where I had signed up for the challenges. I guess I should have but I was one of the few men who signed up for the challenges, so I felt kinda alone and funny posting! Also I’m lazy and a loner so it was easier just to post about the books I was reading here!

Anyway this year I have created my own reading challenges. There’s no way I want to make a commitment to read a large number of any one time of book i.e. I am not going to read thirty or forty classic books because that will cut down on the number of mystery books that I have time to read!! So I decided to create several reading challenges.

As I started to create my reading challenges I knew I wanted to read more literature and general fiction and maybe less murder and mayhem books! I also wanted to read more classic literature. Earlier in the month I came across this post at List Challenges  300 Books Everyone Should Read at Least Once. When I checked the books that I had read on this list I discovered that I have only read 30 of the listed books. So I feel that I need tp read books from this list. Therefore, I created my 2016 Literature Reading Challenge. The subcategories that I created are: General Fiction, Classics, NY Times Bestseller list and Award-winners. These categories allow me to read some contemporary fiction, some books that are on the current bestseller lists and some that have won awards like the Pen-Faulkner Award or the Pulitzer Prize. I also want to read some of those classics that I have avoided all these years!! I want to read 6 books from each of the 4 subcategories for a total of 24 books in the reading challenge!!

My second challenge is my mystery/thriller challenge. The two subcategories in this challenge are RGranddad’s Mysteries or the mysteries and thrillers that are books in the series that I read or books from my favorite authors. The second subcategory is Women Mystery Book authors. I have many books by female authors like Linda Fairstein, Sara Paretsky and Dana Stabenow on my TBR shelves that I haven’t gotten around to reading. I thought this would be a good way to make myself read these books. I know I will enjoy them!! I plan to read 10 books from each subcategory or 20 books total!

My final two challenges are a nonfiction challenge and a science fiction challenge. I would like to read ten nonfiction books. After reading The Politics of Deception my current read is In Retrospect by Robert McNamara both deal with history of the 1960s, I have enjoyed both books so I think that many of the nonfiction books I plan to read will deal with the history or politics from 1960 to the present! Of course there will also be some self-help, anti-aging and happiness books mixed in among those reads! Finally, I really did enjoy those Science Fiction books I read in 2015 so I would like to continue to read a few books from that genre! So the 16 books in these challenges added to the books from the other two challenges bring the total for the 2016 Renaissance Granddad Reading Challenge to 60 books!! Whoa!!

Here’s the breakdown! Wish Me Luck!! Bye – I’m off the read now!!

The 2016 Renaissance Granddad Reading Challenge TBR Library Total Goal
2016 Literature Reading Challenge
General Fiction 0 0 0 6
Classics 0 0 0 6
NY Times Bestseller List 0 0 0 6
Award-Winners 0 0 0 6
2015 Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge
Rgrandad’s Mysteries 0 0 0 10
Women Mystery Book Authors 0 0 0 10
2016 Nonfiction Reading Challenge 0 0 0 10
2016 Science Fiction /Fantasy Challenge 0 0 0 6
Totals 0 0 0 0
0 60
2016 TBR Pile Challenge 0 25

P.S. I love to hear about anyone else’s proposed 2016 reading challenges!!

 

Reading Challenge Update – Late December 2015

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With 51 Books Read RGranddad Reaches His Overall Goal!

With the end of 2015 two days away, last night I finished the 51st book I’ve read for the year The Politics of Deception JFK’s Secret Decisions on Vietnam, Civil Rights and Cuba, thereby reaching the lofty goal of 5I books I set at the beginning of the year! Overall, it is the most books that I have read in a year since 2009!

Now while I did meet the overall goal for books read, I did fall short on two reading challenges. I only read nine of eleven nonfiction books and nine of twelve books for the science fiction reading challenge!! But considering last year I only read seven nonfiction books, and only one science fiction book. So I did read more books from those two genres!!

Now the other reading challenge I had was the TBR reading challenge, I fell short on that challenge also reading only 16 books from my TBR pile.The goal was to read 25 books from the pile! But I do think that in 2014, I  didn’t read any books from my TBR pile. Well on second thought I may have read one or two books that I had lying around!

Overall I thought it was a pretty awesome reading year. At the end of the year I will create a page with all of the books! Book 51’s review will be coming shortly and maybe I can find a short book to read so that I can hit 52!!

2015 Reading Challenge Stats

Reading Challenge From TBR Pile Buy/Library Total Goal %complete
2015 Nonfiction Reading Challenge 3 6 9 11 82%
2015 Cloak & Dagger Reading Challenge 7 20 27 23 117%
2015 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 3 2 5 5 100%
2015 Science Fiction/Fantasy Challenge 4 5 9 12 75%
No Reading Challenge 0 65 1 0 100%
Totals 16 51 51 100%
2015 TBR Pile Challenge 16 25

The question is now, what will the four challenges be for 2016 – I’m thinking that the core three Cloak & Dagger, Nonfiction and Science Fiction may stay the same, with maybe an alteration to make the challenge more specific. Maybe the Science Fiction will be Nebula or Hugo award winners, while the Nonfiction may be biographies! The Cloak & Dagger Challenge may be female authors!

The fourth category  I think is going to be a Classics Reading Challenge. You know all those books that I was supposed to read in English class, but somehow managed to avoid!! Anyway, I have a few more days to think about them. For now I can enjoy the fact that I had a really fine reading year!!

Peter James – You Are Dead

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Peter James – You Are Dead – Roy Grace # 11  ****

Book 50 of 2015

 

Peter JamesPeter James  has written eleven police procedural novels featuring Brighton Detective Superintendent (DS) Roy Grace. The eleventh installment in this series is You Are Dead and the first book that I have read in the series. I can tell you it won’t be the last!! You Are Dead is the 50th book that I have read in 2015. I am now one book away from my goal!!

You Are Dead opens with the abduction of a young woman Logan Somerville, from the parking garage below her apartment block in Brighton. That same day workers refurbishing a 30-year old pathway in the park dig up the body of a young woman who was killed at the time of the initial construction of the pathway. At first it seems that the two crimes can not be connected but soon after another woman with long brown hair like Logan’s and a another body from the past washes ashore Roy Grace is convinced that the two are connected and he is chasing Brighton’s first serial killer in eighty years!

Since I am new to the series I don’t know all the characters but with that said it didn’t take long to get to know Roy and his new wife Cleo and son Nathan along with the members of his Major Crimes Team. While the story stands on its own I know I have to go back and read more books in the series to find out more about them. I especially want to find out more about Roy’s long-lost wife Sandy, who it appears has surfaced in Germany after mysteriously disappearing ten years ago!!

Bottom Line: I don’t read a lot of police procedurals but You Are Dead my just change that. His characters including the serial killer who describes his victims as projects, are all wonderfully drawn and believable and Roy Grace is certainly a character you can admire and root for! The story line was well-woven and kept you wondering about the perpetrator of the crimes and his associates and the final resolutions of both the chase for the serial killer and the resurrection of Sandy left me eagerly waiting for the next installment of the series!! So Check It Out!! I am off to find Dead Simple book number one in the series!! Dead Simple just may kick off my 2016 reading!!!

Links for the Further Exploration of the Books of Peter James

Author’s Website
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads: Peter James
Goodreads: You Are Dead.

Amazon

The Smothers Brothers were dangerously funny!

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Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour – David Bianculli

As we come to the end of 2015, I now have only two more books to read to reach my lofty goal of 51 books read. Book 49 for the year was Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour by David Bianculli. It took Bianculli fifteen years and countless interviews with the people involved to tell the story of these very funny and very volatile Brothers. To many of us who lived through the three years, their show was the only one that spoke to us!! They presented music that we wanted to hear, and spoke true words about a war that we didn’t believe was right!

From Goodreads…..

A behind-the-scenes look at the rise and fall of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour — the provocative, politically charged program that shocked the censors, outraged the White House, and forever changed the face of television.

Decades before The Daily Show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour proved there was a place on television for no-holds-barred political comedy with a decidedly antiauthoritarian point of view. In this explosive, revealing history of the show, veteran entertainment journalist David Bianculli tells the fascinating story of its three-year network run — and the cultural impact that’s still being felt today. Read More

In Dangerously Funny Bianculli tells the whole story of the rise and fall of Tom and Dick Smothers. He chronicles the shows and tell the reader which ones were the ones that brought the show down. While reading the book there were times that I thought, “Yeah, I remember that and then other times when I said “I didn’t know that! ” I think that filmmaker Ken Burns sums it up nicely in his quote on the back cover of the book.

:”It is hard for many of us to remember – back when there were only a handful of stations on the dial – just how profoundly influential and controversial the Smothers Brothers were. But David Bianculli’s brilliant new book has brought it all back to life”

There are many times when I am writing this blog that I really don’t want to write things that would offend anyone, particularly when I knew I worked for someone who didn’t hold the same political or social beliefs that I did. But then there was Tommy Smothers who did that in spades, not only butting heads with CBS on the issue of the war in Vietnam but also religion!! That head-butting eventually got the Brothers Smothers fired, but the one thing that they never did was back down or compromise their beliefs. They stood their ground.  The fact that they did that was amazing because they were facing one of the most powerful companies in the world in CBS. A company that had a close relationship with the presidents and other power brokers that the Smothers Brothers were skewering!! The Brothers were certainly way ahead of their time and paved the way for the comedians like George Carlin and Richard Pryor that followed.

Bottom Line: Dangerously Funny:The Uncensored Story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour is a great read. For those of us who lived through the three years tumultuous years (1967-1969) that the Smothers Brothers were on it brings back a lot of memories as well as filling in some of the aspects of their struggle that we may not have known about. But it also is great for those who want to find out about what it was like on TV before there were a bazillion channels and you can do or say just about anything!  So Check it Out!!

Now I could show some of those great songs that the Smothers Brothers did to open the show but I’ll go with something that got them into trouble, when they showed clips of the 1968 Democratic National Convention behind Harry Belafonte performing his song “Don’t Stop the Carnival”  Tame for 2015 – not so much for 1968!! You can also see two films by Chuck Braverman that appeared on the show in 1968 . The first of his films to appear on the show was American Time Capsule, a history of the US in under 3 minutes and then 1968, which was certainly on of the most turbulent years in America’s history both make powerful statements!!

 

Whistling Past the Graveyard and Amazing Grace……

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Separated by 30 years but has that much changed…..

Yesterday, i finished Whistling Past the Graveyard, the 48th book that I have read this year! Three more to go to reach my goal of 51! I finished the 47th book Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation by Jonathan Kozol a few days prior and as I thought about the books, I began to see similarities between the books. The big dissimilarity is that Whistling Past the Graveyard is a novel and Amazing Grace is nonfiction. The other is that Whistling Past the Graveyard is set in 1963 Mississippi and the children whose lives Jonathan Kozol writes about live in New York City in some of the poorest neighborhoods in our nation. But they both deal with the lives of black Americans. One happens at the time that black Americans were gaining their civil rights and dealing with overcoming deep-seated prejudices and a part of our nation that was being dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century. While the other  views the lives of children in 1993 NYC who may now have those rights but are still fighting for equal treatment in a highly segregated  New York.

Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall is a coming of age story featuring a lovable nine-year old Starla Claudette, who in 1963 runs away from her strict grandmother’s home. She is hell-bent on getting to Nashville to reunite with her mother Lulu who left her and her daddy, when Starla was three to go to Nashville and become a star! Not long after she starts her trek she accepts a ride from a black women Eula. Eula is traveling with a white baby she took from the steps of a church. As the trip continues, both Starla and Eula’s lives are changed forever, as they struggle to survive and Starla learns about the prejudices of our nation first hands as she watches her new friends struggle to gain their civil rights.

Bestselling author Karen White writes this about the book….

“Like Harper Lee’ To Kill a Mockingbird and Katheriyn Stockett’s The Help …… A COMING-OF-AGE STORY AS WELL AS A LUMINOUS PORTRAIT OF COURAGE AND THE BONDS OF FRIENDSHIP….Susan Crandall evokes 1963 Mississippi and its struggles with a deft hand.”

It is a wonderful story with two well-developed characters who you can certainly root for! I really, really enjoyed it!

A couple of my thoughts concerning the connections between the two books. The one glaring connection is that even though we have made great strides in the last 50 plus years, we still have a long way to go and in some ways we haven’t gone very far at all. The Mott Havens and Hunts Point neighborhoods of New York City are all that different from the Bottomlands of Mississippi. While black folks live in those areas of towns in Mississippi that flood, the black communities in New York get waste incinerators!!

Throughout Whistling Past the Graveyard, Eula and the other black women in the book’s strength comes from their religious beliefs and those same beliefs keep many of the mothers and grandmothers in the black communities of New York City  strong!! And it is those strong women like Eula and  Miss Cyrena in Whistling Past the Graveyard and Mrs. Washington and others in Kozol’s book that keep their families together and moving forward.

As I read Jonathan Kozol’s Amazing Grace I  couldn’t stop thinking that the book should be required reading for every Congressman in the United States and then maybe then they would see that every cut they make to the budget or hurdle the place in front of the poor people in this country hurts the children most of all. And realize what they are doing to the future of our country!

So to wrap it up I highly recommend both Whistling Past the Graveyard and Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation. Both will make you think about the status of race relations in our country and that in the end ….. Black Lives Matter!!