Zed
This came up on my feed and recalled I read this when I was about 16, yes yes I know 40 years ago!!!!!! I thought it was crappy to be honest but at that time I was reading some Sci Fi that I thought was great and this type of thing was just up market Harold Robins or something.
I read this in the mid 90's and my only strong memory was that her son had no contact with her and it was rather gossipy. She may have said some nice things about Mick Ronson.
I had forgotten I had read this until trawling through 2nd hand music books in my eternal quest to find John Cale's autobiography.
Billy and his Aztecs made some good music and were in some parts of the world famous. With that fame came this memoir by the good Billy, a memoir about Billy's sex life.
Read this back in the day. I recall that at the time it was very important but I came out thinking it was just “nice”
“Honaloochie Boogie”
I was a city child with a dead-end smile
And a worm's-eye point of view
Oh I knew my way, I was a back-street stray
And I had my eyes on you
Now I got this friend and he's a screwdriver-jiver
You know, some kinda automobeat on the street
And he has converted me to rock'n'roll
I just wanna dance to
Honaloochie boogie yeah
Get in time, don't worry ‘bout the shirt shine
Honaloochie boogie yeah
You sure started somethin'
Now my hair gets longer as the beat gets stronger
Wanna tell Chuck Berry my news
I get my kicks outta guitar licks
And I've sold my steel-toed shoes
Now I got this friend and he's a spider west-sider
You know, he's hung up on a protection rejection thing
But I have made him see the light
He just wanna dance to
Honaloochie boogie yeah
Get in time, don't worry ‘bout the shirt shine
Honaloochie boogie yeah
You sure started somethin'
Honaloochie boogie yeah
Get in time, don't worry ‘bout the shirt shine
Honaloochie boogie yeah
You sure started somethin'
Hard to not be impressed with someone that wrote some Hawkwind lyrics. The only Moorcock I ever read though. Recall thinking it was pretty good all those years ago. Never read anymore, just moved on I suppose.
All anyone anywhere needs to know is that is hagiography about an individual that attacked the world of literature and then attempted to demean those that disagreed with that cheap attack. This hagiography is about an individual that told many that their jobs were safe and after lying about their jobs compared them to Canine Faecal matter in the Qld state parliament.
Will this hagiography cover the fact that in the Qld state parliament this individual also called the people of an entire city a derogatory name. This hagiography has the audacity to claim that it is about the challenge of reform when in fact it is a hagiography that blames all others for the individuals demise. Hagiography at its finest so buyer beware.
I read this back in my younger sci fi days and it was so bad I never read another Heinlein book. An old bloke becomes a young girl of very good looks and the point is laboured for about a 1000 pages. Well that was what it felt like anyway. Great cover though, that smoking skull. Good name for a book too.
Hey what the heck, after having a look around Goodreads it all remind's me of some of the complete trash I once read. I Will Fear No Crap Book I Once Read......
The astonishingly glitchy GR is making it difficult to read the reviews of GR Friends. I seem to have had a few friends disappear entirely off my feed, and this is very frustrating. I try and keep up by periodically backtracking and looking up my friends list and seeing what they have been reading. This is not easy as the point of being a book reader is the obvious, reading books! The idea of Goodreads, I would have thought, was to assist the reader by making it easier to connect with other like minded readers.
Enough of the moaning!
55 books this year. https://www.goodreads.com/readingchal...
My fiction of the year. Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew by Shehan Karunatilaka. A 2010 novel that I thought was magnificent in the audio telling and the concept.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I have to add Death of A River Guide by Richard Flanagan as a joint fiction of the year. An incredible book.
The surprise of the year was Timeless Land by Eleanor Dark. I did know that this was considered an important novel in Australian literary circles but was surprised that it was actually as good as it was. Historical fiction that makes the reader learn!
Fiction honourable mentions. How good just about everything by Kurt Vonnegut Jr is. I have 2 more to finish reading him out and will do so in the coming months. The man was an extraordinary storyteller who could turn his hand to the mainstream or weird, and his observational ability of the human condition makes him one of the great writers of the 20th century.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
I read all of Tasmanian author Robbie Arnot's works. A very good storyteller.
N by John Scott, an alternate history of WW2 Australia, was thought-provoking.
Nonfiction honourable mentions. Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food That Isn't Food by Chris van Tulleken was an excellent audio and should be read by us that eat, in other words everyone.
King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild was a horrific read on mankinds's never ending inhumanity to each other.
Plagues Upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History by Kyle Harper was a must-read by anyone interested in the subject.
Fun book of the year was What's in a Surname?: A Journey from Abercrombie to Zwicker by David McKie. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
(EFA)
As editor-in-chief of The Australian Chris Mitchell ran into the ground this intellectually limited mouth piece owned by a US plutocrat. A loss making publication it has failed to make a cent even with the largest editorial budget in the country for more than twelve years. This complete fantasy, deeply reveals to the white mono cultured male over 55 reader who will read this drivel without thought, hardly anything insightful into the quirks and foibles of some of the most powerful politicians and phone hacking News Corp media executives that fit into it's limited world view.
Though a controversial figure due to being derisively called The Order of Lenin Hunter by those who have known him throughout his quarter of a century as a daily editor, Chris Mitchell maintained close regular contact with past prime ministers, editors and media CEOs and with that has blown whatever credibility he ever had with any of them by revealing all private and confidential conversations. Making Headlines highlights his bad judgements and thinking that has caused a massive circulation drop of the only national daily newspaper, now nicknamed the Qantus Club times due to it being the only place one can find this garbage newspaper. His journalism is of such the poor level that he actually writes columns bitching about youth radio to the only readers he has, generally over 55 year old middle class males who have forgotten their own youth and also think that they have had a tough life. He really thinks he has fought battles to publish tough stories about not only youth radio but historians he dislikes and that toughest of all battles, defending his plutocratic boss's deranged world view.
Making Headlines is compulsory reading for the only class that care about this rot, that being the political class who live in the rarefied air of never having worked hard in their life and wannabes of the lowest of the low in terms of employment, journalists.
Charles Jager has written an engaging account of his time on Crete after the fall to Nazi Germany in 1941.
Jager lead the life of an escapado who was captured not once but twice. His second capture was interesting. Charles and his mate Ben Travers were having disagreements over Charles swagger. He was obviously not Cretan and the Cretan's who were very sympathetic towards ANZACS would let him know. Ben understood that but Charles? No! While marching like still in the military once too often Ben had had enough and moved to the other side of the road among the safety of the olive trees. Charles gets narky stands his ground and then proceeded to get captured when a Greek quisling gets a German Kubelwagon he is with to stop and check his funny walk. “I am a prize chump” writes Charles.
Written at the request of his family so that his grandchildren would know of his wartime adventures this is a worthy read for anyone interested in the stories of the escaped POW and a really good addition to those that have an interest in the Cretan campaign of WW2.
Hard to write a review of a book I read as an 8/9 year old that was essentailly an awakening for a young boys' life of reading, but I did come across this item this morning (2/3/21) while having a coffee.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2021/mar/01/off-with-their-heads-why-are-lewis-carroll-misquotes-so-common-online
A Robbins book came up in my feed. I recall this one only and enjoying it. Read 40 years back!!!!!!!
Read a looooooooong time ago. My biggest memory was my then brother in law asking to read it. When he gave it back? Hated it he ranted as it (the horror!) “criticised Queensland”. I always wondered what part he never got that Queensland was a political shit hole back then.
Very good sports book. The life and times of an average player written with wit and a large dose of world weariness.
Character on the Stillwater tour bus in the film Almost Famous reading it reminded me that I had read in my youth and recall liking it a heck of a lot. How come I never read Fahrenheit 451?
The Snapper and The Van are my favourites. Both very witty. The Commitments suffered from me seeing the wonderful movie first.