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Very nice. Good to see Facebook is good for something...

Oliver Sacks - An Anthropologist on Mars I've known about Oliver Sacks for practically forever, but this is the first time actually reading any of his works. Quite interesting cases, to be sure. Next up:

Thanks for running the contest again! I was fairly close on points, but picked the wrong team. Oh well, there's always next year...

Both Ken McIntyre and Wallace Roney have albums titled Home (each with a track titled "Home"). I'd give the nod to Roney, but I'll be streaming both albums this week...

That's interesting. Many Austen scholars consider it her finest work. I actually have not gotten around to it, but it is on my list. Despite its killer first line, I definitely preferred Sense and Sensibility over Pride and Prejudice.

Really not enjoying Lavery's Sandra Beck. It's a bit too postmodern for my taste and there is an unpleasant Lolita-like undercurrent to many of the scenes (and because it is postmodern I don't know if these will ultimately be important to the plot, such as it is, or if they could have been dropped). I haven't decided if I am going to push pause or eject on this one, but I'll decide in the next 25 pages. I decided to tackle Rushdie's late novels next, so I'll launch into Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights shortly.

I'm afraid in this situation, I will take a pass. I've run out of space for Mosaic boxes, so it has to be something quite special (and definitely not something that is available in other formats!) for me to even begin to consider it.

I'm not 100% sure (because I haven't started the new book but read a general review), but I think it would be hard to get into this "world" without at least some knowledge about how the daemons work for example (they are similar but not exactly the same as a witch's familiar). I would recommend reading The Golden Compass at least, if not the whole trilogy.

I've been pleasantly surprised by how much there is on Apple. There are only a very albums (that I happened to be looking for) that appear to be on Spotify but not Apple. I haven't done a comprehensive search, however. Is it true that quite a few of the Fantasy (Concord) titles (including Prestige and Riverside) are not on Apple, but then they don't seem to be on Spotify either. Almost all of these are still on Naxos Jazz, but that may not be available to you in the US.

I just wrapped up Manguel's The Library at Night. I haven't decided if I will read the follow-up Packing My Library, where he discusses having to leave his beloved personal book collection (35,000 volumes!) and move to a small apartment in Manhattan. (I have to wonder if maybe there is a place between the two extremes...) At any rate, reading The Book of Eve by Constance Beresford-Howe about an older woman getting fed up and leaving her husband of 40+ years. That's a bit of a theme right now, as I also plan on reading Sandra Beck by John Lavery. Then probably I'll be tackling Rushdie's last 3 novels, and then a huge box of books that I need to read (and get out of the house in preparation for spring cleaning...).

Yes, it is 9 tracks, 29 minutes. I'm sure this will be on the insert of the physical CD, but if you listen to this on iTunes, you can read Adam's notes on every single track. Definitely worth a read.

Leonard Cohen - Thanks for the Dance I only heard about this posthumous release today, so I am absorbing it in real time. First impressions are that it is (not surprisingly) pretty similar to You Want It Darker. I'd say that Adam Cohen (Leonard's son) has done a good job pulling these unfinished tracks together. I'm a moderate (not huge) Cohen fan, and I can envision spinning this on a semi-regular basis. Couple of reviews - https://montrealgazette.com/entertainment/music/review-leonard-cohens-spirit-moves-us-on-thanks-for-the-dance https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/nov/22/leonard-cohen-thanks-for-the-dance-review-columbia

Maybe, but there is also a very weird aesthetic going on. However, this takes the cake for the worst cover I've ever seen.

I know it's shallow but most of these covers are not doing the product any favors. I don't think there is a single one that would induce me to pick up the CD and flip it over to look at the track listing. I truly don't understand the marketing concept, unless it is they are so pure and "just about the music" that they don't pay the least bit of attention to the cover.

Hamilton - 50

Saw a very strong concert this afternoon - Daniel Hope with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra at Koerner Hall in Toronto. The main feature was Vivaldi's Four Seasons for strings and harpsichord and also accompanied by guitar or lute, depending on the "season." That was an interesting twist. They opened with a very fine Bach Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor, BWV 104. They earned (or at least performed) three encores. No question there is a bit difference in Europe and North America towards the encore at a classical concert. Generally, I find them extremely rare, unless it is a European orchestra on tour here. The first encore was the last movement of a different Vivaldi concerto, then Gershwin's I Got Rhythm! and finally Weill's September Song. An interesting change of pace.

This probably belongs in a different category - what books are you looking forward to reading - but anyway this is a really interesting piece (with a happy ending) about a fairly obscure SF writer - John M. Ford: https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/john-ford-science-fiction-fantasy-books.html I don't read much SF and fantasy any more, but I will very likely read The Dragon Waiting and then Aspects when they are published (or republished) by Tor, starting fall of 2020. In the meantime, I have launched into Powell's The Locusts Have No King, and, so far, it is as good as advertised.

I liked the bit in the article where that was one of his requests/demands of concert promoters -- that he have a space set aside to work on his models after shows -- and that a considerable part of the layout was constructed on tour. (Can you imagine having to have that shipped back home though?)

Looks like a winner. I'm in.

My experience was similar. If you get to the Louvre fairly early and make a beeline to the Mona Lisa, the crowds aren't that bad. (Obviously, this won't be the case during the special da Vinci exhibit.) There are other fascinating paintings that don't get anywhere near the attention. I'm quite sure the Louvre has a couple of Vermeers and several Rembrandts, and this entire wing was a ghost town on my visit. (The Dutch rooms are usually busier at the Met, though even so, there are never long line ups to look at their Vermeers either.)

I liked Salter's Light Years (which I found thematically similar to Updike's Rabbit saga, but more poetic). I do feel the hype can be a bit over the top for this novel (at least amongst some reviewers), and it didn't quite live up to the hype, but it was fine overall. Now working through Eiseley's The Night Country, which is good but not at the same level as The Invisible Pyramid. Maxwell's The Folded Leaf next and then Powell's The Locusts Have No King! (Hope the Powell lives up to the hype...)

It's an interesting argument, particularly the fact that many tourists don't feel it lives up to the hype (and the crowding borders on the dangerous both to tourists and other works of art nearby). That said, this also strikes me as a very elite argument made primarily by people who have already had a chance to view the Mona Lisa (or Venice or whatever else is overcrowded and trendy) and now want to draw up the ladders as it were.

By the last third, I felt there was too much repetitiveness, including what must have been the 10th time that the old man warned the younger man not to fall in love with the middle-aged woman (who once upon a time was his daughter-in-law). I also found the ending to be a bit of a damp squib. But it is thought-provoking, both about the history of Israel and the role of Judas in the crucifixion (though Borges got here first). On to Salter's Light Years.

The opening of Oz's Judas is solid. I hope the rest of the book is at the same level. Have a lot of things I'm looking forward to this fall, including Powell's The Locusts Have No King, but probably by the tail end of fall or early winter, I'll read some of Rushdie's latest novels, including The Golden House and Quichotte.

Dawn Powell's My Home is Far Away is surprisingly downbeat. There are some moments of humor, but basically the three sisters end up in very tough circumstances. Saying more would be to spoil things, so I'll just leave it at that. Partway through Auster's Leviathan. A lot of his work sort of runs together, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've read this particular novel. I have Judas and Light Years out from the library, so they'll be next.